If your insurance sales call talk time is running low, try these tips to stay on the phone a little longer.
Time is the name of the game when you’re on an insurance sales call. Up to a point, you stand a greater chance of closing a deal as your talk time increases. However, it can also be a challenge to keep a prospect on the phone.
It’s not always about you, of course. People have meetings to get to, dinner on the stove, school plays about to begin, and many other things that take precedence over an insurance sales call.
Some calls, however, are yours for the chatting. People love getting a call to break up the monotony of sitting in front of a computer for hours. A call can give people a good excuse to step out of a meeting they don’t need to be in. And there are a few people out there who just like to talk.
The question is, when you reach someone who has the time to talk to you, are you giving them good reasons to stay on the phone? Or do you need to adjust your approach?
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5 Ways you can increase your insurance sales call time and close more deals
Luckily, there are numerous ways you can get your insurance sales call times up a bit. Many of them are even easy! You just have to put in a little time.
1. Stop making cold calls. The truth is, none of your calls should be entirely cold calls. You may indeed contact people that you’ve never interacted with. In that sense, you’re making a cold call. But even cold calls should have some strategy beyond dialing random numbers. For home insurance calls, generate a list of people prequalifying for home loans or people selling homes. For business insurance, call people who have recent registrations with the state Commerce Department. You get the idea here. These may “technically” be cold calls, but there is a little bit of warmth there.
2. Know your people. If you want to make an insurance sales call that leads to a deal, it’s helpful to know the name of the person you’re calling. Especially if you’re calling a business, find out who the decision maker is before you call. Look at the business website or LinkedIn page to find out who the business owner or HR person is and ask for them by name. You’ll get more time on the phone by asking for a specific person than you will if you ask for the “business owner.”
3. Check your numbers. It is incredibly important to make sure you aren’t calling numbers on the Do Not Call list. To begin, the people answering will not have any desire to talk to you. Secondly, failure to comply with DNC regulations can earn you some hefty fines. The easiest way to do this is to use software like Call Logic that automatically scrubs those numbers, but if you opt to do it manually, make sure to keep up with the task.
4. Check your script. How well is your insurance sales call script working? Is it interesting? Does it catch your prospect’s attention? Do you even know? The right call script can work wonders. There’s a hook. There are evident benefits for the prospect. And it can keep a conversation going. If it’s been a while since you updated your script, it might be time to give it a visit. Better yet, give it a listen. Those recorded calls are packed with information like where a customer may be losing interest and what does work. Don’t overlook the importance of a good script. It can mean the difference between a quick hang-up or buying more talk time.
5. Connect with your prospect. This may be easier said than done, but when you connect with the person on the other end of the line, you build a relationship and increase your talk time. Here’s a little trick that can help – look back at that first tip. Find out if you have any friends or acquaintances in common or see if you belong to any of the same organizations. Be sociable and take an interest in them. An insurance sales call has to be a two-way conversation. If you’re only trying to sell, sell, sell, you won’t get very far.
While talk time isn’t the only metric to pay attention to, it is worth trying to get a little more chatting into your calls. Because if you want to sell insurance, you have to make connections and build relationships.
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