To serve your clients more effectively, grow your business, and match your competitors, you need the most effective website. Whether you’re planning a new site, reviewing an existing one, or developing an Internet-based marketing strategy, I’d recommend these guidelines:

Improved communication has turned us into less adroit communicators. With e-mail, voice-mail, and cell phones, getting the message to another party is so easy that we no longer worry about the content of the message. Poor communications skills translate into lost business. This article by John Graham discusses these consequences and offers guidelines for improving communications.

John R. Graham is president of Graham Communications, a marketing services and sales consulting firm. Mr. Graham is the author of The New Magnet Marketing and of 203 Ways to Be Supremely Successful in the New World of Selling. He can be contacted at 40 Oval Rd., Quincy, MA 02170, (617) 328-0069, fax (617) 471-1504, e-mail [email protected], or visit www.grahamcomm.com.

'We don't want to be all things to all people,' says one agency manager, 'so we want to identify a niche for Life insurance agents to master. Do you have any suggestions?'

In 1976, 12 insurance executives spent a day trying to pinpoint the reasons for their success. Their large insurance agency had doubled in size over the last three years. The company's employees had worked hard to achieve a high rate of referrals and were aggressive in their roles as producers. But what factors led to their astonishing success? How did they attract a client? And most of all, what made each client buy and renew year after year?

I recently read four news items that relate to how consumers perceive Life insurance:
Insurance companies are “horrible” at getting people to understand what they’re talking about.
Surveys show that insurers are at, or near, the bottom of simplicity ratings.
More than 60% of people who own Life insurance have no idea what they own or how it works; and 29% said that although they need more insurance, no one has asked them about it.
More than one in four (26%) of Americans prefer to buy Life insurance through the internet, mail, or over the phone.

Cross-marketing between banks and insurance agencies remains largely virgin territory. Most of the potential has not even been charted, let alone mined.
In working with banks as partners, owners, or co-venturers, insurance principals should recognize the pros and cons of the affiliation to neutralize the negatives and build on the positives.

The book of Life/benefits business springing from your P/C business can be as valuable as, or even more valuable than, your P/C book. For this reason alone, identifying who owns that book under all conditions is important.
Two parties might challenge your ownership: Life producers and Life carriers.

If you offer a policy review, your agency must be prepared to handle responses. The first 10 seconds of a phone call may be crucial in forming the caller's impression of your professionalism. Depending on the agency's system for routing incoming calls, we advise that Life calls be handled by Life staff. In emergency situations, enough information should be obtained on the first call to enable the Life producer to reach the caller again, even if communications are difficult; don't lose the caller!

This is a tale of three agents and what all agents should know about what could be a booming market. The story carries a challenge and a test to see what you would do in a not-too-rare scenario. After all, you might be just like one of these agents.