11 Traits or Skills that can Help you become a Better Insurance Agent

May 06, 2016

The following are 11 traits or skills that can help you become a better insurance agent. These skills or traits should be practiced during your day-to-day activities. Like anything, the more you practice, the better you will get.

1. Multi-tasking Skills. As an insurance agent, when you are able to do multiple things, at the same time, you can get more done. You should be able to work your auto insurance leads and answer client emails at the same time. Doing only one thing at a time limits your ability to get things done. The more you do, the more policies you will sell and more clients you will retain for longer.

2. Task Orientated. When you are an insurance agent, it is important to complete tasks in order to move your agency ahead. You need to reply to client emails, return voice mail messages, send out your monthly newsletter and etc. Routine and sometimes mundane tasks need to get done, even if they are not fun. As an agency owner, you will need to focus on all the tasks necessary to run your business.

3. Rewards Performance. As an insurance agent, you need to get good at using rewards to get your producers to accomplish the targets you are looking to achieve. If you want to get a high close ratio on the internet insurance leads you buy, it is important to reward your staff for doing just that.

4.Short and Long Term Goal Setting. It is important for you to set daily, weekly, monthly goals, along with 1 year, 3 year and 5 year targets. Setting goals will help you to know where you are going and you can use these goals to manage the various parts of your business and make adjustments as needed. Having a weekly sales goal with also help you with tasks such as lead buying. If you know you want to write 20 new auto policies a week, you can back into the number of auto insurance leads you need to buy that will get you there.

5. Plan and Execute. Plans and goals are very closely related. As an insurance agent, it is critical to make plans, or identify tactics to achieve your goals, and then get them done. If you identify that you want to buy home insurance leads, you need to identify a lead vendor, open an account, work the leads and close the policies. Being laser focused on planning and executing your tactics will help you to achieve your goals.

6. Build Relationships. As an insurance agent you should be constantly building relationships with your producers, your auto insurance lead vendors, policyholders and more. These relationships will enable you to bring everyone together to help you achieve your agency goals. The deeper and more two-way relationships you have, the more people will be willing to help you achieve your goals.

7. Contingency Planning. As an insurance agent, you should have contingency plans in place if you are not hitting your sales targets, if you have higher than expected expenses or if your carrier changes their underwriting policies. These plans will help you to respond quickly and keep you on track to achieve your goals.

8. Focused. As an insurance agent working in a busy agency, there may be meetings, visitors, phones ringing and so much more going on. Insurance agents need to be able to stay focused on working their insurance leads, handling retention issues and more, without being distracted. Staying focused during the work day will help insurance agents be successful long term and get more accomplished.

9. High Energy. Being an insurance agent is a big commitment and requires high energy everyday. You need to be available to your clients and prospects when they have time and need your help. To be a successful insurance agent, you can’t ‘shut’ things off, you must be high energy everyday.

10. Not Afraid to Experiment. Insurance agents should also not be afraid to try new things. Insurance calls or live leads is one of the newest insurance marketing tactic to become popular. It is a pre-qualified individual who has expressed interest in an insurance quote that is transferred to an agent. Trying new strategies is critical to growing your agency and book of business.

11. Caring. The best insurance agents care about their clients, care about their producers, care about what is happening with the people they work with. Being a caring agent will help you do develop closer relationship and be more successful.

10 superhero powers that insurance agents should use everyday to grow their agency.

April 08, 2016

Becoming a successful insurance agent is not an easy task. It requires licensing, education, continuing education, the ability to sell, compassion, crises management skills and more. You must have the ability to manage people, resources and time. Many people believe that to be a successful insurance agent you need ‘superhuman skills’. The more interesting way to view these skills is to think of them as superhero powers.

As an insurance agent, the policies you sell provide protection and come to the ‘rescue’ of people in their time of need, just like the most powerful superheroes. The following are 10 superhero powers that you need to become a successful insurance agent.

1. Super hearing. When working with prospects or insurance leads, it is important to listen to the person in order to understand what is important to them. Specifically, utilizing active listening skills, you can confirm what you heard and make sure you truly understand what is important for the prospect. Insurance agents who assume that, ‘one size’ fits all, may be losing out on many opportunities to write more policies.

2. Speed. Just like the Flash or Superman (who can travel faster than a speeding bullet), insurance agents working auto insurance leads or helping an existing home insurance client, needs to move fast. Insurance leads or clients are coming to you in their time of need and expect to be helped as fast as possible. The insurance industry is extremely competitive and if a prospect is unable to get what they need, they are going to go someplace else for the level of service they expect. Operating with speed and a sense of urgency, in everything you do, is important as you seek to grow your book of business.

3. Ability to leap ‘tall buildings’. As an insurance agent, you may face obstacles that get in your path but, you must not let them stand in your way. The obstacles could be as small as being unable to return all your messages or as large as a major catastrophe in your area that has impacted a number of your clients. Regardless of the obstacle, you must work hard to overcome it, even if it takes a few attempts.

4. Determination or never giving up. If you have ever read any comic book or watched a popular superhero movie, the superhero never ever gives up until the villain or ‘bad guy’ is defeated. When working a home insurance lead or helping an existing client, you should never give up on trying to help them. You may need to call a prospect back 3 or 4 times until they have time to talk or you may need to make 4 or 5 calls to help someone with their claim. In particular, you should never give up on a lead, if you nurture it, you will be sure to eventually sell it.

5. Seeing future events before they happen. While truly being able to see the future, might enable you to win the lottery, this ability can help you grow your agency faster. The insurance industry is constantly changing and it is important to stay ahead of it. At one time, insurance agents would work their sphere of influence and hyper local area to grow their agency. The insurance environment has changed and those agents that use home and auto insurance leads and calls are the successful agents. Those that have an online visibility have prospects coming to them. Staying ahead of changes in the industry is important and looking to the future is a large part of that.

6. Working for the greater good. Insurance agents need to have the right motivation in order to successfully build a book of business. Insurance agents must want to truly help people in their time of need. When you feel this way, it will come through when you are talking with a life insurance lead or existing policyholder. Insurance leads or prospects appreciate working with someone who truly cares about them and genuinely wants to help them.

7. Creativity and problem solving. Many super heroes will face villains who have powers or attempt to create devastation in ways never seen before. When confronted with a new situation, they must find creative solutions. When trying to speak with a difficult to reach insurance lead, you may want to use new strategies. You can send them a message on Twitter or Facebook or even send text a message. Coming up new ways of doing business will help you to close more sales and write more policies.

8. Super strength. While most insurance agents don't need to be strong enough to launch a car into outer space, being strong will help you be there for your client in a time of need. Being strong will also help you handle rejection during the sales process. As an insurance agent you need to have thick skin and be strong enough to power through any situation you face.

9. Sidekick or partner. Many superheroes have sidekicks or someone who they depend on for help. Being an insurance agent takes a considerable amount of work. Having a team or people you can count on to assist you is extremely important. If you purchase insurance leads or insurance calls, you should seek to work with a company that has the best products and services. A company that doesn’t require a long-term contract or require a huge deposit. You need a team that you work with that will be there for you.

10. Stretch or multitask. Some superheroes have the ability to stretch their limbs far across the room or even across town. This ability enables them to do more by multitasking. Most successful insurance agents utilize their multi-tasking ability to do more. At any given time, you may need to work a new auto insurance lead, follow-up on a home insurance quote and handle a customer service request about life insurance. You need to quickly switch gears and tasks with ease in order to successfully grow your agency.