07 Jul How To Accelerate Your Insurance Agency’s Growth In The First Year
It’s finally happened. You’ve opened the doors of your insurance agency. Going independent isn’t easy, but it can be very rewarding if you effectively plan the first year and set the stage for future success. When insurance brokers and agency owners commit to strategic planning, lead optimization and the daily grind it takes to be successful, they can scale their day-to-day wins and go the distance. You should be prepared from the first phone call, first lead or first hire. ZipQuote can help you get there.
The following six tips offer ways to accelerate your agency’s growth in the first year and beyond.
#1. Be Prepared With Goals And A Game Plan For Your Insurance Agency
If you don’t know what you want, or how to get it, you can’t find success. Setting insurance agency growth targets, like KPIs, can help you create a plan of action. Once you have a plan in place, you know what you can handle. This allows you to manage growth, create strong partnerships, hire effectively and be the right agent for your policyholders. Once you have a game plan, working with a lead partner like ZipQuote can help you execute and reach your goals.
#2. Choose Wisely When Hiring Across Your Insurance Agency, From Operations To Sales
An insurance agency is only as good as the people who represent it, from operations to claims and, of course, sales. A mix of experience, excitement and chemistry can be a good jumping-off point for finding those team members who want to see your agency grow. Hiring incentives, on-the-job training and attractive benefits and perks can bring in high-quality hires that are committed and want to work. This is particularly important with your insurance sales team, who will be closing deals and nurturing relationships critical to retention.
#3. Be A Problem Solver, Empower Your Salespeople And Build Trust With Your Clients
A strong book of clients is essential to a lasting foundation at your insurance agency. Your sales team must be empowered to show prospective leads what your agency can offer and how it can solve their problems. This connection builds trust, and it starts with quality leads and a strong lead partner like ZipQuote. Empowered salespeople with the right tools to succeed are able to connect with consumers and drive conversions, which encourages stability, retention and referrals from your clients. Additionally, customer satisfaction should go beyond just sales interactions. Each time your customers engage with any department at your agency, they should feel taken care of and satisfied with their service.
#4. Prioritize Referrals To Help Your Insurance Agency Grow
By being a trustworthy, solution-oriented agency you are encouraging referrals. Referrals drive business growth and create stability moving forward. In order to nurture referrals, agencies can offer incentives for the initial referral, like cash or gift cards, and an additional “finders fee” if the referral signs on with your agency. Be sure to follow up with quality customer service to both the customer who provided the referral and the new policyholder.
#5. Make Sure You Have A CRM You Can Leverage To Meet Your Goals
A good customer relationship management (CRM) system helps you keep track of your goals, stay up to date with all of your incoming leads and record recent customer engagement and actions. A CRM is more than an organizational tool, it also allows you to automate when necessary, clearly define your objectives and level up both your customer service and sales processes. Most importantly, a well-managed CRM shows you what’s working or not working, especially when partnering with insurance lead vendors. This allows you to make changes to how you target your advertising and/or respond to leads, or double down where you’re having success. ZipQuote offers integrations with many top insurance agency CRMs, helping to set your campaigns up for success.
#6. Remember That Speed To Lead Is Crucial When It Comes To Conversions
In order to drive conversions, you must quickly capitalize on a prospect’s interest. All the leads in the world aren’t effective if you don’t act quickly to engage the interested consumer. Speed to lead is real, especially when you can assume that your potential customer is looking around and likely expecting outreach from other agencies. By establishing a proven contact strategy, your likelihood of converting leads is positioned to increase. ZipQuote can help quickly connect you with high-intent leads who are actively searching for insurance.
Working with a quality insurance lead provider, like ZipQuote, can help automate much of the insurance advertising legwork by providing you with an intuitive, user-friendly platform to connect with interested insurance consumers. ZipQuote allows you to filter leads, automate ordering, measure performance in real-time and integrate with your preferred CRM.
Getting a new agency off the ground takes a lot of hard work, but by following some tried and tested methods, you could be set up for success, and create a stable, successful agency for years to come.
Click here to learn more about how ZipQuote can help you grow your business.
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