HOW TO BECOME A SUPER-SUCCESSFUL INSURANCE AGENT

Let’s get it straight, that there are no shortcuts to success, you may have heard the same many times, but yes it is the main ingredient. We will share essential tips on how one can become not the most selling but a successful agent. Amidst cut-throat competition among insurers, agents and technology, PolicyBazaar, Coverfox, and other big brokers have leveraged technology to replace the human touch in selling insurance.

Like it's said “Insurance is not purchased, it is sold”, hence the pressure on agents is immense and time is running. But remember these two points :

1. YOU CAN'T REPLACE HUMAN TOUCH (NOT IN INDIA AT LEAST)

2. SELLING INSURANCE IS A SOCIAL WORK, PEOPLE UNDERSTAND THE VALUE WHEN THEY MEET WITH PROBLEMS

Wasting no time let's start with…….

NETWORKING - Meet as many people as possible, not with an intention to sell insurance, but to understand their financial needs. Talking and understanding will let you know about their problems or situation. This will help in needs-based selling hence selling only relevant products. Also, meetup young earners, they are usually clueless about financial planning, explaining to them what and why financial planning helps generate trust.

TRAINING - Take the training provided by the insurer seriously. Also, learn and take up online courses on Coursera or Udemy to enhance skills to talk with people.

AVOID COLD CALLS - Please avoid buying phone numbers from data agencies and making cold calls to random people, thinking that at least one will agree. Cold calls after numerous scams are so tainted, people don’t even pick such calls (Thanks to apps like True Caller).

ASSOCIATE WITH NGOs - Yes, you got it right, rural and social policies are obligatory for all insurers. Meet such NGOs and make visits to rural areas, understand their issues and explain the features of insurance and how they can benefit. It is not an overnight work, it takes time.

AVOID RELATIVES - A big warning to avoid selling policies to your relatives, it will always backfire, as relatives can always be a pain. It's a general law to never enter into any financial transaction with a relative. It ruins relations. PLEASE AVOID SELLING POLICIES TO RELATIVES.

NEVER SELL INSURANCE AS INVESTMENTS - People now have understood that there are better alternatives to invest than insurance, so please don’t sell even endowment products as investments.

VISITING CARDS – With the advent of better printing technologies, printing activity or print outs have become very cheap. Visiting cards are a must for every insurance agent. He or she must always keep an entire box of visiting cards for distribution because you never know when opportunity knocks your door.

GO DIGITAL – Social media can no longer be taken as a child’s play. Social media accounts on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter and for that matter even Quora or Reddit are all places that may help you leverage your business and one must have an account in all the social media platforms for better performance. Your friend's friend may be searching for a good Term plan and voila he messages you via Facebook asking for options.

Note: Never promote your agency on social media please, you may lose your membership.

FAVOURS – Yes it sounds a bit diplomatic, but yes helping others will always help you back. A small favor done to an elderly man might help you land up with an annuity plan purchase from that old man. Remember to always be helpful and kind to others.

SET UP STALLS – Having a stall at a community get-together or Church fest or at town weekly market. You may not land up with prospective customers but you will definitely find someone who wants to buy policies for their loved ones. Next time onwards never miss any community get-togethers.

MEET-UPS – We know this might sound controversial but women are more social than men. Always make it a point to meet your female customers or the female relatives of your male customers. It may sound sexiest but yes females are a great reference point. Females socialize more often than men hence they meet a lot of people and there you are hundreds of referrals.

CONDUCT SEMINARS – Don’t wait for your manager or your branch head to push you. Organize a community financial planning seminar or financial literacy session. You will also understand the problems that people face before and after buying an insurance policy or this will help you get a deep insight into their financial status or nature.

LOVE THE CROWD – If your husband or wife is a regular folk in parties or casual get together, always accompany him or her. If you are unmarried, be interested in your friends' peers. The basics are the same, meet more and more people. This is how you get lucky.

There are many points that we wish to add that can help you sell and carry forward this novel profession which is also social work, and have generalized a few above.

We hope the points described above will help you gain referrals and references for your business insurance. We would like to end with this article with the famous quote by Steve Jobs "Stay Hungry Stay Foolish".