So you’ve just started your insurance business and you’ve learned how important it is to have insurance leads knocking on your door on a daily basis.  But what are insurance agent leads really?  You’ll be shocked to learn what the real answer is behind the names, phone numbers and email addresses, and mastering this will help you master your business.

Behind every insurance agent lead is a person.  This person has just submitted their personal information to a person or company that they don’t know in order to get more information on insurance policies.  While this may seem mundane and a non-event for an insurance agent, in order to increase your sales rate dramatically, you have to fully appreciate what this means and what an insurance agent lead is not.

• it does not mean that the person is ready to buy insurance
• it does not mean they want you to call
• it does not mean they want a quote
• it does not mean anything other than this:

in order to fill out some information (a direct mail piece, an Internet form, respond to a telemarketer), that the insurance prospect has SOME motivation, which could be anything.

The insurance prospect may in fact want a quote or they may just want to learn more about how insurance works.  They may in fact be thinking of buying or they may just want to get pricing form you to take back to their own agent.  Since you don’t know their motivation, your first order of business is to find out.

The insurance agent lead could be asking for more information because they’re in the middle of some kind of transition in their life.   Unfortunately, insurance prospects don’t think about insurance when they’re perfectly fine and nothing is happening.  They think about their family, hobbies and work, but they don’t think about insurance.

So it’s reasonable to say that when you get an insurance agent lead, this person or family is in a  transition in their life.  Perhaps they just lost their job, or maybe someone close to them in their family just passed away and they’re starting to think about their own mortality or they got divorced.  Maybe they just had a minor break-in and want to add more coverage to their homeowner’s policy to be ready for the major break-in that they think is coming. While these are all reasonable assumptions about the insurance agent lead, the REAL way to find the motivation is simply to ask the prospect rather than assume.

Here’s what your call sounds like to an insurance agent lead: “Mrs. Smith, I just received your name on a card asking about life insurance.  While I am happy to send you information that would me useful to you, may I ask what motivated you to fill out this card?”

We go into depth about this because it’s the key to making the most from every insurance agent lead.  Each one of these insurance prospects has their own fears, worries and concerns – it’s your job to find out what these concerns are by asking questions and finding out exactly what the prospect seeks.

Once you know what the prospect wants, closing the sale is just as simple as offering it to them in a clear and concise manner that they understand, and making them feel comfortable with you and your company. It may seem trivial, but so very few insurance agents do this before they get into talking product. This puts such insurance agents at a huge disadvantage when it comes time to add these people to their client list.

If you approach every insurance agent lead that comes across your desk like they have a problem that you absolutely have to solve and make it your mission to first find out and then solve their problem, not only will you increase your business, your new clients will thank you for all of your help while you close the sale.

Lastly, you have to realize a difference in expectations when it comes to each insurance agent lead depending on how it is generated.  For example, Internet insurance agent leads expect a completely different level of service (i.e. fast response first by email) than mail order leads do, and vice versa.  Keep this in mind the next time you want to call up an Internet lead and have a serious conversation and save the heavy marketing strategies for leads that have sought you out via more “hands-on” means.

It’s a shame that so many insurance agents are clueless about marketing and client acquisition.  In July 2009, 1600 insurance agents did a a Google search on the phrase “insurance agent lead.” What exactly were these agents looking for?  A life lead, a P&C lead, an annuity lead?  Do they have any idea as to their niche, do they have a strategy or are they just fishing around for their next sale?  Unfortunately, the bar is so low to become an insurance agent (take some easy classes and pass a very simple exam), that it has become the second career for truck drivers.  Once the ex-truck driver passes his insurance exam, he now sets out looking for an insurance agent lead, I guess. (by the way–I like truck drivers.  I just think they should drive trucks and not sell insurance).

I don’t want to take anything away from the true insurance professional–those who are clearly financial advisers, have the CHFC or CPCU credential and really add value for their clients.  But some yahoo that may use Yahoo or Google to look for insurance agent lead is no one that should be exposed to the public.

So let’s give our 1600 Internet searchers the benefit of the doubt, assume they are new agents and provide some advice on how to generate insurance leads and grow a business. Depending on how new you are to the business, you may or may not know what an insurance agent lead is.  But even if you’re an industry veteran, you still may not know exactly what this type of lead is.  Even if you think you know, it’s still important to brush up on your knowledge and marketing strategies every now and again.

When you’re first getting started, it’s important to learn how to generate leads or have others do so for you.  Insurance agent leads come from a variety of places such as the Internet, direct mail, direct response TV, telemarketing – also known as cold calling (something you should never do but may want to hire someone to do).  The physical aspect of the lead is a name, address, phone number and email address – and possibly some other optional information – of a person who’s interested in receiving insurance information or a quote.  At the time he is filling out the form, the lead may or may not know exactly what type of insurance or company they need.

An insurance agent lead is a whole lot more than that, however.  To the average, unsuccessful insurance agent, this information is just an address and phone number.  It’s a faceless piece of information that the agent must use to get to their end goal – a sale.  To successful insurance agents, however, it’s a lot more than that.

The person on the other end of that insurance agent lead is someone who has worries, desires, needs and wants.  It can’t be stressed enough how important that is to success in this industry.  When you pick up that phone to talk to this lead, you’re speaking with someone who is potentially very scared or misinformed about insurance in general.  They may have no idea that you’ll be calling, and the reason they filled out the form with their personal information is because he’s going through a transition in his life and have some unknown circumstances that he needs you to help him through. To the experienced agent, this insurance agent lead is also a connection to everyone this prospect knows in the neighborhood, at work, his employer, etc.  In other words, one new client can lead to a whole lot of new business.

For example, many times an insurance agent lead will be calling because someone in the family close to them had just passed away and they’re starting to think about what will happen when they die, whether or not they have enough insurance coverage, and what will happen to their family when it’s their time to go.  Others are calling because they’re starting their own business or were laid off from a job that used to provide insurance and now need to find an alternative solution.

The key to success in this industry is to always keep these considerations in mind when talking to prospects.  Each insurance agent lead is a person and not just a potential sale.  Your job is to find out what this person wants.  What keeps the prospect up at night?  Why is he seeking further coverage (the emotional reason is what you want to know as people buy emotionally)?  It may seem simple, but finding out the answer to these questions, then answering them with a product that you offer is what will take you from being just an insurance agent to becoming an insurance super agent, a true professional. Not only will you make more money in the industry, but your clients will be eternally grateful for you doing it.