While driving home from our insurance sales business trip to North Carolina, I began to think about what is one thing everyone in insurance sales already has that can make them successful. This is something that doesn’t have to be purchased. You have it already! All you have to do is learn how to use it to your advantage. The answer is your attitude!

We all have different attitudes or personalities.  But its how we use them that either helps or hurts us. Your attitude can help you make friends but cause you to fail in success. Especially in sales, we tend to wear our feelings on our shirt sleeve. Meaning instead of using our attitudes to our advantage we usually use them in a way to hurt us and others around us. We get frustrated when we work hard and don’t make sales. We get irritated when another agent gets an area and we don’t. We also get disgusted when what we think will be a good lead turns out not to be. But if we keep our attitudes in check, we will learn that we can surpass all these issues the right way.
 
Step back, take a deep breath and say “wow what a good life I have, what a good company I represent, what great friends are surrounding me, it can’t get any better.” Because remember there is always someone else out in this world we live in that is in worse circumstances than we are. No matter what situation it is.
 
Our attitudes are more important than any amount of money we have made, any education we have had, or any roads we may travel. It will attract people to you or repel them against you. It’s your decision. Your attitude is the one thing you can change to make tomorrow better than today.
 
A book that I recently read, “Success is Not an Accident,” gives the following statistics:  

During an appointment with one of our insurance sales agents last week, I realized the importance of knowing the competition. One thing that I have learned over the years is not to down the competition. If you are speaking with a potential client who has coverage, just ask about the benefits and go on. When you say negative things about the company they are presently with, that leads them to believe you are really stating “you made a poor decision.” Think of it this way..the client had to make the decision based on facts presented. What do you think that will do for your closing?
 
Instead of saying negative statements while speaking with an insurance prospect, just say “I choose not to represent that company or there are many carriers throughout the state that I could represent and that company is not one of them.” Let them know that you don’t know what products that company offers but you will do whatever you can to find out exactly what they have so that you can offer them the exact coverage or more coverage. This will let the potential client know that you are there to help not to just make an insurance sale. The more honest and up front you are with them, the longer they will stay with you; the more value they will see in your intangible product. 
  
Try not to become a man of success but rather try to become a man of value. Albert Einstein

Stephanie Harris-Jaggers is a Regional Manager for Insuranti living in Thaxton, MS. If you are interested in working for Insuranti, or would like to learn more, contact us now.

Insurance sales managers and agents have a  whole network of Web conferencing tools to  help manage our teams and increase our activity.
 
A lot of my management skills are performed using Web conferencing and also Excel spreadsheets. It’s more effective and agents understand diagrams easier. Usually about once a month I have a conference call and go through new changes taking place with carriers. This teaches my team the effective use of ShowMyPC. This allows me to be more intimately involved with the leads that need to be followed more closely and with the sales reps who need my help more often. I am limited to how many places I can be at one time, so this gets everyone involved and lets them know that I am doing what I can to help everyone. Statistics show that web conference training has increased from 30% to 50%. Just think of how many states you can train in by using the technology that is in front of you! Many agencies do not go nationally only regional.
 
Door knocking and face-to-face sales are becoming obsolete. Web conferencing also helps the client understand what they are purchasing, since it is intangible, rather than waiting until they get the policy and realizing they were told incorrect information. This allows the client to build their own policy to fit their needs and helps with persistency. Also with web conferencing if the client has questions about you being licensed, you can take them to the department of insurance and show them you are appointed and licensed through the state. This leaves out all the insecurities. Not a lot of prospects have computer access so there will be times that face to face sales will still be needed. Especially in rural areas!
 
Learning to use all the resources available will take time but if you don’t start today, you will not start tomorrow.

Stephanie Harris-Jaggers is a Regional Manager for Insuranti living in Thaxton, MS. If you are interested in working for Insuranti, or would like to learn more, contact us now.

As most of you know by reading the recent articles, I have been in insurance  sales for six years. I have to say that I was trained by one of the best - one of Insuranti’s National Sales Directors, Jack Curtis.  Jack hired me in 2003 and has been my mentor since. As the old saying goes “where he goes, I will go.”
 
In a management position, those who think of you as a mentor will follow you. They will rely on your knowledge to lead them. They will rely on you to help them.  You are their right hand person. In turn they will show you loyalty and respect as their leader.
 
As statistics show 80% of production in insurance sales comes from 20% of the agents on your team. Those 20% on your team need to know how much you care. They need to feel that you care.  At one of the seminars I went to, the speaker stated “they don’t care how much you know, they want to know how much you care.”

Do what ever you have to do to make your best people work harder and smarter than they’ve ever worked for any one else. A good way to get your team to perform at a higher level is to regularly replace your weakest links with stronger ones. Train them, push them, scold them, praise them show them that you care and they will produce for you for many years to come.

If your team is not motivated, you won’t have activity. Ways that I learned to keep my team motivated is to involve them. I communicate with them daily. On Mondays we have a meeting to celebrate our success or to determine where we can be better. We as a team set our goal for the week and then I keep it in front of them and also how much we need to hit our goal.

Most importantly, lead by example in insurance sales. If they see you working hard, they will work hard. Your team looks to you for leadership and guidance. What you do affects what they do.

One of my favorite quotes about leadership comes from John Quincy Adams: “If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.”

Stephanie Harris-Jaggers is a Regional Manager for Insuranti living in Thaxton, MS. If you are interested in working for Insuranti, or would like to learn more, contact us now.

Some might argue that successful insurance salespeople are born, not made.  But I know it takes self motivation, discipline, and a good work ethic to make a person successful in insurance sales. You can be taught how to sell through training and coaching, but the inner qualities can’t.

It is easy to teach a person the ins and outs of product knowledge - how to present the material, how to enter it in the computer -  but the finer points of sales know-how comes from within a person.

You have to have the want to win within yourself!

All the managers or trainers in the world can show you how, but you don’t put forth the effort to try it on your own, you will never know if you can do it alone!  There are many people who want to be successful, but never want to take the step. As with a baby, the first step is the critical one.

Insurance sales are a lot different than sales that contain pretty photos or material items. We have to sell intangible items. Things that people need but cant touch. Things that one day can make or break a person but until reality strikes, a lot of people had rather do without. Instead of using pictures or tangible items, we have to use our ears and eyes. We have to learn to listen more than talk in most cases.

Another thing we as salespeople have to do is learn to not let the “NO’s” affect our daily activities. For every three “NO’s” a “YES” will come along. Learn to be thick skinned and know when to come on strong and when not to.

Stephanie Harris-Jaggers is a Regional Manager for Insuranti living in Thaxton, MS. If you are interested in working for Insuranti, or would like to learn more, contact us now.

Is automating insurance processes online an unnecessary expense, or a worthwhile investment? Listen in as insurance exec Steve Snell and IdeaStar’s Mike Wise discuss insurance technology and return on investment.  Steve has extensive experience with secure broker portals, automated contracting and appointment.

Click here to listen to the podcast.

Insuranti is at the forefront of insurance technology use for health and life insurance sales, as well as agent support. Contact Insuranti to learn the benefits of a career in health insurance.

This podcast was originally posted on Mike’s blog, InsuraTech. Read Mike’s post about the podcast here.

Jim Fisher is founder and president of IdeaStar Inc.
and a technology consultant to Insuranti, Inc.

What if our business cards did not have insurance Sales Agent, Salesperson, Representative, etc?
 
What if they read Pre-Need Advisor, Consultant, Estate Planner, etc?
 
If you think about it, the world could not function without us, without salespeople no matter what title they display. Even pastors/preachers are in sales. All salespeople are not monetary collectors.
 
Wouldn’t you feel better or be more energetic when it comes to marketing if you were proud instead of ashamed?  Remember in insurance sales, you have to market your way in and sale your way out. Our biggest obstacle is getting in the door. Sometimes we get dressed up and find that we don’t know where we are going. By the end of the day, we have blown a day that could have been good had we just had a plan. Had we just been more secure instead of ashamed when it comes to our title.
 
Insurance agents who are ashamed of their chosen career are like people who go boating but don’t know how to swim. Those who have life jackets might not drown, those who have their hand held out might make a sale. Don’t rely on another person to make you successful. It has to come from the heart.
 
When I graduated high school, I thought I wanted to be a drafter. So I went to school and received my degree. Little did I know that wasn’t my calling. So I decided to go back to school to be a paralegal. Once I received my degree, I could barely get minimum wage. That was four years wasted because I thought that was what I could be good at; something that could bring home the bacon. But those positions are like banking & real estate, the higher ups make all the money while to lower hands do all the work.
 
Don’t be ashamed of what we do! Its hard to market yourself if you are ashamed or feel that you will be looked down on. Be proud and be successful! Be positive and active!
 
This is the only career where you can promote to the level you want. You don’t have to wait until you have been here for 5-10 years. You can make what the veteran agents make. But it has to come from the heart and not the head. Don’t listen to all the blah blah blah.
 
If insurance sales is performed in the right manner, it gives not only the client but you as the salesperson a peace of mind.

Stephanie Harris-Jaggers is a Regional Manager for Insuranti living in Thaxton, MS. If you are interested in working for Insuranti, or would like to learn more, contact us now.

If we were to get the opinion of our grandparents on the subject of insurance sales, their answer would be “you will starve to death.”
 
In the yester years, that would probably be true because the agents then had to knock on doors. They would pick a street daily and knock on every door. Somedays were good. Somedays were terrible. But the agents who worked the system, had the activity- could always look forward to a pay check. Those who had to have their hands held and whined about the work usually looked for another job soon.
 
Guess you are wondering how the title “no boundaries” comes into play? That’s because in todays market, there are no boundaries in insurance sales. We are independent agents who work on our own. We make the money we want to make. We have the sales opportunity to represent several carriers in any state.  We don’t have to worry about tomorrow. We don’t have to hear the “he said/she said” talk that goes on in most work places. We set our own schedules and it’s peaceful not to work directly under the wing of someone else. Just focus on today and tomorrow will be here before you know it.
 
With todays technology and the training/ support from Insuranti, we have everything in place to help a veteran agent or even a new agent survive in a market where most would fail. If your glass is half empty you probably wouldn’t be the survivor. But if your glass is half full you are the person we are searching for.

Stephanie Harris-Jaggers is a Regional Manager for Insuranti living in Thaxton, MS. If you are interested in working for Insuranti, or would like to learn more, contact us now.

From time-to-time, many insurance sales reps suffer from feelings of being burnt out. It’s OK! I too have felt this way.

I failed the first time I tried the insurance sales business. I  suffered burn out and reluctantly got out of the business for two years.

When I began to feel like I was ready to re-enter this business, I wanted to load up on information and knowledge of what to do to become successful. In many of the books I read I found ways to keep that fire burning. Here are some ideas on how to stay pumped up about your insurance sales business.

1. Simplify and refocus – My first week back in the business, I was driving to Richmond Virgina every Monday to work out of a hotel far enough away from my friends who would surely sabotage my plan if I allowed them. By having several hours Monday morning to myself, I would listen to tapes or motivational stories. I remember listening to a coach who was talking about how he turned around a 1 -15 team to a playoff team in one year. He mentioned how when he took over, the players had a playbook consisting of 1000 plays. His first action item was to simplify the action plan to 10 plays. His advice was to refocus everyone to just a few plays that they could execute perfectly and get his team to build confidence and self esteem.By getting the team to calm down, reduce the anxiety of learning 1000 plays, he came away with a unified and confident team before they played the first down in the next season.In our business, its important to take care of our two or three most important tasks daily. Without a focus, a schedule that makes sure we stay on track, we can find ourselves behind the eight ball by Tuesday. 
2.  Exercise – When this coach was taking inventory of his players, he noticed that there were many who were indeed working very hard on the playbook, but were out of balance. They were not focusing on getting their physical body ready. In our business, we run out of hours in the day, and that often comes at the sacrifice of our health. For us to stay mentally tough, we need to make sure our bodies are in fighting shape. This can start off as a morning walk or an evening walk with a loved one. Its been proven that the body produces endorphins after working out. These endorphins can help you become mentally sharper too.
3. Read and continue to learn about your trade. I have talked about this many times, but it is imperative to remember to grow. If you aren’t learning, if you aren’t learning you aren’t growing, and if you aren’t growing, you are dying. It is your responsibility to passionately pursue higher learning.I suggest reading things that help you deal with thought mastery, sales strategy, and self improvement books on attitude or financial responsibility.

Chris Jones is Vice President of Sales for Insuranti, the online health and life insurance agency. If you are interested in working for Insuranti, or would like to learn more, contact us now.

In the insurance sales business, a high rate of sales people, from the unsuccessful to the ultra successful, suffer from burn out.  I define burn out  as when you are physically, emotionally, and mentally exhausted. In a business that completely relies on your own efforts, a burnt out sales rep gets little results even if the effort is there.

Because we sell the majority of our insurance products over the phone, it is important we stay sharp and positive.  Selling health insurance over the Internet relies on the transference of your excitement for your product or your solution. If you are burnt out, the client feels this and will resist partnering with you and trusting you with helping them solve their problem.

So how do we keep the fire burning inside, how do we keep burning on rather than burning out? First step is to diagnose if you are suffering from burnout. Then understand that it happens to everyone from time to time, and lastly how do we treat it and get back on the right track.

Signs of burnout are:

• Exhaustion, physically and mentally
• High levels of frustration
• Quickly assigning blame instead of finding solutions
• Playing the victim game
• Moody – When out of balance in your personal and work life, you will begin to become moody, with high levels of swings in your moods
• Little results despite great efforts of prospecting
• Lack of want for communication.
• Dodging phone calls or e-mails  from your leaders, or from your clients.
• Or in your personal life- less talk between you and loved ones
• Sunday blues – this is a level of depression that increases on the Sunday before you start a new week

When you begin to get burnt out, depression can set in quickly and nothing kills a sales career then low self esteem and negativity.  I’ll address how to avoid or nullify burn out in my next post.  In the mean time, consider the following. 

Zig Ziglar talks about “failure is an event not a person” so your reaction to the failure is the only thing that matters. Choose to learn from your mistakes, and go forward.

Chris Jones is Vice President of Sales for Insuranti, the online health and life insurance agency. If you are interested in working for Insuranti, or would like to learn more, contact us now.