Leads are the lifeline of any Insurance business. With them you can call, mail and find prospects who want to purchase your product. Without them you will be out of business in a short period of time.
There are different types of leads and great agents strive to surround themselves with as many good leads as possible. These include;
1) Cold leads – these leads are to people who have expressed no prior interest in your product and the agent has no prior knowledge that they will have an interest. We use to call people from the white pages and ask them if they had thought about purchasing insurance (I don’t recommend this method to anyone who wants to make the best use of their time). You can get business from them but you will need to go through hundreds, maybe thousands to find that 1 or two percent.
2) Warm leads – these leads are to people who may have an interest in your product but more importantly they have a relationship either with the agent or someone the agent knows. A lot of insurance companies hire new agents for the sole purpose of gaining access to their warm market (mother, father, sister, brother, relatives, friends that an agent knows). They require the agent to sell his warm market first before they allow him to work for him.
Most agents who fall for this find that unless they learn how to really sell insurance, once their warm market dries up, they are out of business. Agents need to learn how to get a fresh supply of new prospects daily.
It is OK to work with warm leads provided they really want your product and are not buying just because you have a relationship with them.
3) Hot leads – these people have expressed an interest in the agent’s products and will meet with him to discuss purchasing the product. these are the best leads to have.
Hot leads can be; working at a trade show, sharing what you do and having people fill out a card to have you come and present to them. It can be responding to people who either call you or go to your website and ask for information when they know the information includes you contacting them
Hot leads are also referrals you get where the person you got the referral from has actually called them and told them you would be contacting them.
Make it a habit to go after good leads in your sales career. You will get paid a lot faster if you do.