Once upon a time, insurance buyers who wanted auto and homeowners policies found it necessary to visit their insurance agents (or be visited by them in their homes) in order to properly insure their property and liability. Once upon a time, you had to visit a travel agency to arrange for a vacation. Once upon…
The smartest agents train their producers to quickly identify those classifications of prospects who have no intention buying insurance from you. These prospects fall into various categories but are fairly easy to recognize if your cognizant of their personality.
In another article, I described how an advertisement directly influenced me to seek out a product due to the timing of the advertisement coinciding directly with my need for it. Now I’d like to tell you about the process of the sales call and how it worked out – it was fascinating.
By virtue of your getting this newsletter via e-mail, you are participating in the greatest information overload in human history. In 2008, 5 EXABYTES of data was created and transmitted. This is more data than was produced in the last 5,000 years combined. So what do we do to gather the information that is important…
Time and again we encounter successful producers, urban, suburban and rural, who continue to grow regardless of the economic or insurance conditions. These producers invariably follow the same guidelines, although every one of them feels that the guidelines are his/her personal secret. This short article presents three timeless guidelines for producers that will make them…
Buggy whip manufacturers thought they were in the business of selling buggy whips. They failed to realize that technology was passing them by and they were really in the business of providing for the transportation equipment needs of the American public. Agents are at that same crossroads today.
What causes the uncomfortable feeling that many of us get when shopping for a car? How different is the gut-wrenching feeling related to buying a car from the similar feelings expressed by many respondents in our focus groups on shopping for insurance? The answer is that these two exercises appear uncomfortably similar. Both tend to…
Our insurance companies give us lists of their desired markets every year. They claim that they have competitive products and pricing to permit you to sell to those markets. But those markets are suspiciously similar for most carriers. Why?
Many insurance entities, both agencies and companies, simply “exaggerate” or pose vague statements about their capabilities such as “lowest rates” in an effort to attract the consumer’s attention. But the few “gems” in the insurance industry actually have points of differentiation that makes their products and/or services genuinely different and better than that of their…
Over the past decade, bigger, national sized competition has come to Doug’s small town. These big boys have come in with national advertising budgets, recognizable names and low prices that Doug simply can’t match. But that doesn’t mean that he can’t compete.
