Lemonade stands, with their diminutive proprietors, are a summer staple. Recently, New York magazine interviewed a gaggle of New York City lemonade stand operators between the ages of 5 and 10.

Despite their youth, these kids clearly have some shrewd entrepreneurial instincts. (Maybe it’s city smarts?)

Check out these interviews, which were conducted by New York magazine writer Joanna Goddard. [Note the Agent Blog analysis after each one]:

Stand 1

REBECCA HORWITZ, 8, AND ARI HORWITZ, 5, SIBLINGS.

Location: On their stoop near Prospect Park in Park Slope.

Price per cup: 50 cents.

How do you make the lemonade? ELINOR: Real lemons, real sugar, and ice.

Do you sell anything else? ELINOR: We sometimes tell people’s fortunes.

What kinds of fortunes? ELINOR: We usually pick bad ones. Like this woman walked up and we said, “You’re going to grow a beard.”

Where do you put the money? OLIVER: In a jar, but you have to hide it under the table. Otherwise, they will say, “Oh, you already have too much money! We’re not going to buy lemonade!”

What will you do with the earnings? ELINOR: I like to wait for a rainy day. I’m saving for a car when I’m 16. I’ve never touched my piggy-bank money. Once I tried to count it, but it got away from me. I was like, “One, two, three, four, I’m tired.”

Do you go to other people’s lemonade stands? OLIVER: We’re not competitive. We’ll buy their lemonade.

Earnings . . . . . . . . . . $30 to $126

Continue reading "Lessons from Lemonade Stands" »

Posted by Jeb Foster at 12:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
 

Many copywriters, sales people, marketers and designers forget that they are competing for increasingly desensitized ears and eyeballs.

While some marketers and sales people acknowledge they are competing with each other for scarce attention, their response is usually to dial up the volume. The designer will add flash animation to his display ad. The copywriter will throw juicy adjectives and exclamation points into his copy. The sales person will create an artificial sense of urgency.

They forget that they are competing for increasingly desensitized ears and eyeballs. The graphic designer's ad is but one of six on a person’s screen. The sales person's pitch is but one of eight a prospect has heard today. The copywriter forgets that the law of diminishing returns applies to punctuation, especially exclamation points. Faced with this assault of noise, people tune out. Moreover, they selectively tune out the loud and become more welcoming of the quiet.

Quiet is the new loud—where loud means effective and inspiring.

That’s why you actually take the time to read the Ketel One ads. That’s why Google, with plain text , has become the king of online advertising. That’s why your Mac—the actual machine and the operating software—provides a welcome visual reprieve.

Posted by Jeb Foster at 11:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
 

They work because we humans are pack animals: the opinions and actions of our peers matter to us. That’s why we read Amazon.com book reviews, watch movies that Ebert likes and trample each other at soccer games. It’s the phenomenon known as social proof, or for the layman, it’s called the herd mentality. It’s a powerful force, and testimonials can help you harness it in beneficial way.

Here at InsureMe, unless there is an embarrassing misspelling in all caps, we don’t edit our testimonials. The reason is they bring more legitimacy and flavor when they come from a real person (as opposed to a copywriter). And legitimacy and authenticity are the very things that testimonials are supposed to convey. “Testimonials work best when they are believable, specific, and enthusiastic,” wrote copywriter Dean Rieck in a Monday post for Copyblogger. Thus, Rieck cautions heavily against forging your own.

Continue reading "The Unlikely Power of Testimonials" »

Posted by Jeb Foster at 03:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
 

Let’s start with one depressing fact: a majority of your prospects are going to ignore your voicemail messages.

Ok, now that we’ve recognized that unpleasant reality, let’s move on to how to get more callbacks. There are some basic rules that will improve your response rate, and the good news is that they’re pretty easy to implement.

But first, I must give credit where credit is due: Mark Hunter, creator of Saleshunter.com, assembled these strategies. I’ve come across a lot of bad voicemail “tips,” but these are mostly spot-on. I highly recommend them.

Here are few:

REMOVE POTENTIAL EXCUSES.
Give your number twice. Many will be fumbling for a pen during the first few seconds of your message. “If the person can’t quickly write your number down, you’ve given them a perfect reason to not call back,” says Hunter.
Don’t spill the beans, and don’t offer to call back. “If your goal is to get the phone call returned, don’t leave information that would allow the person to make up their mind.”

WORK ON YOUR TIMING.
As with comedy, timing is everything. In general, avoid extremes. “Messages left on a Friday afternoon are the least likely to be returned. For most people, Monday mornings are very busy and, as a result, only high–priority activities will get their immediate attention.” (When it comes to following up on online leads, this isn’t necessarily the case. The best strategy there is rapid response: you should be calling the second your leads hit your inbox.)

KEEP IT WARM AND SHORT.
“Voicemail messages are an excellent way to introduce yourself to a person. Be personable, yet professional.” But don’t get too comfortable … because “voicemail is not ‘story time.’ Leaving a long message is an invitation to have the entire message skipped. The optimal voicemail message is between 8 and 14 seconds.”

Here’s the one clunker (IMHO) among Hunter’s tips; I’ll let you decide if it’s worth putting into play: “When leaving a message with multiple points, be sure to immediately disclose how many you will be making. This will prevent the recipient from accidentally fast-forwarding or deleting it before it is completely heard.” I think this violates the all-important brevity rule. By the time you list what you’re going to say, you should’ve already said it.

Posted by Jeb Foster at 04:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
 

Pressure and fear: scarily effective.

But here's the rub: if you use those two things to sell more insurance policies, you will ultimately fail. "The challenge of marketing with fear isn't efficacy. Of course fear marketing works. The challenge is ethics and brand," writes marketing expert Seth Godin.

Godin has a great point. First off, let's take a look at the ethics issue. In an industry like insurance—one that rightly or wrongly has developed a bad reputation—ethics are quite important. Think about it: you're asking people to give you money to protect against the possibility of calamity or injury. As it is, most people don't like to spend money on things that don't produce a tangible, immediate benefit. If you give people reason to question your integrity, they will be much less likely to send money your way. (That's a bit of an understatement.)

The other reason is this: people don't like to be scared. They may scare easily and often act on those fears, but even victims of fear-based sales tactics know what's happening. And they will resent the person who makes them feel that way. Needless to say, that's not a basis for a long-term relationship.

Lastly, if your sales strategy is predicated on fear and pressure, you'll be always be running against the clock, because people will abide fear and pressure for only so long.

Posted by Jeb Foster at 04:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
 

Duct Tape Marketing blogger Jim Jantsch recently presented a handy matrix for understanding the pros and cons of various lead generation methods.

The three methods he talks about are advertising, public relations and referrals. Each of these, he says, is essential to any business, although the three approaches have their own strengths when looked at in terms of cost, credibility and control—what he calls “the three Cs.”

Check it out.

Posted by Jeb Foster at 03:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
 

Every company has tiny glitches that keep it from running like a well-oiled machine. Streamlining your business not only makes your job easier but makes it simpler for customers to do business with you. So what can you do today to eliminate some of the hoops your future customers may not care to jump through.

Get a web site.

If you don’t already have one, it may be time to invest in a simple, but user-friendly web site for your clientele. Each year more people turn to the internet to make purchasing decisions. Being present on the web lends you a little credibility in a cut throat industry. Try Word Press or Website Baker to create your own. Or hire someone to help you get started and then train someone in your agency to handle the updates.

Web site layout should be simple, clean and easy to navigate. Company information and information articles about your products and services should be easily reached and helpful.

Read Anatomy of a Successful Web site Parts One and Two

Continue reading "Steamlining for Success" »

Posted by maribeth neelis at 05:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
 

For years doctors who made mistakes got this advice from insurers and lawyers: “Deny and defend.” Admitting mistakes, it was thought, would embolden patients and encourage lawsuits.

Indeed, that’s the advice that insurers and lawyers still give doctors. And guess what? It doesn’t work.

Recently doctors have begun saying—gasp!—sorry when they screw up. The result, according to anecdotal evidence presented in this article in the New York Times, is that malpractice lawsuits have dropped—significantly.

The reason? Sorry diffuses anger. It doesn’t, except in rare cases, arouse greater ire. However, not saying sorry usually will, at the very least, inspire litigious thoughts.

The success of the new approach reveals that anger—not actual injury—is a huge motivator behind lawsuits. Diffuse anger, and you’re more likely to escape the courtroom.

The same holds for every other service—insurance included. Say you’re sorry, and you’ll most likely be rewarded for your candor. This shouldn’t be a novel idea—we’re taught to own up to our mistakes and apologize in pre-school. Somewhere along the way we got sidetracked.

Posted by Jeb Foster at 02:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
 

We’re in the process of shoring up our email standards here at InsureMe, and our current area of focus is the signature, that last bit of text after the signoff which tends to be either

• too dense with information (or too spare);
• overly colorful (or overly bland);
• unnecessarily blighted with fine-print legalese; and/or
• completely ineffectual from a marketing perspective.

If you’re like most people, you don’t notice other people’s signatures except in rare occasions, when (a) you need to find a phone number or (b) the person’s signature cries out for ridicule (see: bad clip art, comic sans font, color magenta).

Continue reading "On Email Signatures" »

Posted by Jeb Foster at 09:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
 

A Singapore beverage company Out of the Box launched two complementary brands: Anything and Whatever. Anything is carbonated and comes in six flavors (Cola with Lemon, Apple, Fizz Up, Cloudy Lemon and Root Beer). Whatever is non-carbonated (Ice Lemon Tea, Peach Tea, Jasmine Green Tea, White Grape Tea, Apple Tea, Chrysanthemum Tea). Consumers don’t know which flavor they're getting until they take a sip. According to forums, teens immediately got the concept and love it.

The lesson: Use age demographics to your advantage. If your plan is to stay in the insurance game for 10 or 20 more years, you will have to sell to a generation you may not particularly understand.

Regardless, the next group of viable customers are the soda swilling, gum popping kids loitering outside your grocery store. Stay in the game by tweaking your product lines to better fit a twenty-something, thirty-something and so on.

Although generational marketing is no longer the rage, it still makes sense to modify your product lines to target specific age groups and to market to those individuals through different mediums. Diversifying your marketing methods will help you acquire a broader clientèle and make your business more recession proof.

Posted by maribeth neelis at 03:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
 

Yet more wisdom from Seth Godin—this time on how to treat angry customers. In particular, angry customers who take the time to write you a letter.

His advice? Tell them they’re right to be upset.

When clients criticize you or your service in writing, they’re usually pretty miffed, and trying to argue with them—which amounts to telling them they’re wrong—is simply going to make them more irate, more critical of you and your service.

Tell them they’re right to be upset, and you’ll almost always diffuse the situation. The problem won’t go away, but you will have positioned yourself as empathetic problem-solver, not a defensive responsibility-dodger.

Godin: “Arguing with a customer who takes the time to write to you does two things: it keeps them from ever writing again and it costs you (at least) one customer. Perhaps that’s your goal. Just take a moment before you launch an unhappy former customer into the world.”

What Godin’s post amounts to is a restatement of this timeless business adage: The customer is always right. It’s now a cliché, but it’s no less true.

Posted by Jeb Foster at 10:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
 

“Customers’ buying processes have evolved in our world of ubiquitous global communication, but companies’ selling processes have for the most part stayed the same.” --Thomas Stewert, editor of Harvard Business Review

In a marketplace where companies are increasingly losing their product advantage, how you sell is as important as what you sell. Traditional sales training focuses on skills and what sales people should do to make a sale--talk to the decision maker, differentiate, sell value. Sales messaging focuses on how to sell--say the right thing, to the right prospect, at the right stage in the sales process, to motivate the right behavior, at the right value point, do it right now.

The answer to every sales challenge already exists. One of your sales people already has a great value statement, an effective way to position you against your competition and a unique way to overcome and objection.

Develop a message
• Mine those answers
• Debug—determine if it is true and meaningful
• Synthesize the message—put your English on it

If you have separate sales and marketing department, the tasks should be split between them. If you do not, delegate one person in your organization to collect information. Create surveys for your customers and conduct customer interviews. A second person should mine the sales force for tactics that work best for them.

Create a cohesive message that combines your sales force’s answers and information gathered from your customers. Then you must disseminate the message. If you have a small agency, you can do this at a weekly meeting. A larger agency can create tutorials and scripts for their sales force.

The key factor is that this is not a project wit ha beginning and end. The audience’s needs will constantly change, and so should your message.

Posted by maribeth neelis at 11:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
 

I hesitate to join the Seth Godin echo chamber. Not because I disagree with him—he’s insightful and articulate and pretty much right on the money 90 percent, no, 95 percent of the time. Rather, I worry that this blog will end up being just another Seth Godin affiliate (there are many out there), existing only to redirect traffic to his already highly trafficked site. My guess is that most blogs that have a sales and/or marketing focus have, at some point, reckoned with this issue.

But. I have to link to one of his recent posts because it makes an important distinction between two things—selling and serving.

Yesterday Maribeth made a similar distinction in her post , in which she suggests that you think of yourself not as someone looking to sell a policy, but rather as someone looking sell a solution—a solution that benefits the consumer. (After all, why should a prospect want to help you sell a policy?)

Back selling vs. serving. The change in thinking is internal, but the external consequences—and the effects on the way you market yourself—are profound. Godin makes his point by looking at Zappos.com, the online shoe store, whose motto reads, “We are a service company that happens to sell."

Godin: “Zappos wants you to call their 800 number. They want you to order too many shoes. They want you to return (at their expense) the shoes that don't fit.

As a service company, the more they service you, the better they do.”

The similarity between Maribeth’s and Seth’s approach is that they both would have you take the focus away from selling—or more specifically, the selling mentality. This mentality, through its very nature, conveys your own self-interest, and there's nothing that's further from the prospect's mind (and less relevant) than your own self-interest.

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

This month’s InsuranceNewsNet magazine has a great article entitled “18 Ways to Lose the Sale.” One losing strategy stood out above the rest: “Never take time to ask questions.”

”When in front of a customer, talk as much as you can,” says John Graham. “Asking questions or trying to get the prospect involved in the conversation is counterproductive.”

Even better, by not asking questions and giving a long-winded sales pitch, you can then make the prospect really uncomfortable when you suddenly ask, “What do you think?” at the end of your spiel. Consider tapping your fingers while you wait for a response.

Ridiculous? Yes, but a lot of bozos employ such tactics all the time, unaware of the ill effects. (A lot of people get into sales for the unfortunate reason of loving to hear themselves talk...)

Why is asking questions one of the most important things you can do?

For one thing, it’s almost impossible to know what a prospect wants until you’ve asked her a few questions. What are his priorities? It’s hard to know unless you, um, ask him what his priorities are. Why is she looking for a new policy? What didn’t she like about the old one? What does he hope to achieve with his purchase?

Asking questions conveys one crucial thing to the prospect, and that’s that you actually care about his or her unique situation and seek to provide a product and service to match it. (It also lets you calibrate your pitch on the fly.)

So, with your next lead, try to ask as many questions as possible. Make a list, even. And then let me know how it works out.

[Photo source]

Posted by Jeb Foster at 03:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
 

My mom lives in Sweden and got some books shipped to my house so that I can bring them to her when I visit next month. She’s a psychologist, so orders more interesting reading material than my usual fare. I started flipping through one last night called Predictably Irrational.

The first chapter discusses the presence of decoys in marketing and why even MIT grad students’ answers are affected when decoys are thrown in the mix.

Consider these offers from The Economist:

1) One year online edition $59.00
2) One year print edition $125.00
3) One year online and print edition $125.00

I didn’t mistype that. They are offering the print and online editions for the same price as the print only edition. Who would buy the print only? The answer: No one.

When 200 MIT students were asked, none chose the second option. The majority picked option number three—an obviously better deal than option two. And a handful chose the online only edition. When the print edition for $125.00, otherwise known as the decoy, was removed, the majority chose the online only edition for $59.00.

So what happened?

Continue reading "The Decoy" »

Posted by maribeth neelis at 04:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
 

How to improve your sales technique is a frequent topic on this blog. And among other things we encourage you to reach out to your customers, remember birthdays, make random phone calls and attempt to develop a relationship with them so that you are something more than their insurance agent—you are a friend, confidant, trusted financial counselor.

Then this afternoon I realized this advice is not entirely valid. I was thinking about my last insurance shopping experience. I requested to be emailed, to which most obliged. Those who did not I ignored.

Continue reading "To Bond or Not to Bond" »

Posted by maribeth neelis at 02:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
 

Get them to say yes…about other things. Getting the word yes to be spoken as soon as possible in the conversation helps build momentum toward a positive outcome. Emphasize the things you already agree on.

Be dramatic. Dramatize your ideas and what you are selling by using images in combination with words.

Give credit. Allow people to feel that they are coming up with the solutions and ideas. Make suggestions that drive them toward the conclusion you want them to have. And then give them credit for it. People are more committed to their own ideas.

Appeal to a nobler ideal. Delusions of grandeur, maybe. But if you can convince the prospect you are selling them something more profound then an insurance product, you will have an easier time selling them. What do you sell? Safety, security, peace of mind, hope?

Posted by maribeth neelis at 11:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
 

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)
 

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)
 

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.

Continue reading "The Sales Process" »

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

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)
 

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?

Continue reading "Meeting Customer Expectations" »

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.

Continue reading "Giving Thanks" »

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)