January 22, 2016
1. Use social media. Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are great tools for communicating with clients and prospects. Once you get a lead, connect with them on social media. You learn more about them to help you deepen your relationship, see if you have anything in common and close the sale. It is also another way to communicate with your insurance leads. If you see that one of your connections has a life event, you can also contact to see if you can help with their insurance. A life event might include a birth, purchase of a new home, adoption, new car purchase, etc.
2. Periodically contact aged leads and anyone that you quoted and didn’t write. Auto insurance leads are never dead since everyone that owns a car and drives must have insurance. If someone doesn’t purchase when you give them the initial quote, contact them back on a regular basis. Eventually when they are ready, you will be there for them.
3. Ask for referrals. Ask for referrals from your clients, from insurance leads you quote, from your friends and family. People will be more than happy to refer potential clients to you if they are happy with your service. Your professional and social connections will want to help you grow your agency as well. Social media is a good place to ask for referrals.
4. Pitch/offer to clients with other products. You may purchase an auto insurance lead for someone who is looking for insurance on their new car, that should not prevent you from asking if they need renters insurance or even commercial insurance, if they are a business owner. Consumers prefer to do business with fewer companies, many will be interested in obtaining quotes for all their insurance needs.
5. Buy the highest quality auto insurance leads and calls. Some agents like to buy the ‘cheapest’ leads available. All they care about is the price of a lead. To close a higher percentage of leads, you should seek to get the highest quality. Exclusive calls or leads usually have the highest close ratio. The key is to move fast on your leads before the consumer seeks to obtain a quote from another source.
6. Offer available discounts. The important thing is to write a policy, make money while doing it and maintain that client for years. Some agents don’t like to offer available discounts as it reduces their commission. If an insurance lead is eligible for a discount, an agent should offer it, this will help you to write more business and make the client feel you are looking out for their interest.
7. Work with clients to create a policy that meets their needs. Many long-time agents like to offer a quote or policy recommendation with a take it or leave it philosophy. If the lead says it is too expensive or is a bit concerned about the level of coverage, many agents won’t seek to review the quote.
8. Be flexible with your availability. The days when insurance agents worked traditional ‘banker’ hours are over. Insurance agents should be available with extended hours and work weekends. We now have a 24/7 economy where people want to be able to shop when they have time.
9. Sell statewide. Traditionally, agents were taught to sell insurance in their local community. To target a five mile radius around their office, so that their clients could come visit them. In the new economy, people are too busy. Auto insurance buyers today just want to make sure their agent is available by phone, email, social media, and text. They want a fast response when they need help with their policy. As such, there is no reason for agents not to sell statewide or in multiple states. The bigger the market, the greater opportunity there is to quote and write more business.
10. Quote everyone. There are agents that do not like to quote certain types of business. They may just want to sell bundled policies or preferred business. While someone may not be the ideal customer today, they may be in the future. It is important for insurance agents to quote every insurance call or lead they get, ask for referrals and work every leads diligently.
11. Sell yourself and the value to bring to the insurance process. For most insurance buyers it is not only about price and coverage. They want to work with someone who is going to work for them to get them the best possible coverage at the best possible price. When working with an insurance lead, you should tell the lead about your background, how you are able to work with them and anything else that you can offer them to add value to the process.
12. Smile. Being happy and friendly when working an auto insurance lead will help you to close more business. Insurance is something that many people don’t like buying, due to the nature of the product. If you are friendly and jovial with the insurance lead, they may like you more and that will help you to write more business. People tend to want to do business with people that they genuinely like.
13. Follow-up, follow-up & follow-up. Sometimes an auto insurance lead will want to think about the quote you provided before giving you the initial policy payment. The lead may also not have time to wait for quote on initial contact. Some leads will require you to follow-up with them. The more you follow-up you do, the more policies you will write.
14. Use technology. Having a CRM and quoting system will allow you to work more efficiently and keep track of your insurance lead communications. Technology is a useful tool to help you quote more and stay more organized.
15. Check-in regularly with clients. Once you write a policy, your communications should not stop with your clients. You should check-in regularly via email, text and social media. Each time you do, you should see if you can help with any of their other insurance needs and if they can refer anyone for you to speak with.
16. Communicate using a variety of methods. Some leads will want you to call them, others will tell you they like text messages and some will prefer emails. You should have everyone on your team trained to use a variety of communication channels. To achieve the highest close ratio, you need to communicate with the lead, how they want to be communicated with, not your preference.
17. Have your best agents work the leads/calls you purchase. The number one thing that you can do to close more auto insurance leads is to have your best closers work the calls and leads. Most agency owners buy insurance leads and have then worked by their worse performers, that is a mistake. Have your best producers work the leads and you will have a much higher close ratio.
18. Review sales funnel daily. It is important to review your agents sales funnel on a regular basis to make sure they are working every lead. If you are working the leads yourself, take a few minutes every morning to review where you stand with your outstanding leads and scheduled follow-ups. If you expect your agents to work every lead, you need to review what they are doing.
19. Have regular spiffs. Most producers or agents like to receive immediate bonuses for achieving sales. The bonus doesn’t need to be a substantial amount of money, it could be first sale of the day gets lunch, a starbucks gift card or really anything special. This will motivate some competitive agents to close more insurance leads so they can earn the spiff.
20. Create professional work environment/dress for success. While most of your producers will be on the phone most of the day, it is important to maintain a professional work environment and have everyone dress professionally. If your agents and producers feel like a professional, they will work harder and be more focused. The environment and how you and your agents dress, will set the tone for the office and impact your success as a team.
21. Role play. Even for the most experienced sales producer, practicing your pitch will help you make more sales. You can practice with a friend or family member or even a co-worker. The more you practice or role play, the more you will get comfortable speaking with your auto insurance leads and closing more sales.
22. Track results and share with team. It is important to track how well your auto insurance leads are closing. You should track and provide the results to your entire time. If one agent is having a lower close ratio, it may encourage them to work harder or even to get help from their co-workers.
January 11, 2016
The simple answer to the question, does buying insurance leads work?, is yes. For most insurance agents, it takes some effort to make sure they work for their agency. Just buying leads and assuming that they will work without any additional effort is a recipe for failure. The agents that say that buying insurance leads don’t work, say this because they don’t undertake any additional efforts to make sure they work for their agency. Buying leads alone is not a magical solution to growing your agency. Buying leads along with the strategies below will should ensure that the insurance leads help grow an agent's book of business. 12. Close the Sale. It may seem strange to list this as a tip but you’d be surprised by how many people offer a quote and hope for the best. No, after you give the prospect a quote, you need to push the sale. You don’t even need to be aggressive about it, but a simple, “Let’s set you up with a new policy,” will bring you straight to the matter at hand. 13. Reward and Recognize Top Producers. These are the people responsible for the sales your agency is bringing in. It’s important to praise them for the great job they are doing, not just in flowery words but also with a small (or not-so small) reward or award. You’d be surprised how much a plaque means to some people. But we bet an Apple watch will go a bit further! 14. Thanks for the Business. Always be polite. No, be more than polite. Be downright pleasant and someone the prospect will call when they decide to switch. There are so many reasons why a potential client may decide to stay with their current carrier and policy. However, you never know where a referral may be made and you never know if the prospect may change his/her mind. 15. Practice Active Listening. You learn so much more about your client and what kinds of insurance products they need if you just ask a couple of pointed questions and let them talk. Active listening is when you pay close attention to what’s being said. You’ll then learn all you need to know about what kinds of risks your client needs to avoid. They may start talking about additions to a new home (home insurance) or the fact that they are now renting out their condo (landlord insurance) but are living in an apartment (renters insurance) by the beach where they love to Jet Ski (watercraft insurance).
Insurance Lead Success Strategies:
1. Have the best closers/agents in the office work the leads. One of the biggest mistakes agents make when they are purchasing insurance leads is to have their weakness producers and agents work the leads. This is a waste of money, time and effort. To achieve the best results, agency owners and managers should have the strongest members of the team work the insurance calls and leads they are investing in.
2. Use a CRM system. Sometimes a lead will not close on the initial contact. Most CRM tools will enable you to send regular emails, schedule follow-ups and help agents to actively market to the leads over time. Insurance agents need to be in communications with the insurance lead when they are ready to buy and a CRM will them them do that.
3. Follow-up, follow-up and follow-up again. Sometimes it is necessary to call a lead several times before they are ready to buy. An agent purchasing leads should not expect to close every deal on the first contact. Leads should also be emailed, sent text messages, called and more. Not all insurance buyers like to be communicated with in the same manner.
4. Work the insurance leads with a sense of urgency. When the phone rings with a lead or the insurance lead arrives in an agent's email, the agent should drop everything and move quickly to provide a quote and write the business. If a lead needs insurance, they will contact someone else if they have an immediate need. Working leads with a sense of urgency will improve contact rates, close rations and will enable agents to write more business.
5. Offer available discounts. Since most agents are compensated as a percentage of the policy premium, they will try to sell a consumer the most expensive policy possible, often offering them a suboptimal policy or more than what they truly need. While this may make them more money, they may lose the business if they are not competitive. Agents should offer insurance leads all available discounts and other savings, so that they came be competitive. Just because they have purchased the insurance lead, doesn’t mean that the agent has to make more money on the sales to offset the expense.
6. Ask for referrals. Whenever an agent speaks with a lead or existing client, they should ask for a referral. These referrals will lead to more sales and more referrals. Insurance agents should consider this as they determine the value of the leads they are purchasing. Agents should work these referrals like any other leads that they receive.
7. Expand the scheduled hours the agency is open. Some insurance agents strictly keep to a nine to five schedule and close their office during the lunch hour. Agents need to be available when leads are. They should be available during the standard lunch hour, some evenings and weekends. Agents need to be available during the times when leads have the opportunity to speak with them. We now have a 24/7 economy and if an agency isn’t available when a lead has time to buy, they will lose the business.
8. Communicate with leads in a variety of ways. Some consumers like to receive text message, others like emails. Some even like to come into an agency if they are close. Agents need attempt to communicate with their insurance leads via a multitude of channels. Ideally agents should even give a lead the opportunity to dictate the way they are communicated with.
9. Negotiate. Insurance agents should be prepared to negotiate with the insurance lead to write the policy. Often the first quote may not meet the needs of the insurance lead and the insurance agent needs to be prepared to adjust the quote based on the feedback that they receive.
10. Make a commitment to making insurance leads work for your agency. There are agents who expect to be successful with leads immediately. They will receive a handful of insurance calls and then they will attempt to immediately measure the results and many decide to end the program with limited data. This is a mistake. Insurance agents should make a commitment to figuring it out, to working with their lead company to adjust the type of calls or leads they are buying. They should instead work harder and smarter on using the strategies outlined here. It may take 60-90 days, or longer, to get good at working insurance leads.
11. Utilize a feedback loop to improve pitch and closing techniques. When possible, agents should seek out feedback to get better. Regardless of how long an agent has been selling, it is always possible to get better. Agents should utilize call recordings to get feedback from other top performers and/or ask their lead company for feedback.
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.
