Motivate Yourself To Try Harder Now!
If you ask yourself, "What am I doing wrong?" and nothing comes to mind, you're probably not trying hard enough.
Everyday I call into insurance companies and try to figure out how they motivate their sales employees. For the purposes of my calling efforts, I can generally ignore anyone within an organization who is not compensated by some form of incentive or variable pay plan, which includes bonuses, MBOs, commissions, non-cash rewards, and so on.
If you've ever worked in insurance, you know that this is not a simple, single-line email reply type of inquiry. Typically, in large (often nationally operating) insurance giants, there are several tiers of motivation at play within a single organization. Then within that organization, you've got subsidiaries, associations, agencies, wholesalers and the like keeping you on your toes and making the compensation structures highly complex and difficult to manage.
In order to find the best person, or more likely the group of people who are responsible for making decisions and calling the shots, you have to start at ground zero. For insurance, the first question I ask is: Who do they employ? Most insurance sales begin with agents, who are called brokers if you're in Canada, or producers if we're talking P&C (Property & Casualty) insurance. But let us not get side tracked! Within the agent group, you have captive agents, aka sales employees on salaried plans with benefits, and independent agents, who are mostly self-employed sales people, often times compensated by several different companies depending on which products they sell. Next are the privately owned businesses, known commonly as agencies. Any given agency can employ different types of agents, and insurance organizations hire an agency or affiliate with an agency to basically outsource their sales efforts and diversify their distribution channels. Cover every base possible, right? And then some.
Now that I've finally gotten my grasp on this ground level, I find myself struggling to comprehend the multi-faceted tiers that function above - brokers, producers, wholesalers, dealers, underwriters, etc…. All of this before you even begin to break out levels of sales payees, such as representatives, managers, directors, analysts, and consultants. It's honestly exhausting just to list out. The point I'm beating into the ground here is that insurance as an industry is extremely complex. Calling into giants like Aflac, AAA, and Fidelity, and asking, "Who does this?" is unrealistic on a good day. So how do I overcome this in business development challenge?
The truth is, insurance is a very good example of rules that apply across most industries and in my opinion, should be weighing into any and all business development efforts - Diligence, persistence, and reverence. The combination of these 3 things, in conjunction with a business development employee whose always trying to find new ways to put more effort into their work, is a recipe for success on any day of the week. Now let's break those 3 key ingredients down a bit more.
Diligence is the effort you put in. It’s the consciousness of paying proper attention to your task. Finding the right person, catching their eye, and figuring out what grinds their gears. Diligence is determination.
Persistence isn't the same thing as stalking; it's nurturing those prospects that need time, or education, and reminding those that need motivation to make some time. Persistence is staying connected, the continuity of efforts and again, determination. If an interested prospect asks me to check back in 6 months, I'll send them an email in 3 months just to make sure nothing has come up sooner than they originally expected, and to keep my client top of mind when the time does come.
In the ever changing world of business development, possibly the most important and influential factor is reverence. Reverence is that R -E-S-P-E-C-T that means the same to you and me. It is knowing your limits and the limits of the people you're reaching out to. Ask a person, is this a good time to chat? Do you have a few minutes? Apologize for interrupting their day.
Insure yourself, never try hard enough!