Here is a bit of really good news: Regardless of anything happening in the marketplace you can have jaw-dropping sales success without making any cold calls. At the end of the day, sales success is really not that complicated. Here is the formula for amazing, jaw-dropping sales results: Quality Message (x) Number of Prospects = Sales Success. Regardless of your skill at closing the sale, if you simply tell enough people what you do, you will make sales. Follow these steps and I guarantee amazing results.
1) Create compelling sales messages. It is the foundation of everything that you do. A sales message is focused on the results that you are able to deliver to your clients. In the world of group health, you are unable to deliver lower rates since regardless of the carrier, if you do not change the plan design you cannot find a plan that is equal to or less than the pre-renewal rates. Do not use price as a sales message. Look beyond price and identify how the services that you provide help your clients. That is where you will find the foundation for your messages.
2) Build multiple websites. At a minimum, you should have at least three different websites. One website should be a client-specific website. Your second website should be a prospect-focused website that has a single results-oriented message. Your third website should be a testimonial website. The testimonial website should have no links to anything else. If you feel compelled to maintain a brochure type of website then you should have four websites.
3) Establish a social media strategy. In August's EBA I discussed using LinkedIn for sales leads, so my only comment here is that you must have a social media strategy.
4) Customer relationship manager. There is no tool more important to sales success than a great customer relationship management system that is built for sales management. Of all of the reasons to use a good CRM, the biggest reason is this: you cannot improve on that which you cannot measure. A good system will allow you to create a sales funnel designed for your business. Tracking prospects through the funnel will allow you to identify the stages where you are closing the most sales, where you are losing the most sales and other important criteria.
5) Direct mail - the key to a full calendar. A lot of people believe, erroneously, that direct mail is dead. The truth is that a good direct mail campaign based on one of your compelling messages combined with an idea-specific website, a testimonial website, a good CRM system and active utilization of social media can generate an amazing number of very high-quality leads. Since the goal of this article is generating leads without cold calling, you want a direct-mail campaign focused on direct response, rather than doing telephone follow-up.
Success requires that you commit to mailing at least 2,000 pieces, although not necessarily simultaneously. Assuming that the mailing generated a 1.5% return, you would have 30 very high-quality prospects. A 2,000-piece mailing will cost $920 plus printing, approximately $100 for black and white printing or $200 for color. Your total cost is less than $1,200. Assuming that your mailing only generated 20 responses which resulted in 12 appointments and you only closed three, how much revenue would that generate? And do not forget the value of the new relationships.
Follow these five steps and I can guarantee that you will have more high-quality sales appointments then you have ever had. Because of the high quality of those appointments you will probably close 50% to 60% of them.
Schlesinger has more than 25 years of group benefits experience. He helps agents close sales through his Social Proof Machine marketing program. Reach him at (336) 525-6357.
