Updated: 11/13/2022
In this article, we are going to discuss “how to be a successful life insurance agent”. We know and follow lot of top insurance agents in the industry and have tried to compile their teachings in this blog. Success can be defined in multiple ways and it is different for each person . After observing top insurance agents we have identified below mentioned components required to be a successful life insurance agent.
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How do I succeed as an Insurance Agent? Start emulating top performers, some of their characteristics are mentioned below.
- Acquiring skills
- Retaining existing customers
- Building a Team: Always Be Hiring
- Acquiring new customers
- Measure Results
- Doing social good
1. Acquiring skills
Mentoring
Whether you’ve sold life insurance for years or just starting out, it’s imperative for you to take advantage of mentoring. After all, there’s always someone who knows more than you. Surround yourself by like-minded and driven people who strive to succeed. Instead of feeling offended that a more seasoned agent offers advice, embrace it. The more you know, the better you become.
Stay on Top of Trends
Because life insurance policies changes, it’s essential that you stay on top of trends to achieve the success you want. As a result, you’ll not only have a better chance of selling what the client needs but also what they believe they want. With a vast knowledge of life insurance and by remaining enthusiastic yet professional, you can carefully guide an individual toward the best coverage, whether trendy or not.
Digital and Social media marketing
In today’s world to be successful every business should understand how digital and social media marketing works. It’s good idea to acquire skills like search engine optimization, facebook/Instagram ads and so many other skills which can get you way ahead from your competition.
Reading books
If you survey top insurance agents you will find that one habit which most of them have is reading books. Books provide wealth of wisdom and you can acquire skills in few days which would have taken years to figure out yourself. We have complied list of books which insurance agents should read and below I have provided link to that article.
https://www.friendlyagentbot.com/2018/03/26/top-4-books-every-insurance-agent-should-read/
2. Retaining existing customers
Unless you are starting fresh retaining existing customers is more important than acquiring new ones. Also retaining existing customers is much more cheaper than acquiring a new one.
Make Yourself Available
No one said an insurance agent’s life is easy – but it’s rewarding. In this role, you’ll have people contacting you at all hours of the day, on the weekends, and even during the holidays. Even though a lot of people balk at buying life insurance, this remains a fiercely competitive market. That means you and other agents vie for the same clients. Being available to answer questions or offer advice will go a long way in you reaching a higher level of success.
Invest Emotionally
Some professionals, including doctors and law enforcement personnel, need to be careful about becoming emotionally involved with the people they serve. However, as a life insurance agent, this rule doesn’t apply. If you want to have a long-term, successful career in this specific field of insurance, you must genuinely help and care about your clients. Spend time with people so that you can better understand their wants and needs.
Successful life insurance agents nurture relationships. To accomplish, this, they pay attention to details and look for common ground. As an example, if you and a prospect both have kids, you might ask if they’re involved in sports. If they are, as well as your children, you instantly have a foundation on which to build on a trusted relationship.
Customer Service
When customer is reaching you for a question, claim or any issue for that matter you should be able to acknowledge and resolve that issue as soon as possible.
“Only difference between a good and bad agent is if he/she is there for a claim” Keagan Henson, BriteBee
Today customers are expecting 24/7 service and your ability to do that will help in differentiating from others in market. Chatbot can be a great mechanism for providing 24/7 service. Check article mentioned in below link to learn more about this.
https://www.friendlyagentbot.com/2018/02/19/customer-service-chatbot-example-for-insurance/
3. Building a Team: Always be hiring
“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” – African proverb
If you want to grow big, you need to build a high-performing team. You need to get excellent people on board and have a hiring system that attracts the best talent that fits your culture.
10,000-foot-level encouragement for everybody willing to listen is simple: you must always be recruiting.
After talking to hundreds of agency owners I realized that the secret behind the growth of top agencies was their ability to recruit more agents/producers.
For example if an insurance agency that has 5 agents/producers recruits 5 more agents/producers with similar potential then they effectively double their revenue. Add 50 more agents/producers and one can 10x their revenue.
Problem:
Adding new agents to an agency can exponentilly increase revenue but no has time or interest to do agent recruitment,onboarding and enablement.
Currently agency owner or a top producer has to spend a lot of time to onboard and train an agent. They have to do this along with multiple other critical activities and enabling new agent takes a backseat.
It take months to make new agent productive and agent may not follow through on steps required to be successful.
Insurance agencies spend all their energy on acquiring new customers but almost no effort is spent in hiring new agents/producers.
Solution :
Friendly Agent Portal
It automates Agent Recruitment,Onboarding and enablement (marketing/lead generation). It’s a completely automated system which will FREE up your time and help you in scaling up your insurance agency.
For recruiting a new agent you just need to send a link for them to register and everything happens in a automated fashion.
If you are interested in learning more about this then set up a call with our team using below link.
4. Acquiring new customers
Although everyone should invest in life insurance, when an agent reaches out to sell a policy, most people turn away. It’s not necessarily that they aren’t interested in having coverage that protects their loved ones after death, it’s more the approach of the person trying to sell. If you currently work as a life insurance agent or want to start a career as one, the information provided will help you achieve optimal success.
Branding
You need to you have a brand for your insurance agency to stand out and differentiate from thousands of other players in market.
Chris Paradiso from Paradiso Insurance is a successful insurance agency owner. If you ask him secret behind his success then building a brand will be one of the top answer. Brand include things like your website, logo, print material as well as what you stand for and how you interact with your prospects and customers.
“Start with your Brand. Your Brand is your WHY” Chris Paradiso, Paradiso Presents
Checkout below mentioned article to learn more about branding and how you can use it for competitive advantage.
Value Driven
Even with a stabilized economy and increasing incomes, people still want to get the most value for their money. This applies to life insurance. In this case, you first need to show them why they need protection, followed by providing them information on excellent policies for the best value.
Many agents try to focus on price but do we ever look at price when we are looking for a heart doctor? Insurance is important and one should offer best value for money which may not be the cheapest possible option.
Believe in What You Do
Successful people, whether selling life insurance or working in a completely different capacity, truly believe in what they do. If selling protection that people need is a genuine passion, you’ll enjoy incredible success. You can bolster that passion by learning as much as you can and reading actual stories of how insurance coverage positively affected the lives of policyholders.
Dress to Impress
No, you don’t want to meet a potential client for lunch pulling up in a Lamborghini and wearing a Rolex. However, you do want to dress professionally, so they’ll see that you take your career seriously. Remember, a successful agent isn’t selling policies but rather themselves. It is through the connections you make that encourage prospects to buy life insurance.
Speak the Language: Sort Of
When talking to a potential client about a policy, you want to speak the “life insurance” language. At the same time, you need to provide information in layman’s terms. By doing things this way, people see you as an authority figure. However, they also understand what you’re saying because you make it clear. For this, there’s a fine balance. You want to speak the language, but without talking down to someone or using lingo they don’t understand.
Respond Quickly
For prospects, not receiving a response to an inquiry within a reasonable amount of time is extremely annoying. When someone reaches out to you, to ask questions about life insurance or request a quote, that’s the time to respond. That person is in a buying frame of mind so if you fail to return a phone call or email, you just missed a huge opportunity. That’s why having a chatbot for your agency is a must. It can respond to general questions quickly and for specific questions which need your attention it will intimate you and you can respond.
You know that people talk. The last thing you want is to have a reputation as the insurance agent who doesn’t respond. Instead, make it a point to call people back or send an email within an hour or two. While that might seem impossible, it’s not. If you need more time, use an autoresponder, so the person who sent an inquiry via email knows when they can expect to hear from you. You can also hire an answering service or an assistant to handle the phone calls.
A quick response shows potential clients that you care about their business. They feel respected and valued, two key components of achieving success as a life insurance agent.
Digital Marketing
Focusing on digital marketing is must at this age to acquire new customers. Your customers are googling about their problem, they are discovering your competitors on facebook/ Instagram and other social media channels. It’s imperative that you invest time and energy in leveraging digital marketing to your advantage. Check out below mentioned link to learn more about digital marketing strategies.
5. Measure Results
“What’s measured improves” – Peter Drucker
If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.
In order to grow your insurance agency you need to focus on certain key metrics. These metrics will tell you whether or not you are going in the right direction. It is also important to align your team with these metrics so that they know what they are working towards.
Unless you have a system in place to measure the results of your hard work, you’ll never truly know if you’re succeeding or plateauing. You need to have some type of tracking system for every stage of the sales funnel. Along with strengths, you can identify weaknesses and then remedy them quickly. You can share statistics with your prospects, showing them you’re the best person for the job.
Below we have shared a few metrics for an insurance agencies that are recommended by experts.
Estimated revenue
It is the total amount of revenue for all the policies at any point of time. If you don’t have it, you will find it hard to grow. Unfortunately, most agencies do not have that number.
If you bind a policy on January 1, that’s worth $12,000 in revenue. If it’s on a direct bill, then it’s going to come in over a safe ’12 pay.’ By January 1st of the next year, you will have collected the full amount of that revenue. Every month you are collecting $1,000, called booked revenue; when that money drips into invoicing, it’s booked revenue.
Account breakup by revenue bands
The next metric to look at is how your accounts are distributed based on the revenue they generate, using number points: how many accounts generate revenue under $5K; from 5K to 10K; from 10K to 20K; from 20K to 50K; and from 50K and above.
Average account size
This is much the same as earlier metrics but with a little different perspective. If you look at an agency with an average account size of $700 versus one with an average account size of $7,000, you can see these are two entirely different agencies.
Average new business per producer
Another metric is related to your producer and what the average new business your producer generates. If your producers generate, on average, $75,000 in new business, then you’re probably a relatively smaller agency with a limited number of processes in place. Whereas, if those producers are generating $150k to $175k in new business, then that means you have a sales process in place and you’re getting rid of producers who don’t meet that goal. You’re doing a lot more there.
6. Doing social good
Community Involvement
Another way to succeed as a life insurance agent is to get involved with your community. Join the local Chamber of Commerce and volunteer for non-insurance organizations. This gives you credibility. When people see an agent spending their personal time working to help the same community where they live and work, it leaves a positive impression. Also, attending various events that have nothing to do with insurance creates an opportunity that you might not otherwise have to talk to people about coverage.
The Bottom Line
As an insurance agent, there’s no reason you can’t succeed. Doing and saying the right things will help you surpass your expectations.
Hopefully, this article was useful to you and helped in learning something new. Please share it with anyone who may benefit from it.
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Do you want to know the Secrets behind building a multi-million dollar Insurance Agency. Click here to order a copy of book “Friendly Agent” where top insurance agents and thought leaders have shared their wisdom.
