Daily sales & marketing tips for insurance professionals

If I asked what your customers think of you, what would you say? Do you let them know you’re happy to hear from them, they can reach you at any time, and you’re ready and willing to listen and help?

As we begin a new year, now is a great time to take stock of the impression you and your business make on customers – and what you can do to squelch bad habits that may be standing in your way of success.

In my book, sincerity is the number one attitude that leads to making a good impression – and I’ll bet, if you asked them, most of your customers would agree. After all, if what you say isn’t backed by a supportive tone of voice and positive, affirming action, people will stop listening altogether. And that can spell disaster for your business.

If you’d like to minimize negative impact, show more concern for your customers and business associates, and squash nasty habits that could be affecting sales, take stock of these do’s and don’ts – and start making changes now:

1. Never start a conversation, sales pitch, email or letter with “we.” Instead, every time you converse, focus on the customer and his or her needs.
2. Drop the jargon. No one likes feeling like they’re talking to someone who’s speaking another language.
3. Ask questions. This is the best way to discover your clients’ true needs.
4. Tell stories. They increase involvement and stimulate imaginations.
5. Share your expertise – but do it humbly! Your knowledge and experience are your best assets.
6. Don’t let what others do influence your marketing. You know what works for you; use it.
7. Acknowledge emails promptly. This is good etiquette and shows clients you’re available and listening.
8. Never use a testimonial unless it’s real. Anything less will reflect poorly on your business. Use testimonials willing to be contacted, and be ready and able to give out their information to anyone who asks for a reference.

Ready to improve your business image? Try tips like these this year – and please, let us know the results!

For More Information:

Creating the Right Impression: 22 Dos and Don’ts

Building Solid Client Relationships

As 2009 draws to an end, all of our thoughts will inevitably turn to the economy.  Without a doubt, this has been one of the most chaotic years in US economic history- a veritable roller coaster – and if you’re still in the game as an insurance agent, then you’re one tough cookie!  As I speak to insurance agents on the phone every day, one question will stubbornly come up every now and then: is anyone out there actually buying insurance, or are they just rate shopping?  I could tell you the answer is a resounding YES to the former, even offer up the testimonies of agents that I work with that purchase leads and say that this year, leads have helped them to make this their best year yet… but don’t take my word for it…

 According to a new survey released by the nonprofit LIFE Foundation, 56% of Americans believe that it is more important to have life insurance now than it was a just year ago (you can read the article here).   Even though there were 33% of Americans that have lost coverage this year – due to a job loss or a job change, an even higher 39% increased their existing coverage and 28% of consumers went out and bought life insurance for the very first time.  So what are these numbers saying?  To me,  they’re saying that even during times of economic crisis or hardship, or perhaps even because of it, people value security for their family.   People are still buying and maintaining insurance coverage. 

 Again though, don’t take my word for it.   According to Insurance Networking News, New York Life Insurance Co. sponsored another survey that shows that 83% of Americans age 30 and older agree that economic hardship has increased their desire to provide financial protection for their family.  So the silver lining in the storm cloud of economic woes is that consumers aren’t just shopping; they’re purchasing.

Did you know that you can now see your leads formatted in an Excel spreadsheet? Many agents previously requested to have their leads downloaded into an Excel spreadsheet, which helped to manage and organize the leads. Therefore, we listened to you and now provide a link that is located under the leads tab. Just click on the Excel link next to the “date range” and the leads are automatically populated for you!

Since you can only view past leads for up to 60 days, the Excel spreadsheet is an option for you to keep track of your leads going forward and to use for follow up purposes.

Remember to follow up with those leads. Even if they didn’t purchase the first time around, they may be looking for insurance in the future. I have spoken to many agents who have had success three to six months after they received the lead.

Happy Holidays!

Lead management systems are quickly becoming the norm in today’s competitive marketplace.  Attractive benefits and features of lead management systems allow you to enhance your selling and provide you with the necessary information to continue to prosper!

Some of the benefits agent are realizing from an LMS system are the following.

• Automatically schedule meetings, follow-up calls, renewals, and other important events.
• Assess profitability with real time reports.
• Track, monitor, and sort leads.
• Add notes and comments for proper follow-up.
• Customize your own automatically sent emails.
• Analyze the effectiveness of your marketing and sales.
• Increase your renewal retention using customizable automated follow-ups. 
• Stay organized by having lead and disposition information in one location.

 Using a lead management system will help you manage your leads so you can work on more leads and write more applications.  Some systems even allow you to round-robin your leads to other agents in your office.  Other systems include comparative raters and dialing systems.

Most lead management systems are fairly easy to use…some even offer free trials and discounts for trying their service.

 And from an InsureMe perspective, our leads are instantly imported into most LMS systems.  Call 1-800-467-8736 or visit agent.insureme.com for more information about getting leads and having them automatically placed into an LMS system.

 Everyone purchases insurance to safeguard themselves against the great Unknown, against what might happen to them one day.  But there is one thing that I can guarantee is likely to happen to each and every individual reading this, and you likely don‘t have a safeguard in place against it.  No matter how safe you think you are, no matter what protection you think you have to keep this from happening, one day – one day­ - your email will fail you.  I’ve seen it happen dozens, nay, hundreds of times.  It doesn’t matter what kind of email you have, public or private; at one time or another they all will stop delivering your valuable emails to you.  On September 1st, Google’s Gmail suffered an almost 2 hour system-wide outage due to simple system upgrades. 

This is why it is so vital for business users to adopt backup practices for their email accounts.  A missed email from a friend is an inconvenience, but if you currently purchase leads from a company like InsureMe, that’s a missed business transaction, and plain old money down the drain.

Fortunately, all is not lost.  Though we can’t prevent these outages from occurring, we can take out our own personal insurance against them.  One way to protect yourself is to always have a secondary email address on file with anyone you do business with (banks, credit cards, etc.)  Companies like InsureMe will happily forward your leads to multiple email addresses at no additional cost.  Yes, you might end up just deleting the duplicate lead unless there is an issue, but wouldn’t you rather pay for the lead once and have the assurance that you’re always receiving it than end up paying for a lead you didn’t receive because your email is unreliable?  Remember that if you decide to create a backup email that it should exist on a different server.  For example, I have one Hotmail and one Gmail email account.  If you haven’t had a chance to get around to that backup email yet and your email does crash, don’t worry!  InsureMe has created some extra protection for you: you can also access all of your leads real-time (i.e. hot off the press) by using Agent Connection, located in your InsureMe account, which will deliver your leads to your desktop similar to email.  To access Agent Connection, you simply need to log into your InsureMe account, no installing, no extra sign ups required.  So while we keep our fingers crossed that it isn’t our email that stops working next time, do yourself a favor and give yourself a little extra insurance. 

Are you regarded as a good listener? How do you know? In my opinion, active listening is one of those skills which requires constant attention and practice. I still find myself once in a while interrupting when I shouldn’t or thinking about what I am going to say next in a conversation and forget what a person was stating to me- yikes! This is not good practice, especially in a sales/customer service situation.

 Therefore, if you find yourself in the same predicament from time to time, remember that active listening is crucial when determining the needs of a customer and providing the best products for them. Active listening involves more than just listening…active listening involves probing for more information, paraphrasing, and acknowledgement that you are listening. If you do not listen well, you may lose a sale.

 Here’s a fun listening exercise that I participated in during a training class a few years back (however, it’s better facilitated as a listening exercise- not a reading exercise). It goes like this:

 You are the bus driver. At stop #1 three people got on the bus, one of them was wearing a blue baseball cap. At stop # 2, five people got on and one exited the bus. At stop #3 two people got on, one person was carrying a bag and the person with the blue baseball cap got off. What is the bus driver’s age?

 If you answered the age, which is yours by the way since you are the bus driver, then you passed! If not, then that’s okay, this exercise is a reminder to us all to make the effort to listen effectively to our customers. (Keep in mind that this exercise should be provided verbally in order to be effective)

 Have some fun with your co-workers and see who can pass the listening test!

Emailing is a fantastic marketing tool, and if you haven’t already hopped on board the email train, please check out Katherine’s blog on October 27th! (You can read it here)  It also can be the cause of a common conundrum for agents these days: how often should you email, and how do you distinguish another ‘emailer’ from a prospect that needs a phone call?

If you’re wondering how early you should start sending emails to your prospects, let me answer your question with this question:  How soon do you start calling a prospect once you receive one?  Now you have your answer.  Want more?  Okay: as 21^st century human beings we are exposed to millions of sensory sounds, smells, tastes, and images every day.   We’re used to it.  We’re also used to tuning out most of it.  In fact, unless our brain makes a conscious effort to actually move information into our long term memory, we only retain cursory information for about 20 seconds. Then it’s gone and other images, sounds, smells, etc take its place.  So, you’re not only competing against all the other noise out there to get your prospect’s attention, you’re competing for a spot in their memory.   Take every chance you can to get noticed: a phone call is always a great way to sell to a lead, but an email (which you can save and resend multiple times with a few minor adjustments) will also give them something visual to remember you by.  Plus, it puts all of your contact information in writing right in front of them!

I love email.  I can receive and pay bills, keep in touch with friends and family, order movies, and keep up with my favorite retailers, all in the same log-in.  That being said, I also am part of the technical generation – a generation which defies any age restrictions – and therefore am more comfortable navigating my inbox than my voicemail.  My insurance agent’s email address is saved to my email address book, but unless his phone number is on his email signature, I have no idea what it is. So, how DO you distinguish someone that is more comfortable with making contact through email versus someone that needs a phone call?  You won’t really know until you try, but if someone has extended to you an extra opportunity to contact them, why ignore it?  Seize the opportunity that the prospect themselves have given you.

Have you ever noticed that everyone in the insurance industry blames the holidays for slow sales?  When I started as an agent, I was told that starting in November things were going to slow down and not to expect much to happen.  Sure enough, I noticed that business did slow down.  Things started to pick up again at the end of January, but that was a long two and a half months of slow business, and I wondered why this was so. 

 I believe expecting slow business during the holidays is a self fulfilling prophecy.  I found I was taking it easy during the last three months of the year.  I did not push myself very hard to do better because I was assuming I was not going to sell much because it was the holiday season. 

 The next year, I decided I was going to ramp up my marketing efforts during the holiday season, something most of my fellow agents did not do.  That year I had a record November, a good December, and a record January.  Business was still pretty slow during the week of Christmas, but the rest of the time I did well.  I know that we are dealing with tougher times this year because of the current state of the economy, but people still need insurance.  I challenge you to do what some other agents are not willing to do at this time of the year.  Do not sit on the sidelines and watch other agents get the business.  Ramp up your marketing and you will see results.

 How do you rate yourself as an insurance agent? What measurements do you use to obtain feedback from your customers? How do you know if you are meeting customer expectations? Some organizations use postcards/surveys or online marketing tools to solicit feedback. Some call the consumer after a certain amount of time to obtain feedback. For example, I have received calls from car dealerships after a completed service and do take the time to answer their questions.

InsureMe obtains feedback in a number of ways. We’ve created surveys, and yes, we do read them; we conduct follow up calls to hear feedback; and we also obtain great feedback through daily conversations with our agents. We value your feedback, as without it, we cannot continually improve our products and services.

Whichever marketing feedback tool works for you is best – the key is doing what it takes to obtain instrumental feedback either for you or your organization. Consumer feedback allows an organization or an individual agent to see what they are doing right or what they need to improve, not only from an individual/agency standpoint but also for competitive advantage reasons.

I just love email as a communication tool! (I could write a few pages on the pros and cons of it, but I won’t subject you to that!)

There are tons of great information on the Web that provide tips on professional etiquette and email. Since email is a vital tool with Internet leads—and one form of communication with InsureMe—I think it’s appropriate to touch on a few reminders about email and your InsureMe account:

1. Please remember, you can email us with any questions/comments at leads@insureme.com. However, if you have an urgent matter, calling us is the best option.
2. If you receive a denied credit request and have a question or concern about it, just click on the reply option (which will be directed to leads@insureme.com), and we will review the lead again.
3. If you need to create more than one email for lead delivery, please call the InsureMe agent service department, and we can set that up for you (1-800-467-8736, option ‘2’).
4. If you cannot initially reach a lead via phone, send them an email—even if it’s a quick message to let them know you will be contacting them.

Now for ‘netiquette.’” I cannot stress how important tone, grammar, spelling and font are when sending a professional email to consumers, because a poorly constructed email can affect whether or not a consumer wants to do business with you. (As we all know, spell check does not distinguish the context of many words.) It helps to re-read an email or have someone else conduct a quick check before clicking ’send.’

Our own Jeb Foster provided excellent tips for professional email etiquette in the InsureMe agent resource center. It’s titled, Tips for Email Mastery. Check it out!