Turn Your Agency Into A Money-making Machine With These 11 Tips

I have worked with hundreds of advisors and consistently been able to increase their FYC substantially by using the strategies listed below.

I will not promise all of this will be without work. However, I do promise if you follow these steps you will have a better connection to your block of business and increase revenue.

1. Data Is Key

First, we have to find out who your existing clients and prospects are, what policies do they own and when the next service action is.

To get the client information, I recommend getting a list of all your advisor codes (your MGA should be able to help you find these if you don't have them).

Bonus Tip: Map clients using a tool like BatchGeo to group similar opportunities in the same travel trip to increase ROI. Just upload the address, not the other client details.

After you have your advisor codes, either contact your wholesaler and ask for your block of business in spreadsheet format or go to the insurer's web portal to download it yourself.

Once you have all the data, migrate it all onto a master excel document that will contain all your clients. If you use a CRM you may be able to extract this information to sort it or your CRM may have this capability already.





LDA makes it easy to request and import your block of business, stores all client data in one spot and is entirely hosted in Canada. LDA then notifies you of critical policy opportunities and filters information easily. Find out more.

Once you have all the codes, I recommend making a master document in a keychain service so that you have up-to-date records of your advisor codes and web portal login information for future reference. You can also save this in the Advisor Codes area in LDA.

Here are some good password tips. If you have administration staff, some kind of cloud storage solution is critical to share files and easily update documents like this and keep them synced. I like Dropbox and Google Drive. Remember, don't store any client information on these services as they are hosted in the USA and subject to the USA PATRIOT Act.

It is also helpful if you have a separate prospect list (clients that have shown interest or that fit your target demographic). For assistance with making an organized prospect list or starting one, pay attention to steps 3,4 and 10.

2. Begin To Sort Your List Of Clients

Look For Term Conversion Opportunities

First, start looking for Term 10 policyholders with issue dates greater than 10 years or about that. If they have passed the renewal, reach out immediately and show them a few replacement options. Consumers like to see the total cost at the end of each option so find the best term options from your preferred companies and show them a Term 10 vs. Term 20 vs. UL option.

Putting these numbers into Excel and into a chart as a presentation with visuals has proven to be 43% more likely to persuade an audience of taking a desired course of action. Text and numbers are great but a visual can more quickly and effectively communicate this message.(Here is how fast this is done with LDA!)

Next Look for Term Exchange Opportunities

Once you have exhausted that list, focus on the term 10 policies that are older than two years but newer than 5 years. Show clients the value of their exchange option. Position it as a right they have or a loophole the insurance company may not want them to know about as they don’t need a med. Show them the savings at the end of 20 years!

Remember, if someone does not go for a full conversion you can show them a more affordable option like a layered insurance plan (use enhanced whole life to save even more money).

If cash flow is limited, there is still value in showing them a replacement. Remember, their age and health are the critical factors here. You can always position more affordable insurance solutions by knowing, “When do you want your insurance to end?” Design a plan that matches that timeframe.

If you have too many clients that fall into this list of prospects, prioritize the cases by face value or even birthday to set a sense of urgency around locking in their current price before their age or health changes. Showing the cost of an age change can really motivate clients to take action now rather than wait.

Take the price at their current age and compare that to what it would cost if they waited a year (or two), then multiply that by the length of term product to highlight what the cost of waiting would be.

The Cost of Waiting



This client could potentially save $57,590.40 by acting now rather than next year.

3. Raise Awareness Among Your Client Base

Raise awareness among your client base and your prospect base by running an email or traditional mail campaign with a concept.

We designed these free templates in MailChimp, an email platform that can be used to distribute client communication and automation to new prospects you get in your funnel:

• Cascading Life Insurance (free template)
• Charitable Giving Campaign (free template)
• Term Conversion Template (free template)



Remarketing is another great way you can advertise to keep top of mind with your prospects who have visited your website. How it works is when a visitor comes to your website, it tags them. Now when they visit other sites that serve advertisements, they will see yours. (To see this in action, visit our website and then keep an eye out for our advertisements.)

This form of marketing is very affordable and makes your agency look like it has a large presence. You don’t have to stop with just your site. What about other websites that you may be affiliated with? Look for opportunities to add your remarketing tag to specifically target like-minded clients.

For example: Make an affiliation with a mortgage agent and add the tag (with permission) to their website. This will allow you to target people buying homes with an ad to make them aware you offer insurance that would protect them and their largest asset if something unexpected were to happen.

Remember, remarketing lists don’t have to be CASL compliant as you are not emailing these people directly, just using display ads.

If you are targeting a larger organization and need to build a prospect list, use a tool like Hunter to grab a group of emails at one time and focus your message to this group (e.g. a term program to cross-sell to a group you have employee benefits with).

4. ABP—Always Be Prospecting

One of the biggest challenges I hear from advisors is having enough clients to present insurance options to. To begin your search for more prospects to market to, here are a few ideas:

• Join your local Chamber of Commerce. Business clients often need the most insurance and this is a great way to network and make new contacts.
• Start writing topics on your area of expertise. When you establish yourself as an expert in a field and create a knowledge base for your centre of influence, you stay top of mind when there is a need.
• Host a webinar or podcast. Talk about industry trends and become a thought leader. (Interested in hearing more ideas like this? Explore our past webinars).
• Use LinkedIn. If you develop a niche to sell into, it should be easy to find your target clients. Filter by designations, organization or profession and visit as many profiles as you can. Use a tool like Dux-Soup to scale your efforts. Curiosity is a powerful tool so fill your profile with lots of valuable content so when your prospect looks back they get information on your services. Connect with interested prospects.
• Follow your prospects. No, not in a creepy way, but strategically. My stepfather, Larry Kinlin, would wait in his car to casually bump into a prospect as a reason to make a connection. He would visit a business owner's shop to look at an expensive watch and build rapport, all the while building a lead for his ideal client.
• Find a way to help your prospect first. Before asking for business, is there a way you can help your prospect. This builds a relationship and subconsciously they may feel they owe you. Entice them to ask you what you do and let them walk right into your pitch.
• Use social media. Send articles of interest to prospects and post them on social media (repost evergreen content if it speaks to the core of your solution or vision).
• Write a blog. You can use tools like blogger and publish them with eye-catching stock photos found free here.
5. Ask For Referrals

Research says that the best time to follow up with a client is three months after the sale. This is a good time to touch base with a client to ensure their experience so far has been good and ask for referrals (set the expectation when you make the sale that your business is built on referrals so it is not a shock when you ask).

Set reminders when you make a sale to revisit and ask for referral business or cross-sell. I like this presentation for Critical Illness after a term sale.

Include a link or call to action (CTA) in your email newsletter with a referral tab. When a client refers business to you, send a gift certificate for dinner or a movie. Something small like this lets them know you appreciate them thinking about your business.

6. Educate Yourself

Keep up to date with your CE credits. The presentations can often be repetitive but you never know when you are going to pick up a gem. It pays to know the right solution for your clients' issues. Check out this loophole I found for rated clients using this company's enhanced whole life.

For Advisors Only is another great resource to keep apprised of news on industry changes. It is also a great place to raise a question to the community and learn from their experiences.

On occasion, I go to events put on by carriers who use the concept of “this sweet spot of age of a client” and I question: How many advisors can easily find clients this age?

From the master client file we made in step one, sort by age in Excel to find clients that fit these concepts. If you have LDA we make it easy to find existing clients that match concept sweet spots by filtering by age. Bonus: You can also create a report for the concept.

7. Practice What You Preach

Buy the products you recommend. If you have skin in the game, it goes a long way. An advisor I know carries around his latest participating whole life statement with him and his original LDA report to show how close the projected and actual results have been. The proof is in the pudding, as they say.

8. Provide Valuable Content

Provide valuable content for your COI (centre of influence) to share with their contacts, Lawyers, CA's, Mortgage Agents, Doctors, Dentists, Vets, etc. Remember to run your Dux-Soup on these people to keep top of mind and connect when they look back. If you become top of mind and have content they can share, you get top of mind with their clients and referrals.

Here are some examples of content you can provide for free:

• Shopify free stock photos
• Templates from HubSpot
• Infographics - Make your own free in Piktochart
 

Bonus Tip: Google Trends is a great way to find insights in your industry. If you are publishing content, it helps to back it up with data.



9. Get Involved In The Community

Get out of the office, join a local club and dedicate some volunteer time to socialize out of the office. Sometimes it in the most unlikely places you will connect with a VIP account (remember that tip of following your prospects so join a club they participate in). You need time for yourself to ensure you put yourself in a spot where your prospect is going to be.

10. Target A Niche

Find a group that you can bring together. This might be a profession like veterinarians, professionals, or local chapters. Use LinkedIn and Dux-Soup to visit that specific audience and have a targeted call to action on your LinkedIn page when they look back at your profile.

For example, if you’re targeting veterinarians, put a call to action like “I specialize in protecting veterinarians so they can focus on protecting animals!”

Here is my call to action to target advisors:



11. Have The Right Attitude

You have to be willing to try something new and stick with it. So many times we are reluctant to try something new or get outside our comfort zone that we forget that our customer is evolving even if we are not. Keep sharpening your axe if you want to keep harvesting wood. The best in this business keep reinventing themselves because your customer is too.

Thanks for reading!

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