How To Turn 1,500 Insurance Prospects You Already Have Into Clients

"I have 200 clients and 1,500 prospects." This was said to me by a financial advisor recently - one who understood what it's all about! I suppose it depends on your definition of a client, but to me it's one who pays a large annual premium and generates referrals.

So the philosophy is that there are 200 "clients" who are segmented into A and B based on value. These are talked to and mailed regularly, as any client should be. Then there is the need to add new (high value) clients, which he does by using a range of sources. These are (in no particular order):
- Referrals from existing high value clients (he never asks a low value client for a referral)
- Centres of influence, notably a lawyer, a mortgage broker and a real estate agent
- His own list of 1,500 semi-qualified prospects

It's this last source that is the most interesting. Where did he get the list? Some advisers may choose to call them "clients" as they are all his C clients. Let's face it, they aren't really clients; they are simply a list of semi-qualified people (semi-qualified in that he knows their name, contact details, age and a single low value product they may have purchased many years before).

In many cases he hasn't talked to them in over 5 years or in some cases over a decade. You must treat them as prospects just like any other first time contact.

Don't believe me? Think of it this way - suppose you buy a client base from someone else. You go about contacting them methodically, with a script aimed at introducing yourself and getting an appointment to address a particular issue or opportunity. Almost always you can do better with that prospect than the selling advisor, as it's a new voice with a new message and new approach.

So if you can do it with a so-called 'client' from someone else's base, why can't you do the same thing with your own (client) prospect list? After all, you have no doubt changed your approach in the last 3-5 years and now have a lot more to offer.

The most frequent question I get asked is "how do I get more clients?" when the asking adviser has 1,500+ on their books already. They then follow this with "I've done my own base to death; there's no more potential in them." Really?

And it all starts with contact. Put them on your high frequency (monthly) newsletter list for a few months and then start to phone them. The three or four newsletters sent first will reintroduce you to them and restart the relationship. This works better than almost all other prospecting techniques.

Paul Watkins has helped financial advisors grow their businesses for nearly two decades. The secret to growth is not a single silver bullet but appreciating that the best techniques are simple, small, inexpensive activities that can mostly be put on auto-pilot. Paul has more details on his web site http://financialadvisormarketingtips.com

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How A Bank Took Over The Relationship From My Financial Advisor

I had a call from my 'personal banker' Steve a few yeas ago. He said: "Can I practice a new sales approach on you please?" "Sure, why not", I said. "I've just been through a financial planning course and we were told to phone a couple of friendly clients or mates to practice a new type of approach on."

"Can I start by asking what your short-term financial goals are? What I mean is do you anticipate making any large purchases in the next 2 to 3 years such as a new house or car or overseas holiday?"

"Yes," I said in surprise at the question. "I intend buying a new car early next year and taking an overseas holiday later in the same year." "Great," came the response.

"Now can I ask you what your 10-year goals would be? Is there any one significant change that may occur such as kids going to University, you going into a business venture or changing houses?" "Yes, I suppose 10 years from now we might look to change houses."

"Now, can I ask you how much longer you will probably be actively earning before you retire?" I was impressed with this new approach and replied: "I imagine that I'll be working for about another 20 years."

"So in summary, you will be buying a new car and going overseas next year, changing houses in about 10 years and want to retire in about 20. Do you have a written plan as to how you would achieve these at all?" "No" I said, very curious as to what he would say next.

"I would be keen to make a time to sit down with you and your wife to work though a plan so that you can achieve these things. Your mortgage is with us, so we have a recent snapshot of your financial position as a starting point. What is a good time for you both?"

I was in stunned silence at this point, not knowing if he had really been 'practicing' on me or if this was a genuine sales pitch. After a second or two, he said, "are you still there?" "Yeah, sure, sorry, I was just thinking."

"Well Paul, do you think that this approach would work with many clients?" As I put the phone down, I could only be impressed with this most un-bank-like sales approach to my money. The point that struck me most was when he said "Your mortgage is with us, so we have a recent snapshot of your financial position." This puts the bank in a very strong position to extend its reach into the financial lives of its clients.

It clearly reinforces the need for you to have a strong client contact management plan to ensure that this approach will NOT work with the bank's clients. The rules have changed. Quarterly newsletters won't cut it anymore. Contact must now be monthly. NOTE: If that was only a practice run for young Steve, what is he going to be like in a few months after he gains a bit of confidence?

Paul Watkins has helped financial advisors grow their businesses for nearly two decades. The secret to growth is not a single silver bullet but appreciating that the best techniques are simple, small, inexpensive activities that can mostly be put on auto-pilot. Paul has more details on his web site http://www.financialadvisormarketingtips.com

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The Four Fundamentals of Starting an Insurance Agency

Striking out on your own as an independent insurance agent can be a fulfilling, exciting and lucrative experience.

Insurance is a relationship business. There's satisfaction in protecting individuals, families and businesses from some of life's calamities. Insurance sales can also be lucrative. By recruiting associate agents, you build residual wealth while offering income opportunities to others. And the freedom and flexibility as are unparalleled.

As with any commission-based business, you must get your agency off the ground quickly. Following are four fundamental steps that will give your insurance agency a strong start:

Obtain the Necessary Licenses (if new to the business)

• Books, online courses and training professionals can help you prep for your state's insurance exam.
• Separate exams are required for life and health and for property and casualty.
• Uniform licensing standards and reciprocal licensing between states are becoming more common, allowing you to get licensed in more than one state fairly easily.

Part Ways Gracefully with Your Existing MGA or Captive Agency (if already in the business)

• Determine whether your agreement included a non-compete clause. (An employment law attorney can advise you on whether it is actually binding. Many times, such clauses are not.)
• Find out whether you own, and can take with you, any portion of your book of business. If so, this becomes a good foundation for your own agency.

Set Up Your Own Agency Business

• Decide on an official business structure (corporation or LLC) and file the appropriate paperwork with your state.
• Find an accountant to help you with commission breakouts and other bookkeeping aspects of your business.

Select the Right Master General Agency (MGA)

MGAs provide administrative, marketing and sales assistance to hundreds, sometimes thousands, of independent agents. A good MGA can help you grow your businesses faster. That's because they provide access to large, well-known insurance companies and top commission rates.

Be selective about who you partner with. A quality MGA should offer you:

• Broad product portfolio, with multiple insurance lines to meet your clients' personal and commercial needs.
• Contingency bonuses, paid to the MGA by carriers for producing large volumes of business. Not all MGAs share these bonuses. Confirm the MGA's willingness to split contingency bonuses with you, or find someone else who will.
• "Same team" philosophy-The MGA should not allow agents within the same geographic area to compete against each other. Your fellow agents should feel like teammates.
• Carrier appointment paperwork-With some applications running 40 pages in length, your MGA should handle this cumbersome paperwork on your behalf.
• Marketing support/digital and traditional-Leading MGAs provide turnkey systems for both traditional marketing and digital marketing (e.g., e-marketing, social media, website development, SEO and pay-per-click campaigns).
• Business coaching-MGAs have a wealth of industry expertise, and they should be willing to share that with you. They can help you avoid start-up pitfalls and maximize your income.
• Fully integrated technology-The best MGAs have invested in agency management systems that make you more productive. Their system should include a comparative rater for quoting multiple carriers, e-mail marketing system, lead generator, online training and more.

With the level of automation and support available today, there's never been a better time to be an independent insurance agent.

About the Author: Pamela McCann is partner and chief operations officer of Alliance Insurance Group, an independent insurance agency based in Golden, CO. Her current responsibilities include streamlining Alliance's insurance agency management systems. She also spearheads Alliance's Master General Agency initiative, recruiting independent agents who are interested in starting an insurance agency. Throughout her 30-year career, McCann has held a variety of corporate financial roles, ranging from chief financial information officer to controller. In those roles, she was responsible for negotiating business insurance and employee benefits. She is a licensed producer in the state of Colorado.

Pamela McCann
Chief Operations Officer
Alliance Insurance Group
http://www.allinsgrp.com

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Secure The Insurance Sale With Pictures

What do you take to client interviews? What do you present when discussing the client's needs, the concept and the products? Using visual aids will make your job a whole lot easier. Consider the following US research on the subject:

If you use visual aids, prospects are 43% more likely to be persuaded; prospects will be willing to pay 26% more for the same product or service (this helps overcome cheaper competitor products); learning is improved by up to 200% (important, since your products are not easily understood by most clients); retention is improved up to 38% and the time it takes to explain complex topics is reduced by up to 40% (it has to be worth the effort for this one alone)

The bottom line here is to make everything as visual as possible. Think through each step of the sales process, from the initial prospecting letter, to the client interview, to follow-ups to on-going client relationships. What visual elements are you including at each step? Below are a few ideas:

Contact by post: Postcards have impact due to being heavy on pictures and light on text. Make the opening line in your letters very large (over 24 pt) to act as a visual element. Include drawings or cartoons if appropriate.

Newsletters: Newsletters should include pictures, graphs and charts. Cartoons work well.

The presentation: Use a structured presentation that takes the client through a series of fill-the-gaps pages in a booklet. Use charts and graphs. Blow them up to A3 or even larger when you present them.

'Word pictures' such as case studies in newsletters work well, because they build up a picture in the mind of the client. Successful use of analogies achieves the same impact.

Some advisors take this one step further, with graphic illustrations of getting the client from where they are now to where they want to be in the future. This just takes a little imagination. Some that are currently being used are pictures of ladders, a ship charting a course, road maps with milestones, climbing financial mountains and racetracks (retirement being the finish line).

You will have been to many motivational sessions where a very important message is to "visualize your dreams." The same applies to your clients. If they can visualize their financial lives or goals, they will relate to the relevance of the products far easier.

The key message in all of this - instead of saying to your clients: "I'll put that in writing for you," say: "Let me draw you a picture."

Paul Watkins has helped financial advisors grow their businesses for nearly two decades. The secret to growth is not a single silver bullet but appreciating that the best techniques are simple, small, inexpensive activities that can mostly be put on auto-pilot. Paul has more details on his web site http://www.financialadvisormarketingtips.com

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Six Common Mistakes Financial Advisors Make That Can Lose The Sale

So you have the prospect or existing client in front of you. It has cost a lot of time and money to get this far, so don't blow it! These are a few of the most common mistakes sales people make at the sales interview.

First, you talk too much! How can you sell something if you don't know what the client's needs are? This can only come from listening - not talking. As the saying goes, you have two ears and one mouth so listen twice as much as talking. As an idea, try taping the next conversation and analyzing the resulting interview. You may be amazed at the result.

Second, avoiding the beginning of the sale. Many start a conversation by picking up on a point made the last time, such as a personal or family event. This is important in the relationship building aspects of the sales approach. But this then carries on and the salesperson can't think of an effective way to start the sales presentation - so either doesn't or goes through it really quickly as all the time has been used up!

If you have an hour, give yourself 10 minutes for pleasantries and have a pre-rehearsed linking technique to start the sales pitch.

Third, working without a script. 'I'll wing it' is a common salesperson expression that often leads the interview nowhere and doesn't end up achieving a sale. If you are guilty of this, try using your laptop or tablet with a PowerPoint presentation on it. This will still allow for lots of ad-libbing, but ensure that all main points are covered.

The action of committing the presentation to PowerPoint (even if you don't use it) is an excellent way of gaining an understanding of the selling pitch structure and highlighting the key points to discuss.

Fourth is not having a 'Maybe Strategy'. If you can leave the interview with an open door for the next time, such as a "Can I think about it?" you must have a predetermined strategy already in place to secure the sale. Many prospects genuinely want time to think it over as it could be many thousands a year in premiums. This strategy is the subject of a separate article, but it involves immediate contact and then being put on a high frequency contact plan.

Fifth is become a free consultant. Many first interviews end with "don't make your mind up until you see what I can come up with". The next step is to present a proposal with a full financial or insurance plan. If no form of commitment has been gained at the first interview, you are simply a free consultant, as there is no guarantee of the second interview resulting in a commitment to you. But you have now told them everything about what they need - for FREE!

The sixth is not knowing your competitive edge. If I asked you, "why should I deal with you?" (as opposed to one of your competitors), how would you answer that? You need a good answer to this question.

Are you making any of these mistakes?

Paul Watkins has helped financial advisors grow their businesses for nearly two decades. The secret to growth is not a single silver bullet but appreciating that the best techniques are simple, small, inexpensive activities that can mostly be put on auto-pilot. Paul has more details on his web site http://www.financialadvisormarketingtips.com

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War Stories From The Trenches That Financial Advisors Can Learn From

Here are two businesses whose lessons apply very well to financial services. These are from real businesses here in New Zealand that happened in the past twelve months.

A builder: This business had been static for some time, his advertising efforts being in all the normal media such as radio, press and directories. Wanting to grow the business, the builder analyzed the last 20 jobs and was stunned to find that ALL were from referrals! Until he had looked closely at them he just assumed that the advertising must have been generating the work.

So, he made up a list of potential and existing Centres of Influence, being architects, structural engineers, developers, the local authority staff, real estate agents and previous clients. He then arranged breakfast meetings with them in small groups. He called them (surprise, surprise) "Friday Breakfasts," so EVERY WEEK he invites two or three of them to meet informally with him and his staff over croissants and coffee.

Business has gone up 100% in just twelve months. His profit has risen as not only is he saving on advertising but he does not have to compete with as many when tendering. The staff love them as well and as an unexpected bonus, motivation and productivity have increased.

The lesson: What are the real drivers of your business - referrals, advertising, sponsorship or something else? If it's referrals, do you have a proactive plan for cultivating more of these? The builder in this case study has obviously found a low-cost and apparently very effective plan.

A consulting engineer: This engineer's clients are local government and large developers. Advertising to date was primarily in relevant industry journals. He undertook a small amount of informal research, which revealed that his clients did not know the range of services he offered. So, he created a simple monthly newsletter that went to his clients explaining the full range of services.

Issue #2 generated a phone call that lead directly to a $40,000 contract, while issue #7 generated a $120,000 contract! Both contracts were from existing clients who had not realized until then that he offered that particular service.

The lesson: Do your clients know what you do? There is a good chance they only know you for the single product you may have sold them in the past. What are you doing about this?

Nothing beats personal contact, be it by mail, email, phone or in person. The trick is the frequency. It must be very high and relevant to the recipient. I think this builder and engineer have shown some lessons here that are directly applicable to other professional service providers such as financial advisors.

Paul Watkins has helped financial advisors grow their businesses for nearly two decades. The secret to growth is not a single silver bullet but appreciating that the best techniques are simple, small, inexpensive activities that can mostly be put on auto-pilot. Paul has more details on his web site http://www.financialadvisormarketingtips.com

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Key Words That Can Excite A Financial Advisor's Prospect

I was at a BBQ and over a drink got into a conversation with two people about insurance and investment. The conversation raised the issue of where you go for financial advice, which developed into a rather interesting discussion. I encouraged the debate and treated it as a research opportunity.

Of note was learning about the importance of key words in motivating consumer behaviour - which I will explain. By way of background, the two I talked to have the profile of almost perfect clients. They both enjoy well-above average incomes and high levels of net personal wealth. They were aged 54 and 49 (I asked). The older one is a successful accountant while the other owns his own business and also sits on public and private boards.

Sorry to say, but both had somewhat cynical views about advisors in general, recounting stories of 'idiots' they had met. These were some of their comments. "I don't trust how they make their money. I have heard that they can make 150% on the premiums of some insurance products." "I hate the way they have to sell you something to make money. That must influence their advice." "I've got four life policies. Two of them are more than 25 years old. I should cash them in."

Clearly they were somewhat ignorant as to the way advisors work. Which means that neither of them have proper financial advisors in their lives. The real value from the conversation however was their reaction to some specific words. When I talked about how many advisers work, it was key words that made the biggest impact. Notable among these were:

"Audit." I suggested that a good adviser would be able to undertake an 'audit' of their financial lives, including their investment and insurance portfolios. This instantly got their attention. The word 'audit' has a powerful meaning to business people.

"Plan." They both felt that advisers had tried to sell them individual products, not any sort of financial plan that put everything into perspective.

"Fees for advice." They were both impressed with the idea of paying a fee for a financial plan, regardless of whether the recommendations were taken up. This seemed to overcome the issue of a plan that might favour an adviser's remuneration. Interestingly the accountant said "So, what would you pay? A couple of grand?"

"5-step process." This really hit home. I explained that a financial plan looks at the 5 key aspects of your financial life and how it was almost impossible to separate them. They asked what the 5 steps were but I told them to ask their advisor. As you can guess the accountant in particular loved the word "process." He had never thought of it as a process before, just a sort of 'sell-as-much-as-you-can' approach.

Watch the reactions of client when you talk to them. Are there some words that seem to have a considerably greater impact on them? There will be, it's just a matter of recognizing them.

Paul Watkins has helped financial advisors grow their businesses for nearly two decades. The secret to growth is not a single silver bullet but appreciating that the best techniques are simple, small, inexpensive activities that can mostly be put on auto-pilot. Paul has more details on his web site http://www.financialadvisormarketingtips.com

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