Does Cold Calling Work As a Method For Insurance Agents to Find New Leads?

By Alan H. Jordan
Yes, cold calling does work as a way to obtain new sales leads, but it falls far short of the preferred method, which is to obtain a stream of referrals.

Let's examine why. When you cold call, you invest a considerable amount of effort to identify one prospect at a time. When you establish as stream of referrals, your time is invested speaking with the people who contact you, and showing them the advantages of buying your products and services. The best way that I have ever found to cold call is to go to a mall and watch people as they leave and go towards their car. It's important that they are not in a hurry. When people are rushed, they resent any contact that steals their time. When people are relaxed, they are open to being contacted. I've found that walking up to a prospect and saying something like, "I noticed that you've got a baby seat and baseball cap in the back of the car. Many of my clients have young children. If you ever want a quote on , give me a call. I hand them a card, and start to walk away. The sales pitch is over, except that I turn around and say, "if you want, I can get you some information." If they agree, they are a qualified prospect. If not, I just smile and walk away. About one out of every 250 people that I give a card to call me, but one out of seven of the prospects who give me their contact information and birthday become clients.

Now, let's look at what happens when I pick up the phone and speak to someone who calls me. Imagine that you got this phone call, "Alan, my daughter and I were reading a book that my neighbor Harriet gave to us. It's the book that has your picture on the back, and talks about how you help families with their life insurance planning. Daria, that's my daughter, said, "Mommy, maybe we should talk to this man about keeping our family safe, he looks like a nice man."

The challenge is to create a stream of referrals, and this takes a combination of a marketing and sales effort, marketing being activities that generate interest from people where there is no direct sales contact. One answer to this is the sponsored book concept.

In a sponsored book, it's possible to put your picture and brief description of the advantages you bring to the table for your clients. The book is read over and over, and your message is reinforced. It is passed along to others. It establishes you as a caring professional. Of course, it takes a certain type of book. Slapping your name onto a spy novel does nothing to enhance your business.

Sponsoring a quality children's book works well when your clients include families. Using a sponsored book is easy. Give a copy to your clients with children. Wait a couple of days and call them back to see how they felt about the book. When they gush and tell you how much they liked it, offer to give them a copy or two to share with their friends, or offer to send it to their friends, with a note that says something like, "Jennifer Aniston thought you might like to read this to Bobby, and Sally. Let me know how you like it." Or, imagine getting a call from someone who received your book as a premium when whey donated $500 to the local PBS radio station during a fund drive.

When you call your prospect to follow up, you can be sure that the conversation will be warm, and very different from when you call and say, "Jennifer Aniston suggested that I call you and that we talk about how you can replace your income if you should become disabled."

Sponsoring books is a form of marketing. On average, it costs less than buying a prospect a lunch, takes less time, and produces results for an extended period of time. The lunch is over and forgotten in a day. The sponsored book continues to be enjoyed, and can produce referrals for years.

Alan Jordan is the author of hundreds of magazine articles, six business books, six children's audio books and The Monster on Top of the Bed, a picture book for children ages 2-7. One of his books, The Monster on Top of the Bed, is available as a sponsored book, with a purchase of as few as ten copies.