October 20, 2016
Most independent insurance agents represent multiple insurance carriers, the carriers they represent may cover virtually every market niche or segment. This gives independent insurance agents, especially P&C agents who focus on writing home and auto insurance business, the ability to write (and be competitive) with a broad spectrum of consumers. While this gives them one competitive advantage, the fact that they are going against many well known and established brands, they must work extra hard to overcome this disadvantage to build their agency and book of business.
The following are 10 sales and marketing tips for successfully growing your independent insurance agency and book of business. As an independent insurance agent you should try to utilize/implement as many of these tips as possible.
1. Develop a business plan or budget. Independent insurance agents should have a plan or budget for the number of sales they want to achieve each day, week and month. This budget should be broken down by insurance type. With this budget, independent agents can then come up with a specific plan on how to achieve these sales. The plan will need to be detailed in terms of the number of insurance leads to buy, staffing, commission, etc. Plans should include as much detail as possible.
2. Allocate marketing budget and stick to it. Often insurance agents will cut their marketing and lead budget if they are seeing lower than expected revenues or higher expenses. This is a mistake. Without home and auto insurance leads, it would be impossible to achieve your budget or plan for new auto or home policies. It becomes a vicious circle of not hitting target and further cutting leads and/or marketing if you do this.
3. Split your time between both service and sales activities. Many independent insurance agents will spent a majority of their time on what they like to do, rather than making a conscious effort to split their time appropriately between maintaining clients and growing new business.
4. Use pay for performance marketing. Independent insurance agents should limit the amount of marketing they spend on activities which do not generate specific activity that will result in sales. Spending your marketing on branding activities will yield a very low return on your investment. Buying home and auto insurance leads and calls will yield a very high ROI.
5. Establish processes; use a CRM. Agents that use a CRM have a higher close ratio and ROI. Using a CRM to manage your client and prospect interactions will make sure that opportunities do not slip through the cracks and become wasted. A CRM allows you to automate the process of quoting, nurturing and following-up with your prospects. There are many good cloud based CRMs that won’t require a significant monthly expenditure.
6. Build a strong reputation. As an independent agent, you are competing against agencies with long established brands. These brands spend millions every year to build and maintain their brand. To counter this, independent agents need to do everything possible to build and maintain a strong online and offline reputation. More and more people will search a company online before they do business with them for the first time. A strong reputation among your clients will also lead to more referrals and new policies.
7. Hire the right staff and provide regular training. Hiring strong sales people who are proven closers is a strategy that will help you grow your book of business. Some independent agency owners will hire friends and family with little or no experience. This is a mistake. It is important to hire the right staff and provide ongoing training to continuously improve their skills.
8. Periodically ‘re-shop’ client’s business. Once you win a prospect's business, you need to periodically re-shop their coverage to see if you can either provide a higher level of coverage for the same price or the same level of coverage for a lower price. When you are an independent agent, without strong brand loyalty, your clients may periodically look elsewhere to obtain insurance. If you show your clients you are providing them with an extra benefit or higher level of service, they will be more likely to stay with you and refer other insurance buyers.
9. Buy home and auto insurance leads and calls without filters. When you buy insurance calls and leads without filters, you have a greater opportunity to get enough leads or calls to meet your targeted sales goal. Filters limit the number of opportunities you have to quote and write policies. You should buy leads and calls for all the states you are licensed to write policies in. The larger the geography you buy leads from, the great opportunity you will have to write business.
10. Build a diverse book of business. Some independent insurance agents target a very specific type of business, geographic location and will sometimes place it all with one carrier. This is a mistake. It is essential to build a varied portfolio of business so you will be well positioned if one or more carriers change their underwriting standards, prices or a host of things that can impact your ability to generate renewal commissions and write new business.
October 13, 2016
If you are a P&C insurance agent, you should be purchasing home and auto insurance leads to grow your agency. There is no other performance based program that will send you pre-qualified consumers looking to purchase insurance in real-time. These are all people online, or on their mobile device looking to purchase insurance. All you have to do is pick up the phone, quote and write the business. There are 6 strategies or secrets you can employ to make sure you have the highest level of success with these insurance leads and calls.
Auto insurance leads and calls are 100% performance based, you only pay for the leads or calls that you receive. Unlike many other marketing programs, where you don’t know what you will get when you spend your money, when you purchase insurance leads and calls, you get what you pay for. When you utilize the insurance lead strategies or secrets below, you will maximize your return on investment in the leads or calls you purchase.
6 Secrets to writing more auto and home insurance policies from the leads and calls you purchase:
Learn more about the 6 secrets:
1. Have your home and auto insurance leads worked by your top producers and closers. Some agency owners will have their worse performers work the auto insurance leads that they purchase. Their idea is to buy leads for someone who needs “help”. This is a mistake. If someone has a hard time making sales, sending that insurance producer auto or home leads does not mean they have the skills to write the business. To get the best results and highest return on your investment, you should have your best closers work the auto and home insurance leads that you buy. This will increase the likelihood that you will get the sale and that the leads will work for you.
2. Work insurance leads and calls with a sense of urgency. Some agents will work their insurance leads with zero sense of urgency. They will wait hours and sometimes days to start calling on them. They will sometimes tell leads that they will call them back and not do so for hour or even longer. Insurance leads are real time, they are sent to an insurance agent when the consumer is shopping for insurance. It is important to work with a sense of urgency and then to follow-up and nurture the lead until they buy.
3. Know your lead providers system and develop close relationship with your account manager. Some insurance agents will buy insurance calls or leads and think that their job is done. They have no desire to invest time and effort in understanding how their system works or working with their account manager. The more knowledge you have on how to contact, follow-up and nurture your leads, the higher close ratio you will have and the more policies you will write. The account managers at your insurance call and lead providers company are experts at working leads and calls, you should use them as a training resource. These account managers can also let you know when new product, promotions and offers are available.
4. Dedicate time to the insurance lead or insurance call program. Many agents sign-up for leads and calls and have the expectation that they do not need to invest any additional time in making the insurance leads and calls work. This is a mistake as leads and calls are opportunities that need to be realized, not guaranteed sales. The more time and effort that an agency puts into working the leads and calls, the better results they will achieve. When agencies make a commitment to making insurance leads and calls work, they do. The agents or agencies with talk to more prospects, quote more and write more home and auto insurance policies.
5. Employ a CRM or lead management system to contact, follow-up and nurture your leads and calls. There are many different customer relationship management systems (CRM) available to help you manage your leads and calls. These systems will provide you with a systemic way to contact, follow-up and nurture your leads and calls. These systems will help you manage your leads through the sales funnel, from initial contact to writing the policy and asking for referrals. Without a CRM leads and calls tend to fall through the “cracks” and are not worked to the fullest extent possible.
6. Commit to making the insurance leads and calls work. Insurance leads and calls work. The key is figuring out how to make them work for your agency. Some agencies start using leads with the perspective that they shouldn’t have to change the way they do business. This is not the proper perspective or attitude to take. Agencies that are successful realize that being successful with leads and calls may mean that they have to learn new ways of doing business. These new ways of doing business will help the agency quote more and write more business. Agents should realize it may take 60 to 90 days to figure out how to make leads or calls work for their agency and not give up after a few days or weeks.
Agent Ethan Kosmin Generated over $200,000 in premiums during first year in business thanks to Contact Concierge.
A look at some surprising facts and shocking statistics from the insurance lead industry.
