|
Internet Marketing
Surrounded by opportunities
Everyone in the agency needs to be a salesperson
By Tim Sawyer
Leadership expert John Maxwell offers the following parable for those of us who sometimes get so bogged down in busy-ness that we miss out on business.
A young man from the city graduated from college with a degree in journalism and got a job at a small-town newspaper. One of his first assignments was to interview a successful old farmer who lived 20 miles outside of town.
As he sat with the grizzled man on his front porch, the young journalist looked at his notepad and started asking questions. One of the first he asked was, “Sir, what time do you go to work in the morning?”
“Son, I don’t go to work. I am surrounded by it,” replied the farmer.
We can learn a lesson from the old farmer. Opportunities are a lot like his work. They are everywhere. But the problem is that we often don’t see opportunities, not because they aren’t there, but simply because we choose not to see them. They always surround you. You simply need to open your eyes and see them…then act on them.
Insurance connection
Not long ago, I visited Asheville, North Carolina, for a community event with a local agent. We were introducing a new marketing concept to a group of 100 local businesses. During the ride from the airport, I began talking to the driver about his strategy to promote his livery service. He described to me a scenario all too common to the overwhelming majority of local businesses. He owned the business, drove one of the cars, paid the bills and, by the way, in his spare time he was working on his Web site and social media strategy to attract to more customers.
Sound familiar?
Digital marketing is my area of expertise, so I offered him some basic advice on how to improve his results. During the conversation we discussed the reason for my visit. I explained to him that I was working with an insurance agent interested in helping local businesses market their business and improve their bottom line.
Coincidentally, he was familiar with the agency and remarked that both his family and the agency family were long-time residents of Asheville/Hendersonville. When I asked why he was not a client of the agency we were discussing, he told me, “Most of my stuff falls under commercial insurance. I think their main focus is home and auto.”
I couldn’t believe my ears. The agent I was working with is almost the exact opposite—they love commercial business! I thought to myself: “How is this possible?”
The reality
Local agents are surrounded by quality opportunities. Of course they’re not all million-dollar accounts, but valuable loyal clients are available to every local agent—if he or she chooses to see them. Thinking again about the owner of the livery/transportation business, he told me he had two commercial vehicles, a personal auto policy, home insurance, and life insurance. In just a 20-minute ride from the airport, enough value was built to earn, if nothing else, the right to quote all of it.
The key is, value was created. Not only the common rapport-builders such as “My dad knew your dad,” or “We know the same people”—not to minimize the importance of circles of influence—but instead, real value.
This should remind you that your agency has something to offer that no one else has. As an agency owner, commercial producer, personal lines rep, or CSR, you should constantly be asking yourself, “What is our unique selling proposition?” Or, said another way, “What do we do better than any of our competitors?”
Write it down and have everyone in the organization memorize it. Why? This will empower everyone in the organization to confidently prospect for business everywhere they go. Not to just passively mention what they do and whom they do it for, but to give them the confidence and enthusiasm to passionately promote the services offered by your agency and the courage to ask the million dollar question—the only question that matters:
“If our agency could find a way to improve, increase, decrease, more comprehensively cover…(you get the picture), would you be willing to…?”
It’s amazing how simple it sounds. So what are the barriers preventing you and your team from thinking like the successful farmer? What head trash is stopping you from looking for business everywhere? Is it a lack of confidence, lack of knowledge, lack of passion? What is it?
Constant improvement
This may sound crazy, but stay with me.
• Take a minute to identify what gets you excited in life.
• Think about how this applies (or could apply) to the way you serve clients.
• Consider how this will help the prospect feel more in control, improve their bottom line, reduce risk, etc.
• Create a personal advertisement message connecting the three and memorize it.
• Share this message with everyone you meet.
Most important, get over yourself. From my experience working with local agents, the number one barrier to thinking like a farmer is the agent’s ego.
By the way, we all suffer from the same disease. We don’t want to be a bother, sound desperate, alienate friends, etc. At Astonish, we refer to these limiting thoughts as head trash. In agencies, too often the real reason they don’t see all the opportunities that surround them is lack of belief in the agency itself. If you truly believed in your agency’s ability to uniquely serve the modern consumer, why wouldn’t you tell everyone?
Having said all that, if we all understood and developed the unique value that each of us possesses, we would all have the attitude of the farmer. We would see and harvest the endless opportunities surrounding us all. Technology can play a very powerful role in the effectiveness and efficiency for how we harvest opportunities, but ultimately the success or failure will be determined by attitude and belief.
Take action
What opportunities exist for you that are not being pursued with a vengeance? Why aren’t they being pursued? Are there real roadblocks, or do these hurdles exist only in your mind?
We all know people in businesses who are true “opportunists.” It seems like these people see opportunities before they arise. And if none exist, they create them. Most of us are not like them. We need to sit down and identify where opportunity exists in our lives. We need to write down the potential rewards to help give us motivation to take the initiative and get going. Having done that, we need to develop a strategy to achieve our newfound goals.
Like the farmer, work and opportunity surround us everywhere, every day. It’s essential that we look for it. We have to want to take advantage of it. And when we do, we have the right to reap the rewards from it.
Sounds like an opportunity, doesn’t it? What will you do?
The author
Tim Sawyer is president of Astonish Results, a digital marketing firm based in Rhode Island. He has trained hundreds of insurance professionals in every aspect of the business with a focus on leadership, digital marketing, and best sales practices. |
