I have a doctor whose car costs more than my house. He calls my cell between patients to complain. I don't ass kiss very well. I will stay with the average Joe's. There really are no truly wealthy in my area but I would worry about not having the markets to place the business.
Accessing High End Customers
- Thread starter SmartWorker
- Start date
- 15,041
Don't kiss his ass.
One of my best friends is a drug rep. It is a contest to see who tells the raunchiest jokes, him or the doctors. Yeah, be respectful and appreciative, but don't be a kiss ass.
From what he has told me, they just want to be treated like a person. Most are so taken for granted, they barely know what thank you sounds like.
Exactly what I said... and yes... Farmers actually has made some big strides to entice "Preferred Clinets". For instance in Texas we have slow seepage and leakage coming soon. Our policy will match State Farm's best policy.
But a bird told me that Farmers might be one of the first insurance companies looking at Profitability per customer underwriting approaches. Tech is getting insane.
For instance did you know based on credit card applications machine learning found out that someone who uses all capital letters on a paper application is more likely to default.
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How much do you have in common with the guy who gets up and goes to work for the same basic hourly wage every hour of the day and week?
Lower Middle Class in most metro areas with 2 working parents/adults is about $75k-100k combined.
4,000 working hours in a year combined...avg per hour per adult is about $20.
Get a worksheet and add up mortgage, car payments, all the little overhead, kids would suck up any disposable income.
Folks, I'm simply trying to point out that money isn't worth what it used to be. $100k a year is a drop in the bucket now.
Which class of folks uses the Emergency Response System more often? Wealthy or Poor? And you want me to buy that High End Customers are a problem? They have the means to afford your product, you better embrace them.
Lower Middle Class in most metro areas with 2 working parents/adults is about $75k-100k combined.
4,000 working hours in a year combined...avg per hour per adult is about $20.
Get a worksheet and add up mortgage, car payments, all the little overhead, kids would suck up any disposable income.
Folks, I'm simply trying to point out that money isn't worth what it used to be. $100k a year is a drop in the bucket now.
Which class of folks uses the Emergency Response System more often? Wealthy or Poor? And you want me to buy that High End Customers are a problem? They have the means to afford your product, you better embrace them.
In the end, We all have to pick our battles. Middle class clients can be just as drama queens as any wealthy ones.You have to be able to "train" your clients across the board on the fact that they MUST understand that you have a life as well and that you enjoy your leisure time with family,hobbies,Whatever as much as they do and that if it's not urgent, Send me an email and i will get back to you asap and make sure they understand your time is valuable; If they walk, No stress. Ultimately, You will weed out all of the headache clients and be able to keep the ones that are not a drain on your resources. This system knows no income or boundaries, as difficult clients come in all shapes and sizes. 
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I just want to make sure I am reading and hearing all this, great thread by the way and please don't anyone take anything the wrong way. I am a Psychology guy and I am just amazed at some of these posts. I also am trying to help and not insult you so please digest all of this.
-You don't want to be bothered by any of your customers? Yeah that's gonna be a problem. Safe to assume NONE of you are selling service. Who said business shuts down outside 9-5 just because you want to play with your kids?
Don't want to do much then you don't need to become much and you are not someone that wealthy people are going to seek out. Be honest, a bunch of you are not working every minute between 9-5. Lazy folks should not market to High End Customers, you have very little in common with them and that's not really a good thing or something to be prideful of.
-How do some of you think these wealthy folks accumulated their money? Inheritance? All of them?
At least a few worked hard to get where they are and they certainly expect the same of those they do business with. Just my opinion.
I'm flabbergasted that so many of you have strong opinions on a market you obviously know very little about. I also work in philanthropy and have helped raise millions through non profits. I worked with the Hollywood Bowl in Los Ang, University where I hold a degree and now for a local hospital close to where my wife and I live. I am around these folks a lot and I think some of you have them totally miscast.
Wealthy people tend to not focus on things that do not enhance their lives, I find that to be something I want to adopt in my life.
Are you somebody a high end customer would want to do business with? That's the real question in all of this.
Happy Whale Hunting!!!
-You don't want to be bothered by any of your customers? Yeah that's gonna be a problem. Safe to assume NONE of you are selling service. Who said business shuts down outside 9-5 just because you want to play with your kids?
Don't want to do much then you don't need to become much and you are not someone that wealthy people are going to seek out. Be honest, a bunch of you are not working every minute between 9-5. Lazy folks should not market to High End Customers, you have very little in common with them and that's not really a good thing or something to be prideful of.
-How do some of you think these wealthy folks accumulated their money? Inheritance? All of them?
At least a few worked hard to get where they are and they certainly expect the same of those they do business with. Just my opinion.
I'm flabbergasted that so many of you have strong opinions on a market you obviously know very little about. I also work in philanthropy and have helped raise millions through non profits. I worked with the Hollywood Bowl in Los Ang, University where I hold a degree and now for a local hospital close to where my wife and I live. I am around these folks a lot and I think some of you have them totally miscast.
Wealthy people tend to not focus on things that do not enhance their lives, I find that to be something I want to adopt in my life.
Are you somebody a high end customer would want to do business with? That's the real question in all of this.
Happy Whale Hunting!!!
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I have a feeling you're green to this business. Circle back in a few years & you may see through a different lens. I'll go off my hunch that you're new...so my advice is pursue agency ownership opposed to being a producer if you prefer sales. Good luck!
I'm agreeing with you?!
So it's different if I sold a mutual fund of say 10 million and I'm getting trails for a wealthy client vs a home that's 5k in premium and I'm making $500.
He apparently doesn't understand insurance is a numbers game yet.
Amen to the above three posts.
Someone new in the business might have that mindset. In this business, especially for those of us mainly more focused on personal lines where your income is spread out among lots of "small" accounts, you need to look at your accounts in work/pay ratios.
A Clients = low work, high pay
B Clients = high work, high pay
C Clients = low work, low pay
D Clients = high work, low pay
My #1 personal lines client in my office spends about $25,000 - $30,000 in annual personal lines premium with us. Do I cater to him more than the average joe customer? Of course I do. He, however, is currently a Class A client. He doesn't call and complain every month with a bill. He doesn't turn in a claim every time a leaf lands on his Mercedes. So I don't mind a call or text from him and his wife every now and then after hours.
However, I have other high-net worth clients (doctors mainly), that spend $10k - $20k in premium per year but require constant hand holding. Calls at 9 PM on a Saturday night, complaining about their auto renewal. Turning in the third claim in the past 4 months, then asking about rental car coverage and why the adjuster hasn't called them back even though we turned in the claim just 4 hours ago. If I lose this customer, it would hurt, but in reality reflects about a .003% of my total agency income and so it's not worth the headache that it entails.
Its nothing against high net work individuals as a client base, just those that way exceed their work/income ratio.
A good example of one of the more frustrating days in my career: Several years ago, I was a new agent and super hungry for business. I got a lead for a very wealthy individual. 400 acres of lake front property, $6m house, $1m guest house, 4 tenant/worker occupied homes, equipment, barns, etc. The FRO premium was around $20,000, plus commercial auto, umbrella, floaters, etc. I worked on this for weeks. Got surveys, appraisals, a thousand emails back and forth between the client's wife, underwriter, etc. Several visits out there to take photos, make diagrams, etc. I got the bind order from them and we sent it off to be bound.
I got the binder about 1-2 days later and forwarded it to the client. Keep in mind, we're still a month away from their current carrier's renewal (State Farm). So we're waiting on the policy to be issued. It got delayed a couple of times from the underwriter's office, but apparently that was too much for the client. After a quick update email to the customer, "Good morning just checking in, I know we expected the policy today but the underwriter is out of the office. I was told by her assistant we'll have it first thing Monday morning. Thanks!" We're still 2 weeks away from the effective date. I get a phone call from the husband (who I spoke to once throughout the entire process) and he proceeds to chew me out for the policy taking so long to be processed and tells me to cancel everything. Stunned, I try to explain that we have a binder and that coverage is bound, we're only waiting for the actual policy jacket and he proceeds to lecture me on just how much insurance he's bought before and he's been on the board of several Fortune 500 companies and dealt with insurance companies before, blah blah blah. In other words, he's saying, "Look little insurance man, I'm important and I've spent more in insurance that you'll earn in your lifetime. I tell you how things go around here."
So that was probably 40-60 working hours, over the course of 2 months that went down the drain in one phone call. THOSE are the kinds of clients that are not worth the commission in my book.
Someone new in the business might have that mindset. In this business, especially for those of us mainly more focused on personal lines where your income is spread out among lots of "small" accounts, you need to look at your accounts in work/pay ratios.
A Clients = low work, high pay
B Clients = high work, high pay
C Clients = low work, low pay
D Clients = high work, low pay
My #1 personal lines client in my office spends about $25,000 - $30,000 in annual personal lines premium with us. Do I cater to him more than the average joe customer? Of course I do. He, however, is currently a Class A client. He doesn't call and complain every month with a bill. He doesn't turn in a claim every time a leaf lands on his Mercedes. So I don't mind a call or text from him and his wife every now and then after hours.
However, I have other high-net worth clients (doctors mainly), that spend $10k - $20k in premium per year but require constant hand holding. Calls at 9 PM on a Saturday night, complaining about their auto renewal. Turning in the third claim in the past 4 months, then asking about rental car coverage and why the adjuster hasn't called them back even though we turned in the claim just 4 hours ago. If I lose this customer, it would hurt, but in reality reflects about a .003% of my total agency income and so it's not worth the headache that it entails.
Its nothing against high net work individuals as a client base, just those that way exceed their work/income ratio.
A good example of one of the more frustrating days in my career: Several years ago, I was a new agent and super hungry for business. I got a lead for a very wealthy individual. 400 acres of lake front property, $6m house, $1m guest house, 4 tenant/worker occupied homes, equipment, barns, etc. The FRO premium was around $20,000, plus commercial auto, umbrella, floaters, etc. I worked on this for weeks. Got surveys, appraisals, a thousand emails back and forth between the client's wife, underwriter, etc. Several visits out there to take photos, make diagrams, etc. I got the bind order from them and we sent it off to be bound.
I got the binder about 1-2 days later and forwarded it to the client. Keep in mind, we're still a month away from their current carrier's renewal (State Farm). So we're waiting on the policy to be issued. It got delayed a couple of times from the underwriter's office, but apparently that was too much for the client. After a quick update email to the customer, "Good morning just checking in, I know we expected the policy today but the underwriter is out of the office. I was told by her assistant we'll have it first thing Monday morning. Thanks!" We're still 2 weeks away from the effective date. I get a phone call from the husband (who I spoke to once throughout the entire process) and he proceeds to chew me out for the policy taking so long to be processed and tells me to cancel everything. Stunned, I try to explain that we have a binder and that coverage is bound, we're only waiting for the actual policy jacket and he proceeds to lecture me on just how much insurance he's bought before and he's been on the board of several Fortune 500 companies and dealt with insurance companies before, blah blah blah. In other words, he's saying, "Look little insurance man, I'm important and I've spent more in insurance that you'll earn in your lifetime. I tell you how things go around here."
So that was probably 40-60 working hours, over the course of 2 months that went down the drain in one phone call. THOSE are the kinds of clients that are not worth the commission in my book.
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