Insurance Agency Tips: Call the Freaking List!
I’ll never forget this day. I was working with an agency who was frustrated with their lack of growth. I met with them to review their metrics. They wanted local growth of good quality customers. Sounded fair enough. What I found was over the past 15 or so years they had established a database of 10,000+ contacts.
This database consisted of lost business, unsold quotes and general business cards. They were mainly local and while the list may have aged a bit it was still a great starting point. I convened with the management team and said, “Great news, I have a plan”. Everyone leaned in, very excited to learn more. I told them about my discovery, 10,000 contacts that have interacted with the agency one time or another. I felt like it was Christmas morning!
Their response was something more like New Years Day with a bad hangover. They proceeded to ask, other than this list what do you have to share with us. Truth is I had nothing, because there was no need to do anything else. All they had to do was call the list. They proceeded to tell me they wanted people to call them directly, all well qualified, 3+ policy accounts within 15 miles of the office. Oh, and they didn’t want shoppers.
The morale of this story is that if you want those people, you have to go find them, they aren’t going to call you. Also, since this list exists, there are good people just like that on the list we have to call! Seems so simple yet so difficult, right?
So why do most agencies not call the list? First, they have already rejected us once who wants a second rejection? Second, we tell producers to call the list but they most likely never really do because they are too busy being too busy.
Your agency needs a strategy to call the list. If this sound like your agency, call me, then we will call the list.
