By: Tim Sawyer, President and Co-Founder of Astonish Results

Building your credibility and finding new customers are both challenges that insurance agents have faced for decades. If you cannot consistently generate sales every month, it is not possible to attain success.

There are endless causes for why agents are not succeeding. Much of it can be blamed on inadequate insurance sales training, lack of daily structure, and stress.

As a salesperson, you may be waking up at 7 am on Monday morning ready to hit the ground the running. Now that you are in an aggressive mindset and have your schedule fully mapped out, you are ready to roll. When it is almost time to go, you realize that it there is a big football game on tonight, so you login to ESPN.com and make your Fantasy Football moves. Before you know it, two valuable hours of the workday have been wasted because you were distracted.

For insurance agents who are becoming stressed out with their job, they can only blame themselves. They know exactly what daily activities they are supposed to accomplish every single day, but they do not follow through, and vice versa. Instead, they let outside distractions and other obstacles divert their focus, spoil their routine, and encourage bad habits.

As an insurance agent, you cannot allow outside distractions to stop you from achieving your goals. Every single day on the job, insurance agents need to do a sufficient amount of prospecting and lead gathering. This includes making phone calls, building an active insurance social media presence, gathering emails, visiting clients, or going to community events. If sales opportunities are not consistently being generated, this will lead to a stressful career in the insurance industry.

When taking a look at a successful insurance agent who is making over $250k per year as opposed to one who is only making $25k per year, there are likely to be vast differences in work ethic and daily organization. If $250k is the goal, be ready to put in the necessary work to reach that level of success. Balancing out your expectations along with your goals is the first step in structuring your daily plan.

Today, there are great deals of insurance agents who have failed due to distractions, becoming too comfortable with their job, and lacking daily structure. Because of all of these reasons, they are not reaching their expectations. As a result, they become STRESSED. Developing a planned, daily routine and not deviating away from it, is imperative in reaching your goals.

By: Tim Sawyer, President and Co-Founder of Astonish Results

One underlying issue within the independent insurance industry today is that many insurance agents struggle with their sales closing ratios. For a great deal of them, it is their ego that impedes them from succeeding in sales. The number one reason why the insurance sales techniques of particular agents are so successful is because their customers perceive them as confident individuals. At the same time, they are not egotistical.

Often times, unsuccessful salesman struggle when trying to close a deal because they fear they will come across as too desperate, needy, or offensive.   The reality is that if your prospects are not forced to make decisions on whether or not they want to do business with you, that decision will never be made.

The longer time horizon a customer has to decide, the less of a chance that the sale will happen. If you do not push the product, then you are giving your customer an easy way out and you do not make money. If this trend continues throughout your career, then you will become desperate, needy, and broke.

If you are an insurance agent that has struggled with developing the proper mentality to close deals, this can be changed. However, it takes an individual who is teachable. If you need help, do you proactively seek it? Or, do you assume you know everything and attempt to fix the problem yourself?

In order to properly develop your marketing strategy to the ways of the modern consumer, it requires an open-minded individual that will be willing to modify their sales approach.

Although there is a fine line between being aggressive and pushy, an overly aggressive salesman has a better chance of closing out more deals with customers as opposed to an individual who takes a more passive or nonchalant approach. Historically, it has been individuals who have an aggressive mentality that are flourishing because they do not allow their ego to impede them from attaining their goals!

By:  Adam DeGraide, CEO and Founder of Astonish Results

 
Overcoming client objections is one of the greater obstacles that insurance agents deal with every day on the job. Mastering how to turn a NO into a YES is one of the most effective insurance sales techniques an agent can possess.

Regardless of which way you are communicating with your prospects, you will come across many people that offer objections and truly challenge your ability as a salesman.

This is often because you have not given your prospects a specific reason to do business with you. Your job as an insurance agent is to offer them a different perspective and give them a specific reason to commit to your business.

We have all been told that the best way to close a sale with a client is to simply ask for the money. However, the reality is that this is an area that many insurance agents have great difficulty. Why do agents struggle when attempting to get their clients to commit?

There are many insurance agents who are effective communicators and know how to deliver a strong presentation, but they cannot close deals. This is because they are not comfortable asking for their prospects for the sale in fear they will lose the sale altogether.

The world of insurance sales can be compared to the bonus scenes of a DVD movie. These scenes allow viewers to watch the same scene prior, but from a different angle. By viewing these scenes, something that was not recognized beforehand can be noticed by altering the perspective.

Refining your insurance sales approach can help you show the customer the same scene, but from a different camera angle! When someone says no, it is your job to determine exactly why they are saying no, and then try a different approach.

A NO is simply a YES that is waiting to be convinced. How do salespeople convert a no into a yes? In order to become better at insurance sales, you need to develop an internal belief system. Three critical components to a successful career require you to:

• Believe in yourself
• Believe in the products you sell
• Believe in the agency where you work.

It helps to thoroughly know your products and what services you can bring to the table that will address the customers’ needs. It is wise to prepare what you know in advance. Self confidence and belief in your product are the best ways to boost your self-image and counter client objections.

The truth is that nobody likes to be sold anything. People are looking for a solution to a specific problem; and only want assistance when they are ready to make a purchase. Your primary role as an insurance agent is to offer professional advice and practical solutions for any of your client’s issues.

Revising your sales strategy and incorporating a variety of sales techniques will increase your chances of overcoming client objections. Ultimately, this will have a dramatic impact on your sales production. Always remember that a NO is simply a YES waiting to happen if your customer is shown a different angle, perspective, and another reason to buy!

By: Adam DeGraide, CEO and Founder of Astonish Results

One of the biggest misconceptions revolving around the insurance industry is that the only thing insurance agents care about is selling policies and taking home their commission. An underlying problem is that some insurance agents are not passionate about the agency they work for, the products and services they offer, or their careers. Additionally, many of them lack adequate insurance sales training.

Although there are a few bad apples out there, most insurance agents genuinely care about serving the needs of their clients.

When speaking to a man who specialized in selling smoking mirrors, he laughed about the products he was selling and he seemed to take great pride in manipulating people into buying them. Most customers do not want anything to do with salesmen such as this. In fact, these types of people likely attribute to society’s negative perception of salesmen.

As an individual who specializes in sales, you have to ask yourself whether or not you are in the right place. Since you have been a part of your agency or business, what have you done to help it achieve growth?

Whether time is spent communicating on the phone or in person with your customers, it is important to develop an internal belief system regarding the products and services you offer.

This is because no sales strategy will ever be effective if you do not actually have faith in the products you sell. If you do not believe in what you do, you are better off leaving your line of work now. It is not in the best interest of yourself, your company, or your customers by pursuing a career you are not truly passionate about.

Belief and passion are ESSENTIAL components of a successful insurance agency culture. Every single time I go out and meet new people, I show them Astonish Results has the greatest Digital Marketing system for insurance agents, because I believe in our product! The reason why I have been successful at sales is because I believe that customers who do not work with our company have made the biggest mistake of their lives.

By showing your customers that you are truly passionate about what you are offering to them and that it will fully serve their needs, then you have every right to ASK for their business.

It takes a positive attitude along with a strong belief in your company and products being sold to master the world of sales. No sales strategy will ever be effective if you do not believe in yourself. Self confidence is the most important trait an insurance agent can possess.

If your clients believe you and trust that what your saying is coming from something deeper than you just trying to make a sale, you will sell MORE in the long run.