Business of Insurance Podcast

EP - 37 Ideas to consider as you plan for next year and information for whenever you feel you need to make some changes.

While most people do the goal setting at the end or beginning of the year, it can be done at any time.

Don’t just look at your sales goals, look at your productivity goals, your team goals and hopefully your marketing goals. Don’t forget about those personal goals too!.

Regardless of your position in the insurance industry, you should have some sort of plan to follow for the new year. If your boss doesn’t give you one, create one yourself.

Ideas to consider as you plan for 2020.

KNOW YOUR NUMBERS

When I first started in sales, my boss would hand us a one page sales plan. We usually had about a week to complete it. If I remember correctly, it started with how much production we wanted for the next year and broke it down into what we needed to do to get there. (we backed into it) In order to really do accurate predictions, we’d need to look at what we had done in the past. Some of that was in our heads, some of that was made up, but very little was really tracked. As I’ve evolved in the consulting world, I realize that the data is essential for creating a plan that will be productive. My boss knew he needed our numbers to do his own numbers.....but he didn’t provide a lot of guidance on completing our plan so that it was accurate and attainable. For a sales plan, you need to know what you did last year, what worked, what didn’t, where the business came from, how profitable the different accounts are. If you aren't using a CRM that tracks where business comes from, integrates marketing efforts and expenses, it’s hard to get an accurate recap. Often times senior management has these figures, but it isn’t to often that this information is available to those pounding the pavement!

As a professional, you want to know these numbers. Honestly, I’m not a numbers person, accounting is not my thing, but I do know my numbers. I think this is one of the differences between success and marginal success......numbers can motivate, numbers can show what’s working, what’s not working, what you need to stop doing and what you need to do more of.

Over the years I’ve seen a lot of businesses fail because they didn’t know their numbers. Maybe they looked at them once or twice a year. I have some clients who look at them daily...I think that’s a little overkill, but at a minimum, you should be looking at them monthly!

As you are doing your planning for next year, where are you getting your numbers? Are you guessing like we did years ago or do you have actual numbers that you can evaluate? If you don’t have actual numbers to use this year, make sure you have a plan to track everything next year so you can better project and plan.

TIME MANAGEMENT

In my business roundtables, when I ask about challenges, the number one area people want help with is time management. I wish I had a magic ball for this but I don’t. If you struggle with time management, you aren’t alone.

I believe that technology is a great thing but it has also created a lot more work for many people. Managing multiple email accounts, multiple social media accounts, in addition to having multiple browsers open every time you are working.

Tips to consider to help with your productivity. Maybe you can incorporate a few of the ideas into your planning for next year to help you reach your goals.

• Time block - take out your calendar, look for some times that you have free every week or month, and block them out to be productive. Maybe it’s your time to call two clients or prospects; maybe it’s your time to write 2 handwritten notes, maybe it’s your time to work on a long range project. When time blocking, you want to color code your calendar. You don’t need to go crazy with the colors, but it should stand out. One real key here is that you need to make this time a priority and create tasks that you want to get completed during those blocked out times. You have to respect the time that you have blocked. If someone wants to meet with you during that time, you need to say you are busy. If you have to have a meeting during your time blocked time, reschedule it for that day or the next. The more you begin to respect the time you block out for productivity, the more productive you’ll be..
• Set the timer - have you ever noticed that before you go on vacation, you get all of your projects completed? You have a deadline....get things done so you can get out of town....and for whatever reason, it works. Since we can’t go on vacation all the time, try setting some artificial deadlines. Set the timer. Give yourself 30 or 60 minutes. No distractions. No phone calls, no checking email. If you are one of those people that gets a popup every time you have a new email, turn it off. The idea behind working with the timer is to not have any distractions. ...

EP 68 - It’s been a hot minute since our last episode....a hot minute like 52 plus weeks!

If you are someone that has been listening awhile and you’ve kept this in your playlist...thank you. I’m so grateful.

If you are new, welcome.The content is good, but the consistency is lacking! I know that and I’m working on it. Publishing a podcast is not easy....at least if you are a perfectionist like me!

Yes, It’s been awhile since my last episode.....as much as I know how important it is to be consistent in publishing episodes, I’ve learned that you can only do so many things at one time, and as much as I want to publish episodes, my bandwidth was stretched thin

As a result, I made a big decision last year which was closing down my other business. My networking aka business dev elopement groups. I’ve run that business for over 20 years, but I want to focus on my insurance business and podcasting.

In January I attended a podcasting conference with the intent to get an update on the latest in podcasting and set my plan in place to get episodses published.

Well, the episodes will get published, but the plan is still a work in progress!

One of my goals with this podcast is to share insights from my 30+ years in the business and inspire you to find a career in this amazing industry and be successful. When I first started this podcast, I suffered from a little bit of imposter syndrome. In my head I’ve always been an insurance agent. Like since I was in high school. But when I morphed into the marketing space, I thought I’d focus on the insurance industry....but it didn’t feel right because I wasn’t working regularly in the industry. Now I’m back. No more imposter syndrome in this area. It’s a weird thing, maybe some of you can relate, maybe some of you think I’m nuts. Either is ok.

I also shut down my networking / business development business because I also felt like I had imposter syndrome there as well. While I know I’m good at it, I kept telling people I was an insurance agent. What does that say about me??? Regardless, I’m so happy with where I am today and what I’m doing!

So what will we be talking about in future episodes? I’m going to spend a lot of time on business development. It’s hard to walk completely away from something you loved for 20 years and completely close the chapter (at least I think it is) so I’ll take some of the concepts I’ve been talking about over the past 20 years and turn them into episodes. I’ll be talking a lot about networking, building relationships, developing referrals. You see, technology is great but people need to talk to people. I don’t care how much of an introvert or how shy you are. You feel better when you are talking to someone. Loneliness is a silent killer amongst seniors. I know you might not be a senior, but you will be one day so start taking steps now to make sure your retirement years are phenomenal!

There are a lot of ways you can grow your business, but too many people get distracted by the shiny object. I’m going to help you see your own path. Help you find what works for you and your personality. Not all tactics work for all people, but most people generate a lot of business through referrals, so by listening to future episodes, you’ll get a lot of ideas.

Heck, I co-authored a book on the topic! Check out Renewable Referrals. It’s not specific to insurance, but I hope to work on an updated version just for the insurance profession!

I’m not here to sell you the book but if your are curious, it’s on Amazon!

EPISODE TIP

Have you written a handwritten note lately? Think about the last 5 people you talked to. Take 30 minutes and write a hand written note to them. Tell them you enjoyed the conversation and you look forward to talking to them again soon. Those five handwritten notes will be some of the best marketing you will do this week!

Now I am finding time to send handwritten notes to people that refer me business. I’ve had cards designed that speak to my personality and have my company information on the back.

If you want to order your own, connect with me on LInkedIn and send me a message. For the first 5 to connect and request, I’ll send you 25 personalized note cards with your information! No obligation for anything. Just a thank you for listening!

Until next time, please share this episode with your friends and co-workers and keep creating opportunities!

YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU DON'T KNOW WITH NICOLE ORISME

Episode 28 - Today’s episode is a little different. It’s an edited replay from one of my other podcasts, called Business in Real Life. I feel like this is a topic that is beneficial to insurance agents so I’m sharing it on this podcast. If you are an agency principal, particularly one that is somewhat new or focused on personal lines instead of business insurance, you might not be as up to speed on HR issues as you need to be.

This conversation will provide you with some of the issues that you need to be aware of that will help keep you out of hot water. If you are selling or servicing insurance and focus on business clients, this information will also be valuable. It will give you some talking points with your prospects and clients that can set you apart from your peers. If you aren’t in either of these categories, I still think you’ll find some great nuggets in this conversation.

Our guest is Nicole Orisme, President of NLH Contracting. She started her business a few years ago and has grown rapidly every year. She helps her clients with creating employee manuals, discusses the proper strategies for hiring and firing employees, and does things from an HR perspective that most business owners aren’t aware of.

One of the things we discuss is that hiring help, not just in the HR capacity but making the decision to hire someone to do some of the lower paying tasks sooner than later. With technology today, we often feel that we shouldn't hire anyone. Afterall, we can answer our own phone, we can answer our own emails, we can schedule our own meetings.

When you are feeling overwhelmed with your work or business and you are trying to figure out why, we have a good exercise for you to consider. It might seem overwhelming, but you only need to do it for one week.

• Create a chart where you write down what you are doing every 15 minutes.
• Then take a look at the end of the week at how long things are taking you.
• Are there tasks on that list that should be done by a minimum wage person or lower wage person that your hourly wage?

Most of the time, the answer is yes.

The reluctance is to not hire because you might not have the revenue to support it, but what we have heard over and over from this exercise is that you actually double your productivity because you can focus on more revenue generating tasks instead of spending your time doing lower skilled tasks.

Something I’ve been saying for a long time is that we need to bring back receptionists and administrative assistants. Before voicemail and email, it was rare to see the business owner answer the phone or open the mail. That was assigned to someone else.

With the evolution of technology, those professions have been minimized but the successful business owner understands that having help is how to succeed faster.

While voicemail is efficient, how much easier is it for you to read a quick message and call someone back? Sometimes people can leave 5 minute messages, and if you get 5-10 of those a day and you’ve just spent over an hour just listening to voice mail messages. How much did that cost you in productivity?

How much time do you spend just unsubscribing or deleting the junk emails? All of that takes time which is time you could be doing tasks that generate revenue or grow your business in some capacity. I share this not to have you rush out and hire someone, but take a look at what you are doing and see if the tasks match your wage level.

Does it make sense to make a change? Just something to ponder.

Do you have your HR processes in place? If not, you might want to contact someone that specializes in HR. You don’t need to have someone on staff full time, you can easily outsource this department and pay by the hour or a flat fee for their services. The goal here is that you want to make sure that you are doing this part of running the business correctly. For those of you in sales, knowing a few HR companies can also be a great strategic alliance for you. They have clients that need insurance and you have clients that need HR!

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN FROM LISTENING

When you go into business and have employees, you have a lot of issues that need to be addressed. These include:

• Payroll
• Handbook
• Benefits administered correctly
• Compliance
• Employee manuals
• Independent Contractors
• Risk of not having the proper documents in place.
• Making sure you are following FLSA
• Hire an assistant sooner than later!

ABOUT OUR GUEST – NICOLE ORISME

Nicole Orisme who is the owner of NLH Contracting. Her website is the same as her company name: NLH Cont...

This is the second to last episode in our email marketing series. If you haven’t listened to the others, I’d encourage you to start with episode 47 for the email marketing series and if you want to learn a little more about marketing, listen to episodes 44 and 45.

• In episode 47 we talked about list segmentation which is about managing your list, but it’s important to always be growing your list as well - why because that is new prospects for you. That’s part of marketing.
• In episode 47 we also talked about looking at your website for different ways you are collecting email addresses. Today we’ll take that a little deeper.
• Getting email addresses doesn’t just come from people visiting your website. You can ask on your social media posts, you can have give aways, contests, webinars, workshops, community events, things where people need to sign up for something and give you their email address in the process.

If you are someone that is investing in social media you might be thinking, “do I really need to do worry about email marketing?”

My answer to this is

if you aren’t, you might be out of business before everyone else.

Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and whatever new platform is developed is rented space for you. Today, they are all free. Today, they control what people see, unless you pay them. It’s basically a pay to play game for them. So if you aren't paying, not many people are seeing your content.

When FB first started with the business pages, as a trainer, I was telling everyone to create one. Those that did, those early adopters, had their pages seen...for awhile. Then FB went public and then they needed to start making money. So then the business pages weren’t seen as much and if you wanted your business page to be seen, you had to pay. Now its advertising

The newest thing is groups. Build your community in a group. For now, everyone is seeing what is posted in your group. Before long, FB will have ads in the groups and you’ll have to decide how valuable it is.

I don’t fault FB. They are a business. Businesses need to make money. In the case of social media, it’s offered to the consumer for free, they get use to things, it’s almost like an addiction but AI decides what the consumer sees. The people you want to target might not be in their sightline.

By having the email addresses, you own it. You aren’t dependent on paying FB or even worrying about if FB exists because you reach your prospects and clients on your terms. Personally, I think that’s much better than having your business dependent on another!

It’s really important to understand that social media is rented. You don’t really have people’s contact information. It’s hard for you to reach out to them.

With email marketing, you are in their inbox and as long as you are sending valuable content, they'll keep you there!

Ok, enough about that.

I’ve used Constant Contact as my ESP for many years and I’ve been one of their partners for a long time as well. Since I’m not actively doing marketing for others today, I reached out to other CTCT partners in our community and asked them what they see as good ways of growing your list today.

Some of the ideas I’m discussing today are coming directly from them and these are people who are working with clients everyday, helping them with their marketing. If you want to check them out, check out the show notes at thebusinessofinsurance.com where I’ve linked to their websites where they were available.

Website - This is a no brainer and can be done a few different ways. In episode 47 I suggested you do a website audit.

Where are you collecting email addresses on your website?

In my opinion, you should have some form of email capture on almost every page of your website. From giving things away to just getting more information, if you don’t ask, you won't’ collect.

This ties into what Amy Morales of Kapeesh Marketing says because she feels that many small business owners feel embarrassed or too modest to ask customers to follow them online or join some kind of digital marketing effort. Just as these business owners champion "shop small" and "shop local," they should feel empowered and completely capable of asking friends and customers to support them online and join them on an email list.

I think some of this is because we don’t want more emails in our inbox so why should we ask other people for their email. I understand this but if you are sending out valuable information, people should be happy to get your emails. It’s the people that send out useless information that people will unsubscribe to.

I’ve seen this a lot over the years myself. I even see it today with the clients in my CEO roundtable...

DIFFERENT MARKETING IDEAS FOR INSURANCE

EP 30 - This episode is a follow up conversation to episode 29. If you didn’t listen, I would encourage you to listen to my conversation with Ben Page before listening to this one, so that the concepts will make more sense.

Normally I would offer my thoughts at the end of the episode, but since our conversation was so long, and believe it or not, I edited out about 15 minutes worth, I decided to make it a two part series to be more respectful of your time.

Aside from selling ideas, Ben brought up several topics from social media, online reviews, writing a book and referrals that I think we could explore a little bit. This will be a higher level look at those topics and maybe one day I’ll take a deeper dive into more of them. REFERRALS

So let’s start with referrals. I love talking about referrals. It’s the core of what I’ve spent the past 20 years doing. Helping professionals see the opportunities that come from a solid referral strategy. I thought I’d elaborate on the process a little here.

It’s important that you get in the habit of telling people that you get most of your business from referrals. Remind people because they will forget. For those clients that you get from referral remind they regularly because they understand the value of doing business through referrals. If someone found you online, educate them on your referral process.

I’m not suggesting that you pay for referrals or have any type of a contest for referrals. Personally I think that’s a little tacky. While there’s nothing wrong with sending a starbucks gift card or something like that when you receive a referral, I like to see that as a surprise, not something that is promoted. You want quality referrals, not just a referral from anyone with a license. The more you educate people on the type of clients you want to work with the more you will see that type of business referred to you.

I also want to be clear about the educating people on referrals component. There’s a sleazy way to do this and a casual professional way to do this. The sleazy way is to ask for 5 names of people you can call. Ugh....I hate that and would never do something like that. I know some of you listening have done this and think it’s ok. It doesn’t work in my world. What I like is to plant the seed. Educate people and remind them, because they forget. Be casual but consistent and you will see referred business.

It’s like I say on this podcast, if you like what you are hearing, please tell a friend or coworker. I’m asking for referrals, in a very subtle way.

STRATEGIC PARTNERS

In one of the other podcasts I produce called Business In Real Life, I did an episode on strategic partners. If you want to listen to it, I’ll link to it in the show notes, or look for the podcast and go to episode 7. You can also go to my website, selectbizteam.com and look for it there as well. That episode is about creating a marketing plan for your strategic partners. For example, making a list of the strategic partners for your industry. As an insurance agent selling business insurance, these would include business bankers, business attorneys, CPA’s that work with businesses and financial advisors that do a lot of 401k type of business. If you are selling personal insurance, you might have realtors, mortgage professionals, financial advisors and and maybe a home builder as your strategic partners.

Start by making a list of 20 people in each profession. You could have 100 names that you are working with, but that’s ok. You’ll weed some out because they aren’t a good fit or they don’t do enough business to support the type of clients you work with.

Once you’ve made your list, see who else knows them by checking LinkedIn, FB and other social platforms.

Next step start inviting them to coffee. Have a list of questions you want to ask them about how they run their business and find out what types of clients they are looking for.

You need to discover who they refer to , what it would take for them to refer to you and how you can best help them. Maybe you’ll offer a comprehensive review for their clients and have it approved through them before you show the client or maybe you offer to create an event together and invite a few clients to introduce to that strategic partner.

The point is to start the conversation. For some, you might need to have a few, for others, you’ll only have one and for the last group you’ll find an opportunity to do something right away!

The other part about working with strategic partners is tracking. This is the essential component of referral marketing.

TRACKING THE DATA

That’s a good segaway into talking about CRM’s. Ben brought this up in our conversation and I really think it’s worth el...