You sabotage yourself by not having systems. Those systems need to be based on your business, your strengths, and your objectives. You’ll never earn what a top producer earns if you run your business by spur of the moment decisions, and random activities intended to produce results.

You need three clearly defined systems to have a real business rather than a low paying job. First, you need a system to get appointments with the right prospects. Second, you need a system for selling those prospects and converting them into customers. Third, you need a system to generate referrals from those customers that isn’t pushy.

There are a number of marketing systems that you could purchase, but they aren’t your system. Even when/if you purchase a marketing system it’s really only part of your marketing plan. Your marketing plan has to be built around who you are, the reason your business exists, and the one clear message you want to communicate to your market through every marketing communication you make.

When you try to communicate different messages to the same people, or you try to be everything to everyone you confuse your market. There’s a simple truth about a confused market, and that is they don’t buy. And neither does a bored market.

Your systems all have to support and expand on the clear, succinct, and repeatable message that you want your market saying about you. The objective of marketing systems is to have enough systems in place to produce leads to qualified prospects. Traditional you-focused marketing doesn’t work, but educational customer-centered marketing always works and you can make it work more effectively if you don’t go for a one-shot connection.

Once you have a lead your sales system kicks in. A buyer won’t buy until they’re ready to buy no matter how much you try to push them into a sale. But a buyer that you’ve connected with and maintained the connection with will buy from you when they’re ready because they feel like they already know you and trust you.

Your job is to have several options for moving that prospect through your sales funnel until they’re ready to buy. Once you have the appointment you already have a tenuous relationship, and during the appointment you want to solidify that relationship by helping them to buy. Your sales process helps you to have a sales conversation that’s focused on the customer and that leads to a natural conclusion that you need to work together.

Once they’re your customer you need a referral system. Your referral system shouldn’t be pushy, and it shouldn’t sound like you’re begging. Your customers should feel like they’re sharing something great and when they do they connect you with their contacts.

By: Cheryl Clausen

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Filed under: Insurance Leads

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