Building Sales Leads for A New Insurance Agency

Hi John,

I am just starting my new career path in the insurance world. I stumbled across your website when researching the job opportunity and have jotted down MANY of your marketing ideas/suggestions that I’m sure I’ll be using. I love the creativity. I know this may be a long shot, but I thought I would reach out to see if perhaps you have some prospecting advice you might be able to give to a newbie…

The agency that I will be selling for opens in February of 2013. Between now and then I’m going through training and have been asked by the Agent to work on a “hot list” of leads. For every 100 qualified leads that I can drum up between now and opening I get paid a nice bonus. Ideally, he wants these leads to be people who are agreeing to allow us to quote their insurance policies as part of our grand opening.

Would you happen to have any suggestions/ideas on the best way for me to round up people for this hot list? Any suggestions would be appreciated! And thanks for keeping up a great resource for people like me!

Thanks!
Erica C.

Hi Erica,

Congratulations on starting a new career and thanks for letting me share your question and my response for everyone to see.

I’ve worked with tons of new agents and I understand how they think. New agents want to put sales on the board ASAP and I can’t blame them – they often have numbers to hit within 90 days and sometimes make higher commissions at the beginning. I get it… but I think it’s to everyone’s benefit here if you consider approaching this differently.

Consider Developing an X-Date List Instead

​Rather than developing a big list of people to call in month 1, I recommend developing a gigantic list of people to call throughout months 1-6.

You can do this by asking for X-Dates. An X-Date is “agent speak” for the date when a prospect’s current insurance policy renews (or eXpires). Rather than asking if you can give someone a quote in February when it’s important to you, ask them when their insurance expires and whether you can give them a quote before the renewal when it’s important to them.

(Although you can usually change insurance carriers at any time, the majority of consumers are more comfortable and receptive to doing it at the end of a policy period.)

There’s a few reasons why I suggest you build an x-date list instead of a “Let me quote you” list:

1. At the beginning you’ll suck at selling, you won’t fully understand the quoting system, the discounts, and everything else. So why burn through a list you spent so long developing?
2. When you ask for the x-date people respect that you’re not trying to force insurance down their throat and will be more receptive to your request – so you should get a lot more takers.
3. Most companies send renewal declarations pages out around 6 weeks before the renewal so the prospect will have all the information at hand and you’ll be competing against their future price (which may include an increase) instead of a past policy period.
4. People just don’t care about insurance most of the time. Think of yourself… would you want a random insurance quote in February? Probably not. Would it make sense when your policy is up for renewal? Of course!
5. You won’t get as frustrated because you’ll get warmer responses. Working a cold list of people who are midway through their policy and were only being nice when they agreed to a quote is a good way to get negative-minded.
6. Contacting all your good leads in month 1 sounds great in month 1, but flash forward to month 2 when it’s just you and the phone book… If you were in a gunfight, would you fire all your bullets right away?

That’s my first piece of advice: don’t try to get leads lined up for February, get x-dates lined up for February through July. So how do we get those X-Dates?

​Play the Newbie Card to Get X-Dates.

​Everyone likes to think they’re a good person (even bad people) and when the stakes aren’t too high, most people will help someone else to feel good about themself. Take advantage of this aspect of human nature to build your x-date list.

​Ask everyone you talk to what they do for a living and pretend to care about what they say. (pretending to care is a required skill for every insurance agent) At some point the question will come back to you and that’s when you explain that you’re starting a new job and you’re worried about being successful.

​Here’s a cheesy sample conversation:

Erica: So I’m training to be an insurance agent but I don’t know if I’m going to be good at it. My agent has me making a list of people to quote when we open but I only have like 6 names…

Prospect: Well… I’d be happy to get a quote if it would help you…

Erica: Really?!? Wow, you’re the nicest person on earth!
​
Prospect: (Blushing) Well I don’t know about that… but… I help when I can.

Bring up this conversation with everyone you encounter and you’ll have a very big list by February.

​What if I just want a creative way to build a huge list and get a fat bonus?

I’m sorry Erica… you reached out to me for creative ideas to build a giant list so you can get a big bonus and I just lectured you on x-dates and told you to go ask people.  Here’s a creative idea that could be huge if you can make it work.

Create a Facebook page called “Help Erica Be A Success”.  On that page do a funny or personal video about yourself and what  you’re trying to accomplish with your new career as an insurance agent.  It doesn’t have to be professional quality but it does need to be real and likeable.  At the end of your video include a very clear call to action to get people to give their contact information to get a quote and help you be successful. You can use the “Sign Up” app from Offerpop.com to collect contact information. Share the link with all your Facebook friends and ask them to share it with everyone that they know.

If it works on your friends, you may want to buy some Facebook ads and target your friends’ friends.

If you make the page easy to understand, cute and entertaining, people will share it and you might get a lot of people signing up. Worst case scenario is it’ll be a great way to announce to everyone you know what you’re up to so they’ll think of you the next time they need insurance.

Does anyone else have any great ideas for Erica? Please add them to the comments below!