New Agent, How Do You Succeed

RDMCGRAW,

You have several things you need to do immediately:

Houston certainly hit one--action. Buy you need controlled, well considered action. Action for its own sake is as fruitless as no action.

First, don't hang out with the other new or average salespeople in your office. They'll waste time, they'll gripe, they'll moan, they'll find excuses for not getting things done. All they can teach you is how to fail.

Spend as much time as you can with the top producers and learn everything you can from them--how they prospect, whom they prospect, how they sell, what they sell and anything else you can learn from them. If you can, arrange your schedule to theirs. If they come in at 10 and leave at 8, do the same or come in when you are required and stay late with them. If you have to in order to spend time with them, volunteer to come in on weekends and help them clean their files, catch up on communication, etc.

Also, move as quickly as you possibly can from the prospecting methods you'll use at the beginning of your career. You're going to be encouraged to hit up all of your friends, acquaintances, family , etc. to sell them products. You're going to be encouraged (or required) to hit the phone to cold call. You'll see other new or average salespeople faxing the devil out of fliers, or sticking them on car windshields, or sticking them or their business card to cork-boards in restaurants, wa****erias and any place else they can stick them.

Cold calling will probably be where you get your first few clients. They'll probably not be your greatest clients. But they can help you sustain your business for awhile.

Friends and family may be better referral sources than sales prospects. Don't simply ask them if they know anyone to refer you to, it's too easy for them to say no. Instead, since they're your friends and family, you know what organizations they belong to and you have a pretty good idea who they know. Ask them about specific people you believe they may know that you know you want to be referred to. Much more difficult for them to say no and it takes the work and pressure off of them to come up with names. If you know up front that the friend or family member isn't a real prospect, put them at ease right up front and tell them you have no intention of trying to sell them anything. Then ask about the people on your list. People are more receptive if they're not worried about how they're going to tell you they don't want to buy.

You're selling a product that most people want to work with someone whom they believe really knows what they're doing--that is an expert in insurance. Prospects assume that if you're a real expert, you're not cold calling, you're not plastering the world with fliers, and you're not sticking your business card in the local wa****eria. Right or wrong, prospects assume that true experts are getting their clients from the referrals they have from their clients. If you're cold calling, by definition, you're not an expert, you're just another telemarketer. Whether or not their assumption is correct doesn't matter at all. The only thing that matters is that you have to deal with the way prospects think

Consequently, you need to move to the more sophisticated "expert" marketing methods as quickly as possible. Learning how to generate a large number of high quality referrals from your clients and prospects (you'll probably be taught the old "do a good job and ask for referrals" or "I get paid two ways" referral generation methods--they don't work very well. Learn to do it correctly and you can get 5 or more high quality referrals from almost every one of your clients). Learn how to really network effectively (won't happen at the chamber meeting). Learn how to create a public reputation as an expert in some aspect of insurance. Find and penetrate a particular niche in your market where you can become the guru.

The above won't happen overnight. But can done within a year.

While you're doing that, learn everything you can about your product, but as importantly--maybe more importantly--learn how to sell. Develop a sales process that takes advantages of your personal strengths and minimizes your weaknesses.

Hope these few suggestions help.