Selling

If you have spent any time studying how to sell products online, whether miracle fruit juices or insurance policies, you have likely run across articles and blogs that suggest you need to be aggressive when selling. These sources claim that you shouldn't give potential customers the chance to think about what you have said –…

Marketing alone is okay if your office is small. However, if you want that office to grow, creating teams to market you, the agency and the products is a savvy move.  Marketing is tricky to begin with, and if you do everything on your own, small tasks can devour your time and keep you from…

Usually, to market to interested people, you must also scatter-shot others along the way. There is a way to get around it, but not with 100 percent certainty.  Study your demographics. If you are marketing to retired seniors or to middle-aged executives, narrow down where they live. If you market Medicare to seniors,for example, locate…

If you’re trying to build an insurance agency, there are millions of things you need to do and millions of things you don’t. Are you guilty of looking like you’re working while not accomplishing anything? Think about that for a bit. Do you attend extraneous meetings, read books, listen to marketing tapes, read tips and…

Social media is one of the best tools you can use to keep ahead of the competition. By setting yourself apart on social profiles, you and your agency won't become an “also eligible” entity when a person is considering insurance agents. Get creative, and think along unusual lines to grab your audience’s attention. Humor is…

Are you paying attention to what your competitors are reporting on social media? If not, you should be.  Do they note if they are finding leads through cold calls? Using snail mail direct-mail campaigns? Schmoozing to find leads? All this is valuable information for you to assess where your agency is poised against the competition. …

Insurance agents are often experts at communication. Basic marketing plans tend to come easily, but agents hoping to excel will need to commit to more creative, personal endeavors. Proper conventional marketing is a good place to start, but an effective marketing effort also requires creativity. Personality has become important to every agent's work. An expert…

Make sure your online message is personal for everyone that hears it. Sound impossible? It’s not. Speak so that viewers and readers feel you are talking directly to them. To accomplish that, you don’t want to refer to “viewers” or “everyone.” Use the second person instead, and address your audience as “you.” For example: “Thank…

If you are creating a marketing video, set an actionable goal before you record it. You are not marketing just to make conversation with others. You are marketing to convert viewers, visitors and existing customers. Never forget that. Stay focused. Stay on point. Tell people why your product is beneficial for them and how they…

Whether you generate your own life insurance leads are, buy them from a lead company or a little of both Jeff Root's interview of Clelland Green will provide you with useful insights like: How Life Insurance Leads are Generated Things to look out for if you are doing your own search campaigns Some excellent tips…

Selling insurance is not just knowing about your product, carrying the top policies, dealing with the best carriers for your clients or even just giving good customer service. It is about wise choices when it comes to marketing yourself and your agency. It’s about what tools you choose to use when you want to purchase…

We continue to receive Sales Disposition Reports from some of our top clients. As we wrote back in the summer, this data enables us to continually make adjustments to our campaigns at the keyword level. Contact rates and closing rates have improved, but they can get better. In one instance, we reduced a Client's Cost…

Employers will be challenged by the new affordable care act regulations which will go into effect in 2014. Penalties A company who does not offer insurance and has 100 employees is looking at a minimum new expense of $140,000. The math for the new penalty is the following for an employer with more than 50…

Many agents call me asking where the opportunity is when 2014 rolls around and I understand their uncertainty as there are still a lot of questions to be answered. Regardless, as every week passes we are getting more information from the government as well as the insurance carriers. Here is a summary of what we…

For the first time, over 50% of seniors are online and using the internet. This is dramatic growth, as there were barely 33% of seniors using the internet in February of 2011. No other age group increased the level of usage as dramatically as those over age 65 have in the past year. And, once…

Are you taking advantage of the AEP Advertising? Isn't now the time during Annual Enrollment Period, when  most medicare agents sell more policies than any other time of year?  Are you taking advantage of the advertising on television, radio and news articles that are driving consumers to the internet to renew their policy? While it…

Walk a mile in the shoes of your prospects. So, lets say you are going to the department store and as soon as you walk in a friendly sales person asks you "May I help you?" Well, 99 times out of 100, you tell them "I'm just looking" - right? Now, you did not go…

A critical decision is looming at the end of the month which will decide the fate of Health Reform. The ruling is to determine whether the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional. It is argued that Congress can not force people to buy health insurance or tax them for failing to pay the…