Cold calling is a common tactic to attract new business, but most salespeople would agree that cold calling new prospects can be tedious to master — even with years of experience. However, cold calling is an essential part of business development and generating new deals, so you’re going to want to polish your skills as quickly as possible in order to write more policies, yield notable growth and establish a profitable insurance agency.
Although sales, and cold calling, require a fair share of soft skills, such as communication, people skills and an extroverted personality, complementing these soft skills with a strategic sales approach will make your cold calls more successful and help you enroll more clients. In fact, cold calling is essential to business success. In 2019, “69% of buyers accepted a call from new salespeople.”
Maximizing the number of buyers that interact with your products and services is going to take practice and learning. Common challenges can be timing, the potential buyer might not have the need for insurance at the time you contacted him, or immediate objections from the prospect, which a salesperson must be prepared to handle. Figuring out the right timing to pitch your prospects is essential when working to make your agency more successful and convert more of your outreach calls. How can you overcome these common challenges? Read on.
First impressions matter — especially when they’re over the phone. Taking the time to research your prospect and personalize your first interaction with them goes a long way and can lead to higher cold calling conversion rates and help establish clear lead management strategies.
Consumer data can provide initial insights to clients’ needs, offer key client demographics and highlight client preferences creating more personal and effective interactions. Before picking up the phone to prospect, take some time to analyze existing data you have about past buyers and prospects in a similar demographic and utilize it to inform new decisions and outbound strategies. Some questions to consider before reaching out to create a warmer interaction and familiarize yourself with each prospect can be:
Implementing a data-driven sales approach can make your business more profitable and the sales team more likely to interact with qualified prospects for your services. Combining data-driven lead management strategies and utilizing personalized scripts can yield incredible cold calling opportunities and results while also allowing you to know how to handle objections more assertively.
The purpose of the cold call is to instill trust and get an understanding of the prospects' pain points and needs. While gathering that information, you also have opportunities to position your service in a way that solves those pain points. After doing so, smoothly transition into a proper plan of action to transition closer towards the sale. Asking qualifying and open-ended questions can help build rapport and instill a sense of trust early on in the sales process. Some open-ended questions might be:
Asking the right questions is key. Not only does it give you clear insight on your clients’ needs, priorities and pain points, but it also allows you to genuinely give the best service possible. When you are able to get to know your prospects, you are better able to offer a service that they can be pleased with and which aligns with their long-term goals. Once you establish a set of qualifying questions, be sure to actively listen during the call so you can better understand your prospective clients’ expectations. These goals and expectations will help you establish a plan of action that allows you to provide a personal solution to their needs. The art of listening can strengthen your interactions with leads and make for a more meaningful relationship-building experience for both of you.
You always want to close a deal on your first call, but likely you need to prepare the first call and initiate a series of touchpoints that get you closer to writing the new policy. Outlining clear next steps and agreeing upon them with your prospect early on in your interactions provides a sense of professionalism, urgency and grants the necessary clarity for both parties. Asking the right questions and navigating through the conversation in a way that you and your potential client are understanding each other makes it easy to establish clear expectations and next steps. Once you’ve established rapport, understood needs and set clear expectations, establish what is the best next step -- a follow-up call, an in-person meeting, or sending over appropriate documentation and necessary information for the prospect to review? Set a clear timeline for the next interaction and prepare your client for what’s next.
Ready to reap the benefits of these cold calling practices with more leads and prospects? ZipQuote can connect you and your sales producers with high-intent consumers in live time! Leverage our leads with a quality cold calling approach and you’ll be on your way to a strong Q4. Click here to learn more about how ZipQuote can help you grow your business.