Cold calling is still one of the most effective ways to sell insurance. Even in today’s social media and email focused world. Those methods are also effective, but nothing will trump getting your prospect on the phone where you can talk voice to voice.
As you start to formulate your cold calling strategy, consider using an insurance CRM to help you in your insurance agency sales efforts. Although we will use InsuredMine in this article to help illustrate the steps suggested to make your cold calls great, our goal is to provide genuine value with useful articles like this one insurance agents can actually use.
This blog will detail the step by step process of how to set up a cold calling strategy and what to do once you start dialing.
Let’s get started.
Step 1: Format Your Contact List Before You Upload to InsuredMine
The first step to using InsuredMine, (or a worse insurance CRM option 😆), to sell insurance policies over the phone, is to upload your contact list. But before you do, you want to make sure it’s formatted correctly. Specifically, we are talking about a spreadsheet that you will be uploading to InsuredMine.
Use the contact list feature to model your spreadsheet, making sure to label fields correctly as they are laid out in InsuredMine. You can create custom fields if the default fields don’t include one that’s in your spreadsheet.
You will want to label each contact in your spreadsheet with a recognizable campaign name like “July 1 auto leads.” You also want to label each contact for what stage they are currently in inside your sales pipeline like “cold” or “not contacted.” You can change these stages later on as they develop.
If the contacts in your spreadsheets are owned by different members of your team, make sure to label each contact with the agent responsible for that contact.
This formatting of your spreadsheet before you upload to InsuredMine will help to ensure that your contact list is laid out how you want it inside the platform. This will go a long way towards helping you stay organized as you start to sell insurance over the phone. Organization is a key ingredient to how you successfully sell insurance.
Step 2: Create a Unique Pipeline With the Applicable Stages
Now that you have your contact list uploaded, the next step is to set up your sales pipeline with the applicable stages. Setting up your pipeline now will help you to stay organized once you start making cold calls.
Creating multiple pipelines can be helpful. Many insurance agencies prefer to have a clear cut pipeline to move leads through the stages from cold to closed, and a separate pipeline specifically for cold-call leads in specific industries.
Here’s an example of a pipeline with corresponding stages:
Pipeline Name: Restaurant Cold Call Leads
- First Call Attempted – Not Reached
- Scheduled Producer Meeting
- Ok to Email but No Producer Meeting
- Do Not Contact
- Quoted
- Issued Policy Issued
Step 3: Start Dialing
You’ve reached the jumping off point. It’s time to start dialing.
The first thing you want to do before you start calling is to find the contact you want to call and open their contact profile. Make sure you take notes during and after the call to add to your contact’s profile. This is the best place to store email addresses if you get one from your cold call.
The top priority of your cold calls is to get to the next step. This could be getting an email for your contact or a different but better contact where you can send a quote. The optimal result is to get further contact info and set an appointment with a decision maker to discuss what your insurance agency has to offer.
Staying organized is a critical part of how to sell insurance over the phone. When you are organized, you are more confident and confidence leads to closed deals.
Step 4: Setting Up an Appointment With the Producer
If you use an appointment setter to sell insurance over the phone for your agency, you need to create a way for them to schedule appointments for you and your agents with your contacts. The best way to do this is with a unique scheduling link for you and the agents on your team. Your appointment setter can use this link to schedule an appointment with your contacts while on the call through visibility into your schedule and availability.
Setting appointments to discuss your contact’s insurance needs is a necessity in how to sell insurance effectively.
Step 5-A: If Contact Has Made an Appointment to Speak With a Producer
If your contact has made an appointment with you or your appointment setter, you will want to create a card inside your insurance CRM (InsuredMine is a great one to use) for that contact. You can then move this deal card through your pipeline as the deal progresses.
Insurance agency sales pipelines give you optimal visibility into your revenue stream and where each contact sits in your pipeline. This visibility is an essential component of how to sell insurance successfully.
Step 5-B: If the Contact Provides an Email Address but Does Not Want to Speak With a Producer Right Now
If your contact provides their email address to you or your appointment setter but does not schedule an appointment on the call, the best thing to do is to assign a “single contact drip.” This will automate your communication with that contact through an email or text message campaign. This will nurture the contact you have already spoken with, gently nudging them towards scheduling an appointment.
Make sure you have a contact drip set up before you start calling. If you are wondering how to sell insurance holistically, combining a cold call with a contact drip inside is the answer.
Step 5-C: If Contact Is Not Interested
If your contact makes it clear that they are not interested in your services and asks you not to contact them again, you will want to label them as “do not contact.” This will flag them as a dead lead so that your agents and your appointment setter know not to contact them again. If you move them into your “deal lost” (or similar wording) pipeline stage, you can trigger one last email automation that will send a friendly email to the contact thanking them for their time.
Want to Sell Insurance Using InsuredMine?
InsuredMine’s all-encompassing platform and robust automation (like pipeline management and contract drips) is what makes it truly the best insurance CRM on the market. We invite you to experience InsuredMine for yourself. Schedule a demo below, or contact us today for your free trial.
