You don't have to find the world's master sales guru to get answers to your deficit of qualified insurance prospects. You just need to concentrate on the three critical factors that determine sales prosperity:
1) The caliber of the prospects you speak to
2) The variety of prospects you talk with
3) The caliber of your presentation
Let’s take these in order over three posts. Today, let's cover lead generation -- locating qualified insurance prospects.
Your way of prospecting will be the main determinant of how many prospects purchase.
You're prospecting method must only generate prospects with a high chance to purchase, i.e. qualified insurance prospects. Here's the contrast of two prospecting systems. The first approach produces success while the next approach saps your vitality.
Cold-calling, a typical way of prospecting, produces prospects that must be convinced. You could be convincing to some degree to get the appointment and you end up arm twisting your prospect to meet. Once they hang up the phone, they reconsider. Are you shocked that many prospects cancel before their set meeting? Are you finding qualified insurance prospects this way?
What would occur if instead, you took out an advertisement offering a free guide about a certain topic (e.g. "Three Reasons to Have Insurance Once Retired") in which you had experience? Certainly, the people who reply to the ad have interest in your offered item. That's the kind of prospect you want--people who act, people who are qualified insurance prospects.
A young lady who a short time ago entered the field of real estate asked me about the best method to gain clients. I had her compose a brochure "Ten Errors to Avoid When you Sell Your Million Dollar Home." We placed the ad in the food section of the daily paper, we selected the day that has all of the food coupons. The cost of the ad does a whopping $250 and the real estate agent received 62 responses.
How long would it have taken to locate 62 interested and motivated people by cold calling? This method we have just described for gaining qualified insurance prospects allows you to make much better use of your time because your initial call is a warm call to a receptive motivated prospect.
Now you can see the difference and how you're prospecting method determines the caliber of prospects you attract. So your prospecting MUST be based on the following model-you offer an item to people who meet your criteria (e.g. by age, revenue, profession, zip code, by interest, and so on) and you ONLY contact those people who want your package. The supplied package can be:
a) a guide or free-of-charge report
2) a free seat at a workshop
3) a totally free quotation
4) a free-of-charge analysis
Then, whenever you contact the prospect, you get in touch with them simply because they requested something of you. You are not asking for their business, you are not trying to twist their arm or convince them, you are contacting them to decide with them how you are able to serve them. This puts you in the power position and starts the partnership on the correct foot with a qualified insurance prospect.
In a soon-to-be-published post, I'll discuss the best way to gain high quantities of inquiries from these high quality prospects.