Learning to Prospect is Important

[Mark]

Does anyone prospect anymore??

If all the lead companies go out of business would you go out of business with them?

The most important thing an agent can learn how to do is to prospect and find the next client.

It is very important to study prospecting and closing techniques in this business.

50% of this job in to find a way to help clients and to get in front of them.

DON’T BECOME A LEAD JUNKIE. I’m not saying that you suck if you buy leads, but also learn to prospect.

Prospecting can be free and to new agents that don’t have a lot of money; you need to learn to prospect.

Some prospecting advice is to find people with life changing events (just bought a new home, had a baby or lost a love one to death) or that have a problem that you can solve(someone that has been turned down for coverage, that you can insure).

There are many good books on the market for on prospecting like “ Million Dollar Prospecting Techniques”.


If you are new to this business, you need to not just think about buying leads, but also learn how to prospect.

Don’t pay someone else to catch the fish for you, when you can learn to catch them yourself for free.

 

[Justin Bilyj]

Prospecting is the number one activity and skill in this game...

 

[LMF]

post your tried and true prospecting methods, (news paper for info on new home owners, ect.)

 

[Josh]

post your tried and true prospecting methods, (news paper for info on new home owners, ect.)

What? Auf English bitte!

 

[Alston]

My cheapest source for sales is my old leads. I keep them on my email and snail mail lists until they buy or ask to be removed.

I email monthly and snail mail quarterly.

Those who become clients also get contacted, but less frequently.

The person who needed insurance a year ago may have gotten a new job and lost it and now needs insurance again. The person who bought from me last year, may be more likely to refer me if he or she gets a gentle reminder that I appreciate his/her business.

 

[Frank Stastny]

My cheapest source for sales is my old leads.

It is not uncommon for me to sell a policy to someone who I contacted twelve, twenty-four or even thirty-six months ago.

Everyone's situation is constantly changing. The guy who made disparaging comments about my heritage the first time I contacted him may be willing to send a cab for me the next time I contact him.

Agents who throw their "leads" away can throw them in my direction.

Recycling is the politically correct thing to do today, learn to prospect and be a "green" agent.

 

[magagent]

I was cleaning out my desk about 3 weeks ago, and I found about 15 final expense/ life insurance leads that happend to be over a year old. So after looking over these leads and the notes I made about them. Several people said they couldn't afford anything. I saw on one of the notes that one couple told me the "Guverment" would take care of them and they didn't need no stinkin insurance..

So, to make a long story short I door knocked all of these leads and turned in about 3400 in premium. So I also will take all of your old "unsellable" leads.

 

[Kgrambo]

Does anyone know of a decent contact management program? I have a list of clients I would like to start marketing to since some of them have been on my books for a few years now. Right now I keep it all on an Excel spreadsheet, but would like to import it so I can print various letters and marketing campaigns out.

 

[on7of9]

Does anyone know of a decent contact management program? I have a list of clients I would like to start marketing to since some of them have been on my books for a few years now. Right now I keep it all on an Excel spreadsheet, but would like to import it so I can print various letters and marketing campaigns out.

dude... comes highy recommended on this board...

"The Perfect Contact Management Program (CMP) for the Insurance Professional"
www.YourInsuranceOffice.com
877.633.0808

 

[ksigmtsu]

I really like AgencyIQ, admittedly I have not tried YIO and a LOT of people on here like it. AgencyIQ is web based, will work on a blackberry browser, and has auto responder functions. You can also import internet leads directly into it, from lead vendors or directly from your own website (they do have to set up a template to filter them in). It's also relatively inexpensive compared to a lot of the cloud CRM vendors at $30 a month.

I found a dialer I like too, called Callfire. Its 3 dollars an hour, no setup fee at all. AgencyIQ can export filtered lists as a excel sheet, you can copy the excel sheet directly into their 3 dollar an hour dialer 2 lines at once with a automatic answering machine message drop and it can spoof any number you want for the caller ID, and call your old leads for cheap. I worked through 34 today in 40 minutes and I was on the phone with one of them for around 20. If you figure up the cost there, I do that like 8 times a month for the leads I haven't contacted on first attempts, so my dialer is costing me about 16 dollars a month. I think it is a voip based line though, I had some lag using it, but not as bad as my vonage line so it was bearable. I think people are getting somewhat used to that now, but I still don't like that it gives my voice a less authoritative tone.

One warning with AgencyIQ, if you aren't somewhat computer savvy to start with, it would be a nightmare to learn parts of it. They made it more powerful than user friendly in several ways. In particular it might take someone a bit of training to use the auto responder system properly.. I literally had to flow chart it on paper then stage it out to get it the way I wanted. Now if I could just get them to add a triggered automatic status change, newsletters, birthday reminder, and turning 65 reminder their CRM would be damn near perfect for me.

If anyone needs help with that I'd be more than happy to help them out though. For the record its not cause I'm a shill for their company, I just got a lot of free info from these forums and this is one area I'm probably a bit ahead of the curve in. If it wasn't for these forums I'd have probably been out of this whole industry 5 months ago, so I feel like I owe it to people to help them too.