Podcast Center
Video Center
Webcasts
Resource Center
Events
August 15, 2005 at 08:00 PM
By
If you have been taught that hard work is the key to success, you have been lied to.
In the life insurance industry, hard work is for those who dont enjoy their free time. Hard work is for those who enjoy late hours on the road making “kitchen table” presentations to potential clients, or making cold calls to lukewarm leads.
The client base that responds to this type of marketing and sales process is quickly disappearing, as are the agents who depend on them for their livelihood.
The bad news is that the traditional sales process in our industry is dying. The good news is that hard work is dying with it.
The key to success in the modern world of life insurance sales is smart work and the key to smart work is technology.
One of the greatest advancements for life insurance agents in the past several years is the development of client relationship management systems (CRMs). CRMs allow agents to track and complete the entire client sales process for new life insurance policies using a fraction of the effort and time traditionally associated with the sale of a new policy. CRMs also ensure a much higher level of quality and larger percentage of secondary sales to new and current customers.
Some of the most popular CRM systems are rather generic in their design in order to accommodate use from businesses in a wide variety of industries, but even these “off the shelf” systems can boost significantly agent productivity and efficiency. The effectiveness of CRMs can be further enhanced through customization that creates a system and a sales process dedicated specifically to the way your office conducts its sales and marketing.
While CRMs are a perfect example of the performance benefits available to those in our industry who embrace todays technology, they also spotlight technologys primary drawbackcost.
Custom CRM systems can range in price from $10,000 to more than $100,000 for large agencies. Customization pushes these costs even higher. At these prices, effective CRMs have been unattainable for all but the top agencies, until now.
