As an insurance professional, one of the most critical requirements of your job is to establish credibility with your clients and prospects. But how do you reach this goal? In other words, how do you position yourself as an industry expert, as someone with the answers to all of the difficult questions?
The [...]

In April, The Nielsen Company introduced a report that showed online video viewers had increased to a total of 131.7 million viewers in March 2010. Studies like these indicate that online video watching is on the rise and if you have a website and blog and are not using podcasts as another means of getting [...]

There are many important uses for your newsletter and one of the most helpful is the way that it can assist your social networking plan. When you think of social networking you might not immediately find your newsletter to be a possible help, but consider the following:

One of the great ways you can get new clients without even trying is to create a newsletter that is “Forward-worthy.” A forward-worthy newsletter is one that your readers will read and find so valuable that they quickly want to forward it on to others within their online and offline social circles. This exposes your [...]

One of the best benefits of having an electronic or print newsletter available for your clients is that it gives you a great opportunity for cross-selling other lines of coverage.  This ability opens up your agency and exposes you to sales opportunities you might have otherwise missed out on.

It’s not always easy to be in sales. The poor sales practices of just a few agents and companies have been publicized enough to make some consumers overly suspicious–so much so that they think all sales people have ulterior motives to sell at any cost. When you meet a prospect who exhibits this line of [...]

As an agent, time is one of your most valuable commodities. It is limited in availability and the more you are able to save for yourself and your family, the richer you feel. But because so much of your career is devoted toward customer service and education, your time can be easily used up by [...]

Clients and prospects are as individual as snowflakes. That’s why it’s a good idea to offer your newsletter in both print and electronic formats because while some clients prefer the no-muss, no-fuss approach of the electronic newsletter, others prefer the tangible, tactile sensation of a printed newsletter between their fingertips. If you still aren’t sure [...]

While every agent has his or her own sales process, they all generally contain some variation of 4 important actions:
1. Introduce yourself to the client.
2. Create value in the relationship.
3. Build trust.
4. Individualize your sales pitch.

Email marketing has been around for 10+ years now, but email open rates remain a point of contention among marketers. Some consider them irrelevant, others live and die by their open rates. Some marketers disregard them as pointless. Like anything there’s a happy medium to be found somewhere.
Methods to track open rates remain basically the [...]