How to Lead an Effective Prospecting Appointment

You like to win, right? Most people (including insurance agents) do. Here’s how to do that at the very first meeting with your prospect!

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You will spend many hours prospecting: doing cold calls, text messages, email, social media, walk-in visits, networking events, and meeting with your circles of influence.

When you finally make an appointment with a prospect, it’s a moment of celebration!

#BOOM

But do you have any plan for what you will actually SAY when you are meeting with that insured? Do you have a plan or strategy for how you will manage the conversation in order to get what you want: the signed BOR?

Most agents do not. No plan. Nada.

Don’t be that agent!

Lack of preparation for prospect meetings is one of the main reasons why the incumbent agent will retain the client 92% of the time….and you’ll lose. In order to win…and win more often…you need to have a plan for what you’ll say during the appointment. You need an effective strategy that will help you win by turning a prospect into a new client from the very first meeting!

Here are the 5 Stages of a successful FIRST MEETING with a prospect that will put you in a strong position to get the signed Broker of Record Letter at the end of that meeting (and win):

1. Build Rapport & Inflate Ego

Insureds do business with agents they like and trust. You wouldn’t ask someone to marry you without getting to know them a bit, and the same is true for developing relationships with insurance buyers. Be careful not to talk business until you’ve established Rapport and built up their Ego. Don’t talk business until they like you. I can’t stress this enough.

2. Pro’s & Con’s about Their Industry and Their Own Business

The easiest way to get your prospect to open up is to get them talking about their industry. They live, breathe, and think about their industry and business all of the time. So they know what the challenges are, what’s coming around the corner, and getting them to talk about this topic is the easiest way to get them talking at all — to make them feel more comfortable with you — as well as learning about what makes them tick.

3. PROBLEMS with Carrier/Policy/Plan, Current Agent, and Agency Service Personnel

This might be the most important part of the meeting, so be sure to spend a lot of time here. (Also, please notice that we aren’t even yet talking about you, your agency, your products/features, etc). You NEED to be able to uncover significant problems with the current insurance carrier, incumbent agent, and the agency service personnel. If there are no major problems, it will be very, very, very difficult for you to win that account. If you only uncover “small” problems, it will be difficult to win. You need to spend a lot of time getting the insured to TELL YOU what the problems are.

4. SOLUTIONS to problems you just uncovered;12-Month Timeline of Services

NOTICE: This is the first time in the conversation where you begin talking about yourself. Here is where you provide and offer answers/solutions to ALL OF THE MAJOR PROBLEMS YOU JUST UNCOVERED IN STAGE 4. Because you will be micro-niched in the insured’s industry, you should already have a 12-month Timeline of Services written out which will detail your answers to these problems. Be sure not to make the mistake of wasting time on things they insured didn’t say were issues/problems for them. Focus on them…not you!

5. Ask for the Broker of Record Letter

Here’s where the “big ask” finally comes into play. You need to be clear, concise, and very deliberate. It might be something like this: “Jim, are these the services you would want from me and my team over the next 12 months?” If the prospect says no, then go back and figure out what you missed. If he says yes, then pull out your blank Broker of Record Letter, lay it on the desk in front of him, and say something like this: “Then what you need to do for me to immediately begin implementing these services for you — effective today — is to sign this Broker of Record Letter. Nothing will change right now in your coverages or rates. It simply informs your insurance carrier that you have chosen a new agent to service your policies going forward.”

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And that’s how you win more often. Frankly, it really is as simply as that.

If you do enough “above the funnel” prospecting, then you will have enough appointments with prospects that when you use this system…you’ll be able to turn your prospects into immediate clients. That’s the power of the signed Broker of Record Letter!

To learn more about how to build a $1,000,000 Book of Business through signed Broker of Record Letters from your prospects: CLICK HERE.

Otherwise, happy prospecting!