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by Tom Wiecek
Yesterday, my mastermind friend, Russ Lowry and I were talking about our upcoming webinar interview with Ethan Kap in a couple of weeks. As we discussed some of the points that have helped us get the most freedom from our agencies, I brought up the mail. I said to Russ, “I wonder how many agents still open their agency’s mail?” Russ immediately fired back “I LOVE opening the mail!” We chuckled and agreed that we both love opening the mail.
We also agreed that it was a huge waste of time. Both of us have passed this task on to those that make less money than we do, but there are a few exceptions. Of course, we like to check out the “junk” mail. Why, because as a marketer, it’s good to see what other marketers are doing and steal good ideas from them. And, anything to do with fishing, I’m reading it!
Opening the mail is one of the tasks that many agents have a hard time letting go and is probably the biggest waste of money. Why? Because, Time is Money! Every minute of your day should be spent doing what makes you the most money. Everything else should be delegated.
by Russ Lowry
The answer is, 24 hours in a day. They wake up just like you and start every day with 24 hours, yet they control and manage Billions even Trillions of dollars every day. So how do these guys do so much in the same time as you have? I can sum it up in two words delegation and systems.
Sounds easy enough but is it? Do you have what it takes to delegate and automate your daily tasks? How about that one client you always handle just because? Or better yet the “mail”? Who doesn’t love to spend valuable time going through the mail? I mean why pay someone $8.00 an hour to do this when you can do it yourself (at a cost of what $150.00, maybe $200.00 per hour)?
by Tom Wiecek
My staff has always been trained to go for the “no” when working with prospects. Meaning don’t give up until you hear the word “no”. We never accept “I’ll think it over”. Of course, when we get a “yes”, I’ll accept that. This rule has helped us close more additional sales that would have simply gone away. It’s too easy for a CSR or a producer to accept a “think it over” and move on to the next prospect. It’s an easy way out and a common trait of a lousy salesperson.
Early in my career, I have to admit I used to focus on grabbing the “low hanging fruit” especially, when we had an abundance of prospects to work with. I remember a time when my agency couldn’t handle the amount of prospects coming into our office. We were the low price leader and everyone knew it. It was during a hard market and I had some very competitive carriers. We were order takers and business was good. Today, it’s a little different.
My son played in a soccer tournament this weekend. To get him ready for all those hard fought battles and wind sprints, I had to make sure he was hydrated and fueled. The hydration was simple, but the fuel presented some dilemmas. Should I prepare grilled salmon, wild rice and roasted vegetables or the classic, yet stellar PB&J?
I opted for the PB&J. Here’s why: In life and in marketing, what matters is what works. And, I know from experience that you can grill a boy a salmon but that doesn’t mean he will eat. The same is true of your clients. You can spend a whole lot of budget with very little result. In many cases, the classic, yet stellar tools fuel the most growth.
One of those classic yet stellar tools is the promotional sales letter. It doesn’t require any fancy design, programming or printing. In fact, you can mail merge and print from it from the comfort of your home office if you’d like. That’s what I did five years ago when I launched my insurance copywriting business.
I mailed my letter out to 200 insurance industry prospects, and I probably spent a total of $200 including postage, envelopes and paper – maybe even less. That simple, inexpensive effort generated an 8 percent response within the first month, and years later, the replies continue to trickle in. In fact, just six months ago, (4.5 years after I sent the mailer) a prospect called me and said that he’d saved my letter all this time.
If you’d like to send your own promotional letter, here are 10 rules of thumb to follow:
by Sid Walker
One of the approaches I have used for decades to help reps get their prospective clients more excited about working with them in the initial interview is to start out by asking more questions. Instead of telling prospective clients how great you are, start out by asking them questions. People actually think you are smarter if you ask questions about them rather than talk about yourself. I think that is an accurate assessment, you are smarter if you ask questions about your prospective clients rather than just talk about yourself!
Hopefully you saw the knockout punches I laid down on Kapshire last week proving to him that direct mail is powerful. (If you missed it you can check out the boxing match at www.maverickslive.com)
But direct mail can be a big waste of money if you don’t do it right. (and it’s an even bigger waste if you make the error I talk about at the end of this post.)
In my last blog post I talked about he Headline Cruncher, the 4 U’s that help you tune up the power of your headlines.
A quick recap:
Unique
Useful
Urgent
Ultra-Specific
To help you with the process of creating good direct mail headlines, you are going to be looking over my shoulder as I go through the process of writing a few headlines for some marketing pieces we’re testing.
It was a bloody mess.
Talk about March Madness, my face got slammed into the basketball floor.
I saw the blood all over the floor and grabbed my chin. Walked over to the bathroom mirror…sure enough it was a huge gash. I got about 11 stitches put in.. That was just over a week ago.
Last night I finally pulled out the last of my stitches in my chin.
Oh well, it could have been worse. I could have lost a tooth!
Anyway, let’s get to making you money. Recently someone told me…
“I tried the mail and it doesn’t work!”
Ohh, the foolishness…
In insurance marketing, to say that “Direct mail doesn’t work”… Is like Farmer Joe trying to use a saw to cut a log, but leaving the saw unplugged. Just keep ramming the blade into the wood…”HMM, I wonder why this gosh durn saw doesn’t work?”
Of course saws work to cut stuff, but only if you are using it properly.
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