If I had to start all over again, this article will outline what I would do.
I’ll preface this by saying that with so many advances in technology and consumer purchasing trends, what I write below may change as technology matures and we see observe other trends.
With that said, I’ll group my personal advice into 2 groups:
1. New Agent (Less than 2 years or 100 new clients)
2. Experienced Agent (2+ years in the business or over 100 clients)
This is high level overview stuff. We discuss and teach all of this within our private community.
1. New Agent
You’ve probably burned through your warm market and are looking towards the future. You need to lay the foundation.
A foundation of online marketing so you never have to worry about where your next client will come from.
As a new agent to selling online/over the phone, I’ll save you the trial and error and disclose 3 things:
- Marketing. If you don’t learn how to market in your first year, you won’t last long.
- Systems and automation. The more you have technology work for you, the more efficient you’ll be.
- Mindset. Selling over the phone sounds amazing, but it has it’s pitfalls
Marketing
Priority #1: Pick a niche. Then get a highly converting website live and start learning how to market it.
Write 40 (750-1500 word) articles on your site about your niche within the next 60 days (1 article every week day). Spend 1 hour writing every day and just research the heck out of your niche while writing content. You’ll be learning and building up your domain’s authority. Having trouble coming up with topics? Start a thread in our community, we’ll help give you plenty of ideas and resources. This will lay the foundation for getting search engine rankings.
Everyone wants to have a big agency website and rank for “life insurance quotes”. Curb that idea. Focus on 1 niche and pick some marketing methods from this list. Learn as much as you can about the marketing methods you pick and start executing on them as soon as you can. Most agents fail simply because they’re gun shy
Doing this will lay the foundation for your online marketing. You have to implement to learn. You’ll start getting consistent leads if you spend a couple hours/day learning and executing what you learn. Opportunities come to those who are constantly marketing. Our community is there for any questions.
That’s just the online marketing part that’s SO important to an agent’s longevity.
On top of that you have to build “funnels” for all your data and leads. That’s where your systems go to work for you.
Systems and Automation
Pick a CRM. Everyone you talk to about life insurance goes in your CRM.
Recommended CRMs:
- Radius or VamDB – if you get less than 200 leads/mo, use them. (20% discount for community members for Radius)
- Velocify and Vanillasoft – if you get more than 200 leads/mo. They have the higher level marketing automations needed when you get a lot of leads. Again, covered in the community.
There are lots of great CRMs out there with different bells and whistles. The grass will always be greener on the other side. Stick with one of the above.
Here’s what you need to get started in your CRM:
1) Set follow up dates for every you had a good conversation with but didn’t sell. You should strive for 4 good conversation daily (cheapest way to do that is aged leads with a dialer). Your CRM should be feeding you daily follow-ups after 6 months in this business. You have to remember, it’s about timing.
2) For internet leads, start an “Attempting Contact” sequence. Swipe this one or make it your own (what we use word for word).
Set up this sequence to send an email to your leads automatically. Set this up within your CRM (there’s documentation for each CRM on how to do this – contact support at your CRM if you can’t figure it out). Each of the CRM’s listed above will do this.
Forget about automating everything else…this is the only thing that needs to be automated in your CRM. They’re either attempting contacts or scheduled follow ups.
3) Do NOT spend your time on non-revenue producing tasks. That means no getting signatures on applications, no scrubbing applications, no medical exam follow-ups, no case management etc. Use a GA that has a 1 page online application for all the major fully underwritten carriers.
The best in the business is DigitalBGA’s “LifeInsuranceProcessing” technology.
The philosophy behind this is you will take a small hit in commissions, but if you just place 1 or 2 more policies per year – you make up for it. You’ll make up for it ten fold.
Doing this will free your mental white space for only sales and marketing – which are your business building tasks.
In other words, don’t concern yourself with doing admin work for more compensation. It’s the biggest mistake new agents make. It was the game changer in my business when I finally let go.
Pro Tips
1) Managing your cash flow will be your biggest hurdle. Get advances when you can, sell more non-med, use a business credit card to buy yourself 30 days (pay off every month), keep detailed lead reports. More on this here.
3) Ask A LOT of questions. You don’t know what you don’t know. No question is stupid if it saves you time and money. A lot of agents have an ego to protect and refuse to ask questions. Don’t let your ego get in the way.
I am still learning every single day.
Mindset
Mindset is so important as a new agent. You’re getting pulled in so many different directions and you’re questioning every single decision you make.
Just know that this is a sales and marketing business. You’re a marketer first, sales person second and then your favorite buzzword (advisor, consultant, financial planner). If you can’t market or sell, you have no business.
Also, if you rely on buying life insurance leads – it’s a 1 way ticket out of the business. Lead companies come and go and so does lead quality. It’s ok to buy leads to supplement your marketing, but don’t rely on them…even if you have a highly profitable source – they’ll eventually be gone.
You have to build your own marketing and sales machine. If you can focus your mindset on that and soak in as much knowledge as you did to get your license, you’ll find your path to success.
Lastly, the path to success will be different for everyone. Don’t compare yourself. Keep learning and progressing and you’ll have a wildly successful business as many in our community do.
Experienced Agent
I find the biggest weakness for experienced agents is their online presence and integrating technology. You’ve made it this far in the business and the biggest win I’ve found for most agents is re-designing their site and using it as the hub of their business.
Create “Standard Operating Procedures” within your business to replace all your repetitive tasks (and task you do at least once/week). Record your screen and have someone transcribe it and format into a ‘step by step’ operating procedure. This allows you to outsource all your tasks to an assistant (we use Asana) and if that assistant leaves, someone can slip right in there. It also makes your business run more efficient. It’s been very powerful in my business.