Being in the insurance industry for as many years as I have, there is one thing that each agency/agent will say that they pride themselves on and use as their main selling point—impeccable service.
There is no question that service is important. In fact, in our 2015 Broker Services Survey of more than 1,000 employers, 83 percent stated that when selecting a broker, they do so based on promptness and effectiveness of service. That’s a big number.
Focusing on service is obviously a must, but what about organic growth? Developing a sales culture is what will allow you to keep providing the service that you already do, just to more people. And who doesn’t want or need that?
However, you may be wondering how implementing a sales process really affects your agency’s bottom line. Take your impeccable approach to service and apply that energy to your sales process. Let’s break it down.
Capture and identify leads
Without properly tracking your leads, prospects don’t convert to customers and money is left on the table. It’s as simple as that. A formalized sales process can track your incoming leads, and it can identify account-rounding opportunities and automate your X-date process.
What happens to the opportunities the producer didn’t win last year? They’re thrown over the shoulder until 90 days before the X-date next year, where the producer takes the same approach and expects a different outcome. One shouldn’t ask a girl or guy to prom the week before the dance—they need to date that person and nurture the relationship. While it’s been quite some time since I roamed the halls of my high school, prospect relationships need to be nurtured in the same way and educated with timely and relevant insight in order for the producer to have a different conversation the next time around and win the business.
A good system will keep you focused and make you money just by keeping you organized. Essentially, it makes sure that leads and revenue-generating opportunities aren’t falling through the cracks.
Improving efficiencies
Avoid the service trap. Producers are great firefighters! They’ll reactively respond to client issues and get bogged down by them, leaving limited time and energy to focus on revenue-generating activities.
How does one producer exceed sales goals, and how is he or she able to focus time on revenue-generating activities, while another producer seems to get bogged down by the day-to-day tasks that have little impact on the bottom line? Do you know each of their work flows? How they manage tasks? What is the successful one doing that the other one isn’t?
A lack of a consistent workflow between producers does nothing but hurt the opportunity for a sale. Not to mention, it often means your resources aren’t being maximized and inefficiencies are continually occurring and being reinforced. Transparency and consistency in managing tasks as well as driving referrals through the pipeline opens up precious agency and producer time, allowing for even more production.
Market effectively
Does marketing scare you? Even just a little bit? I find that for most people in the industry, they just don’t know where to start, or they rely on “one-size-fits-all” email campaigns as the answer.
It’s time to get strategic with marketing. Automated smart campaigns send unique messaging to any buyer persona for you. Oh look, more time for your producers to do what they do best—sell and generate revenue!
Today’s insurance buyer expects so much more from their broker than ever before. A “2016” agency knows that it needs a system to centralize its sales, marketing and service activities in order to create efficiencies that help the agency focus on revenue-generating activities. New software and technologies in our industry are worth looking at and investing in.
Keep up with these new demands by leveraging technology to shape a sales culture that drives organic growth for your agency.