4 Phone Calls To Make Every Day To Grow Your Business

I know that most sales professionals cringe when they think about picking up the phone and cold calling or "dialing-for-dollars" (me included). For some people, the thought of picking up the phone and calling an angry client, an missed sale or even a referral can make their hands clam up and their heart skip a beat.

I get it. When I was first starting out, I used to cold-call for 3 hours a day, 5 days a week and I hated every minute of it. I forced myself to do it because at the time it was my only source of new business, but I hated it the whole time. While I don’t have to cold-call for business any more, there are still 4 phone calls I try to make EVERY DAY in order to grow my business.

The “save-a-deal or client” call. Unfortunately, not every deal goes smoothly and not every client sticks around forever. Clients leave for what they think are greener pastures, buyers try to bail out of buying because some other company is $5 less, etc. Pick one deal or one client that seems like a goner and make a call to see if you can save the deal or the relationship. You’ll be surprised at how many deals are salvageable and how much extra money that one call can add to your bottom line each year. If you make an average of $400 per auto/home insurance client and you can save one client a month or close an extra one deal that would have otherwise gone away, that’s about an extra $10,000 in your pocket every year! If you're making a call to an investment or life insurance client, the numbers could be far bigger. I don't know about you, but one call per day, five days a week for an extra $10,000 seems like a pretty good return on my investment.

The “random check-in or thank you” call. Even your best clients forget about you if they haven’t heard from you in awhile. An easy, personal, and effective way to make sure that people remember you when it really counts (like when someone mentions they need the services you offer and you want them to refer you), is by calling a few clients each day in order to check in on them and let them know you are thinking about them. No selling, just call and see how they are and let them know you appreciate them being your clients. You’ll be amazed at the conversations that come up from a simple phone call. You'll come across clients that are in the process of leaving their jobs and needing to move their 401(k) to an IRA. You'll discover new babies in the house that brings up conversations of more life insurance. Don't bring any of these sales conversations up yourself, but if the client has something to discuss, by all means answer their questions. If something does come up that warrants a follow up conversation and the client doesn't get the conversation started, make a note of it and follow up with them the following week to discuss.

The “happy birthday” call. Your clients deserve to feel special on their birthday. With all of the Facebook, text and email “happy birthdays” these days, a personal call really goes a long way. It will let your folks know they’re important to you and remind them of what a great person you are! Even if you don't reach your client and you just leave them a message, birthday calls are a quick, easy, non-sales type call that will allow your best clients to hear your voice and be reminded of who you are and all you do for them.

The "Let's Do Lunch" call. When was the last time you had lunch with one of your best clients? Most agents like to have lunch with their friends, their colleagues or (a lot of the time) alone. I get the appeal of eating with friends and co-workers but ask yourself this one, very important question - how many opportunities do you have to sell your services and your products to your colleagues? What chance do you have of making a sale while you are sitting alone enjoying lunch? If you're in the business of selling (you are) and you get paid for making more sales (you do), then creating opportunities to have sales conversations with people that can and will actually buy something from you is a REALLY good idea! 

Try calling up a client (or prospect) around 11:00-11:30 each day and let them know you'll be in their area around noon. Tell them you don't like eating alone and you'd like to get to know them better and offer to buy them lunch - no sales, no hidden motives - you just want to get to know them better. One of two things will usually happen when you make this kind of call:

1. Most of the time the person you call will not be available and will not meet you for lunch. That's okay! Even if they don't have lunch with you, they're probably thinking about you. They may even tell someone that they work with that their insurance adviser is a great person who tries to have lunch with them. Your client or prospect will probably even feel like they owe you or should be more loyal to you just because you offered (and even though you didn't actually buy them lunch). If they get this call from you twice per year, they'll think more highly of you and feel like you are taking better care of them even if you never get together!

2. You meet for lunch, get to know them better and have a nice conversation about them - what they've got going on, goals and dreams, family activities, hobbies, etc. Half of the time, something will come up that needs to be discussed further in a business setting but, even if it doesn't, you've created a more loyal client and a longer-lasting relationship. You've increased your retention and given a client another reason to stick around and tell others how great you are. Not a bad deal!

If you took the time to make all 4 calls each day, it would probably take you about 10 minutes per day. But the amount that you can accomplish in those 10 minutes is staggering if you stop and think about it. You'll be increasing your retention, coming across sales opportunities, generating good will, strengthening client relationships, giving people another reason to refer you...the list goes on and on. Ultimately you'll be putting more money in your pocket and making yourself more successful. Not bad for picking up the phone a few times each day!

Getting "Social" With Your Insurance clients

If you've known me for any length of time or if we've had the chance to talk at all then you probably know I spend a great deal of time, energy and money on my current clients. In today's environment of rising insurance prices and declining persistency, every client renewal is almost like finding a new client. In fact, since insurance rates in the state of Colorado have gone up 50% (or more) over the past few years, every 2 client renewals is - financially - the exact same benefit as finding a new client. That is why I devote as much of my time to increasing my client persistency as I do to finding brand new clients.

When it comes to keeping clients happy and feeling loved, it all boils down to communication. How you communicate, how often you communicate, how enjoyable your communication is and how relevant your communication is to your client's lives all play a big part in whether or not your clients will stick around during the next cycle of rate increases. One of the many ways to improve your communication is to make sure it is both personal and business oriented. In fact, finding the right mix of business and personal communication is vital to your communication success. Here are a few tips to get more out of your "social" media:

1. Remember, it's called social media, not insurance media, education media, sales media or business media. While you can, and should, use social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter to grow your business, their primary purpose is for people to be social. This is your opportunity to lighten up a little and have some fun with your clients! Use your social media outlets to share personal stories and photos in addition to things that are more business related. Clients and prospects want to know that you're a real person, just like them. I used to pay a company to produce 6 insurance newsletters for me per year and mail them to my clients. I never heard from anyone to let me know they appreciated it or even read it. But when I started writing my own newsletters that had stories about things I was doing and the adventures my family were having, I immediately started getting great feedback from my clients. I also started getting more referrals and better cross-sales too! Try to keep a 60/40 mix of business and personal in order to keep your clients interested and coming back for more.
2. Get your clients involved. You want your social media to be a two-way street with your clients. The more interaction you can get, the better. Use contests, surveys, jokes, comics or anything else that fits your personal style to get involvement from your clients. Have your clients post pictures and stories to your Facebook page as a part of a contest so you can learn more about them as well.
3. Find the right media to reach your clients. Not all clients like to get on Facebook, and age has nothing to do with it. One of the fastest growing Facebook crowds is the over 65 year old folks. People like to get information in a variety of ways, so give them a variety of ways to get information from you. You can share the same story, article or contest through many different formats. For example, starting a contest on Facebook and then promoting it through an email blast and discussing it in your printed newsletter will get 3 different segments of your clients to participate. People want to be reached on their terms, so give them plenty of options. Consider sending out a survey to all of your clients (or your best clients) and asking them how they prefer to get their information. There isn't one media that is any better than another. The best media is the one your clients pay attention too, and that is going to be different for each of your clients.

As you implement new ways of communicating with clients and start turning up your social presence, keep in mind that anything you do is better than most of the other agents around town, because most other agents won't do anything at all! Start communicating and reaching out to clients on a more consistent basis and you'll see big, positive changes in your agency. Test your messages to make sure they are a good mix of business and personal and test out different ways to reach folks. The more you do, the easier it becomes and the better you become too.

Other People's Wheels - The Best P&C To Life Cross-Selling Conversation

When I was growing up, my dad used to tell me that there was no need to reinvent the wheel if I could tweak someone else's wheel and make it my own. In other words, you don't have to start from scratch if someone else has already crafted something great that you could adjust for yourself. Save yourself the time, effort and energy of creating, testing and tweaking and use what others have already tried and perfected. That's exactly what Best Agent Ideas is all about, and I had a perfect chance to put into practice when I was reading this month's issue of Advisor Today.

I came across two articles that highlighted two different strategies for increasing life insurance sales from two different agent's. One, written by Ray Vendetti (who I had the pleasure of spending a little time with earlier this year) went over a great way to make the transition form auto insurance to life insurance. The other was the feature article for the month that shared great sales ideas from successful agents. Bruce Udell shared an easy 5 minute conversation that focused on asking clients and prospects the right questions in order to get better results.

While both articles shared great strategies to improve your life insurance sales, I found that for me and my style of selling, combining the two would give me the best results. We all have our own communication style when working with clients. While Brian and Ray's life conversations work great for their style, they weren't quite right for me. You need your conversations with clients to sound like your words, in your voice. Memorizing someone else's script or questioning sequence doesn't guarantee the same success for you as the person who developed it if it sounds like you're just reciting something you memorized. You're far better off doing a little tweaking and making the technique your own. Here's what my new Vendetti/Udell auto to life cross-selling conversation looks like:

Cross-Selling Life From Liability Conversation - Vendetti:

• How did you choose those liability limits for your car insurance?
• They may or may not be the right limits for you. Liability coverage protects you in the event that someone sues you. It’s designed to protect the assets that you’ve worked so hard to accumulate over the years. So, if you have $300,000 in assets and $100,000 of protection, how will those limits work for you if you are sued?
• If we were to take a few minutes to come up with the amount of assets you have, we could then set your liability limits at the right amount to protect you and make also make sure you’re not buying more than you need. How would that work for you?
• Let’s run through your assets real quick and see what we come up with.
• Do asset worksheet
•          You have a total of about $xx in assets. If you want to protect them all, you should have at least $xx amount of liability coverage, does that make sense?
•          How much of your assets would you like to protect? Your liability coverage options are…
•          It looks like you may also need an umbrella policy if you want all of your assets to be protected.

The Pivot - Udell:

• By the way, do you mind if I ask, do you have a will?
• What does it say about who gets your assets if you die?
• What would your wife do with the assets, would she need to get a monthly income from them?
• How much income would she need?
• How important is it to you that she has that $xx of income?
• How much money would she need to have to produce $xx of income per year? What amount of money would you need to generate that income? (help them find the answer)
• If you had all of those assets invested, what kind of safe interest rate do you think you could get?
• If you could get 5% each year, it would take $xx to generate the $xx of income that you want your spouse to have.
•          Right now, you have $xx of assets, which will produce $xx of income. That’s quite a bit less than the amount you said your family needs, maybe we should set up a time to look at ways to fill that gap if it really is important to you, what do you think?

By combining the best of what works for me from both the Vendetti and Udell ideas, I was able to create a 5-10 minute conversation that I can have with every new and existing client that has auto insurance (which should be just about everyone!). The Vendetti idea helps me start the conversation and the Udell idea helps me end it. It's a great example of the power of other people's wheel's and how using the best agent ideas can work for you. Don't be afraid to tweak a conversation or presentation to fit your style or even combine presentations to make it work for you. We're all in this industry together, and by sharing great ideas we can all succeed and help our clients succeed!