Although it is a very profitable market, selling insurance can be like any other sales job if you don’t know what you’re doing. You might be all hyped up in the first few months of selling to your warm markets – when you’re still persuading your friends and family to take out an insurance policy. But if you’re like the next insurance agent, you might find it harder to close sales once you’re through with the warm markets and have to move on to the zone of the dreaded cold markets.
But seasoned insurance agents will tell you that there actually ways to navigate the cold markets such that it becomes a less painful, and maybe even enjoyable, experience. The problem with most insurance agents is that they often take on a gather-gather approach to cold calling. Everyone and anyone is a sales lead, without careful thought and consideration of the prospect’s (a) actual need, and (b) capacity to pay.
In the old days, slammed doors were often the norm rather than the exception for insurance agents. These days, nobody has to put up with that kind of cold treatment. There are certainly new ways of doing old things, and you use technology to your advantage, to boot.
Warming Friends Of Friends
Nobody will ever buy from you if people don’t like you, or even trust, you. The great thing about warm markets is that the trust factor is already there, that is, unless if you’ve habitually ripped them off. They will also trust you enough to refer some of their own friends to you, although they won’t necessarily volunteer their references to you – you have to ask it from them.
Do Your Research
Don’t be lazy about finding out if your prospect would need the product, if he or she can afford it, or both – he or she needs it and can afford it. Talking to someone who needs the product and can afford it invariably pares down your work to just making your prospect believe how good your product is.
Essentially, you need to market your products in a way that would strike a chord with your prospects at the emotional level, whether that be of love, fear or greed. People buy products because of emotional factors and rationalize their purchase AFTER the fact of buying.
Sign Up With Insurance Leads Sites
There are many insurance leads websites looking for insurance agents who can work on their pre-qualified leads. Some sites will even set you up for an appointment with a client for signing an insurance plan, essentially what you have to do is just to sell new products to an old customer.
There are many insurance agents who quit the business after just a few years. But you should know that insurance agents earn more than people who work 9 to 5 jobs. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that in 2006, insurance agents earned an average of $58,450 while the average American family earned only $48,201.
