According to this news segment, kindergartners laugh a few hundred times throughout the course of a regular day (that's a few hundred more than most adults). Laughter, as we noted here last week, is an incredible competitive advantage.

The other reason you should take cues from kindergartners? They’re not afraid to fail. Consider this anecdote from econo-blogger Megan McArdle:

I saw a great speech a little while back by the guy who's in charge of designing new products at Palm. He talked about an exercise that he does with various groups, where he gives them pieces of spaghetti and some tape and tells them to build the tallest structure they can.
Engineers do all right; MBAs do the worst, because they waste time arguing about who will be in charge. But the best performing group? Kindergarteners. Little kids don't try to design a structure. They just keep trying things, and stick with anything that works. Their structures certainly didn't look as elegant as the neat frames designed by the engineers. But they did the job, which is to be as tall as possible.

Next on the Agent Blog: The Wisdom of Nap Time.

Stay tuned. :)

Posted by Jeb Foster at 01:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
 

Who doesn’t like to stumble upon a sale, but the rising trend documented by several publications, which coincidentally provide their content for free online, is a tendency for companies to not discount their goods and services, but to give them away at no cost—a seemingly ridiculous business model that actually works.

Trendwatching.com discusses some of the some of the things fueling free love.
• The battle for consumer attention. In a world where consumers are bogged down with advertising hi jinx and marketing schemes, sometimes you can’t even give it away
• The internet and it’s ability to create, copy and distribute easily and cheaply
• Consumer to consumer markets, which allow consumers to swap not spend, making transactions cash-neutral
• An emerging recycling culture that takes a reuse mentality

One way the free marketplace affects insurance agents is by making it easy and free for consumers to compare the price of insurance polices online. Gone are the days when it took hours for insurance shoppers to make calls and compare quotes; it now happens in a mere moment. And if you aren’t in this free marketplace, which thrives online, you will miss out.

Check out this link that explains how you can manipulate the internet to build your online presence.

Furthermore, the free love culture has created an expectation for more free goods. So how can this factor into what you do as an agent? You obviously can’t give away free policies?

• Take the time to offer a complete quote
• Provide information, in the form of articles, brochures, etc about your various products
• Think about what other service can you provide your customers and offer it to them free of charge
• Create a web site with tips and tools, such as a life insurance calculator

Insurance is a traditional business, slow to change. But as the consumer culture changes, agencies and independent agents alike should look to their business model and consider how they can incorporate new trends into an established system.

After all, while this trend is documented as “emerging,” it was King Gillette in 1895 who first began creating buzz about his disposable razor product by giving it away to banks, the armed forces and people on the street.

Over a hundred years later, what brand of razor do you use?

Posted by maribeth neelis at 04:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
 

I have a case of bloggers’ block, so in lieu of a post, I’ve decided to link to several other blogger’s posts that I found interesting, helpful or inspiring this week.

Guy Kawasaki’s interesting take on sucking up.

Time’s 10 ideas that are hanging the world: the end of customer service.

From Seth Godin's blog. Learn about all those things you don’t understand. Do it now.

Why the Wright Brothers’ were the incarnation of the entrepreneurial spirit

Enjoy!

Posted by maribeth neelis at 03:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
 

It’s no coincidence that Hillary Clinton’s improved polling numbers came after appearances on SNL and the Daily Show.

She showed an unscripted and irreverent side that had hitherto been hidden from public view, and people loved it. Moreover, she displayed—gasp!—some self-deprecating humor, a kind that’s typically not found in electoral politics.

In short, funny works, but not only in politics. Humor works because it

Humanizes
Signals intelligence and leadership
Puts people at ease

Still not sold? OK, if you’re a dollars and cents person, consider that humor and levity drive productivity and creativity. During an interview with Adrian Gostick, author of “The Levity Effect: Why it Pays to Lighten Up,” CNBC presented the following statistics:

81 percent of employees at Fortune's Best 100 Companies to Work For have fun a work.

Only 62 percent of employees at other companies are having fun.

90 percent of employees who say their boss has an "above average" sense of humor want to be at the job a year from now, VS. 78 percent who don't have funny bosses.

98 percent of CEOs would hire a person with a good sense of humor over someone who lacked levity.

Check out the video and see for yourself.

[Type "funny" into Photos.com, a royalty-free photo source, and you'll get the above fish.]

Posted by Jeb Foster at 11:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
 

The internet amazes me daily. When I first started at InsureMe, I poured over lists of keyword phrases that people were typing into Google or Yahoo before arriving at our homepage in order to determine on what keyword phrases we should bid.

I recall thinking this is going to be a sort of new-age societal footprint that future generations will explore to better understand the past—an online archaeological dig. Because using the internet is a somewhat private experience (it’s just you and the machine), people tend to forget that everything is traceable and it’s all being documented by companies that then sell that information to other companies to conduct market research.

Before you become completely paranoid, no one knows or cares what you specifically are looking at on the web, unless it’s illegal. I mean they can find out, but not without some serious reconnaissance; companies are more interested in demographics.

Each time I looked at these lists, I thought about the people sitting in front of their PCs, asking the internet their most personal questions, how to accomplish their goals or where they might find a job. The search terms that appeared on my list were typically related to insurance, as these people ended up on InsureMe’s web site after typing them. However, there were outliers, such as

urine smells like onions
my baby won’t stop crying
how you know if you have cancer
training to make more money

And to these inquiries there are almost always answers on the internet. Recently I asked the internet about the meaning of life since it’s a quandary many ponder. And apparently Google possesses the answer, or rather ten pages of answers, to that question.

So in the spirit of enlightenment, here are some of the links that attempt to answer the core question of life.

Wikipedia’s entry on this question is first and probably most thorough.

If you’re short on time and prefer to simplify it a bit with sound bites from history's great thinkers, then I’d recommend Meanings of Life, a web site dedicated to just that.

And here is the answer summed up in just one sentence.

This is really just a way to illustrate the internet’s enormity and its ability to bring people solutions. If you haven’t already, it’s time to take notice of the internet’s capacity to transform your business. And if you have, take another look.

Photo credit: Lanet-vi program of I. Alvarez-Hamelin et al.

Posted by maribeth neelis at 09:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
 

What the (bleep) is going on with our economy?

If this question plagues you, keeps you up at night, and/or tests your otherwise sound understanding of our financial system, you’re not alone, says New York Times economist David Leonhardt (“Can’t Grasp Credit Crisis? Join the Club,” March 19).

“I’m here to urge you not to feel sheepish,” Leonhardt says. “This may not be entirely comforting, but your confusion is shared by many people who are in the middle of the crisis.”

Yeah, not so comforting. It’s a muddle, for sure, but Leonhardt is one of the few econo-journalists who can make sense of the mess.

Leonhardt sets out to answer this question: “So how is it that a mess concentrated in one part of the mortgage business — subprime loans — has frozen the credit markets, sent stock markets gyrating, caused the collapse of Bear Stearns, left the economy on the brink of the worst recession in a generation and forced the Federal Reserve to take its boldest action since the Depression?”

Answer: Basically, everyone—from Joe Sixpack to Alan Greenspan to Gordon Gekko—jumped on the housing bandwagon with the silly assumption that home prices would continue to soar into the sky indefinitely. With this faulty notion, people—even normally conservative bank executives—exposed themselves to too much risk. Here’s the money quote:

The American home seemed like such a sure bet that a huge portion of the global financial system ended up owning a piece of it. Last summer, many policy makers were hoping that the crisis wouldn’t spread to traditional banks, like Citibank, because they had sold off the underlying mortgages to investors. But it turned out that many banks had also sold complex insurance policies on the mortgage debt. That left them on the hook when homeowners who had taken out a wishful-thinking mortgage could no longer get out of it by flipping their house for a profit.

Read the article.

Posted by Jeb Foster at 01:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
 

I went to a Nationwide meeting a few weeks back and enjoyed meeting the Nationwide agents and hearing about how they use our leads. They were great at giving feedback and we are doing our best to incorporate their ideas into our offerings.

That said, I also learned quite a bit about how energetic and friendly the agents are. They all worked together to brainstorm how to be more successful, and then enthusiastically honored the agents who had been most successful in 2007. Those successful agents were heading off to exciting, exotic spots, depending on just how much they actually sold during the year. Nice reward, and incentive, to say the least.

They also brought in Billy Riggs as a motivational speaker whom I found fascinating and fun. I guess audiences require quite a bit as this fellow is a magician, comedian and motivational speaker.

He had a hilarious bio, which made us welcome him and ready to listen. I took a note to copy his form for anytime my bio is needed; before he hit the podium I knew I'd want to be friends with him. He also had several jokes at the beginning to set the stage for his presentation:

Why did kamikaze pilots wear helmets?

Why do they put real lemon in cleaners and fake lemon in food?

When farmers break off relationships, do they write John Deere letters?

Why do they call them hemorrhoids, when they could be called asteroids?

What I took away from the presentation was this:

It is difficult to sustain performance at a level greater than your own self image.

In other words, we are our worst inhibitors.You are probably much more capable than you give yourself credit for. More than that, you probably are able to contribute significantly to your peers and in your work environment. But we all sell ourselves short. We deal with feelings of inadequacy, feelings others are smarter, more capable, better at the job. Don't do that! Just look around; aren't you smarter than all those other people? You know you are!

If you feel you need more accolades, check out our 'daily affirmations' video.

Posted by Lori Reed at 03:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
 

Keeping a full pipe line involves a lot of no-so-glamorous work behind the scenes prospecting. Here a few tedious tips courtesy of Sales 2.0.

Schedule follow-up calls sooner. If someone is interested in doing business with you, don’t make them wait. Move the process along at a quicker clip than usual for warm prospects.

Take thorough notes. If you are working with several individuals to sell a prospect, the more detailed your notes the easier it is for your coworkers to jump in and wrap it up. People become frustrated and lose trust when they are asked to repeat themselves. Don’t make your colleagues ask questions the prospect has already answered.

Document best practices. It’s amazing how knowing the product and how to answer objections can make the difference in the sale. Have everyone throw in their two cents about what has worked for them and compile a list of best practices, which can be updated as they develop new techniques.

Keep accurate lists of prospects. Maybe you have purchased an outside list, bought leads from a vendor or received referrals. However you acquired the name, it should go directly into your system with an explanation of the prospect’s needs. That way, you never miss an opportunity to sell to these individuals. A name slipping through the cracks is like money falling out of your pocket.

It’s all pretty dull, but prospecting is the backbone of sales success and success can be found in the details.

Posted by maribeth neelis at 02:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
 

Sales takes an innate talent—some people just excel without having to put forth too much effort. But the same level sales success is attainable for the less gifted, it just requires more discipline. Most people become frustrated with sales because they haven’t yet established that sales is a scientific process with laws and principles.

The first steep is to identify your product’s features and benefits and pinpoint your target demographic. You cannot begin to sell a product until you have done this.

1. Prospect. Most sales people prospect in more than one way—referrals, cold calling, yellow page ads, and online leads.
2. Interview. Meet your prospects. Figure out their personality type, so you can effectively sell to them.
3. Analyze Needs. Discover what they need from you and determine how you will provide that more efficiently than your competition.
4. Present. You prospect’s personality and needs will determine how you present your products to them.
5. Negotiate. Work with them on price. Have many product packages available so that you can offer your services at several price points.
6. Close. Sales should be buyer-centric. Building trust is the best way to close a prospect.
7. Service and follow up. We discuss this quite a bit. Customer service is often the one thing that can really differentiate you from your competition.

Justsell.com encourages sales people to find success by following the sales process and continually being:

• positively expectant
• enthusiastic
• asking questions
• listening
• qualifying the opportunity (for both parties)
• discovering hot buttons (what's in it for them)
• building rapport
• establishing trust
• developing credibility
• developing a valuable relationship
• addressing objections
• planning next action steps
• confirming understanding
• asking for referrals
• seeking additional opportunities to serve & sell
• evaluating responses & results (positive/ negative)
• affirming decisions (minimizing buyer's remorse)

Check out justsell.com for more sales tips.

Posted by maribeth neelis at 08:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
 

Optimism is an incredible advantage. Look at all the successful people around you and ask yourself: How many are pessimists? Exactly.

The Power of Positive Thinking. The Secret. Whatever you want to call it, it works.

Marketing maharishi Seth Godin took a look around recently and observed high oil prices, corporate bailouts and a mounting financial crisis. His take?

“Opportunity of a lifetime.”

And because Godin sees opportunity, he's more likely than others to find it. The guy who's panicking with each dip in the Dow? Research says that he's less likely to succeed, simply because he doesn't think he will; he'll be blind to opportunity because he doesn't believe it exists.

Posted by Jeb Foster at 12:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
 

There are a couple lessons to be gleaned from this amazing video, one of which is this: that lady is going places! (Despite being kind of creepy.) The other lesson—the one that’s more suited to our subject matter here at the Agent Blog—is this: the way you say things matters. More specifically, the way you introduce yourself matters. Big time. Observe your own reactions to this video:

Posted by Jeb Foster at 01:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)
 

The productivity blog Dumb Little Man has a great post on how to wake up bright-eyed and bushy tailed each morning.

If you wake up groggy, the chances are good that you’re (a) not getting enough exercise or (b) hitting the caffeine a little too hard. Even eating a big meal before bed can wreck your night’s sleep.

Another great tip is establishing a morning routine. The human body’s internal clock (it’s circadian rhythm if you want to get technical) craves routine. When you start waking up a minute before your alarm goes off, that’s when you know your body has found it’s groove.

Related:
Snooze Your Way to Success

Posted by Jeb Foster at 11:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
 

Welcome to the expectation economy. This is an era when consumers enjoy full transparency thanks to the internet. Shoppers now have the ability to easily research products and conduct competitive analysis and benchmarking, maybe even more thoroughly than some corporations.

The internet offers something that wasn’t available to the previous generations of shoppers—ease of communication. In the past a salesperson might get away with not performing at his or her peak. But now anyone can go online and compare prices, experiences and products.

With a product like insurance, it’s difficult to communicate the value to a prospective buyer, when in many instances; they do not have a choice whether to purchase it. But with larger insurance carriers able to compete on price where you, an independent agent cannot, it becomes necessary to compete on some other point.

In an expectation economy, consumers expect more from all the products they purchase from entertainment to yes, insurance. If you cannot provide them an experience that rivals that of your competitors, you will lose them to someone who can. What’s more, you cannot simply copy what your competition is doing.

You must be aware of what is going on in your industry. But besides your direct competition, what could you learn from other industries and the consumer expectations they have set.

In what ways could you improve the experience customers have when they do business with you?

Have a web site. In an increasingly online society, not having a web site is akin to not having a mailing address. Your web page needn’t be elaborate; it’s simply a way for prospects to check you out. Consider using a platform like word press and creating a page with a synopsis of yourself and experience, a section about your company and the people who work there and a listing of your products. If you are interested in developing a more sophisticated site, you may need to employ a web designer. And check out this post about the anatomy of a successful site.

Provide stellar information. Better service your clients by providing better information than your competition. Create whitepapers on your products, so you have something tangible to hand them when you meet. If you don’t have writing expertise, hire a freelancer. It’s important that this information be simple and intelligible. Laypeople don’t have the skinny on the ways to save on the various types of insurance. Show them how and they’ll be yours. Add great content to your website and start seeing yourself rank in the search engines.

Create a commercial. In the internet age anyone can have their own commercial. Check out
These ads on YouTube for some inspiration. You no longer have the excuse that you are a small company with limited resources. It’s easier than ever to put yourself out there.

Posted by maribeth neelis at 02:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
 

We’ve all had a bad experience with a company before. And unless you are like my brother’s college roommate (who actually got a free round trip ticket on United because he made such a fuss when his seat was occupied) you probably deal with your terrible experience and harbor bad feelings about it ad infinitum.

The truth is most people who have a bad experience with you won’t complain, but you will lose their business and probably gain some nasty word of mouth. (The average disgruntled customer tells nine other people.)

This statistic just reminded me how important it is for all of us in a service industry to value our current customers and ensure their positive experience. And if something negative occurs, do our best to fix the situation immediately.

Posted by maribeth neelis at 11:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
 

Yesterday I attended a conference of Nationwide agents outside of Austin, Texas.

It was a great opportunity to get out of the office and actually meet the agents who use our leads (and the weather was sunny and 75).

The only problem was this: Outside of talking about insurance-related stuff, I couldn’t quite keep pace with the conversation. Why? It centered mostly around professional and college sports, about which I know very little.

It’s not that I’m not inclined to watch and discuss sports: I just don’t make it a priority in my daily routine to read the sports section or watch ESPN. It was immediately clear yesterday that I’m in the minority.

The next time I attend a conference of insurance agents you can be sure I’ll pour over the box scores and catch the highlight reels before I go, because talking about sports is a great way to connect with people.

What’s more, it’s safe territory; you can have a passionate stance on something sports related and not arouse antagonism (at least not as much antagonism as is generated in political conversations).

There’s a more general point in this post, and it’s this: the more fodder you have with which to relate to people, the better off you’ll be. It’s not just sports—it’s music, it’s movies, it’s celebrity gossip.

You may find some of that stuff a bit trivial, but remember that forging a relationship—even one predicated on as small as, say, a shared love of the Denver Nuggets—is one of the best ways to build rapport and, down the road, trust and loyalty.

Posted by Jeb Foster at 10:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
 

Polished shoes, rouged cheeks, new threads. You’re poised to make a perfect first impression, which is paramount in sales. But despite all the prep work and effort you put forth to come across competent and trustworthy, a bad ending leaves a lasting impression.

Seth Godin discusses last interactions and the weight they carry in a recent post. Your last impression is inevitably responsible for more word of mouth than that first, flawless meeting because it is the final exchange you have wit ha client.

Let’s face it; you and once loyal customers will part ways. And how you handle the final phone call or conversation speaks volumes. Literally. This is the sort of thing that people will talk about to their friends and families for months to come.

Posted by maribeth neelis at 03:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
 

Justsell.com, a web site dedicated to sales professionals, says amp up your thank yous and begin building barriers to entry for your competitors. Because saying thank you is the rote response to so many actions, it has the reek of phoniness, even at its most genuine. So tweak your thank you and learn to express true gratitude to your customers.

Why say thanks? Most sales professionals work diligently to obtain new business, but are at once guilty of neglecting their current customers. Tending to your customer base can:
• Create product (in this case, you) evangelists
• Develop positive word of mouth
• Generate referrals

Companies that emphasize customer service usually enjoy success. (Think Apple, Starbucks and Google.) By rewarding people with an excellent experience you create a buzz about your brand. And remembering to express your gratitude in a heartfelt will create an expectation among your customers of how an insurance agent behaves. This expectation creates an obstacle for your competition.

Saying thanks doesn’t have to be elaborate or expensive. Writing a note is the very least you should take the time to do for all your customers. If you are already overworked, make it a bi-annual note instead of a bi-monthly one. But a note of appreciation goes a long way to making someone feel valued.

Thank-you note protocol

Be timely. Write them a note within 72 hours of the event, or make sure it arrives on their birthday, their (customer) anniversary or other important day.

Be classy. Use quality stationary (no college-ruled notebook paper here). Consider getting paper or note cards imprinted with your name and logo for such an occasion.

Be concise. Convey your thankfulness in 100 words or less.

Be authentic. Feel free to suggest a future meeting. If you are old pals, add a more personal statement that really shows you value the relationship. But choose your words and be real.

How often and in what way you give thanks depends on the future business you can expect from this customer and their colleagues. Check out this post on customer value scoring to rank your customers and determine what is appropriate.

Posted by maribeth neelis at 05:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
 

Every agent knows that referrals are the bee's knees.

But it seems there is a healthy debate on how to go about getting them. Should you just ask? Or simply offer the best possible service and hope for the best?

And if the former is the case, how should you ask? Directly or indirectly? And if you go the direct route, how often should you ask?

The best referrals are usually the unsolicited ones. But taking into account that people are busy and forgetful, how should one go about actively generating referrals?

Posted by Jeb Foster at 03:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)