Tips from a Successful Agent
I just listened to a conference call sponsored by Progressive where Noel Albert described his ‘best practices’. I thought you would be interested in some of his tactics. His focus was how to work online leads, but his attitude relates to all types of leads.
He did emphasize that this is how he is working, but that everyone should devise their own best style.
He gets about 40 – 60 leads a day and he calls every lead, as soon as he gets the lead. And he doesn’t delegate this job, he makes the call himself.
On that first call, he simply verifies they are interested and checks to see if they need a quote immediately, or would they rather talk later. He said 8 out of the 10 applications he receives are not 100% accurate so he lets the lead know that he can usually offer a better rate after going through some key questions with them. He then re-emails the lead to himself, with the proper information and calls them later with the quote.
If he gets a voice mail when he calls, he always leaves a message but he does not leave a quote at that point (that would be a ‘blind quote’ in his mind.) He calls 3 times, and if he doesn't connect, then he sends them a mailing (through the post office). He also encouraged the agents to think about including a brochure or a magnet or something along with a business card in the mailing.
The point he made most strongly though is that you can’t get discouraged after the first few weeks. He said online leads have helped him significantly build his book of leads because – even those he doesn’t sell first time around – he knows when they are up for renewals and calls them then. He said he gets more business from ‘recycled’ leads than he does with new leads. I heard this same statement at a Warner conference- Renee Casserly says she never discards a lead, ever.
I liked his statement about finding out if they are interested or not quickly, “Every no brings you one step closer to a yes”. That is one positive attitude.
