Archive for the ‘Insurance Leads’ Category
by Sid Walker
Early in my 30-year coaching career I discovered that it worked better to get permission to talk about subjects that were challenging for people to talk about. If someone says they are working really hard and not making the money they want to make, you don’t jump in and say, “I’ve got some great ideas on how you can make more money, let me tell you what they are.” Instead you take an approach that is more respectful and more permission –based. You say, “I have had some experience in helping people with that issue, would you like to hear a couple of ideas that have worked for other people?” If the other person says, “Sure,” you have respectfully included the other person in the process and prepared him or her for the discussion to follow. What usually happens when you treat people with this level of respect is that they feel a increased degree of safety in talking with you. You have demonstrated you care about them and don’t want to start into a conversation they are not ready to have.
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by Tom Wiecek
A couple of years ago I read Tim Ferriss’ now famous book The Four Hour Work Week for the first time. It’s a book that I pick up and re-read quite often and it has made a world of difference in my life and agency. Most importantly, it helped me free myself of the many low paying jobs I used to be responsible for. Today, I work less than four hours a week in my agency. However, I do work more than four hours a week on my agency, but I work where and when I want. And I only work on what makes me the most money.
I am often asked by other agents, “How can you spend so little time in the agency while it continues to grow faster than ever?” It comes down to eliminating and delegating the tasks that bring less value to me and using systems. Our time is the most valuable resource we have. It’s not our insurance knowledge or even our ability to service our clients. We only have so much time in a day and every minute of it is as valuable as you make it.
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Social Media expert Tammy de Leeuw talks about 3 must have Twitter applications to take marketing your business in a more effective way and in a more timely manner. Click below
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You can get a couple of lessons out of the Bernie Madoff ponzi that a person with their own little business should pay attention to. The Madoffs made at one or two mistakes. (Actually, they made a lot of mistakes.) Most of what they did wasn’t mistake, it was just plain illegal, but there were mistakes made that legitimate businessmen shouldn’t be making. If you’re in business there are basic rules you had better follow for good asset protection. The rules are violated every day, because the owner always thinks the rules don’t apply to him or her.
Most little businesses are structured so that the husband is the president and the wife is the vice president / secretary, or it may be the other way around. Both spouses should never participate in the same business as officers and directors. One spouse can work in the business as an employee. I’ll call them the silent spouse. They shouldn’t be the office manager or CEO or any Chief anything – Just an employee. They may have huge influence over the company, but that influence should be in bed, not at the conference table.
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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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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.
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The first thing to remember when you’re doing direct mail is that the list is everything. The best direct mail piece in the world is no good if you send it to the wrong list, or to a bad list, or to a bunch of people who have already moved and aren’t there to receive their mail. So, focusing on, and getting, a good list is key to making your marketing pieces perform well.
Write that down. The list is everything.
How do we go about getting a good list? First of all, it’s important to know who your best customer is.
Do you have a lot of customers in a certain geographic area? If so, then that’s probably a good indication that you can mail to that area and be successful in getting clients. Do you have a lot of people who own a certain type of home, or a certain type of car, a boat etc? These types of things give us demographic information that tell us “this is the type of individual that I want to mail to”.
Just taking a zip code and saying, “Okay, I’m going to send a mailing piece to everybody in this zip code” is the most common approach to direct mail. And trust me, there’s a ton of bulk mail blasting out there. Taking this “shotgun” approach with your money and with your mailing can work, but it’s not the way to really get the best results and return on investment.
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The idea of being on the news or being on the radio or being highlighted in the newspaper or magazine may not appeal to you, but what I can tell you is you’ll get some very, very qualified and quality clients from using this strategy.
1. The first thing to do is to develop relationships. Unfortunately, I know this is a pain in the neck, but you’re going to have to identify who the folks are that you want to develop relationships with. Is there a talk radio show that talks about finance in your area, or family finances, family planning, financial planning etc.? You can easily relate to that subject matter as a protection specialist or emergency preparedness specialist etc.
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