Commentary: P/C Cold Calling Can Provide Targeted Leads
It’s been said that convincing a property/casualty salesperson to adopt a really new idea is somewhat akin to inducing an elephant to make a right-angle turn.
However, perhaps the good news is that p/c cold calling today is no longer considered as radical as it was even a decade ago. Or, more succinctly stated, for the industry as a whole, the elephant is on the move!
Telemarketing versus ‘teleprospecting’
A generation ago, “cold calling” meant dropping by unexpectedly or picking up a telephone in hopes that a complete stranger might buy some insurance from you.
Today, unexpectedly dropping by in person is so rare, it’s not even worth discussing. Instead, let’s talk about “teleprospecting.” I coined this word because I did not believe that telemarketing adequately described my primary subject matter. In my experience, for most people telemarketing means selling a tangible product or service over the telephone.
In teleprospecting, the goal is not an immediate sale. Instead, it is to set up a face-to-face meeting to facilitate far larger, more complex sales. In teleprospecting, at the end of the initial telephone call, your prospect is still just a prospect, but the transformation process through which prospects become clients just took a quantum leap when you got the appointment.
On the move
In life/health sales, cold calling is about as old as the telephone, while in p/c, it is still relatively new. This is because p/c and life/health sales dance to the beat of very different drummers. In life/health, the primary emphasis is on new sales, with diminishing commissions on yesterday’s accomplishments; while in p/c, the commissions are higher because the emphasis is on continuing day-to-day service.
Long ago, good service was the cornerstone of a successful p/c agency, and although it’s still critical, today it’s not enough. Other p/c agents are cold calling—both by telephone, but also if we stretch the definition, we can include increasingly aggressive Internet advertising.
The result? One way or another, your client base will be affected.
Other profit problems
Also, in conjunction with natural attrition, today an increasing number of p/c companies are passing more of their expenses on to individual agents, which—even without any other profit-eroding components—means that today some measure of expansion has become imperative if present profitability is to be maintained.
Let’s define “some measure” of expansion. If you prefer hands-on client contact to administrative responsibilities, then obviously you will not be seeking especially aggressive strategies to attract new clients because if you did end up with a lot of new clients, you might find yourself hard-pressed to provide competent service to all of them. Or if you prefer administrative responsibilities to hands-on client contact, then by all means, bringing in more clients means bringing in more agents to service them in an ever-expanding environment. The choice is yours.
Expansion options
But why cold call? Certainly you’re not alone if you hate it! Why not simply put up the best website imaginable, or invest in ongoing mass mailings or triple the size of your Yellow Pages ad?
By all means, don’t eliminate any of the options mentioned. However, keep in mind the fact that cold calling is targeted. It is interactive, person-to-person in the strongest sense of the phrase. With cold calling, you are able to establish far tighter criteria on what you’re looking for, enabling you to focus far more narrowly on this select group.
You are far less likely to waste time pursuing and even drawing up proposals for entirely inappropriate prospects. Also, you are in a position to interact immediately, to connect, person-to-person, something no website can offer.
Does this mean you must cold call? Of course not! But it does mean you’d do well to learn a great deal more about it than most p/c salespeople know today, before you make any final decisions.
Davis is a consultant and author of “The Insurance Agents’ Guide to Telephone Prospecting.” For more information, visit www.makingcontact.com/leDavis or send e-mail to LouEDavis@AOL.com.