Experience is everything in the wide, wonderful world of sales and insurance leads. If you’ve got it, you’re going to be a superstar. If you don’t, it’s going to take you months to find your groove-assuming you can get someone to take a chance on you in the first place.

When I was in college, I decided to supplement my resume and my microwaveable-potatoes-au-gratin fund by working for Easter Seals. I’d worked with non-profits before. Helped set up a charity golf tournament or two. I figured it was a good place for me.

My first cold calling experience looked a lot like this.

Let me tell you what I learned right off the bat. Having someone hand you a randomly generated list of phone numbers with no name, no idea if you’re calling a business or a person and no clue what these people wanted is the scariest sales experience ever. It’s the textbook definition of cold calling, and usually ends with someone slamming the phone down in your ear.

It was the longest six months of my life.

The problem with cold calling is that sales is all about connecting. It’s about finding out what the customer wants first, then figuring out how you’re going to give it to them. It takes time to build the relationship, find the right fit. When you meet your insurance leads online you may not have a LOT of time to figure it out, but at least you have SOME idea who you’re dealing with.

Are you having trouble closing sales? Take a second to think about how you’re talking to your insurance leads. Are you letting them tell you what they want? Or are you the one telling them how it ought to be? Do they even get to say hello before you’re throwing your value proposition on the table?

In my living room are two handcrafted bar stools. I don’t have a bar. Don’t even have a table that tall. Want to guess how I got talked into buying them? The sales guy asked me what kind of furniture I was looking for. I said I needed end tables to set next to my couch that wouldn’t take up space and could survive the kids tipping over their drinks. He sold me a set of bar stools and the rest, as they say, is history.

I would never have bought those stools if he’d tried to sell them as a bar accessory instead. When it comes to sales and insurance leads, it’s not all about you.

The passion and drive have to come from you. Either you have it or you don’t. Skills, however, can be learned. So, without further ado, put down the phone. Step away from your beeper. Read these four tips for success before you contact another lead.

1) Strike while you’re HOT. Many is the woebegone salesperson who picked up the phone to call one of their insurance leads, only to find they’ve closed the deal with
another company. Three days earlier. There shouldn’t be more than an hour or
two, a day at the most, between the time your insurance leads reach out to you
and the time you call them back.

2)     Be a sponge. What’s been happening in your industry lately? What changes are
going to affect your clients? If you stopped gathering information the day you
got your license, your insurance leads could be missing out on valuable
information-and you could be missing a valuable chance to establish yourself as
the guy (or gal) who knows what’s what.

3)
Saying “No” isn’t personal. If you don’t like hearing the word “No”, then sales isn’t
the business for you. Unless you have the Midas touch, you’re going to have
more insurance leads telling you “no” than signing on the dotted line. Shake it
off. Move on. If you can’t do that, you’re sunk before you even begin.

4)     Get to know your insurance leads. The number one mistake that sales pros make when is thinking they know what their insurance leads want. Before they even say
hello. If you haven’t talked to your lead, you have no idea what their needs
are. Find out what they’re looking for, THEN start pitching your product.

Total Domestic Gross for Box Office Sales: >$300,000,000

How many home insurance policies have you sold this year? Even if you’re the best thing to hit the insurance industry since fast-brewing coffee, your total sales from your insurance leads probably haven’t even come close to touching the profits made from a single weekend showing of “Twilight”.

Oh sure, the majority of the teenage crowd isn’t going to be buying a home insurance policy any time soon. Most parents aren’t going to pay for multiple policies they way they have tickets for multiple showings. At the end of the day though, that’s not what’s driving the hoards to Regal Cinema’s front doors.

Your insurance leads are spending more money there than they are with you because Twilight is cool.

Home insurance is cool too. Your job, as a sales pro, as an advisor and as someone who wants to make sure that no home goes uninsured, is to show your insurance leads why home insurance is just as cool as shiny vampires on the silver screen.

Did you know that the building heralded as “The World’s First Skyscraper” was actually the Home Insurance Building in Chicago, IL? Built in 1884, the building stood 138 feet tall and was destroyed in 1931 to make space for the current LaSalle National Bank Building.  

Show Them What Home Insurance Can Do

Hopefully the owner of the dance studio where James and Edward had their big showdown had a good insurance policy. I’m guessing the Cullens didn’t hang around to offer any explanations. Vandalism, inside and out, is a great reason for your insurance leads to be well covered by good insurance.

Damages are the most costly reason to have home insurance (I’ve had a front row seat for what a good hurricane can do) but they’re not the only reason. What about theft? How many of your insurance leads know how to pick a lock?

Most of them aren’t going to answer that, but it’s a rare person that hasn’t had to jimmy a lock or a window to get into a locked house/bathroom/barn/garage. If they can, a savvy thief can too. Sturdy locks and an alarm system are good. Good home insurance is better.

How do YOU show your insurance leads how amazing home insurance can be?

He's not just after their car...

When you have your own house, spending thousands of dollars on home security measures makes sense. You’re investing for the future. When you’re renting, however, everything feels temporary. Why invest your time and energy when you’re just going to be moving in a year anyway?

If you’re selling renter’s insurance, these are questions you probably bump into all the time. Many insurance leads don’t realize that they need insurance above and beyond what the owner has on the property. Those that do don’t always realize the relationship between additional home security, even in a rented home, and lower home insurance rates.

As an insurance professional, you’ve already seen the dramatic effect conscientious home security can have on the number of claims filed each year. If you haven’t, you will soon. The question I pose to you isn’t whether or not you should encourage your renters to bump up their home security. It’s how you should do it.

The first step is to gather information. How many claims are made each year by homeowners who were careless about locked/deadbolted doors and windows, left their cars unlocked, or chose not to invest in a home security system? What’s the statistical precedence of theft in areas known to be unprotected?

The second step is to be able to offer recommendations. This is where it gets a little tricky. Especially if you’re more familiar with home insurance rates and claims than crime rates and security. Regardless, if you’re going to be offering renter’s insurance (or any type of home insurance, for that matter), you’re going to want to do the following.

1)      Stay abreast of industry changes. Personal security is changing daily.

2)      Familiarize yourself with the top brands in the security industry.

3)      Take the time to meet with security advisors in your area. They know more than you ever will. Know who you can recommend when your clients come looking.

Home security may be at the heart of good home insurance rates, but a knowledgeable agent is at the heart of every insurance family. Make sure that for your insurance leads that agent is you.

Public rate filings show that starting in June, enrollees will pay average auto insurance rates 21.4% than they have in previous years.

High risk drivers in the NYAIP program already pay higher auto insurance rates than other drivers. The higher rates will put a crunch on drivers who may already be feeling the sting of unemployment and a steadily rising cost of living. As an insurance professional, this is where you get to step into the breach and help your insurance leads find coverage at rates they can afford.

First Things First…

Since these drivers are already in a high risk pool, they may or may not be eligible for coverage through your company. Take a careful look before you decline them, however. How long has it been since their last ticket or accident? Are they really still considered too high a risk for regular coverage, or have they just been re-enrolling year after year because they thought it was their only choice?

Has anything else changed that might affect their eligibility?

If They’re Eligible…

…Now you can turn your company into the answer to their insurance prayers. How? By showing your insurance leads how they can save money on their squeaky new policy.

I don’t need to sit here and tell you how to help your customers save money on their auto insurance rates. You already do that, every single day. The hard part is making your customers believe you’re actually going to make it happen.

But we have faith you already have that well in hand.

Who you're REALLY selling insurance to.

The true secret to successful sales isn’t how well you know
your product. It’s how well you connect with your consumer. It’s easy to
dismiss insurance leads as just another name on a spreadsheet. One more phone
call you have to make to get through your day.

If you’re not seeing successful results, the problem might
not be your insurance leads. The problem could be you.

No, Nobody Wants to
Hear They’re Sabotaging Their Own Sales

Too often, however, that’s precisely where insurance agents
end up. It takes time to learn the ins and outs of the insurance business.
Nobody expects the fine print to make any sense to anybody else, after all.
That has to start and end with you.

When you get wrapped up in the intricacies of your insurance
policies, the ins and outs of the referral process and the hundreds of
technicalities agents deal with on a daily basis, an important step gets lost.
You forget that those insurance leads on your page are people too.

What Do They Need?

Earlier this week I was talking to a radio sales specialist
down in Mississippi. We were debating sales strategies, and he shared that the
most valuable advice he ever received was to start thinking backwards. Instead
of taking a look at what you have to offer and trying to sell that, talk to your leads first. Have an idea of what they need so that when you pitch your product, you’re tailoring it
to them instead of trying to convince them to tailor themselves to you.

That’s the secret to connecting with your insurance leads,
my friends. The only true secret to sales is figuring out how you and you alone
can meet the needs of your consumer. That’s impossible to do if you don’t have
a clue about what they need in the first place.

So the next time you’re picking up the phone to call your
insurance leads, take the time to talk to them first. Ask them what they need.
Figure out what options you have that will best suit their needs. THEN make
your pitch.

When you’ve made that connection, everything else is going
to fall into place.

King Of Prussia, PA (PRWEB) March 29, 2012 — Insurance Quote Exchange, (iQuoteX), a leading generator of internet insurance leads, has announced the launch of their new Live Transfer program, iQuoteX ConneX. The Live Transfer program will essentially be connecting consumers shopping for insurance quotes online directly with local and national insurance agents. The highly trained staff of customer focused agents at iQuoteX will engage the consumers, qualify interest and transfer the consumer to an agency ready to quote an insurance policy.

“We look to provide remarkable solutions in an evolving industry. There have been a few other companies that  have developed a service like this and we feel confident that ours will be recognized for its efficiency in minimizing overhead costs, increasing office moral and improving the agents return on investment,” says Eric Mallon, Sales Manger at the Philadelphia based company.

Insurance agents will have the added benefits of not having to contact bogus leads, no more sifting through returns, and only speaking to interested consumers. John Graham, Director of Business Development for the company states, “We are making a stand to revolutionize the lead industry one agency at a time and we believe a major key in that process is providing a live transfer service to our agents in a way no one else has.”

iQuoteX provides full flexibility for all of their clients helping insurance agents manage every aspect of their internet lead account. iQuoteX is based only a few miles outside of Philadelphia and has been providing qualified insurance internet leads to insurance agents since 1996. For more information regarding iQuoteXConneX visit iquotex.com or call 800-835-6773.

Tenants of rental housing may not own the property, but they do own their personal belongings. Landlords may have policies that cover their buildings, but that will not necessarily help renters personally if a fire or other event damages or destroys items that belong to them individually.

Insurance leads may appreciate the coverage renters insurance offers, which is split into three types, according to the Insurance Information Institute. Coverage for Personal Possessions may be assessed in terms of actual cash value or replacement cost, and assists those who lose their possessions to fire, theft and other disasters.

To file claims properly and secure approval, a home inventory may be helpful. This can include items and their condition, and be updated periodically. If there are no records of an individual's belongings, then insurers may be less likely to cover the cost of replacing the items. Especially costly items may need to be covered under a floater, an optional policy addition, if they are too expensive.

Additional living expenses can help insurance leads if they are unable to live in their residence due to the effects of a disaster, temporarily providing financial assistance that helps them find alternate accommodations. Liability protection may kick in if the policyholder is sued.

When dealing with insurance leads online or in person, agents should keep in mind that one of the items they must address is the client's (or potential client's) expectations. Failure to determine what an individual expects to get and what he or she knows about insurance can lead to misunderstandings.

For example, recent research found that some auto insurance leads may not understand the different types of coverage involved in standard policies. This suggests that agents may need to take some time to explain not just what a plan includes, but what each part of it means, in order to have a fruitful conversation with a lead.

Unexpressed expectations are a common cause of problems in relationship-building, according to LifeHealthPro. To avert that difficulty, agents can make a point of asking about clients' expectations and helping them determine which are realistic and which may need adjustment to avoid surprises later. This may help to cement the perception of the agent as an expert in the consumer's eyes since there are concrete ideas being addressed, laying the foundation for future cooperation.

About 68 percent of respondents to a recent survey by Erie Insurance agreed that most amusing advertisements for car insurance were focused on saving money, with almost three-quarters reporting that this has distracted them from analyzing the extent and type of coverage. Car insurance leads may need help looking past premiums to compare the coverage provided under different policies.

Agents can provide this assistance, helping insurance leads with explanations of what choices are available to them. Researchers found that consumers did not necessarily understand the different types of coverage, suggesting this expertise may be greatly needed. Almost half of those surveyed thought that liability or comprehensive coverage paid for damage they caused to their vehicle when it hit another object.

A larger number thought that "affirmation" or "premium" was the insurance term for changes to a policy, rather than "endorsement." This suggests agents may need to begin with the basics if consumers are to develop an understanding of their coverage choices.