Maximize The Cross-Line Selling Opportunity In Your Agency

Maximizing the cross-line selling opportunity in your agency can generate thousands of dollars in new business premiums and commissions. Harlan Warthen’s approach to generating quality leads is simple, time efficient, cost effective, and will produce results in a matter of days.

THE NEED FOR CHANGE
As an independent insurance agent, you need to change the way you do business. In fact, your survival might well depend on the course of action you take.

Thirty years ago, the level of technology in the insurance business amounted to a 3x5 account record card, rate pages, and a pocket calculator. Today, the rate of change seems to increase geometrically every year.

Unfortunately, this rapid level of change has trapped you in a defensive position. When you open the door to your office in the morning, the phone will ring and you’ll react to the onslaught that will soon follow. Throughout the day, you’ll continue to respond to one situation after another. By the close of business, you’ll have once again run out of time to go on the offensive, to be proactive, and generate new business sales.

The insurance industry has changed both internally and externally. We’ve learned to adapt to internal changes and meet the demands of ever-changing technology. This adaptation has come at a price: A significantly higher cost of doing business that has reduced profit margins. Coverage is harder to place. Markets have dried up and been eliminated. Despite these shifts, most independent agents have adjusted successfully to the challenges of internal change.

Unfortunately, relatively few agents have dealt as effectively with the external challenges they face. Their pre-occupation with internal change has allowed too many agents to lose their focus on the demands and needs of their clients.

Although agents have done remarkably well capitalizing on every lead that called in, walked in, or fell into the office, this “marketing” approach has run its course. Clients today are dramatically different than those on whom we built our books of business. These clients are far better informed, more demanding, and much more aware of the different types of insurance products available. A number of studies have shown that they prefer to deal with one agent who can provide professional advice and recommendations to meet all of their insurance needs, including Life and Financial Services. These clients want to do business on their own terms; they’re in the driver’s seat and will most likely stay there. The challenge we face is to meet and exceed their expectations. Not wanting to “rock the boat” can no longer be an excuse for failing to offer today’s clients with additional products and services.

It isn’t “if” your client will buy from someone else, it’s “when”!

We need to redefine “customer service.” Too many agents believe that they’re providing a high level of customer service by answering the phone, responding to billing questions, and taking claim reports. In today’s market, quality customer service goes much farther than that. Clients prefer to do business with an insurance professional who can assume the role of an advisor. A significant part of that role is to identify the needs of the client and provide coverage solutions. This is the essence of cross-line selling in today’s environment.

In one recent study, 70% of client households who own one or more policies were not aware of all the products and services that their primary P/C agent offered. The study also found that 50% of these households would consider purchasing additional policies from their existing agent.

From a Life and Financial Services perspective, the picture doesn’t get any better. Insurance industry studies have proven that 15% of client households will buy some form of Life insurance (including Financial Services) during the next 12 months. At this annualized rate, within the next seven years 100% of your client base will purchase these same products from someone — whether or not it’s you.

Another study found that the average client household owns seven policies — while the average agent has written less then two policies per household. If we’re doing such a great job of meeting the needs of our clients, why has someone else written the other five policies?

Let’s not forget that once another agent has penetrated a client’s portfolio, the door is wide open for the loss of additional business. Unless you fight off this attack, it will undermine your entire client base. It’s only a matter of time, unless you decide to do something about it.

THE SOLUTION
Establishing an effective and profitable method of cross-line selling, including the sale of Life and Financial Services, offers three major advantages: (1) Eliminating the danger that your clients will go elsewhere; (2) increasing your revenue dramatically; and (3) enabling you to meet and exceed the expectations of your clients for years to come.

A well-designed internal lead process offers these benefits:

• All leads are warm referrals. The client has already expressed interest in one or more products that you offer.
• The number of leads that will be generated is almost limitless.
• Cross-selling will improve the quality, retention, and profitability of your book of business.

A SIMPLE PROCESS
To maximize cross selling your existing clients effectively, you need a basic process that can be repeated every day. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel or implement a new marketing program to generate a high volume of quality leads from your current book. Taking advantage of existing interaction with your clients can, and should, be simple, time efficient, cost effective, and produce results quickly.

The key to maximizing the cross-line potential in your book of business lies in designing and developing a basic internal lead generation process to which everyone in the agency is committed.

One of the major reasons why we fail to meet the challenge of change is that we bite off more than we can chew. To change the way you do business, you need a process that you can live with and repeat over and over again in exactly the same way. This process can’t be too complicated or have too many variables that need to be choreographed. Everyone in your agency should be able to use this process successfully in the same way each and every day.

PROCESS DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT
The time and energy you spend on designing and developing a workable process to generate quality internal leads will generate a staggering return on your investment. The steps in the design process are relatively simple.

1. Set inputs (goals).
2. Identify each step in the process.
3. Identify potential obstacles.
4. Identify ways to overcome these obstacles.
5. Get input from everyone who will be involved in the process.
6. Implement the process.
7. Adjust the process as needed.
8. Track and measure output.
9. Achieve output (goals).

Don’t be afraid to challenge yourself and your agency. The results will amaze you!