Back in the old days, doctors did business a little differently – rather than making the patient come to them, they went to the patient, medical bag in hand. The society was more rural at the time, hospitals were fewer and further between, and most patients would either recover or die at home, in their own bed. Over time, this started to change – physicians realized they could do more business and provide better results by seeing patients in a set location, so they traded in their black bag for a clinic with a waiting room.
Sometime later they stopped taking chickens and pigs as payment, opting instead for cash and insurance. The funny thing is, the majority of insurance agents still do business like the doctors of yesteryear. No, we normally don’t accept farm animals in lieu of commission, but we do make “house calls” most if not all of the time. That’s certainly how I got my start in insurance. In 1997, I was hired by a Medicare Advantage company – at the time it was called Medicare + Choice – to sell their Medicare HMO product.
I spent all day calling on seniors in their homes, and like anyone who’s done that job can tell you, it was an eye-opening experience. I have a million war stories, most of which you probably wouldn’t believe. At the time, this seemed like the logical way to do business – frankly, it never occurred to us that there might be another way. Danielle and David Kunkle, a brother-and-sister team in Fort Worth, seem to have found the other way. Their company, Boomer Benefits, specializes in Medicare products, and they’re quick to tell you that they don’t make house calls.
When it’s necessary to meet in person, they ask the client to come to their office, but the majority of their sales are done by phone or over the internet. “Seniors are a lot more mobile and much more internet-savvy than people give them credit for,” Danielle explains. “They prefer to do business this way.” Their system seems to be working – Boomer Benefits is a leading producer for several Medicare Supplement and Medicare Advantage plans and recently moved into a larger office.
I work with another agent who seems to have discovered the same formula. He specializes in individual life & health insurance, works from home, and makes all of his sales by phone. “I don’t have time to go see people,” this broker says. “I’d lose money if I did. This is a volume business.” He, too, is a leading producer who is often asked by the carriers he works with to teach other agents his technique. I know what you’re thinking: sure, this may work well when dealing with individuals, but you have to go visit employers in person – that’s where the employees are. True, but how much of your time is actually spent in front of the employees?
Very little if you’re like most agents. Outside of the enrollment meeting, brokers rarely see their employee clients – the majority of their time is spent dealing directly with the business owner, and most business owners have cars. They can very easily travel to you. Some agents, in fact, use this as a sales strategy. I used to call on a firm whose office is in a historic downtown building. The architecture is beautiful, and they use this historic backdrop to show off all of the cutting edge technology they can offer.
They prefer to meet on their turf, knowing that it will impress prospective clients – and impress them it does. To seal the deal, they often fly in out-of-town prospects at their expense and have a limo pick them up at the airport to bring them to their office. As you might guess, they usually get the sale. So will this always work? Of course not, but it doesn’t have to work all the time to be worth trying. The point is that there are a hundred ways to skin a cat – if you find yourself in a rut, then perhaps its time that you consider some of the other 99 ways.
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