An effective insurance agent sales training program is absolutely vital to the success of your agency, but designing the right insurance agent training program can be challenging if you don’t know where to start. Luckily, that’s exactly what this blog will cover.
We will start with the basics of why it is you do what you do by answering the question – why sell insurance? Then we will cover more sales related topics like leads, appointment setting, presentation training, building rapport, fact finding, closing, business management, and how to stay motivated. We’ll close by discussing how the right technology can make your agency more effective and increase your insurance agency sales numbers.
Let’s get started.
Why Sell Insurance?
The first step to designing an effective insurance agent training program is understanding why you do what you do – which is sell insurance. The main reasons people choose to become insurance agents are so they can be their own boss, have control of their own destiny, and provide for their family. Uncapped commissions help too. 😉
Leads
Now that you have a better understanding of why people want to sell insurance, let’s discuss leads. In order for your insurance agency sales efforts to be successful, you will need plenty of good quality leads to follow up with and convert into new business. The new hires in your insurance agent training program may complain about finding good leads. They may struggle to find them or convert them. If you hear this from your new agents enough, it might be an indication that things aren’t going as planned or your expectations are too high. So take a step back and reevaluate. The right insurance agent will see the value in learning how to find good quality leads and how to turn them into new clients. So both lead generation and lead management are important aspects to your insurance sales training program.
Appointment Setting
The next step in designing an effective insurance agent training program is to cover the topic of setting appointments. Learning how to prospect is important because it’s what allows you to be able to get in front of your prospects and show them why they should buy from you and not someone else. Remember, people work with people they know, like and trust which means you need to take every opportunity you can get to establish rapport and build that relationship before we try selling them something. Prospecting needs to be at the forefront of your insurance sales training program.
Presentation Skills & Communication Training
Now that we have covered the basics of how to get in front of prospects, let’s talk about presentation skills training. When you have solid presentation skills training in place it allows your agents to feel more confident when speaking with people about their future. It also gives them the ability to create impactful presentations that really connect with the emotions of their prospects so they are motivated to take action after listening to what they have to say. Presenting and communication skills are another must in your insurance sales training program.
Rapport Building & Fact Finding
Rapport building and fact finding are next up on your insurance agent training program agenda. The key ingredient for building rapport is being genuinely interested in learning about other people, putting yourself in their shoes, and then speaking from that point-of-view. That means when speaking with someone, don’t try selling anything immediately. Instead – focus on engaging them through open ended questions that are designed to tap into their emotions while getting to know them better at the same time. These skills need to be in your insurance sales training.
Closing Skills for Insurance Agents
Another vital aspect to your insurance sales training program is teaching your new agents how to close. In order to be a successful insurance agent, they will need to learn how to ask the right questions that will allow them to collect key information that helps determine if a prospect is a good fit for your agency.
It’s going to take time and effort before your new agents can generate new business, so this training needs to be done in such a way that makes the sales process as simple as possible so they can apply it in their insurance agency sales efforts.
Business Management & Marketing Training
The final component of an effective insurance agent training program is knowledge about business management and marketing. In today’s world, we have access to so much information through tutorials and online videos, which means running your own business doesn’t have to be as difficult as it was in the past. Plus, you can connect with like-minded individuals on social media who are focused on self improvement and learning how to grow their business. So encourage your new agents to take advantage of those resources so they can become your secret weapon for success!
The Right Technology
Let’s close this blog by discussing one last piece of how to sell insurance successfully. That is the topic of technology. Once you and your agents know how to sell – the next step is finding the right tech tools to help you sell even more. It’s important that you find the right technology stack for you and then learn it inside and out. This will help you train your agents on how to use it to increase their insurance sales numbers.
There are lots of sales and management software out there but the two big ones that you need are an Agency Management System (AMS for short) and a Customer Relationship Management platform (called a CRM). There are a ton of options for both of these types of software, but you need to make sure you find a system that is specifically designed for the insurance industry.
Having the right tech stack will help you stay organized and efficient in your insurance agency sales efforts through automated communication with your prospects and your clients. It will also help you visualize your success through interactive sales pipelines.
Try InsuredMine
As you are looking for the right tech stack to boost your insurance agency sales, we invite you to try out InsuredMine. Its all-encompassing design offers unparalleled automation and integration that will keep your whole team organized and closing deals. And if you need any help, we have some really stellar training videos to help you along the way. Best of all is that you can try InsuredMine today for free. Schedule a demo below or click here to start your free trial, and see for yourself why InsuredMine is the #1 Insurance CRM on the market.