Selling

Sometimes I think that the best thing that could happen would be for someone to take away the computer printer. Why? Because, every time I send an E-mail out to a large group, a third of the group will print the message even before reading it, a third will read it and then print it, and only the last third will simply read and delete it.

In the next few years, you'll probably be devoting more time and resources to Life and Health insurance products - that is, if you're at all like the estimated 2,000 independent agents who participated in the "Future One Agency Universe Study."

The study shows that independent agents are increasingly aware of the need to be full-service insurance providers. Agents who have traditionally focused on Property/Casualty insurance see the need to expand more aggressively into Life and other types of insurance products. In fact, slightly more than half the agencies surveyed said that over the next three years, they'll devote a higher proportion of agency resources to Life and Health products.

All producers know that overcoming objections is part of the selling process. However, many forget that making objections is just as intrinsic to the buying process.

To identify the root causes of objections, producers should put themselves into the buyer's shoes. You also buy in your personal life, so use your own experiences to sharpen your expertise.

Though faced with the realities of dramatic economic change, the reconfiguration of the business landscape, and globalization, U.S. companies continue to go down the wrong path. Former U.S. Treasury Department official Michael Jacobs calls it "business myopia."

It may be argued that "enhancing shareholder value" drives the myopic vision of publicly-traded companies, but "shareholder demand" is perhaps more accurate. In privately held companies, myopic thinking results from a desire to increase market share or simply beat last month's figures.

An organized service contact program can build client relationships, ensure accurate protection for clients, and facilitate...

This article discusses whether print/journal marketing and advertising is still effective to the insurance industry.

Most insurance agencies would like to be driven by a regular flow of new business from their producer force. However, most agencies find that their producers (owners or not) spend most of their time caring for existing customers, with production relegated to a secondary position. They only have time to prospect and sell when they can break away from service tasks.

However, the producers feel that they should be making more money, whether for non-sales tasks they perform for the agency, for servicing existing customers, or from sales to new customers. Unfortunately, if an agency isn’t growing through the efforts of its producers, it has little additional income available to further compensate these key employees.

To grow your referral business, follow these 10 steps by Bill Cates.

A few days ago, I received a call from one of our Referral Boot Camp graduates, Greg, who was experimenting with Referral Events and not having the success he’d hoped for. Although many clients attended his events, they didn’t always bring a guest for him to meet — even though it was requested on the invitation. Greg didn’t feel that he could turn down his clients’ desire to attend his events, even though they didn’t have a guest to bring.

First, I'll give you the bases to cover and then I'll give you a sample conversation (script) to show you how you can touch on all the bases. Don't worry too much about the words I use. If you like a turn of phrase, then, by all means, use it while also making this approach genuine by using your own words.