This Morning Huddle video originally aired as part of our Mastermind Members’ Daily Virtual Coaching. Mastermind Members receive video training each morning to use as a Team Member meeting, accountability tool, or general resource for great information about insurance, sales, productivity, efficiency, mindset, personal development, and more. Learn more about our programs for Insurance Agency Owners and Insurance Agency Team Members.
Today I am going to talk about getting team members to be more present and recognizing insurance opportunities.
More specifically, when they’re having conversations with customers.
A problem we face as human beings is that sometimes we get caught up in things that have happened in the past that prevent us from being productive. It keeps us from being happier and healthier.
Especially the mistakes or failures in the past that we can’t move forward or we get so worried about things that may happen in the future, and specifically, these negative stories keep you second-guessing.Â
We have so much focus on yesterday and much concern about tomorrow that so many of us don’t live today. We’re not present at this moment.
The biggest thing that you can do as an insurance agent is to have consistent reminders to live in the present.Â
To get motivated, it has to be a daily reminder. Remind your teams of every day because they naturally will get caught in the undertow of the suck.
We have to be intentional with our time, and we have to understand that the only thing that matters in our life is the thing that we’re doing right now. We can’t have tunnel vision or we won’t see all the other insurance opportunities around us.
You have to move to this concept of optimizing insurance opportunities. We get one chance. You have to understand that our business is so much different than every other business out there.
If I own a bar, a restaurant, a flower shop, a fitness center, or a coffee shop, who are my best customers?
My best customers are the ones that I see all the time; they’re my regulars.
Who are our best customers in the insurance world?
They’re people that never have claims, always pay their bills, rarely change vehicles… but how often do we get to see them or talk to them?
Almost never. So, the complete opposite of every other business out there.
We get to see our best customers the least, so when we finally do, they need to make a payment, change an expiration date on a card, they finally make a vehicle change, think, “did we only take care of the transaction?”
So we have understood this idea of opportunity optimization.
We create muscle memory by repeatedly practicing, so team members need to, with every interaction, find something to take them beyond the transaction that could benefit the agency, but preferably the customer in the future.
This could be as simple as finding some information on what the customer’s plans are for retirement. Look at the lines of business you have, and they could have an auto but not fire. Look at the last time you had reviews because life changes quickly.
Make it a point to stay in the present, and as you’re going through the conversation, the transaction, the interaction, ask yourself, “Hey, where can I pivot?”
“Where can I transition to bring up something else?”
Have a sheet of people and write down, who did I talk to? What did I find out?
Now you can see if there is possible potential there. The idea is action, activity, effort.
A game we play in our office called You Don’t Know Jack is to ask a team member after a call, “what did you find out about that person?” We have to have fun with it; this isn’t mean-spirited, by the way.
If they tell you, fantastic. If they don’t, say, “You Don’t Know Jack.”
The next step would be how they can go beyond the transaction now.
Living in the present and focusing on what’s important trains your brain to shift aside the things that don’t matter.