5 Traits To Be a Super Producer

Over the past twenty years I’ve had the opportunity to meet with some of the brightest sales and marketing minds in the insurance and financial sectors. It’s amazing how these folks think about the business and ultimately how simplistic the approach is to their success. What I've found fascinating is they all have similar traits that make them awesome at what they do.

Here are five of those traits that I’ve seen most commonly missed by others.

• They Are Follow-up Machines. I've helped implement tens of thousands of producers on an industry specific CRM platform, and what I found astonishing was the typical producer will follow-up with a lead less than three times and nearly 30% never follow-up at all. There is an art to following-up and not being a pest but it's a necessary evil of sales, especially selling insurance. People are hesitant at first to even talk with an insurance professional so be patient and keep them on your call list. If after about ten times they haven't responded put them on a drip marketing campaign and make sure you call them at least twice during the year. We had a lost sale campaign, which came standard in the CRM we sold, that generated a 28% buy rate for producers within twelve months of losing the first sales opportunity.

• They Don't Make You Feel Small – Even if Your Bank Account is. This is one of the most commonly seen mistakes by producers. Yes, everyone wants a whale but there are far more minnows in the sea. Plus, eventfully some of these minnows will grow up to be bigger fish with more money. Treating people as if they're your most important customer lends to longer relationships, more referrals, and more sales.

• They Are There at Major Events – Both Big and Small. Think about the last time you showed up at the hospital with a baby gift for one of your clients, took one of your clients to lunch for their birthday or bought their kid a gift card for graduation. You don't have to be at everything but you do have to be at something. The key here is to make them feel special. These are the types of things that set you a part from your competition and turn you into a family adviser rather than just some schmuck pawning a final expense product.
• They Do Not Turn and Burn. I have three life policies purchased through three different producers, and believe it or not after they delivered my policy I’ve never heard another word from them.   Nothing, nada, zip.   It’s sad because if the first producer had reached out periodically I probably would have bought my other two policies from him. All three have missed out on me telling my family and friends about them and how much they (could have) helped me with securing the financial future of my wife and kids.

• They Use Technology to Support Their Efforts. This is probably one of the biggest areas attributing to super producers building such a large and successful practice. No one person can do it all these days without embracing technology. To make it in this fast paced competitive world you’ll need at a minimum a good CRM, some type of marketing automation platform, post to your social media accounts religiously, and embrace electronic applications and eDelivery when ever possible. The days of just having a good old website are long gone.  If you want to see a guy who does this extremely well check out Bill Levinson at Levinson and Associates (carylevinson.com) or get your hands on the latest issue of Insurance News Net Magazine (https://issuu.com/innm/docs/innm1015), they’ve got him on the cover this month discussing how his tech forward approach is changing the industry.

Incorporating just one or two of these into your practice with consistency will make a huge difference. They key word here is “consistency”.  You cannot do this for a month or two and stop. They are things you must do day in and day out. Just like any thing else that’s worth your effort it will take a little time, but you’ll be amazed at the difference in the long run.

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