It’s surprising to us at ProspectMatch that so many financial professionals (insurance agents, stockbrokers, financial planners) come into financial services with no sense of how to grow a large business, to gain clients. It appears that those who recruit for the industry don’t do a great job of training or preparing the newbies on how to succeed. These new recruits may be looked at as merely “commission generating” or “asset gathering” machines and as a consequence, are considered disposable. This however is expensive and loses a lot of financial opportunity for all involved.
An example is the new insurance professional who is encouraged to get his FINRA license, specifically, the series 6 license. If one is taking time to study, why not study for the FINRA series 7 and gain a broader exposure to the investment markets? From a myopic viewpoint, such encouragement is not in the insurance company’s best interest as the insurer only wants the agent to sell the products offered by their firm (mutual funds, variable annuities) and not have the flexibility to branch out or pursue other career opportunities. Of course, this means that when the agent is in a competitive situation for investment dollars, he usually loses to the guy at the securities firm. The securities firm guy is better trained/more knowledgeable about investments (he passed the series 7 exam). In an ideal world, what’s good for your employer is good for you (the agent) but often it is not so. Your insurer’s short term interest may be adverse to your long term career goals.
Because of this less-than-wholistic view of careers by insurance companies, many recruits into financial sales are taught the caveman method of prospecting, to hunt and kill: find a prospect and close the sale. This approach does produce maximum long term earnings. To maximize career earnings, you must evolve your prospecting, just as the caveman evolved from hunter to farmer. To grow a profitable financial practice, graduate from hunt and kill and use the farmer formula: plant, cultivate, nurture. As a farmer, you have a method of prospecting or method to generate or buy leads which create insurance prospects who meet your criteria. These prospects enter your pipeline (they become your crops) as they may not be ready to buy today (not yet ripe). They are cultivated (watered and fertilized) in the pipeline (e.g. invitations to seminars, drip marketing with your newsletter) and they are nurtured into new clients. These insurance prospects are then further nurtured to produce repeat business and referrals (take the seeds from their flowers and plant them to get more crops).
Insurance marketing and insurance prospecting is for the purpose of placing a prospect into your pipeline, not to kill and eat today. While some insurance prospects may be ready to do business today, consider that the fortunate event and not the rule. You ask “how can I make a living while I fill the pipeline and take the time to convert these cultivated prospects into clients?” Answer: Just like any sound business, you need to enter the business with a financial cushion while you pack your pipeline. Does any business start up without working capital? Your first employer may not have told you about the need for capital as this may have dissuaded your entry into the business. Rather, the recruiter (paid based on how many people he recruits) or your first manager may have opted for some fast-turn system for insurance leads that you call and close that day.
The long term result for your career is similar to the drug addict looking for today’s hit. You spend each day looking for a hot insurance lead while the true professional is continually and easily gaining new clients from his pipeline–the pipeline he continually cultivates. You may have unwittingly become an insurance huckster rather than the insurance professional you had envisioned.
If you want to build the large business that has eluded you, it’s time to change your model from hunt and kill to plant, cultivate, nurture and ProspectMatch can help.
