Happy Halloween, everyone. No, this is not Kelly Donahue Piro in a mask. My name is David Siekman and I am the newest performance consultant here at Agency Performance Partners. Before we get started on today’s vlog topic, I wanted to give you a little bit of an introduction as to who I am. I’ve been in the insurance industry for eighteen years. The last twelve years I’ve spent on the agency side, helping sales, service and marketing people and increasing revenue through new business, sales techniques, cross-selling existing clients, creating good renewal programs and just overall creating a great customer experience.
We have today’s vlog topic because it’s Halloween. Typically this time of year we’re trying to avoid tricks, but today I am going to share with you some tricks on how you can build relationships quickly with inbound phone calls from people that you don’t necessarily already have a relationship with. I believe that there’s really two times when you can do this. One is right at the beginning of the phone call, the first sixty to ninety seconds, and the rest of the time is throughout the sales process.
So, early on there are a few things you can do to establish a good relationship with someone. First thing you can do is show enthusiasm. So this is a time when someone is calling you where they’re looking to buy a home or buy a new auto. They’re enthusiastic about those things, and you can share that enthusiasm. You can also find some common interest. So, if this client was referred to you, you have a mutual person that you know and that you have a relationship with, then you can have a conversation around that. People love their dogs, they love their kid(s), they love their sports; there’s always some type of mutual interest that you can identify and build a relationship on.
You can also share some of your stories and some of the agency’s stories. These will help build that relationship and establish a little bit of trust. People want to do business with people they know, so even if you’re slightly higher or even if you’re slightly less people are still only going to want to buy from you if they feel like they have a good relationship with you. As the sales process goes along we need to keep in mind that we’re not just order takers. We’re trying to establish that relationship, and just getting them to that quote is not our goal. We want to get them to quote where we have a good, strong relationship, where we’ve established not just that relationship, but a bit of trust with them as well. This will help allow us when we get to our closing pitch to lean on that relationship, and not just on the quote that we’re offering.
You can establish a good relationship throughout the process by keeping up with that enthusiasm, leaning on that interest, and then you can layer on top of that a couple of other things. You can show your expertise, and again continue to build trust. You can show by simply explaining coverages to them, identifying missing coverage or gaps in coverage are great ways to show your expertise, and these also help to build trust. You can also build some trust in some simple ways. You can make sure that you’re hitting any expectations that you set. So if you say you’re going to call somebody or send them a quote by 2 o’clock, make sure you’re doing that. Those little things will help people start to build some trust in you, and will make them feel like you know what you’re doing and you’re the right agency for them.
Finally, I would say identifying discounts is the greatest area to build trust because these are really only in the client’s best interest. When we’re talking about coverage and trying to increase coverage, which is in the best interest of the client, there’s always going to be some cynicism that we’re just trying to increase the premium. So if you’re identifying a discount that is solely in the interest of the client, they’ll feel that and they’ll see that, and that will help to build trust.
So, I hope you’ll find these tricks helpful during this Halloween, and maybe get you some treats. Building relationships is just one component of our APPX sales program, and we have a number of programs out there to help agencies grow. I hope to hear from you if you’re interested in learning more about one of our programs. You can reach me at david@agencyperformancepartners.com, you can connect with me on LinkedIn or you can call us or hit the contact button above to fill out a form. Have a great Halloween, and be safe.
