Archive for the 'Insurance Agency Leads' Category

Sell More & Work Less Now Available on Kindle – Web Selling Techniques Everyone Should Use

Posted on February 2nd, 2012 by Alan Blume

Sell More & Work Less is now available on Kindle.  This web selling tips book focuses on a 4-Phase Sales Process which helps business professionals quickly learn and apply many new web sales tips and techniques to improve their sales effectiveness. Simply said, allowing them to sell more and work less. The 4-Phase Virtual Sales Process facilitates the transition to a web centric sales model offering greater profit potential, improved methods of selling and the more flexible business and personal lifestyle this affords. Readers can replicate the 4-Phase Virtual Sales Process to create their own tailored sales process using the techniques explained in this web selling tips and techniques book.  I was fortunate to be assisted by three “in the trenches” coauthors, Mike Lauducci, John Scranton and Andrew Blume in the writing of this web selling tips book.

Sell More & Work Less is now available on Amazon, both in paperback and the Kindle version http://www.amazon.com/Sell-More-Work-Less-ebook/dp/B0072O3KUO/ref=sr_1_sc_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1328183749&sr=1-1-spell.

For B2B Web Marketing go to www.StartMarketingTech. For Insurance Agency Marketing go to www.StartUpSelling.com.

The 4-Phase Sales Process

Posted on January 14th, 2012 by Alan Blume

Many years ago, in an attempt to improve sales productivity and forecasting while reducing  pipeline subjectivity, I created something called the 4-Phase Sales Process. It’s been very effective for my businesses and my clients’ businesses, and is a process which can be used by essentially any sales professional or business. This process provides a simple methodology to improve selling, reducing prospect subjectivity and increasing sales efficiency. The four phases (identify, qualify, present and close) create a fundamental selling foundation, which salespeople and businesses can gradually builds upon. It is an effective process for both virtual businesses and salespeople and traditional operations seeking to web enable their sales teams.

The 4-Phase Sales Process is the foundation of my new book, Sell More & Work Less: Web Selling Techniques Everyone Should Use.  Salespeople and businesses can rapidly adopt and tailor this process to improve their current methods, helping quantify the sales process into a series of simple, measurable and easy to monitor steps. Within this process is something I call The Prospect Scorecard, a simple tool to help salespeople track and monitor the top of their pipeline. Some of the web sales and marketing topics in Sell More & Work Less include:

Integrated Marketing - Sell More & Work Less

Integrated Marketing - Sell More & Work Less

* Building your prospect database and email list
* Reaching your target market through email marketing
* Leveraging warm calls for quality appointments
* Expanding reach through Social Media Marketing

For more information, go to Sell More & Work Less or The Prospect Scorecard.

Sell More & Work Less: Web Selling Techniques Everyone Should Use – Now Available

Posted on January 2nd, 2012 by Alan Blume

Sell More & Work Less - Now at Amazon

Sell More & Work Less - Now at Amazon

The second book is finally complete and available on Amazon. Well – at least the paper based version is available with the Kindle version to follow in the next few weeks. This book was written and published faster than my first book, Your Virtual Success, leveraging some of the new web publishing techniques now available to authors.

Sell More & Work Less is a web selling tips book revolving around my 4-Phase Sales Process which helps business professionals quickly learn and apply many new web sales tips and techniques to improve their sales effectiveness. Simply said, allowing them to sell more and work less. The 4-Phase Virtual Sales Process facilitates the transition to a web based sales model and the greater profit potential, improved methods of selling and more flexible business and personal lifestyle this affords many salespeople and businesses, aspiring entrepreneurs and existing sole proprietors. Readers can replicate the 4-Phase Virtual Sales Process to create their own tailored sales process using the techniques explained in this web selling tips and techniques book.  I was fortunate to be assisted by three “in the trenches” coauthors, Mike Lauducci, John Scranton and Andrew Blume in the writing of this web selling tips book.

Sell More & Work Less is now available on Amazon, the Kindle version is expected later in January. http://www.amazon.com/Sell-More-Work-Less-Techniques/dp/ …

For B2B Web Marketing go to www.StartMarketingTech. For Insurance Agency Marketing go to www.StartUpSelling.com.

Top 12 Insurance Agency Marketing New Year Resolutions

Posted on November 21st, 2011 by Alan Blume

Here is a list of 12 important things to consider for your Insurance Agency Marketing New Year Resolutions.

Insurance Agency Marketing New Year Resolutions

Insurance Agency Marketing New Year Resolutions

  1. Your Insurance Agency Website is Updated & Current.
  2. Your Website leverages SEO best practices.
  3. Your Agency Value Proposition is prominently displayed and rapidly understood.
  4. You have a prominent Call to Action (above the fold) on your Insurance Agency Website.
  5. You have a professional and consistent Insurance Agency eMarketing Program.
  6. You have a Quality Prospect List with X-Dates.
  7. Your agency (or an insurance agency marketing firm) makes over 500 outbound calls per producer per month to targeted prospects (or you have another type of “drip” campaign in place to offset this marketing initiative).
  8. You have an Insurance Agency Social Media Initiative in place with LinkedIn and Facebook company pages and a professional LinkedIn profile for all your agency employees (and an Insurance Agency Blog).
  9. You have your own YouTube channel with pithy videos about your agency, products, services, solutions and perhaps some client testimonials too.
  10. You’ve rehearsed your elevator, telephone and voice mail pitch. You can quickly differentiate your agency and have a clearly understood “big 3″ list of differentiators.
  11. You have a clear and efficient (and documented) lead handling process.
  12. Your eCollateral is Branded & Updated.

And you have determined how to increase your book of business with a clear and concise insurance agency marketing plan for the New Year.

For more information visit: Insurance Agency Web Marketing

Top 10 TTD for Insurance Agency Marketing & Lead Generation in 2012

Posted on November 16th, 2011 by Alan Blume

Though every agency has time and budget constraints, here is a simple Top 10 Things To Do List for Insurance Agency Marketing & Lead Generation in 2012. This is a great time of year to step back and review everything from your insurance agency website to your insurance agency lead generation plans.

  1. Your Web Site is Updated & Current (with SEO best practices)
  2. Your Agency Value Proposition is Clearly Displayed and Understood
  3. You have a prominent Call to Action (above the fold) on your Insurance Agency Website
  4. You have a professional and consistent eMarketing Program
  5. You have a Quality Prospect List with X-Dates
  6. Your agency makes over 500 outbound calls per producer per month to targeted prospects
  7. You have an Insurance Agency Social Media Initiative in place
  8. You’ve rehearsed your elevator, telephone and voice mail pitch
  9. You have an efficient (and documented) lead handling process
  10. Your eCollateral is Branded & Updated

And you have determined how to increase your book of business with a clear and simple insurance agency marketing plan for 2012. For more information go to: Insurance Agency Marketing

Insurance Agency Key Performance Indicators – KPIs Critical for Your Producers and Agency

Posted on October 13th, 2011 by Alan Blume

KPI’s are Key Performance Indicators, and are used by organizations to evaluate performance. They are quantifiable measurements that can help rapidly determine historic, current and future performance, predicated upon the type of KPIs used and the platform selected to use them. For example insurance agency KPIs might include number net new clients, net losses, renewal growth, producer quotations, average book of business by producer, agency revenue, and revenue by employee. For the purposes of this article, however, we’ll focus on KPIs for insurance agency producers though these KPI’s will also be a key subset for agency executives and owners.

Key Performance Indicators should reflect the agency’s goals, and it’s very important to select KPIs which help rapidly indicate the tactical and strategic success of your sales efforts. For example, Producer KPI’s are noted below and might be very similar to the KPIs for many industry sales executives:

  • New Commission Revenue

    Insurance Agency Key Performance Indicators

    Insurance Agency Key Performance Indicators

  • Renewal Commission
  • Ratio of Net New Commissions to Renewal Commissions
  • Average Book of Business by Producer
  • Revenues by Lines of Coverage
  • Total New Quotes
  • Close Ratio (Ratio of Quotes to Closes)
  • Closes by Lead Source
  • YTD Revenue Growth (and year over year)
  • Revenue by Employee

These Key Performance Indicators help measure your business, and offer indicators of past performance and future success. Year over year revenues compare current performance to past performance, while Web meetings and proposals are forward looking, an indicator of what your future business might look like. If your new prospect meetings have dropped by 20% over the last quarter from the prior quarter, you can be fairly certain that you will experience a drop in new business. However, if you experienced the same type of drop compared to a year earlier, you have a better indication that you are on track for comparable year over year sales.

KPIs can vary by agency, but if they are to be truly valuable to your agency, you must consistently and accurately define and measure them. KPIs should incorporate goals or targets to track and measure performance. For example, our company goal is to close 50% of our proposals and 25% of our web meeting prospects. We measure this goal against our KPIs for this category to track our progress. Your agency might have a goal to maintain a $1 Million book of business for each veteran producer. You might have a different goal for new producers. These goals should tie into your overall KPI tracking, offe

ring rapid insights into the health of your agency, with strong indications of future performance. These KPIs can then be measured year over year – offering accurate historical insights into your performance in mission critical areas. Larger agencies should consider using KPI rollups, where the sales, marketi

ng, accounting and service KPIs are tracked departmentally, with a few mission critical KPIs from each department rolling up to an executive list. This can be done manually or using an automated system.

What type of systems can be used for KPIs? Your agency can use anything from simple Excel spreadsheets, to CRM, to Agency Management Systems to sophisticated KPI dashboards. Selected Web metrics gleaned from Google Analytics or other web monitoring tools may also be used. KPI’s should be kept to a modest number for optimum effect. For example, tracking 10 KPI’s monthly is reasonable, but tracking 50 would result in information ov

erload. This is analogous to the dashboard of your car. Your measurements might include speed, fuel level, RPMs, odometer, engine temperature and oil level. That’s a total of six KPI’s which can be tracked while driving. Some cars offer more sophisticated KPI’s including, average miles per gallon, current MPG, tripometer, and distance to empty. These additional KPI’s may not be displayed constantly, as they may not be deemed critical to your driving. Think of your insurance agency KPI’s in the same way, closely monitoring only those which are critical to your success.

Insurance Agency Marketing – Walking the Walk

Posted on September 2nd, 2011 by Alan Blume

We review hundreds of agency websites and discuss marketing with a comparable number of agency executives.Many agencies are now embracing insurance agency marketing and embarking on insurance agency web marketing initiatives. These agencies often seek the help of outsourced marketing organizations, particularly with technical challenges like insurance agency websites, insurance SEO and insurance agency social media marketing.

It can be challenging for insurance agencies to determine where to find quality insurance agency marketing guidance. Self proclaimed experts are often lacking in one or many areas, and it can be challenging for agencies to separate high caliber marketing agencies from weak imitators. We often review insurance agency websites that have been recently completed, only to find that even the most fundamental insurance agency SEO tasks remain uncompleted. We find agencies which have invested in eMarketing tools but have little if any understanding how to use them.

How does your insurance agency differentiate quality insurance agency marekting services from organizations which do not have the necessary expertise, even though they look and sound like they understand insurance agency web marketing? Here are a few tips to better assess those which walk the walk versus talk the talk.

  1. Validate – where’s the beef: Insurance marketing agencies should be able to demonstrate 10 or 20 (or more) insurance agency websites and insurance agency SEO projects that they have completed, look good, have been thoroughly Search Engine Optimized and utilize a professional blog. Remember, if a marketing agency is good at telemarketing, it doesn’t mean they understand the nuances of websites. Check the rankings of the marketing agency’s own site – if their SEO results are weak, and their Alexa ranking is poor (over 1 million globally or 100,000 US for example) they are likely lost, and your agency is unlikely to glean quality website or SEO assistance from them.
  2. Measure – it’s hard to fake the numbers: If you’re interested in an insurance agency eMarketing and webinar program, ask to see content from actual campaigns, and ask for the resulting metrics from those campaigns. An insurance marketing agency that is proficient in these areas should have many examples, going back multiple years.
  3. Content – the pen is mightier than the sword – if you have a good pen: If a marketing firm claims they understand both marketing and your industry, they should be able to answer all your questions by pointing to one of their blogs or ePublished article. If the insurance agency marketing agency is light on content, they are probably light on skills or bandwidth. Review their website, their content, their blogs and ePublished articles, and you’ll get a better sense of their proficiency in the areas which you seek assistance.

Yes, your insurance agency needs current marketing tools and technology to better compete in a highly competitive market. Since it is likely your agency lacks the expertise to accomplish all the necessary insurance agency marketing and insurance agency web marketing tasks, it’s appropriate to seek the assistance of a viable insurance agency marketing agency. That said, do your due diligence, it’s important that the marketing firm you select can deliver quality results, on-time and within budget. It’s all about insurance agency marketing expertise, make sure the firm you select can truly walk the walk. For more information: http://www.startupselling.com/insurance-agency-marketing.html

4-Phase Virtual Sales Process

Posted on June 23rd, 2011 by Alan Blume

Most sales cycles, particularly B2B sales cycles can be expressed in four distinct phases:

Your Virtual Success

Your Virtual Success

  1. Identify
  2. Qualify
  3. Present
  4. Close

Each of these phases might have 5 or 10 steps, helping sales executives compartmentalize tasks, ensuring they are following a guide that helps them arrive at their final destination, a new client. The reason I refer to this as a “Virtual” Sales Process is that much of the work can or should be done virtually. Keep the car parked in the driveway, avoid planes and trains whenever possible, leverage Skype, GoToMeeting and other collaboration tools. More on this is available in Your Virtual Success, or at the end of the summer in my soon to be released book, Sell More & Work Lesshttp://yourvirtualsuccess.net/

 

Effective Insurance Agency Closing Techniques – Insurance Agency Webinar

Posted on June 22nd, 2011 by Alan Blume

Join us for this unique webinar as our Insurance Agency Marketing team reviews Effective Insurance Agency Closing Strategies and Techniques. For each concept we review, we’ll share a real world example of these techniques and explain how they have resulted in improved close ratios. We think attendees will find these examples intere

Insurance Agency Marketing

Insurance Agency Closing Tools

sting and elucidating. A few of the stories we’ll share include:

  • How can you close a sale by talking about an old wooden desk?
  • How can you close a sale by working backwards?
  • How can an explosion help you close a sale?
  • How can you close a sale using peer pressure?

The techniques and tools discussed have consistently proven successful and will assist you in growing your book of business and improving your closing ratio.  Topics include:

  1. Closing by telling stories
  2. Closing by leveraging testimonials
  3. Closing with numbers & statistics
  4. Effective Lead Handling Methods
  5. Prospect Scorecard qualification

Date & Time: July 13th, Noon ET

To Register: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/872194921

This webinar is applicable to any B2B insurance agency (or any B2B organization).

Insurance Agency Telemarketing – Appointment Setting Elasticity

Posted on June 6th, 2011 by Alan Blume

Insurance Agency Telemarketing

Insurance Agency Telemarketing

Recently a client of ours informed us they closed a $750,000 commission from one of the appointments we booked on his behalf. Yes, this was a commission, not a premium.  That’s one of the largest individual sales produced from one of our appointment setting campaigns, and the sale occurred within the first year of the appointment setting campaign.  This particular insurance agency telemarketing campaign is unique in a few ways.  It is a dedicated appointment setting campaign and does not include an eMarketing or webinar component, and it leverages use of both an appointment setter and a senior StartUpSelling Vice President who further qualifies and validates every single appointment to ensure there is a compelling fit between the agency’s skills and the prospects needs.

There is an obvious elasticity when it comes to insurance agency telemarketing. The campaign noted above focuses on high level meetings with senior contacts at very large organizations, which results in perhaps 6 to 8 appointments per month. Some refer to this as whale hunting, and though this term may be politically incorrect, it is nonetheless a reasonably accurate metaphor.

Other insurance agency telemarketing campaigns focus on commissions targets of perhaps $5,000 to $10,000. Depending upon the industry and niche, these can result in 20 or more appointments per month, yielding much higher opportunity volume at lower renewal premiums. And in the middle, of these two targets is the middle market, commissions of perhaps $20,000 to $50,000 which requires appointment activity of approximately 3 or 4 appointments per week for effective results.

Insurance agency telemarketing, or in the case StartUpSelling’s specific version of insurance agency appointment setting, can still yield some impressive results. It has to be done well to be effective, that means no college student bullpen calling centers, and  no incentives for appointment setters to aggressively book appointments. A long term approach is best, and campaigns  will typically record their best result when accompanied by a professional insurance agency eMarketing and web seminar program. And it’s very important that producers utilize a simple and consistent qualification process. For those who have yet to implement a simple and measurable solution, they should try our Insurance Agency Prospect Scorecard. A free version of this is available on our Sales Tools Web Page http://www.startupselling.com/sales-tools.html, or for more information go to: http://www.startupselling.com/insurance-agency-marketing.html