Close rates are seldom consistent, as practically any seasoned agency owner will tell you. They can fluctuate from week to week or month to month, and they are nearly always unique from one marketing source to the next, not to mention producer to producer. As a result, concentrating too much on maintaining the same close rate week after week is a losing proposition.
When it comes to comparing lead sources, for example, close rates are rarely 100 percent consistent. You can see internet leads close at 11% one month and then at 8% the next. The quality of the lead sources, the number of various lead vendors you’re working with, how consistent producers are working each lead, how tenured the producers are, seasonality/the time of year you’re reaching out to customers, and so on are all factors that could be causing this reduction. As a result, it’s critical to consider your closing rates in a broader perspective rather than taking them at face value or treating them as your agency’s primary statistic.
It allows your agency to better discover any potential weak points in your processes or employees by keeping vendors who give a consistent close rate (which may not necessarily be the highest close rate out of your vendor mix). By excluding a consistently performing vendor/lead source as the source of the problem, you may more readily determine if the issue is connected to your follow-up procedure, the performance of a single team member, your training, or anything else. As a result, your agency will be able to implement a scalable system that enforces accountability. You and your team run the danger of losing momentum and producing bad results if you don’t do this.
Don’t switch vendors too frequently.
In order to get the maximum close rate, some agents fall into the trap of switching providers on a monthly basis. What’s the big issue here? You lose consistency when you swap quickly.
Consider starting a new vendor relationship in the same way you would a new training routine: It hurts at first, but the more you do it, the more your muscles adjust, and you’ll notice benefits sooner rather than later. You must also allow time for your vendor relationships to create data that supports your decision to stay with them or move on. I recommend waiting at least 6 months before switching.
Furthermore, switching providers frequently puts your workforce at danger of being burned out. Whether your close rate is 10% or 5%, it’s critical to establish a relationship with your vendors that generates constant, predictable quality. You may establish follow-up processes that your entire team understands if you know what to expect. Switching vendors regularly makes it difficult for your team to establish a lead-generation routine, and you run the danger of depleting your producers. The highest closing rate is less significant than consistency over time.
Let’s imagine it takes your team 10 follow-up activities (on average) to write a lead in a month. The next month, they claim to be able to generate a new lead with only five follow-ups. The following month, however, the number of follow-up activities increases to 15. In this case, the team will be unable to establish a consistent approach because it will be halfway through the month by the time they notice the five follow-ups aren’t working. With a steady closure rate (even if it isn’t the highest among your suppliers), they may dig down into how many activities are genuinely required to write a lead (on average), and then plan their daily routine around those activities.
Do have consistent follow-up processes.
We can email, text, and phone our leads at my workplace. We have a consistent process templated for each of these interactions with each and every person who walks through the doorand these processes don’t change very often (remember, it’s all about consistent vendors and consistent processes). It is a basic expectation that I establish and maintain regular follow-up practices since they provide predictable results for my team and my agency’s bottom line. My producers can hit commissions and justify their seats in my office if they follow them.
A robust insurance sales process is the key to successdoes yours measure up? Get our proven follow-up template here:
Whatever system you employ in your agency should be trackable and expandable. This offer includes various examples of how your follow-up processes and systems might appear.
In the end, I’d like an answer no matter what. That’s rightit makes no difference what the answer is because buying and contacting internet leads is a volume game. You’ll be more successful the more you do it; you won’t be successful unless you have a constant and consistent procedure.
How To Increase Insurance Sales With Buttoned-up Processes
- Ensure that all tasks are consistent for your producers so that you know how many people you spoke with each day while you’re filtering out prospects.
- Use various follow-ups for leads you’ve spoken with versus those you haven’t.
- Allow the lead to direct the follow-up processthere is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all solution!
- Organize your systems to make them more organized and filterable. Use similar subject lines (i.e. Day 1 / Day 2 / Day 5) to help you filter for the steps you’re on and go through them more quickly and easily. Work on all of the “Day 1” leads at once, then go on to the next group. After interacting with prospects, use symbols to help your team realize the closing opportunity presented by each lead. Because everyone is following the same procedures, you and your team will save time and become more efficient (even if the specific approaches are different).
Because your leads will accumulate over time, follow-up tasks and methods are critical for producers. You won’t know who is ready to close, where leads are in the buying journey, or how your producers are performing if your agency doesn’t have a system in place to run every day.
Do practice double-dialing.
Don’t be scared to use a strong cadence. Working with leads in the appropriate way can have a significant impact on your agency’s success. Get the information on this strategy here. There are four simple, proven actions that will help you clinch a deal and increase your lead revenue by up to 128 percent.
Don’t stop dialing just because you can’t reach someone on a set day.
You’ll never know why someone responds (or doesn’t!) a phone call; things vary from day to day. You also have no way of knowing if someone answered your call because they saw you tried to call them the day prior (or they saw your text or email). Just because someone doesn’t answer your early calls doesn’t imply those calls aren’t having an impact on whether or not that lead will answer your next call. Make sure your sales procedure is extensive and lasts several days to cover all of your bases. (eight weeks) Check out A Winning Insurance Sales Conversation Process in 8 Steps for more information on when and how to call leads.
Don’t ask people if it’s “a good time when you get them on the line.
Why? Because there’s never a good time (if they couldn’t speak, they wouldn’t have answered you). Assume the sale instead! Assume that the person on the other end of the line wants to speak with you and understands what you want them to do. Tell them what you already have and ask them the questions you need to know in order to confirm quote rates.
You’re showing folks what you already knowthat you’re not some random caller asking them to waste time answering questions they’ve already answeredby making these assumptions and taking measures to validate the knowledge you have. You’re a professional who’s here to help them get auto insurance quickly and easily.
Don’t ask questions you can find the answers to yourself.
As a follow-up to the preceding advice, don’t waste time or annoy leads by asking irrelevant or easy-to-verify questions like where they reside or what car they currently drive. In other words, rather than asking, verify. So, instead of asking for the address, check it ( “Are you still residing at 123 ABC Ln in ABC CITY?). Instead of asking the automobiles, make a list of them ( “Are you driving a 2018 Honda Civic? Great! Any additional vehicles you’d like to include in this quote? ), and so on.
Do provide information they can verify to show you’re legitimate.
It’s possible that people will forget they filled out a form. Instead of rehashing the form information, provide them the information you’ve gathered and ask them to validate it. This establishes your credibility.
Don’t stop once a producer’s initial follow-up is done.
Once they’ve completed the short-term follow-up, most producers (and agencies) are done with new business leads. This is a tremendous blunder! A third of the sales at my agency come from people we’ve X-dated.
The importance of long-term follow-ups cannot be overstated. With anyone who wasn’t initially interested or recently closed a new policy with a rival, I require a six-month follow-up. After six months, the lead has had an opportunity to assess how their policy works (or doesn’t) and may be on the lookout for a more valuable agent. You can close more business from leads you purchased months ago if you make sure you circle back to them. Keep in mind that different lead sellers have varying terms and conditions when it comes to how long you can follow up after obtaining a lead. Many vendor terms and conditions limit outreach to a 90-day window, with others being considerably shorter.
Bonus Tip: Choose leads you can count on.
Purchasing high-quality leads from EverQuote to fill your pipelines is one of the most critical strategies to enhance your auto insurance sales. Because our leads have demonstrated an interest in purchasing insurance, it’s more likely that agents will have the opportunity to speak with them and possibly seal a transaction. They have a high closure rate of around ten percent. Finally, these leads are scalable, which means you can increase the number as your pipelines grow.
How can I increase my car insurance sales?
The insurance sector will continue to evolve. However, by combining old and contemporary sales approaches, you’ll be able to maintain completing deals and providing your consumers with exactly what they want.
Keep in mind that insurance is a relationship-based industry. You must earn your prospects’ trust before they will consider buying from you, which is why listening to them and guiding them with sound counsel is so important to closing purchases.
To adapt to the digital world of insurance sales, you’ll also need to improve your virtual selling talents.
You’ll be able to meet the shifting wants of your clients using these techniques.
However, you’ll need an agile system for monitoring and reporting your outcomes in order to organize and analyze them.
How do I become a productive insurance agent?
A successful insurance agency relies on productive agents who put in the necessary effort.
- Consider what you can do to help your team’s emotional and physical wellbeing.
- Simple habits like as the two-minute rule, intentional meetings, and having a tidy desk should be encouraged.
You are the coach as the owner of an agency! Your group looks to you for direction and leadership. I genuinely hope this has given you some ideas on how you might improve your agents’ performance and increase your company’s efficiency.
How do I succeed in insurance?
That is why I developed this tool. Visit this site to identify an agency that is a role model for others in order to help new insurance salespeople succeed and urge employing agents to consider young and inexperienced applicants.
Please forward this information to any young insurance salespeople you know. And if you’re one of them, here’s what you should do:
To be an untrained yet extremely successful insurance salesperson, follow these 21 tips:
How good do car salesmen get leads?
While dealership websites’ searchability is important, converting potential consumers into ready-to-buy shoppers necessitates more than a good Google rating.
The importance of vehicle purchasers visiting dealership websites and engaging with online material in order to generate actionable car sales leads cannot be overstated.
Car dealers may be able to prod visitors towards initiating the sales process online by posting a clear call to action on the homepage (and every other web page, for that matter).
You can also generate fresh leads using digital channels, such as live chat, contact forms, and personalized accounts. Your website is a great place to learn about your customers. Even if a potential buyer abandons their submission form, your dealership can still obtain vital consumer information that can be used in a larger lead generation plan. A vehicle salesperson, for example, could use this information to call or send targeted emails to customers.
Of course, website optimization is important for online conversions; according to CBT, a website that takes more than 10 seconds to load will have a 123 percent higher bounce rate.
A single pleasant experience can lead to dozens of potential sales leads, thus happy customers are frequently the best marketing resources for any retail organization. Around 92 percent of individuals trust recommendations from friends and family over other sorts of promotion, according to Neilsen study. This not only highlights the need of responsive customer service, but it also provides auto dealers with a simple approach to organically expand their client base.
The development of social media has only increased the necessity for online connection building while also making client outreach much more convenient. Auto dealers may (and should) use social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram to promote their vehicle inventory, special offers, and events. You should also encourage automobile buyers to discuss their experiences with potential customers online, since this can help create trust and credibility.
What is the best marketing strategy?
Marketing objectives vary not only from company to company, but also month to month and even day to day, depending on the type of firm you run. For example, you wouldn’t utilize the same marketing strategy to establish brand recognition as you would to drive a last-minute inventory push.
We’ve put together a fast guide to help you find out which marketing approach is best for your small business. It connects the most frequent small marketing goals with the most effective tactics for achieving them. Here are some examples of business marketing objectives, as well as the most effective marketing tactics for achieving them.
Marketing goals: Create an online presence, build brand awareness
SEO, or search engine marketing, is at the top of the list of efficient marketing techniques for small businesses since it serves as the foundation for all of your other online marketing efforts. Online searches have become so common that over 90% of customers use them to find the businesses and items they require. You develop an online presence for your small business and make it simpler for clients to find you in online searches when you adopt an effective SEO marketing strategy and update your website with the newest trending keywords and mobile search phrases.
Marketing goals: Drive website traffic, generate leads, gain greater online visibility
If you’re seeking for the most effective small business marketing plan, content marketing is the winner. Content marketing includes blogs, videos, social media postings, podcasts, webinars, and more basically, any sort of online content.
While there are so many great marketing concepts that it’s impossible to include them all here, establishing a high-quality blog is perhaps the most common approach to get started with content marketing.
Marketing goals: Generate leads or sales in a hurry, quickly raise your profile
PPC / Paid search and paid social marketing are the most effective marketing techniques.
If you need to create leads quickly, PPC (pay per click) ads are the most effective technique to accomplish your goal. Customers will see your information when they are searching for the products or services your small business provides when they see PPC adverts. Paid social ads on Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks provide incredible targeting options, making this a highly effective marketing technique for small businesses. Paid search ads (Google Ads, Bing Ads, and so on) combined with paid social ads produce the best results.
Marketing goals: Build engagement, form relationship with customers
Small businesses can use social marketing to connect with customers and establish engagement in a natural, non-intrusive way. Focusing your efforts on two or three social networks that are popular with your clients and sending out regular postings multiple times each day will be the most effective marketing plan for your small business.
Marketing goals: Stay in touch with past and current customers
Email marketing is a cost-effective and efficient approach for your small business to communicate with clients. Segment your subscriber lists by demographics and send out two or three versions of each email, each suited to your consumers’ interests, to make your email marketing methods as effective as possible.
Why do insurance agents quit?
The majority of agents leave because they are unable to make enough money to sustain themselves and their families. The only way to fix this is to learn how to generate more and better leads, as well as how to follow up on them. People use the internet to conduct fact-checking missions. They are unconcerned with who answers their questions as long as they receive responses.
What type of insurance agent makes the most money?
A Quick Overview of the Insurance Industry While there are various types of insurance (ranging from vehicle insurance to health insurance), selling life insurance is the most lucrative business in the industry.