Life Insurance Marketing 101

[James]

Life Insurance Marketing 101

Okay, we have our license, appointments and Business Plans plus our Goals and Daily Activity list all done and we now need to start calling those free leads from our agencies we have went thru for our company appointments. Like Mass Mutual, you can not sign up directly with them or that was the way it was when I got my appointment with Mass Mutual. Now if you are getting decent leads and you are receiving 50 a week you should be able to get 5 appointments which should translate to at least one maybe two sales a week or something close to that. So obviously we need more appointments to achieve a workable income esp. since youÂ'll likely sell a lot of cheap term contracts at first for probably about a year or two. So we need to look at alternative ways to market our products.

Okay letÂ's list them or what I consider the possibilities:

1. COI or Center of Influence (I suggest checking this out, the LUTC course given by http://www.theamericancollege.edu/advance/lutcf/curriculum.asp?section=1 check out the courses, all downloadable.
2. Business to Business
3. Cold Calling; Businesses and Individuals
4. Internet Leads
5. Telemarketer List
6. Referrals

Okay, let me touch COI a bit here for all the distracters we have about this IÂ'm a strong believer in it! Tell you why, Mr. Mason from NYL was my first contact that had any time in the business of selling Life Insurance; he was in his late 50Â's (IÂ'm guessing!). He was with NYL most of his life and was recruiting me and giving me introductory training, even though I didnÂ't end up with NYL I remember what he said and how true it rings today even though then I doubted his wisdom at that time. When he had me start on my list of all my family, friends and associates I was at best cautious about the idea. He sat me down and explained to me that Life Insurance was a peopleÂ's business, while numbers are important in the end itÂ's always about people and trust as in the Promise which is basically what you Life Insurance is, of course back up with Contracts and Reserves! To sell Life Insurance one has to believe in the Promise, this is where Price Selling simply doesnÂ't match up with selling the Promise and Quality! He then proceeded to explain the list within the COI, it doesnÂ't mean you sell the list but you will do the list and then that list is only the beginning, as you grow your list grows! In other words itÂ's only the beginning of your Contact List which includes all your future clients, referrals and prospects. It will contain youÂ're A list, B list and any other list youÂ'll ever have!

In the end I didnÂ't go with NYL nor did I work the COI list, yet as I progress via NAA and other failures I finally did a complete reversal and did my list. I work my list and increase my list with people within the list. As I gained clients, they plus whatever referrals or contacts I got from them went on the list. Two years later my list is quite enormous. Now I can look at my list and see what kind of people IÂ'm gearing towards, what kind of professions IÂ'm dealing with and able to adjust my offerings via type of person and what field they are in. Such as the Medical field dealing with RNÂ's and TechÂ's, while they are not all the same you can count on certain criteriaÂ's to be similar!

Look at it this way, once you develop your list youÂ'll get an idea of what kind of community you are selling in. To borrow an idea from Mr. Rogers, letÂ's assume itÂ's easier to live in ones community then outside of your community. In other words, dealing with just numbers or leads such as Internet leads youÂ'll never be able to see the larger picture of a community of like people. With the COI properly perform youÂ'll view it as a blue print of your business and the people within, not just as a marketing tool which is where I think a lot of people get the wrong impression.

If anyone has an opinion on COI please submit it, yet if it is negative just leave it alone. If you have a question about it, great! Now comes other things, of course I'll take a break now and come back and do B2B, see if we can come up with the great ideas for new, struggling and the experence agent can use!

 

[James]

B2B

Simple, you go to businesses in your area and offer insurance. Now it gets more complicated as you dive into the subject, such as how do you introduce yourself? I like the 5 Way, some here don't, which is okay, post what you use. I don't always use it but generally I do better when I use it as compare to other opening lines.

The 5 Way:

Mr Big, you're in business today. One day, you will be out of business, one of five ways:
1)Death
2)Disability
3)Retirement
4)Voluntary Sale
5)Bankruptcy

What I do is make sure that no matter how you get out of business, you get out with maximum profit.
With that in mind, can we meet?

It really doesn't matter what you use, if you pass out a flyer, brochure a business card what have you. You need to grap their attention, you have to get the appointment to make a sale. Yet though no matter what you use remember, don't waste your time on people that give out no buy signals! Yet do not attempt to qualify to much but if they say they are not interested take it for what it is, be nice and excuse yourself. When doing any prospecting go for those that show interest and don't fight for those that seemingly are not interested!

The 5 Way, obviously the options of Death, Disability, Retirement and even Bankruptcy is obvious. Many will ask you how does Insurance help me with selling the business? Basic reply is, "What makes your business valuable?" Hopefully they'll agree Key Person or People that makes up the business may it be a Resturant Manager or the head of sales to say a Nursery, usually in most businesses you will find a limited amount of people shape the business and performs most of the sales. These people the Key People give any business its value. Working with the Key Man Policy you give that person a good reason to stay such as the CV in a WL Policy that doesn't have to be given to all employees such as the 401 Plans.

 

[James]

Branding?

Now I think Branding is more or less a big boy trick, such as Wheaties Cereal. Yet I suppose Branding can be done also to a lesser extent by individuals in our fairly small pond or neighborhood. Yet I hear a lot of people seemingly thinking they can Brand themselves? As in "people want to do business with me", now I'm not really sold on that at all. Sure people like to do business with people they like, that is agreed but that isn't really a Brand, I don't know how many worthy referrals one will get because someone stated what a nice guy you are, kind of reminds me of the old saying, "Nice Guys Finish Last".

I believe Branding has little to do with one self and much more to do with three things. That would be:

1. Product
2. Service
3. Usage

Now this is one of the reason companies like Mass Mutual is one of my favorite. It is such a solid name, most know of them at least anyone that cares about Insurance, its a name they likely heard before that is associated with Quality.

Service, staying infront of your client and heading off any possible problems such as the old worrisome thing of them asking themselves "why is this money keep being taken out of my account again for?" Or simply developing a relationship of common interest to all parties.

Usage, why did they buy from you? Is it purely a DB or a Savings account for Safe Harbor or possible Risk of employment or other adventures that may lead to possible risk of potential negative effects. Such as the guy who rents out property, let some one fall the wrong way and the cost of the lawsuit surpases the amount of insurance!

Now I can see people referring you because you use Quality Product, Give Quality Service and has Quality Usage and reasons why they brought from you to begin with. Such as one property speculator telling another that his money is as safe as it can be (well in todays society that is) because its in a Insurance Vehicle! Or maybe better stated you gave them a solution to a problem, I suppose that may be better the the term "Usage" or at least maybe a tad bit more descriptive.

 

[James]

Networking

I'm a strong believer in the COI and that leads us right into networking. Yet with whom to you want to network with? I am finding limited involvement in advocacy people or groups such as this one I'm trying now to hook up with. http://www.blountchamber.com/calendar/event.html?event_id=302&start_date=None&end_date=None

I have a few deals out where I supply a meeting place such as Assisted Living Facilities which seems to be bearing some fruit. I'm simply contacting a few people that like to talk in a role of an advocate for their cause. I then set up at a luncheon with upscale Assisted Living Facilities and Nursing Homes and having them send out flyers to the relatives (children) of their clients. Now basically what you have is three groups involved in the networking strategy.

1) Advocate
2) Assisted Living/Nursing Home Marketing person (likely the case manager in many cases)
3) Insurance Agent, one can even include a FP'er as they would likely advice LTCi.

The Facility usually pays for the meal and supply the meeting room along with notifying family of patients. The Advocate will generally have some form of notifying public with interest either Newspaper or Radio channels willing to supply free ad or space in the name of community service. You as the agent supply your own DM and Ad placement (I can usually keep this under $300 with three ad placements in local monthly publications along with flyers). The idea is to bring out about 30-40 people with interest and first hand experience in caring for elderly and know first hand of the cost involved plus the burden of the familiy members caring for them. I've done a few and never really had less then 5 sales in the end that more then makes up for my investment. While this may not be my main thrust I am trying to do more this year then last year.

Warning, they can be a headache to put everything together! Yet this usually brings out a Middle Class or Upper Middle Class group of people with a problem that needs to be solved.

 

[James]

Product Pusher

Some people don't like the term product pusher, best I can suggest is get over it! That is what we all do, it is how you perform your duties is how people will remember you.

As with the COI and the above post "Advocacy Selling" using LTCi and other protection contracts such as WL and DI. Now how do we effectively use the idea of Product Pushing? Well take a look at problems and then match them up with your Products, then you simply have to find an audience that has a need for your product that fits the problem they share with others of like situations. Not all that difficult, may it by LTCi via Advocacy Groups or BOE to the small business owner or Health to the self employed. In other words it is not rocket science!

 

[maxreferrals]

Here are 4 ways to expand your COIs more effectively.​

1. Help others talk about you. The key is to get customers coming back and telling others about the positive experience they've had with you.
2. Look for ways to boost your talk factor. People generally talk about events, activities and experiences that were memorable to them. What can you do to perfom every activity for someone in a way that they will always remember you?
3. Get your products or services into the hands of influencers. Opinion makers can influence sales.
4. Turn your centers of influence into full-time advocates. do this by looking for opportunities to give th eother side an "experience" (technical involvement) with your work.

You can undoubtedly think of others. Good luck with it!

 

[James]

Here are 4 ways to expand your COIs more effectively.​

1. Help others talk about you. The key is to get customers coming back and telling others about the positive experience they've had with you.
2. Look for ways to boost your talk factor. People generally talk about events, activities and experiences that were memorable to them. What can you do to perfom every activity for someone in a way that they will always remember you?
3. Get your products or services into the hands of influencers. Opinion makers can influence sales.
4. Turn your centers of influence into full-time advocates. do this by looking for opportunities to give th eother side an "experience" (technical involvement) with your work.

You can undoubtedly think of others. Good luck with it!

There is a wedding photographer name of Gary Fong, someone of note, maybe not as well known as Dennis Reggie but his thing was to hire a helicopter for a wedding and taken shots from the chopter, basically buzzing an outside wedding. Needless to say he recieved quite buzz in the local market, LA California I believe it was. He now commands a price likely half of that of Dennis Reggie, about 25 grand a wedding. Dennis is commanding on average above 50 grand using the ladder system, which basically is creating a buzz to keep getting a better gig on the next wedding. Of course his sister married John Kennedy Jr or John John but he was well known and getting high fees long before issueing the only shot to the media of that secretive wedding. In other words there is a lot of ways of creating interest within one self.

 

[sambrody24]

James..................that.........was............awsome...............short sweet and to the point. Nobody flying in calling anybody names like cant sell cathy or no prospect pete, and I learned something.......I think we all learned a little something. Serisosly though I loved the 5 ways thing, I like shock value to get peoples attention, I have been trying for the life of me to think of something intelligent to say when I walk into small business but havent been able to do it. Turns out I didnt need to think at all

 

[padthaiforlunch]

Yes. He was good while he was here.