Prospecting for new business is hard.

Surviving as a brokerage that relies only on cold calling and word-of-mouth marketing can feel like trying to race a Lamborghini on horseback—you are simply not equipped to compete.

Successful brokers reject stagnancy and embrace more modern prospecting strategies, such as maintaining a regular business presence across social media, creating simple video content, writing original blog posts and monitoring public site traffic to reach out to visitors. These prospecting strategies cast a wider net than cold calling while simultaneously allowing you to hone in on potential customers more proactively than relying on word-of-mouth.

You need to update your sales strategies for the modern, digital era or risk getting left behind. If you have yet to jump-start your prospecting for 2017, here are three reasons why you need to do it now:

1. Position yourself for the future. The rise of price aggregator sites means that it takes just a few clicks for customers to get a free insurance quote. You cannot compete by cold calling alone. Instead, adopt a more focused and future-oriented approach that cultivates prospects through sharing meaningful and original social media content.
2. Prepare for more transparency. Personal lines competition is about to get stiffer. Starting April 2017, firms will be required to encourage personal lines customers to shop around at renewal. This means you may lose clients. Win new ones by updating your prospecting strategies—one easy way is by coordinating social media and prospecting efforts with awareness days. For example, 9th March is No Smoking Day. In the lead-up to the observance, post valuable stop-smoking guidance on social media and highlight that you can potentially help lower clients’ and prospects’ private medical insurance premiums if they quit smoking.
3. Differentiate yourself by moving away from price. Develop new prospecting strategies that emphasise the value and breadth of your experience, not your premium price. Differentiate yourself from the competition and establish yourself as a knowledgeable advisor by creating and sharing practical guidance. Let your competition sell on price—while you sell on knowledge.

Get Started Now
To help you begin the process of updating your prospecting, check out our new HSE Prosecutions Tool, exclusively in our Broker Briefcase sales and marketing engine.

The HSE Prosecutions Tool compiles the last five years of successful HSE prosecutions against businesses in Great Britain for health and safety violations. The tool gives you the ability to search by country, region and industry, and generated results will include the offending business’ name, address, total fine amount and a description of the offence.

Each offence is associated with recommended content from our expansive Broker Briefcase library, making the tool not just a cold call list but a comprehensive tool that instantly gives you the solution to prospects’ past health and safety violations.

Using the recommended Broker Briefcase content, users can reach out to the offending business and initiate a meaningful discussion about the importance of risk management and health and safety—not just price.