Lead Closing Strategies Blog

- 2% Small employers (10 – 499)
- 5% Large employers (500+)
- 22% Jumbo employers (20,000+)

Participation in consumer-directed health plans still stays low: Nationwide, only 1% of covered employees have currently enrolled in CDHPs.

Source: National Survey of Employer-Sponsored Health Plans 2005, Mercer Health and Benefits, http://www.mercerhr.com.

The percentage of the smallest employers, (10 – 49), offering any health care program dropped to 58%, down from 61% in 2004.

Source: National Survey of Employer-Sponsored Health Plans 2005, Mercer Health and Benefits, http://www.mercerhr.com.

From January through June 2005, 68.2% of people under 65 were covered by private health insurance plans.

For the period January through June 2005, 16.9% of persons under age 65 years were covered by public health plans, and 68.2% were covered by private health insurance plans.

Whether you’re buying shared or exclusive leads, the biggest challenge you face on that first phone call is winning a prospect’s confidence.

Here are 5 easy strategies you can use to start building trust off the bat.

1. Listen. You may want to jump into the nitty gritty of plan details right away but beware: coming across too strong chases leads away. Your prospect knows that you’re an agent and that you’re trying to sell them something. Make them drop their guard by asking for the details of their situation and why they’re searching for insurance right now. The results are threefold:
1. The more you can get prospects to divulge about themselves the more confident they’ll be in your ability to match them up to the best plan.
2. They’ll warm up to the concern your interest demonstrates.
3. You’re allowing them to talk about their favorite topic, themselves, for which they’ll remember your conversation as a positive interaction.

2. Show prospects you are shopping for them. Prospects are wary about making an uninformed decision; they like to know you are selecting the best plans by shopping the many carriers and products available to you. Even when you know what product is the most competitive, always include 3-5 different options in your proposals so prospects are confident they’re making an educated choice. If you have a quote engine, the extra quotes won’t take extra time: you can run them all in 60 seconds.

3. Offer prospects immediate, professional information. After you’ve listened to your prospect’s needs and concerns, now is your chance to ask if they are interested in reviewing your proposal. If you are using a quote engine, you can email your proposal and review it with your prospect right over the phone. Tools like Norvax’ QuoteBuilder lets prospects view plans side-by-side for easy comparison of different carriers and plan options. Plus they can even locate doctors, compare prices and apply. Not only have you demonstrated your professional ability by providing information quickly, you win trust by taking the time to educate your prospect.

4. Communication. Prospects won’t trust you unless they are able to communicate with you. You’ve already made the first step by either calling them or automatically sending them a personalized email using an autoresponder program. Follow through by telling your prospect your number, web address and let them know they are always welcome to call at any time. The more available you make yourself now the more your prospect will trust you’ll be around to help them after the sale has been made.

5. Have a website. Serious businesses all have websites. Not only does it demonstrate credibility, your prospects expect you to have one. If you’ve got a site, tout it: Invite your leads to visit you on the web. Make sure somewhere on your site you include your business background, client testimonials and full contact information for prospects to view at their leisure.

Remember: One secret to successful phone sales is to move quickly from stranger to trusted advisor – and to do that it’s crucial for you to develop winning trust-building techniques.

Working shared leads requires you to stay on your toes if you want to stay ahead of the competition.

Here are 3 secrets to help you convert more of your shared leads into sales.

1. Speed is everything. Being the first agent your prospect comes in contact with is your number one priority when you’re working shared leads. A prospect is likely to stop shopping after they receive a proposal, making it crucial that you’re the one to get it to them first. If you use ProspectZone, you have the opportunity to choose how your leads are batched: you can select to have leads delivered to your inbox either monthly, weekly or daily. When working shared, make sure you’ve got your leads coming in instantly. That way you can monitor your inbox to catch leads the second they are emailed to you.

Beat other agents to the punch by calling right away: work quickly and you can strike while the iron’s hottest, catching prospects before they’ve even walked away from their computer.

2. Give them a proposal on first call. the There are two mistakes you can make when following up with a shared lead: One, waiting up to 30 minutes to contact them because you are manually pulling together a proposal, and two, calling up a prospect empty handed. You need to work fast and can’t waste time running a lengthy proposal but you can’t call up with nothing to offer either.

The easy answer is to enable a lead-compatible quote engine. A quote engine allows you to generate comprehensive multi-carrier proposals in seconds based on your lead’s information.

Make your first call count: Reciting a laundry list of plan benefits and prices over the phone confuses leads with an overload of information and doesn’t effectively sell your product. With a quote engine like Norvax’ QuoteBuilder, you can run a comprehensive multi-carrier proposal in seconds and fire it off in an email to your lead. On your first phone call both you can review your online proposal together with your prospect. Plus the professional-looking proposal presents plans side-by-side so your prospects can easily compare their options. If they’re ready to buy, you can even walk them through the online application process. If they want time to think it over, they don’t have to wait 3 days to get your proposal in the mail, they already have it.

3. Don’t throw away leads. It’s a fact with any lead: sometimes you just can’t get them on the phone. But by utilizing an email autoresponder program, you can still touch the prospect by automatically sending them a personalized email as soon as the lead arrives. And if you’re using LeadMiner, each email includes a custom insurance quote based on the prospect’s information.

With autoresponders those leads you can’t reach by phone and would have considered junk are still being kept warm in your database, touched periodically by your personalized emails. And because all lead information is saved, each email includes an updated insurance quote. When an old lead is finally ready to buy, they have your fresh proposal right in front of them.

Remember: Successfully working shared leads means you always have to be one step ahead of the competition. Employ these strategies and you’ll have the edge you need for greater conversion and ROI.

You may think the mental script you’ve developed through hours of phone time is working just fine. But no matter how good your freestyle pitch is, a script is a powerful tool that can dramatically improve your sales.

A well-crafted script doesn’t just give structure to your pitch and guide your prospect towards the sale; it allows you to continually measure the effectiveness of your delivery. You can test a script down to the last word, adjusting until you strike the perfect combination that wins the most sales.

Here are 5 strategies that will help you write a solid script that sells.

1. Be prospect-centric. When you’re calling a prospect for the first time, you don’t need a script that is heavy on specific products and a laundry list of their benefits. Keep your proposal handy if the conversation takes that direction, but don’t load up your script with too much information about you and all the things your business has to offer. You’ll get much better results at this stage in the game if your script sticks to the subject that interests your prospects the most: themselves. By identifying and being interested in what their goals are, it’s clear that you’re motivated to help them, not push a product on them. Let your prospects do the talking and focus on asking discovery questions that keep the conversation moving.

Example:
“ What made you decide to request an insurance quote today?”
“ What is most important to you in an insurance plan?”

2. Make your intent clear. The first 30 seconds of your script is the most crucial, because this is where you engage your prospect or get dropped. Don’t waste this time beating around the bush. State who you are and the reason why you’re calling in a simple, direct manner.

Example:
“ Hi, Mary. This is Rob Robertson calling, from ABC Insurance. Is this a good time to talk? I’m calling about the health insurance quotes you requested online today. I’d like to talk with you to determine
how I can help you find the insurance you need, answer your questions and review plans if you’d like.”

If you get the go ahead at this point then you can launch into your discovery questions. Remember, this is a discussion. Give your prospects the opportunity to guide the conversation.

3. Have a simple answer for multiple scenarios. The key to a good script is to keep it simple and manageable to memorize. But your script must also be flexible enough for you to move easily through the different scenarios that can occur. You should map out responses to a few of the most common directions your conversation can take. With a good script you will be able to slip into a fresh set of dialog to address the different paths of discussion while maintaining control of the end result.

Example:
If your prospect says, I’m not interested right now; guide the conversation towards a future connection: “That’s fine. I’d like to be available to you if you do decide you to learn more about the
affordable health care options I have found for you. Would you like me to check in with you in the future? When would be a good time to contact you about your insurance needs, and how?”

4. Set the stage for the next contact. Now that you’ve identified your prospect’s needs, perhaps even walked them through your online proposal, you need to clearly identify what the next step is going to be. While you don’t want to pressure your prospect, you still want to get them on board with your sales timeline. Before you hang up, you need to know when you’ll be able to follow up again, and how.

Example: “I agree you should take time to go over your options. When is a good time for me to follow up with you? Is next Wednesday afternoon fine? Do you prefer me to give you a call, or send an email?” It’s important to take the responsibility of following up out of the prospect’s hands and into your own. By establishing an agreed upon time to follow up, the intent of your next phone call will be clear: “Hi,
Mary. It’s Rob Robertson here. Is this a good time to talk? I’m calling because we discussed several health insurance plans on Monday and I promised I would touch base with you on Friday. We agreed you needed time to review your plans, so I’m calling to see if you would like to discuss them further.”

5. Practice. No script is going to feel natural right off the bat. Practice again and again until you are comfortable delivering it, and don’t worry that you’ll sound phony. Remember, prospects won’t know you’re reading a script. Instead, your quick answers will make you seem knowledgeable about your subject and their needs, and inspire confidence that you will handle their business with equal skill.

Remember: Your script is a living thing. You should be continually testing its effectiveness as you identify what works best on your prospects to deliver the most sales.