Business Insurance Leads Using JV’s and Endorsed Mailings

Let’s just jump right in to JV’s and endorsed mailings. This is something that is so underutilized, it’s ridiculous. In the marketing world, joint ventures are the life blood of many, many companies and they make people hundreds of thousands and millions of dollars on a regular basis by

-list sharing or mailing to each other’s lists and

-cross-selling to each other’s lists of customers.

So it works online well and it works offline as well. Most people just don’t do it because it takes a little bit more effort than most are willing to put in. This is going to make you so much more powerful than all the other agents out there that are just scraping the bottom of the barrel to get leads. By doing this, you’re going to get access to the best clients, and potential clients, that you can possibly get.

That is because its coming from a referral of somebody they are already doing business with, an endorsement, and you know that they’re obviously a buyer because they’ve currently been purchasing something from the other individual that you’re joint venturing with.

So, if I had to say one of the secrets of the success that we had, it was the ability to find these joint ventures partners and do endorsed mailings to their lists and vice versa. We mailed to our list to help their business as well.

Here’s what needs to happen and it’s not rocket science but it is an extremely effective way to get leads and that is simply to:

Make a list of the professionals that you know or work with.

Financial Planners

Life/Health Agents

Mortgage Brokers

Real Estate Agents

CPA’s

Attorneys

Once you get to the point that you’re ready, you simply approach them with the attitude of what’s in it for them. Again, this just goes back to basic human persuasion. “I’m going to help you get what you want and, in return, I’m asking that you reciprocate.”

You can start the relationship by saying, “Hey, you know what? I have a client who uses you as their CPA and I’m looking for a relationship with a CPA who does a good job so I can refer my other clients to you. Would you mind if we sent a letter to all of my list of customers that highlights you and what you do?”

What person in their right mind would say no to that offer? Now, if you’re approaching a CPA who only works with super high net worth individuals and companies, it might not work the first time out. But I guarantee you, you’re going to be able to find some folks who are just as hungry for new business as you are and they will be more than happy to develop this relationship with you.

The important thing about doing this is –if you’re asking them to mail to their list– you’re going to be the one that needs to do all the work. You need to let them know that this is going to be hassle free for them; they’re not going to have to do anything. You’ll provide the letters, you’ll run the letters by them so they can read them and make sure that they’re happy with everything.

Then you mail two letters, at the same time, of course. They’re in the same envelope.

One of them is from the CPA to his customer saying, “Hey. This is Bob, CPA and I work with Joe Agent. Joe Agent does some things that no other agent I’ve seen does. He has these different offers to help you understand your insurance better, make sure your protection is set up properly, and that is something that is really important because just as much as you want to save money on taxes, you want to protect your assets to be financially sound. So please give him a call and touch base with him on these particular issues.”

Then you include a letter that is written not in the legal speak or in the third-person that we see so much of in corporate letter writing, but instead you come out, like we’ve said a hundred times before, and be personal.

Share some personal tidbits about yourself. Be likable; put a picture of you and your family in there or you riding your motorcycle in the sand dunes or whatever it is you like to do. Introduce yourself and then get to the heart of why you’re sending this because you have another client who works with your CPA who you were really able to help them out with some issues they didn’t even understand at the time, but it saved them a lot of money and heartache and pain and agony if they were to ever have a claim. So you’ve created these two or three free tools, a free online video, and a insurance analysis checklist; whatever it is that you want to offer to them and so give us a call or go to our website to check that.

That is all it takes. It is going to take some time to develop these relationships, possibly, if you don’t have them currently. If you currently know a couple of agents that are not competitors but maybe potential joint venture partners, then this could happen in two days.

You could write the letter and get it mailed and be having leads come in a couple of days from now. It doesn’t need to take a long time and it doesn’t need to be any harder than we just described.

One letter comes from the person they currently have the relationship with, the other letter comes from you and that’s all that has to be done.

Mail to their lists a couple times a year, Mail to your list for them a couple times a year and you’re going to have a very, very profitable relationship.

–A note on commissions: I never particularly liked to share commissions but, in my circumstance, that was the only way that it made sense because I was referring people to my financial planner but he wasn’t referring anybody back to me. Because he didn’t have any contractor clients and that’s who I wanted to write at that time. Yeah. I wrote some homeowners insurance and he sent me people in that respect, but because of the type of relationship that we had, he gave me 10 or 20 percent of the commissions that he made and we just worked it that way. That’s fine too. As long as you’ve got the licensing worked out and you’re not paying somebody a commission for a product they’re not licensed for.–

Combined Events

One other way to do these joint ventures is doing combined events. This is something that I’ve seen car dealers do from time to time. I encourage our retailers to do this; (although, none of them ever listen to me and they think that it won’t work for them) But I’ve seen for example the chiropractor that my wife used to work for did this very effectively with a cosmetic dentist. They were in an office right next to each other and every year they would do a customer appreciation event where they had food, free massages; they have bounce houses for the kids and they get a lot of people there. They also have people come who don’t do business with them and they’re able to develop relationships with those people.

Doing joint venture customer appreciation events — the real estate agent that I mastermind with from time to time rents out a theater and gives free tickets to all the people that have bought a home with them in the past year or two. That works really well for him as well. It’s easy enough to just put together a small event with a couple other professionals in your geographic area and do a customer appreciation event so you’re your clients get to know the other folks and their clients get to know you.

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