Web Works

The first sale is the hardest sale. Increase your sales and reduce your efforts by focusing your efforts on the right sources. To do that you have to treat your business like a business, and take ruthlessly control how and where you invest your time. Most agents waste their valuable time responding to and chasing after the wrong sources. Therefore, they don’t have the time they need to invest in the right sources. Don’t think because you’re busy you’re doing the right things with the right sources. If you were already doing this it would be reflected in your revenue.

The first way to increase your focus on the money is to focus on your existing customer base and their future potential. Rather than looking at all existing customers as being equal recognize that the potential among these existing customers varies drastically. And there are three ways this potential varies.

Your existing customers have a potential for: development of a highly profitable target market for you, repeat and expanded business, and referral to high potential prospects. One of the biggest mistakes even veteran agents make is failing to identify and recognize highly profitable potential target markets among their existing customers. Focusing on developing and expanding within a specific target market is one of the quickest ways to easily develop a highly profitable solid business for you. To discover the target market that exists within your existing customer base you have to look beyond product purchases to customer demographics. Among your customers there are some you like, but they are low value. There are others you really enjoy working with and they have a high potential value. Among this later group you want to begin to pinpoint the commonalities so you can find more people just like them.

Each year you conduct an annual review with your customers to identify opportunities for business expansion. All of your existing customers won’t do additional business with you this year. Do a good job taking notes and asking good questions, and it will be easier for you to develop a list of the customers who are most likely to do additional business this year. Invest more time with these customers than with customers who aren’t likely to have additional needs. Most agents don’t take the time to make this evaluation so they invest equal time in customer who aren’t likely to expand the business they do with you this year.

That’s not to say you ignore and neglect customers who don’t have more potential in the immediate future. If you do you can expect low retention rates and dissatisfaction. You always want to have ways to stay connected with every customer to maintain that relationship, but you also want to develop ways to make this process automated. You need a referral system that shores up your insurance sales success by making sure you properly take care of your customer relationships.

You’re supposed to ask for referrals, but you hate doing it because you feel like you’re either pressuring your customers to cough up a referral or you’re begging for them. You feel that way for good reason. The approach you’re using now isn’t a very good one. Part of the problem is that you don’t know what to ask or how to ask it to get the results you want. As you identify a target market you also want to focus on who within that target market has the greatest potential for you. This will make it easier for your customers to help you to make those connections and they won’t feel pressured to do so or like you’re begging because you approach it differently.