If you're a parent, you know that back-to-school time brings a mixed bag of emotions into your household under NORMAL circumstances. This year is bringing extraordinary feels to millions thanks to COVID changing the landscape of, well... everything. Parents are stressed to the hilt trying to figure out remote-learning and how to schedule their own work schedules around their children's learning schedules. Kids are nervous for a strange educational experience and excited to get back out into the world all at once. Everyone is mourning the end of summer but cheering on a hopeful, next step in this crazy year we've all been living through. Even if you don't have kids, you're seeing this all play out with friends and family, which means your clients are also in the same boat. We've come up with a few ways that you and your agency can show your customers that you're there for them in these hectic and uncertain times. 1. BE THERE If you know that a client has kids at home (or if they're a teacher) and they're dealing with this major back-to-school transition, shoot them a note. For example: "Hey Rob, Just thinking of you with all of this back-to-school craziness. I know times are nuts. I hope you and your family are easing back into the school year as best as you can. If there's anything I can do to help, please don't hesitate to let me know!" This small touch says that you see your client, you understand their situation and you're around if they need you. 2. BE FLEXIBLE Things are changing on the fly every day for your customers with kids right now. You're going to inevitably run into schedule changes and meeting cancellations. Make sure your clients know that you're aware things are shaky right now and you're happy to set up a meeting whenever and however it works best for them. Maybe suggest meetings that don't require leaving the house. Zoom calls instead of a face-to-face meetings. Send them everything they need via efax or email so that they don't need to stop by the office. Get creative and customize solutions based on the individual client. 3. BE KID-FRIENDLY Be prepared for kids to be in tow if customers DO have to come to the office to meet. Yes, lots of parents will hand over a device when they need a little one to be entertained so they can have a conversation with another adult, but some won't. It doesn't take much to run to the dollar store to grab some coloring books and crayons, puzzles and a few toys to throw into a bin. You don't have to have Disney World in your waiting room, but a little touch that says YOUR KIDS ARE WELCOME HERE can make a big difference. 4. BE AWARE
Familiarize yourself with the schools in your area. We're not suggesting that you get to know the daily goings-on in each one, but get an overall idea. Are schools doing full remote, or a hybrid of distance learning and in-school learning? Are people opting to take their children out of the district altogether and opting to home school their kids? Are schools allowing sports in your county? This just shows that you're tuned in and that you can relate to the stress and struggle that your customers are facing right now. In sales, we know it's vital to be able to relate to our clients. With the state of things these days, it should be a no-brainer to get yourself somewhat versed and prepped to help out with the back-to-school drama affecting many of your customers. Everyone needs a lot of things right now, the most important of which is someone who understands where they're coming from and is willing to help.
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We've all seen Jerry Maguire. We all know the part where, after he leaves his huge sports management firm, he's set up in his new, small remote office, desperate to hang on to Rod Tidwell, his sole remaining client. This is the part where Regina King, who plays Marcee Tidwell (Rod Tidwell's wife), delivers one of my favorite speeches in the movie. The Tidwell's lives are essentially in Jerry and Dorothy's hands when Rod gets a lowball offer from the Arizona Cardinals. Jerry is begging them to stay on with him and Marcee rails against him in frustration and distrust, demanding to know what he stands for. Concerned for her husband. Scared for her family. This is an extremely pivotal point in a famous, fictional film, but for insurance agents this scene could be playing out every day in your offices, or at least in your heads . And honestly, it probably should be. As someone who is offering and providing health, home, auto and life insurance to your customers, you are QUITE LITERALLY their Ambassador of Quan. You are selling them security for themselves, their families, their futures. There is a significant, unspoken level of trust that exists for each client. And you do this every day, for every customer. Simply put, whether you realized it or not, as an agent, you chose a career based in ethics.
Whether this is a new realization or this is something you've thought about every day since the first policy you wrote, are you prepared for someone to ask YOU what YOU stand for as an agent? What would you say? Actually. What you would say to that person isn't nearly as important as what you KNOW you stand for. You can SAY anything to anyone. We're sales agents. We sell. We spin. We are trained to tell people things they want to hear. But laying in bed at night, going over the day's successes, what brings you the most sense of pride? We're always happy when we're successful. Of course. But are you happiest that you've made a sale? Or are you happiest that you've given someone the peace of mind that they're family will be taken care of in the event of an accident or an illness. Is your main goal giving your customer a quality product or filling your bank account? Because just like Marcee Tidwell, your clients are coming to you to give them a life raft in case of rough waters. They want to know that you are giving them what you'd insist upon for your own family. They want you to stand for them the way you'd stand for yourself. They want to believe that. They want to trust that. We know there should be integrity in any industry. In every industry. And we know that isn't always the case. But when someone is coming to you to be their insurance Ambassador of Quan, they're essentially asking you to be their life raft salesman. They want to know that the life raft you're selling them is the same one you'd put your own family in. Cold calling is NOT for the faint of heart. You have to have a thick skin to know that the vast majority of the time, you won't even be able to get to the pitch part of you call. We all know how many words we let a cold caller get in before we callously just hang up the phone, and that's IF we even answer that unrecognizable phone number to begin with. (CAN WE GET AN AMEN FOR CALLER ID?!) That's where this tip that we found changed everything.
Sydney Roe posted about this tip on Agency Nation a few years ago, and man are we pumped we stumbled upon it. Acknowledging that you, yourself, don't want to be held on the phone with a complete stranger selling something you weren't interested in to begin with, was a game changer for Roe. As she struggled with how to get over that monstrous hurdle she asked her girlfriend what her first instinct would be when answering a cold call from a stranger. Her answer, "Who are you?" sparked an idea in Roe. With today's technology and the benefits of a thorough lead with all the right contact info, was there a way a cold caller could introduce themself BEFORE making that cold call. Her idea was genius - A WARM-UP EMAIL WITH AN INTRO VIDEO. Boom. She suggests using video hosting software so you can see if/when the lead has viewed your video, then you know it's time to make the call. Roe writes, "ANY good video hosting software will give you analytics telling you when someone has played your video. Access to that data allows you to follow-up with them in real-time after you know they’ve watched the video, turning your cold call into a warm one." This takes you from stranger to familiar face. Now, a few days later, when you make the call, you're leading with "Hi, I hope you received my introduction" instead of "Hi, please let me get through one sentence before you hang up." As a potential customer, I love the idea of a business doing their homework and taking the time to reach out to me beforehand so I don't feel bombarded. Her point of being able to have the option of a standard go-to video OR customizing each video from business to business is a great time saver when you need it, as well as an excellent way to add a little extra attention to detail for that "hard-to-reach" customer. If you're looking to up your cold call game, we highly suggest taking this idea out for a test drive. If it means the difference between a hang up and keeping someone one the line, why wouldn't you give it a try. When it comes to cold calling, you've got nothing else to lose. Good luck! Ok. Let's get this one thing straight. I saw I, ROBOT. I'm scared crap-less of those robots. They had no chill. Will Smith could barely handle those robots and I am no Will Smith so thanks, but no thanks. I'm fine with being one of those OGs who is happy kicking it old school because most of the bells and whistles of modern technology give me butterflies in my tummy, and not the good kind.
With all that said, are there 2 very specific times and places where robots are OK? Of course there are. One of them is the robot in the soda machine at fast food restaurants. The ones where you can pick literally any flavor of Fanta you've ever imagined. I don't know how any of us lived so long without those robots. The other is the chatbot. I know it took me a minute to land that plane, but bear with me. This post is for business owners, but the best way to illustrate my point re: the chatbot is for you to imagine yourself as the patron. In fact. I just used a chatbot this morning when driving to work in a torrential downpour, my car started making a crazy sound and I pulled into the Toyota dealership to have it looked at. The tech thought it was the heat shield on the exhaust and since I have no idea what a heat shield is (or an exhaust for that matter - what even are cars?) I pulled up my warranty provider on my phone to see what would be covered. The first thing I was met with was a pop-up chat bubble asking if I'd like to chat. WOULD I LIKE TO CHAT? DO ONE-LEGGED DUCKS SWIM IN A CIRCLE? Hell yeah, I want to chat! I quickly typed in a question about heat shields and exhausts and Platinum coverage and yada yada. A few short moments later, I had my answer. I never had to pick up the phone. I didn't have to click through pages and pages of auto warranty lingo looking for something to make sense. For a rain-soaked mom in exercise leggings who's already late for work and looking at sudden, unexpected auto expenses, this was huge. Now, let's stick with the rain and storm motif I've already built here. Say you own a gutter maintenance business. It's 2 a.m. Your distressed, potential client is frantically searching gutter companies in your areas because theirs are clogged and the rain from the storm has created a leak inside their house. They've been through 4 websites that show a phone number with no emergency contact. Meanwhile, you're fast asleep when your prospect lands on your website and is greeted by a bot who offers to schedule a maintenance appointment with you first thing in the morning. And boom. You've got a new client. A happy client who knows help is on the way in a few short hours. NOW IMAGINE you've got 10 potential clients in the same storm, all with clogged gutters. Now, because of your business's chatbot, you're in a whole new ballgame. And those other sites without chat services? All they're offering up is radio silence. They don't even have pitchers on the mound. All of this has been a long road to simply say that bot technology is revolutionizing the way businesses service their clients. Chatbots create opportunities, cost-effectively, that would never be able to exist if we had to rely on humans in your business to manage them, simply because THEY'RE HUMAN. Humans have ON/OFF switches. Humans require downtime. Bots do not. Bots can keep up no matter how many inquiries are coming in at once. Chatbots are a 24/7/365 combination of salesperson and safety net. They tell customers that they've got your immediate attention without you having to pay attention immediately. They're the modern day answer to old school, quality customer service. And what's more than all that, chatbots are data jackpots because they address customer concerns and questions in real time. Questions are invaluable because you can engineer your bot to ask specifics questions that YOU specifically want the answers to. Answers that lead to important data to use in your company's marketing efforts. If you're currently operating an online business without a 24/7 chat feature, look into how you can bring a chatbot service into the mix. The benefits are beyond what you can imagine just looking at this from the outside. And they can propel your business into the future. But not in a scary I, ROBOT - robot cars trying to drive you into a tunnel wall - way. I promise. We feel like we could end this post by simply saying ACCESSIBILITY but that’s just not good content. The truth is that it’s 2020 and we’re all being shaped by this brave, new virtual world we live in. We’re spending significant portions of our days online. From social media to e-commerce to researching family history, there’s a world waiting at our fingertips, and you need your business to be a part of it. For better or for worse, this virtual world has many of us abandoning traditional modes of communication altogether. For example: “Someone is calling me? EW, psycho. Just send a text.” But on the other hand, the virtual world is an actual cornucopia for people, places and things that want to be easily found. Long gone are the days of the Yellow Pages. People want to be able to click instead of dial. You know what I mean. You’re as guilty of this as I am. If you want to go bowling and you’re looking for a bowling alley in your town and one of them has a website where you can see hours of operation, pictures and click a link to a phone number to reserve a lane, you’re ALL IN. If there’s another alley even closer to you in town, but there’s radio silence on the internet - MAYBE a standard google listing and star rating - you’re swiping past it. It’s science. It’s basically become human nature that we will gravitate toward whatever we can find the most information on. If your main goal is to serve as many people as you can, your business needs to be front, center and fully loaded online. This means a website and social media. Yesss. Come child. Step out of the shadows and into the light of accessibility. Let the people find you. While our pitch seems to be a little one-sided, making everything all easy peasy for the consumer - which is great and all - don’t underestimate what this can mean for you, the business, on the back end. Oh baby. The back end is where it’s at. Once you have a site and social media pages up and running, your business can pull highly valuable demographic data from them. Who is following and where do they live? This creates incredible marketing opportunities, proving that online is the straight line to growing your business. You can start running ads targeted to your most likely customers. You can share content that you know interests your followers. And the best part? You can interact with them. Your website should have an email signup for people who want to receive newsletters and coupons. Your social media pages should be posting things for your customers to engage with. You can ask important questions and share important news, and your followers can get it without having to pick up a phone or swiping past your page.
There are tons of ways to capitalize on an internet presence for your business today. These are just a few very basic ideas that should convince you to hop on board the online train ASAP if you aren’t already on it. Foot traffic will only go so far these days. Online traffic is where it’s at. Unless you've become a cave-dweller in the last year (which we're totally not blaming you for AT ALL) you're familiar with the rise of the KAREN. If you're not familiar, let us enlighten you. A KAREN is typically a middle-aged woman who enters a retail situation like she's entering the octagon - she's ready to fight and she's got a purse full of coupons to prove it. You have to be careful with KARENS because they're able to smell fear, they're likely to complain about EVERYTHING and they're NOT afraid to get loud or be filmed on social media doing so. As the old adage says, when it comes to KARENS or any unhappy customer really, "The best defense is a good offense." And in insurance OR any field for that matter, a "good offense" is top notch customer service. Here are 10 customer service tips you can use the keep the KARENS at bay in your insurance business: 1. REMEMBER FACES AND NAMES AND THEN SOME This is good business 101. Your customer does NOT want to feel like just another number to you. They want to know that YOU KNOW who they are. This means remembering their names (because they aren't all actually named KAREN), their family names, their pet's names, etc... It means remembering what college football team you were talking about on the last call and where they said they were headed for summer vacation. It means connecting with your customers in a way that they feel you're ACTUALLY connected. 2. ROLL OUT THE WELCOME MAT I look forward to going to my accountant because I know he always has complimentary coffee and snacks in his waiting area. I can bypass the coffee shop on the way because I know he has it there waiting for me. This is a tiny detail that can sooth even the most savage KAREN. Have room in your waiting area for a TV? Pop on some game shows. Maybe some cool, free merchandise? Keep a few branded reusable shopping bags or some beer doozies out. KARENS love free shit. 3. DON'T GHOST AFTER A SALE You know what's going to make a customer believe they're more than an invoice to you? Calling to check in when you're not trying to sell them. It's on thing to turn on the charm when there's a deal to be made, but it's quite another thing to be charming when you have nothing to gain. This is a very small, simple customer service tip that has a huge ROI. KARENS love to know that you're thinking about them 24/7/365. If you're just reaching out to say hello and make sure all's good on the homefront when there's no money on the table, your client will remember that when it comes time to renew. 4. PIMP OUT YOUR COWORKERS Any new customer wants to know that they're going to receive the same level of competence and service regardless of who they're dealing with on your team. Talk your coworkers up. Pimp them out. Talk about what they bring to the table. Everyone from the receptionist to the CEO to cleaning lady AND ESPECIALLY your office manager. KARENS love talking to the manager! If your customers feel like they know and can trust everyone in your office, it's going to bring them in more often. 5. TELL PEOPLE WHAT'S HAPPENING While I don't identify as a KAREN, I can contend that THIS is a detail that gets me every time. Customers love not having to ask questions because you've already given them such clear and concise information regarding their policy or their claim. Insurance is a Q & A landscape. When you're walking a client through something, always take them through the whole process and make sure they know what's happened and what comes next. Feeling informed is a hell of a drug and KARENS love being in the know. 6. MIND YOUR Ps & Qs
Didn't your mother teach you to say Thank You? Then act like it BOI! Whether your client is walking out of your office with a courtesy travel size hand sanitizer, a hat with your agency's name on it or they're receiving a hand written note to tell them you appreciate their business, they're going to know their business matters to you. It's another easy attention to detail that will quench even the thirstiest KAREN. There are tons of creative and fun ways to step up your customer service game. Make the details custom to you, your staff and your business. Make sure everyone who walks through your door is treated like royalty and you're sure to keep some of the KARENS at bay. It's 2020 and everyone and their mother is on social media. We know this because our mothers are constantly embarrassing us by posting political views, weird prayers and spamming our friends with chain letters in via Facebook Messenger. No, not you? Just us? Ok, well, isn't that nice for you.
Anyway, while we can so easily get sucked into the mindless vortex of puppy videos and parenting memes that make social media so enticing, we forget it's a proven fact that platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter can be extremely valuable mediums for businesses. That's IF you're using them right. We've put together a few basic tips to give you a leg up when trying to build an audience and use it to your business's advantage. 1. HAVE A PLAN AND BE CONSISTENT People can tell when you're just taking up space on social media by posting when you have nothing to say. Have a strategy to get your most pertinent and timely information out to your followers. Try to follow a posting schedule but only by sharing truly attention-worthy content. And never underestimate the power of a share. Unless it's your mom sharing a post with a teddy bear hugging a heart. Then you can ignore that one. Other than that, sharing relevant content brings a range of value to your followers and will also help you build your own community of other businesses on the platforms you're using. 2. CHOOSE YOUR WORDS Engagement is based on quality, not quantity. You can post 100 times a day like our moms, but if your posts aren't getting likes, comments or shares because you're missing the mark, you'll lose followers who don't want you clogging up their feed with nonsense. A post that your followers will relate highly to based on your brand will get you AND your followers the most bang for your buck. You're not wasting your time posting nonsense and your followers will be engaging with what you have to say. 3. Q & A CAN SAVE THE DAY Knowing your audience is key and the best way to get to know them is to ask questions. This achieves two very important pieces of the puzzle. By asking questions and getting answers you're gaining vital information about your followers AND driving engagement by having them comment on your posts. This is an excellent and super easy strategy that everyone business should be using. 4. SIZE MATTERS While we don't suggest letting your self-worth hinge on the number of followers you have, you should consider that more followers means more opportunity in general. More followers means more engagement and more engagement means more eyes on your business. And real eyes on your business comes from truly interested followers. Don't fall prey to schemes where you'll gain fake followers because they will ultimately get you nowhere. Creating relevant and meaningful content is the way to gain and keep real followers. 5. KNOW WHO YOU ARE Just like your audience can tell when you have nothing real to say, they can tell when you're not being authentic. That doesn't mean we should all mold into a one-version-fits-all society media presence. It means you have to see what is unique to you and your business when you're creating your content and using your voice. Treat your social media relationships the way you'd treat your in-person client relationships. Authenticity reigns supreme. There's a treasure trove of strategies and skills that can take your social media presence to the next level but these 5 tips are a great way to stay on track if you're starting out from scratch. The most important advice is to stay driven, stay authentic and block your mom if you have to. Many of us close the book on traditional learning once we've received the adequate training or education to become employable in our preferred field. In fact, if we're like some people (NOT NAMING NAMES), we even looked forward to gaining that certificate or that walk down the aisle at college graduation as the END OF STUDYING AND TEST TAKING. Then, once we're settled nicely into our careers we discover that there is always more to discover. And that's a good thing, it's just that some of us may need some coaxing.
At Insurance Soup, we offer Career Agent Concepts to insurance agents looking to learn how to grow their business by learning how to market themselves online, but opportunities like this aren't limited to one field or another. If your profession offers any kind of continuing education (some companies will even *GASP* will pay for you to get it!) you can't pass it up. We know that time, money and patience are REAL short these days, but the pros are far sexier than the cons. Check it out. 1. MO' MONEY We mean, we feel like we don't have to explain why this is the number one reason to go "back to school" and get your extended learn on. The truth is, the more you know, the more you're worth to your employer and/or your clients. It's science. 2. WORK THAT NETWORK You're going to meet other people who do what you do. Plain and simple. It's like a networking free-for-all in a continuing education setting. Whether you're learning online or in an actual classroom environment, get to know the people you're learning with. You're going to have a lot of potentially lucrative things in common. 3. DON'T BE THAT GUY You want to stay on top of what's new, what's available and what's changing in any given field. You don't want to be the door-to-door encyclopedia salesman while people are getting all their information from Google. It's vital to your career that you stay sharp and relevant. Be the guy who's at the top of his game. 4. YOU MIGHT BE SURPRISED Stepping away from what you're used to and into developing trends in your field could lead to a whole new path for you. Technology is changing the face of almost every industry and constantly adding new opportunities, opportunities you may not have discovered without continuing education. 5. BE THE BOSS Gaining new experience is only going to propel you up the ladder if you so choose for it to. Think about it. If you're being proactive in learning more about what's getting done in your industry, more proactive than others in your company, you're showing off in the best possible way. Injecting new skills into your portfolio of abilities is only going to get your farther in your career, or even outside of your career if you like. Whether you're learning new programs, new practices or meeting new people who can propel your career to the next level, you shouldn't deny yourself a chance at advancement on any level. Often times the cost and time spent taking these steps toward advancement may seem like cons, but they can't compare to what you'll gain on the other side. When it comes down to it, it's an investment in your future, and nothing is more valuable than that. Listen, nobody popped out of the womb and naturally started slaying sales. Ok, MAYBE Big Tom Callahan of Callahan Auto Parts from Sandusky Ohio. Maybe. I mean, He was rumored to be able to sell "a ketchup popsicle to a woman wearing white gloves", but let's be honest, brake pads and insurance are two different beasts and none of us are Brian Dennehy. Simply put, even the best personality will only get you so far. You can't rely on it since some people are sold in different ways. If you want to be a top-notch salesperson, it takes time and practice. We've put together 7 easy hacks for keeping your sales skills sharp and your deals closing on the reg. 1. PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT Like, DUH. We know this is pretty standard. We've been told this since we were whiffing at the ball on the tee at tee ball. It's standard, but here's the question - ARE YOU DOING IT? Probably not. You're likely to rehearse your pitches in your head and go over them at your desk, but if you want to land the big role, you need to bring your most polished presentation to the audition. Set aside time to do a live practice session before each pitch. Every client is different and you'll want to make sure you're appealing to each person in a new way. 2. MIRROR, MIRROR... Yes, we know it's weird. Standing in front of a mirror and talking to yourself feels a little Hannibal Lecter-y, but it can make you a more self-aware salesperson. Watching yourself do your own live sales pitch can clue you into facial expressions, body language and even parts of your script that could be adjusted to make your pitch stronger overall. You're seeing what your clients are seeing and that doesn't ever hurt. 3. KNOW YOUR ENEMIES Ok, enemies is dramatic. Know your COMPETITION. Get eyes on the people around you who are out there TRYING to do what you do. How are they doing it? Who are they selling to and why are they getting that business instead of you? This is invaluable information that could transform your sales strategy. It's not to be ignored. 4. WHO IS WINNING AT SELLING It's vital to be yourself when selling. People want to deal with an authentic partner, they don't want to feel like they're being sold. So, just like you'd follow your favorite pro-athletes who are excelling in the sports work, you should follow people who are excelling at selling in general. Whether you're selling pet food or real estate, there are people out there sharing BASIC tools to help you close deal. Find them. Learn from them. 5. EXAMINEYOUR LOSSES It's easy to walk off the field with your head hanging in defeat. What's not easy is going over a NO you've just received, but you can learn a lot from it. If you lost business, you need to know why. If you couldn't close a deal, you need to know what kept you from closing it. There could be some things you couldn't have predicted or changed, but there could be key elements that you can. Go over your NOs and see if you can change them to YESses. 6. PERFORM FOR ALL AUDIENCES You're going to have a call in a few favors for this one, but if you can find a few friends who'll sit through your presentation and offer you their thoughts, DO IT. And don't just present to people who know what you're talking about, people in your industry. Run through your schpeel at Thanksgiving dinner or on the sidelines of your kid's soccer game and see what the feedback is. Every person you present to is going to bring different, valuable feedback to the table. 7. BE THE STAR If everyone else on earth is an Instagram star today, you can be the star of your own sales show. That's right, get yourself on "tape". This is different than standing in front of a mirror and practicing. You're able to see in hindsight what you won't see during a live presentation. You can measure things like how you respond to client questions and what your overall demeanor is. We know it's awkward, but people on Tik Tok are doing way weirder shit. Listen, the only good things that come easy are fast food cheeseburgers, everything else you really want, you need to work for. And work hard for. These are small, easy things that you can be doing to fine tune your sales skills even if you aren't Big Tom Callahan. And if your main goal is to always be closing, be open to doing whatever you can to help achieve that goal.
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