We have spent quite a bit of time in this space talking about how you establish the brand you want. A big part of the brand revolves around the things you need to be talking about and where you need to be talking about them.  What you also need to consider and be equally aware of is how much what you don’t say affects your brand, as well.

I don’t know if it’s just me, but it seems the general rules of professionalism and communication protocol have become very loose, or abandoned altogether.  All too frequently, I experience the following:

• No-shows for conference calls/meetings with no prior notice
• Promises for follow-up that never happens
• An inability to just say “no”

When I experience these behaviors, it tells me a lot about the individual; it tells me that they are unorganized, less than professional, and lacking the confidence to state a position. It influences the “brand” I assign to them.

I realize that most of the time, this probably isn’t a true reflection of who they are, at least all of the time.  I’m sure that in their minds they would never behave this way when “it really matters” for them (like with clients).  However, I would caution though that they are on a slippery slope.  Bad behaviors have a way of becoming bad habits and habits become who we truly are.

I’m sure that most of them also excuse their own behavior because they witness it in others around them and believe, therefore, it must be a new acceptable standard.  If that’s true, it’s very sad commentary on our general state of professionalism.

If this lack of professional courtesy in communication is the new standard, think about how strong your brand could be by comparison if you are the exception who:

• shows up for scheduled meetings on time,
• follows up on promises in a timely manner, and
• is confident enough to just say “no”.

Photo by humboldthead.

@kevintrokey

Do you like this post? Subscribe to BGN Blog.

First impressions can have a pretty big impact on what happens next – or doesn’t – in a relationship. When you contact a potential new client, what is the first thing they’re going to do after they get off the phone or back to their desk? They’re going to search your name and your agency name. What they find is that first digital impression.

What will your prospect learn about you?

Search yourself and search your agency. Look at it from an outsider’s perspective, someone seeing those results for the first time. What will they learn from the results of the search?

I see three likely scenarios based on how you participate in online activities. Take a look through these and see which one best describes your participation and subsequent search results.

#1: You’re…

• actively involved in your community or your industry
• have completed profiles and many connections
• a topical expert and participate in discussions and share relevant information
• generous with your knowledge and interested in helping others improve their businesses

#2:

You have profile accounts with virtually no information. Your LinkedIn profile or Twitter account was forgotten almost as soon as it was set up.

#3:

Either there are no search results for your name or maybe just an old outdated press release about your CIC designation.

Scenario #1 tells the prospect that you’re serious about your business, your career development is an important part of the business, and you are interested in and likely capable of helping the client with their business. And you believe the Internet offers powerful tools for conveying your message and conducting business.

With #3, it’s a mixed bag. There are many possible speculations about those without any results, but we can’t know for sure. A likely possibility is that you don’t believe in social networking as an effective tool for business development. And we don’t have anything to go off of in terms of rating you as a businessperson, so it’s all just unknown.

Now, #2. This is the most dangerous and damaging of the possible scenarios. You know what I mean – you created an account and didn’t finish completing the profile (no photo, no bio, only 3 connections, no experience or only the most recent listed, etc.) or you got really excited and started using it…then stopped. Like 6 months ago. We call these ghost town profiles that have obviously been abandoned. And what this tells that potential new client is that you don’t take Internet tools and networking opportunities seriously, you don’t follow through on what you start, and you leave half-finished projects just laying around.

Does #2 sound familiar? If so, then go fix it right now.
As you go through your search results, make a list of everything that you need to clean up, then go do it.

• I understand trying out a social site and realizing that it’s just not for you. When you get to that point, then make the commitment to that decision and close the account.
• If you have a Twitter account connected through your LinkedIn profile, but you don’t actually use Twitter, then go IMMEDIATELY and disconnect it. Professionals look at your LinkedIn profile – guaranteed. And a link to an account that never got started or was abandoned is BAD for your professional reputation.
• If you decide at some point that you want to come back, you can always set up an account at a later time.

Avoiding scenario #2 is definitely in your best interest. Cleaning it up will be time well invested in your personal and agency reputation.

While #3 is actually better than #2, understand that clients and prospects who are looking you up online must believe in the power of the Internet as a business tool. So if you are falling into either of these two scenarios, you’re already at a disadvantage with those prospects before you even get started.

Take control of that first impression and put your own positive message out there for people to find.

Photo by Bill Marrow.

@wendykeneipp

Like this post? Subscribe to BGN Blog.

LinkedIn is such an amazing business tool and it’s getting more robust and more useful all the time. If you do nothing else to promote yourself online, I cannot stress enough the importance of having a complete and professional LinkedIn profile. Even though profiles are completed on the individual level, it is a critical tool for promoting yourself and your insurance and/or benefits agency.

I look at many, many profiles, and I’ve seen them all across the quality lines. It’s quite simple to put a good profile together, but there are a few things of which you need to be aware that will make it a much more useful tool for you.

Take a few minutes to review your profile in comparison to this list, and see if you need to make any changes.

Some things you might be doing wrong to get the best out of your LinkedIn profile:

• Thinking this is a resume and that it’s about you. The only people who want to read a resume are hiring managers – and they don’t even really want to do it. Readers aren’t looking for tactical bullet points; they want a couple of brief sentences describing how you helped the company. Because what your readers (clients & prospects) are looking for is information about how you can help them. They want to know what experience you have that is going to help them achieve their goals.

• Not filling out the profile completely. Don’t leave blank holes on the profile or experience. We’re social creatures. We want to learn about people, and we want to see faces – your face (only). Include a good shot of your face so someone will recognize you when they see you in person.
  • Websites. At minimum, add your company website and label it. If you have other sites you use professionally like a blog or Facebook, include those as well. Letting people easily find content that you or your company produces is a great benefit.
  • Education. Remember that this is for professional purposes. We don’t need to know where you went to high school (or anything earlier!). Save that for connecting with old friends on Facebook. Here, stick with college and any other professional training.
  • Summary. This is a valuable section where you should tell people who you are professionally, what you do for your clients, and what they get as a result of working with you. Make it easy for people to get a sense of your professional self. Carefully craft your message and beware of these pitfalls:
    • Simply rehashing what we can read in the Experience section.
    • Writing in 3rd person. We know you wrote it – talk directly to us.
    • Writing it about your company instead of yourself. Even if you own the business, this profile should be about you personally. Use Company Pages for your company description and promotion.

• Not making yourself as accessible as possible. The more people you are connected to, the more connections that will be available for you to see. Which in turn, makes your prospecting research significantly easier.
  • Privacy settings. The point of LinkedIn is to make professional connections. You can’t make those connections if people can’t see your profile, so open it up and make it publically available.
  • Outdated information. Be sure to always have your most current contact information included on your profile. If it’s not updated, any messages and invitations will be going into the abyss of dead email accounts.

• And finally, not proofing. It’s easy to type it and forget it, but that leaves you vulnerable to the unintended errors of the fingers. Take the time to read through everything.

This is quite possibly your first impression – let’s make it a good one.

@wendykeneipp

Like this post? Subscribe to BGN Blog.

Continuing the topic of integrating social media tools into business operations, here we take a look at how to begin thinking about what that might look like.

If you’re looking at social media as a sales channel, you’re going to be very disappointed and give up, rightfully so. Instead, take the time to explore what it could mean to each of the functional areas within your company. Here are a few ideas to get you started.

Sales team: Connect with clients, prospects, centers of influence. Share relevant articles and ideas with them, promote their activities, help them make necessary business connections with people you know. (Social makes amazing relationship management tools!)

Customer service: Answer client questions (obviously some things need to be off-line for privacy, but there are plenty of generic issues that arise), conduct employee communications for your clients (host a benefits communication platform for all client employees or feed that information for clients to post on their own platform), provide information on local issues that people need or might want to be aware – like risks and hazards, or health related events.

HR: Search the platforms for talent – find people who fit the profile for your ideal staff. Connect with them and keep a running pipeline of potential future employees. Find out what they like in an employer and in a job. Watch their interactions and see how they handle themselves. Be sure they know what’s happening in your company that makes it a great place to work.

Marketing: If you have a marketing person, they should be scouring the airwaves for any company mentions, industry trend discussions, conversations that are happening about any relevant topics – not necessarily about your agency (e.g., company benefits, open enrollment, wellness programs, hazard risk, business risk, etc.). Watch these conversations for trends, and gather ideas from the complaints and praises you hear.

CEO: This is a biggie. The CEO should definitely be participating online. In fact, if no one else does, it should be this person. The head of your company is the name, the face, the person most closely associated with the company. It’s such a great opportunity to have your top person talking online because your clients and prospects are able to make the direct connection with him/her, and from that, the CEO can then perform the most important role for your sales organization – rainmaker. They set the tone, share the company ideas, philosophy, values, culture and promote people within the company who are making it the great organization that it is.

Social media tools should be integrated into the big picture of what you're trying to accomplish. They should be tools you use as tactics to help you accomplish your strategic objectives, rather than "social" being the end game itself. There are as many ways to use these platforms as you can envision. And that’s a great place to start. Even if you’re already on Facebook or blogging or Tweeting, it would be beneficial to think about this, and have some team discussions for (new) ideas on how to connect with your audience instead of just talking at them.

I’d love to hear some ideas you’ve got on how to use social media effectively for your organization – feel free to share with the rest of us.

Coming up next in this series will be some ideas for getting a team together to tackle this business evolution.

Photo by Lenore Edman.

@wendykeneipp

Like this post? Subscribe to BGN Blog.

At our BGNLive! conference in Chicago this year we focused on the need to change the agency business model and how to effectively communicate those changes to our clients and prospects. Len Strazewski, writer with Rough Notes magazine, attended the conference and following are his takeaways of the content discussed at the session.

Agents and brokers that do not
manage that first impression run the
risk of letting random online information
or misinformation control what
prospective clients learn about them

By Len Strazewski

Do prospects really learn what you want them to learn about your agency?

Google says your agency sells insurance. Facebook says you have a great softball team. LinkedIn says you went to a state university.

Is this the way you want present and prospective customers to know and understand your agency? Do these sources communicate what you really offer your clients? Click here to read the full article at Rough Notes magazine.

Photo by Paul Downey.

@wendykeneipp

Like this post? Subscribe to BGN Blog.

Positioning & Opportunities: How you differentiate yourself in the mind of your prospect

Believe it or not, fourth quarter, and arguably the most important time of the year, is upon us. You’re probably nodding your head, having a little anxiety over all of the upcoming renewals and agreeing with the importance of dealing with them.

And that’s true. But what’s also true is that most of you have a team to help you get through those renewals. Let them handle the lion’s share of that responsibility. It’s time for you to focus on the real reason why this is the most important time of the year for you: your pipeline. Despite all of the distractions that come with this time of year, it is critical that prospecting remains a top priority.

While prospecting has always been challenging, in this era of differentiation it has become even more so. I assume by now most of you have modified your business model and are positioning yourself as somehow different in the marketplace. It’s exactly that repositioning of your model that requires a more focused approach to communicating with prospects.

Problems in message delivery

Here are some problems I regularly see as I coach agencies and producers about delivering the right message during the prospecting/sales process:

1. Differentiation - You have to effectively explain what it is that makes your model different.
2. Overcoming the industry brand – If the prospect doesn’t know you or your agency, they will assume you are a traditional insurance broker.
3. Lack of personal preparation – The new differentiated model requires that you expand your knowledge to bring value to your future clients in new ways.
4. Inconsistencies –
   • In the amount of time committed to prospecting
   • In the client experience we talk about versus the client experience we deliver
   • In the written messages (website, blog, etc.) we send versus the spoken message communicated during the sales process

Responses to overcome the problems

Differentiate yourself by defining your position. Your message has to be a reflection of your business model. It should demonstrate how you are different from the competition (your position), and how you bring value to your clients. Analyze your business model in order to develop your message.

As you work to define your position, answer the following questions, but be sure that you answer in a way that is unique (can’t be claimed by your competition – or at least by most of them) and compelling (allows your prospect to see what’s in it for them).

• What do you sell? The reason you give your clients to do business with you.
• How do you sell it? Write down the steps through which you take a prospect.
• How do you retain clients? Describe why your clients remain with you.

If you can’t honestly answer these questions in a manner that meets the unique and compelling standards, you need to re-evaluate and adjust your business model.

Overcome industry brand and inconsistencies by developing your own message - Now that you have defined your position in a unique and compelling manner, it’s time to develop your message. Start by developing the core message that will be consistent throughout all of your communications. It is through this messaging that you must start separating yourself from the stereotype of the industry brand.

To create an effective message, but sure it is:

• Simple – Don’t make your audience sort through a bunch of noise to find the core message. Make it obvious.
• Visible – Be sure it paints a picture of who you are.
• Rational & Emotional – Appeal to both sides of your audience as they are always present

An effective message will tell the audience:

• What you do
• How you do it
• Why they should want it
• Their call to action (e.g. asking for the appointment)

Plan to communicate - Once you have defined the message to be communicated, develop the plan as to how it will be executed.

1. Marketing (Pre-sale) & Brand Communication – These are the ways in which you will reinforce the messages being taken to the market by your sales force. You can be sure that once a producer contacts a prospect, that prospect will go to these various sources to learn more about the agency and producer. Be sure all of the messaging is consistent, including website, blog, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.
2. Sales Messaging for Agency & Producer – Develop the scripts to be used during the sales process. Allow producers the flexibility to personalize, but insist that they convey the core message developed above. 
   • Cold call
   • Approach letters, emails
   • 30-second commercial
   • Asking for referrals – COI/Client

Deliver on the new model/message with personal preparation – If you have committed to somehow being different in the marketplace, it likely means that you are going to need new skills and knowledge to do so. You will never be able to truly meet the promises that come with your defined position if you haven’t made an agency-wide commitment, requirement, and investment to acquiring the skills and knowledge necessary to execute on the new model.

Look at the position you have defined and identify every skill set, talent and knowledge that is required to deliver it successfully. Compare that list with what is currently in place and create a plan to acquire what is missing.

Block time for consistent prospecting – As much as I would like to be able to offer one, there is no magic bullet when it comes to prospecting. (The closest there is to a magic bullet are the client referrals I talked about in my February article.) However, with the right messaging in place, scripts identified, appropriate knowledge and practice under your belt, you will be positioned to get better results.

However, those results won’t come without action. No matter what, it all comes down to blocking out time on your calendar every week for dedicated prospecting activities. The thing is, now that you are better prepared, I think you will find that it’s not the horrible task you have maybe allowed it to be up to this point.

When you think about having a consistently full pipeline, you just have to ask yourself, “How badly do I really want it?”

Photo by David J Laporte.

@kevintrokey

Do you like this post? Subscribe to BGN Blog.

“One thing. Just one thing. You stick to that and everything else don’t mean &*$#.” That is the secret of life according to Curly in City Slickers.

Now, I don’t know if that is truly the secret of life, but I do think it is a great start to finding the secret to your success. Okay, maybe there isn’t just one, one thing. Maybe your sales success is a series of “one things.”

In my article Willpower vs. Self-Discipline I discussed the difference between willpower and self-discipline. The main difference between the two being that willpower mostly focuses on a single act while self-discipline delivers repeated actions. Getting to that consistent, structured self-discipline takes a lot of work, and sometimes the hardest part of that is just getting started. So, I’ve got some suggestions to get you off the fence and start down your path toward self-discipline – one step at a time.

After all, you can do anything once, right? So, let’s talk about the things that if done “once” will deliver you selling success.

Daily ONE Things

Read
Read ONE article/blog from a source that understands your industry. You will be shocked at the opportunities you find to share what you learned.

Personal brand management
Share ONE idea/link/retweet via social media to enhance your personal brand. Give your prospects something powerful to find when they search you online, because they will.

Weekly ONE Things

Suspecting
Identify the ONE suspect (someone with whom you want to do business, but whom is not yet aware of that fact) you will contact this week to set up a meeting. Nothing is more important than filling your pipeline.

Prospecting
Identify the ONE prospect (someone who knows you want to do business with you and with whom you are having ongoing sales discussions) in your pipeline who you are going to move to a final decision. A stagnant pipeline is worse than an empty pipeline because it gives a false sense of security.

Client relationship management
Proactively contact ONE client this week for no reason other than sharing an article, an idea, or to just check in. Goes so far in building the personal connection.

Thank you
Send ONE handwritten thank-you note to someone who is making a difference for you. It may be the only piece of mail they actually read that day.

Referrals
Take ONE client or center of influence to lunch this week for the purpose of asking for a referral. Of course, be sure you have earned the opportunity to ask for a referral.

Practice
Role play ONE part of your sales process, with a partner, each week. Be prepared to execute your process, as well as to answer questions and objections that are sure to come up with prospects and clients.

Planning
Plan out your weekly activities. Instead of meeting each day not knowing what it holds, decide ONE time, at the beginning of the week, what things are the most valuable use of your time.

Monthly ONE Things

Team member relationship management
Take ONE team member out to lunch this month to learn how you can help them be more successful at what they do. I promise, the more you help them be successful, they more they will be able/willing to help you be successful.

Prospect research
Get online and do some in-depth research to find a group of potentially viable prospects. Search through your connections, your connections’ connections, your local marketplace, or industry resources to identify suspects and find possible links to get a referral or introduction.

Quarterly ONE Things

Personal development
What is the ONE business book you will pick up and read this quarter? Never stop learning.

Annual ONE Things

Planning
Take time to plan out your upcoming year with goals for prospecting, keeping prospects moving through the sales process, as well as sales goals. Outline how you plan to achieve these goals with your own personal marketing plan.

Book of business management
What is the ONE segment of your book of business you are going to pass on to someone else? I know this one is tough for producers to get their arms around, basically “firing” some of their clients, but it’s typically the right thing to do. When I profile books of business (ranking the accounts from most revenue to least revenue), I will almost always see that the bottom 25 percent of a book usually only generates 1 percent of total book revenue, many times only averaging a few hundred dollars of revenue per year. These accounts slow your growth more than you recognize.

So there you have it. If you need a little help getting started on that path to self-discipline, use the power you already have in willpower to get it going. You don’t even have to do all of the ONE things, just pick a few. But really, I think you have enough willpower to tackle them all. You just have to be honest enough with yourself and ask, “How badly do I really want it?”

Photo by Lululemon Athletica.

@kevintrokey

Do you like this post? Subscribe to BGN Blog.

New  talent – every industry needs to have a steady flow of new people and ideas joining their ranks in order to stay current with client needs, industry and cultural trends, and technology. Which are all rapidly changing business practices.

As Kevin talked about recently in his “Wander On In” post, finding that young talent is essential to the survival of the industry. And something critical that these new folks are bringing with them is their fresh perspective on business and their comfort with technology.

• These young business professionals are not saddled with “the way we’ve always done it”.
• They have grown up with technology and being extremely open with one another in sharing their lives online.

These two ideas combine make a very powerful new business tool from which we, as established business professionals, need to take a lesson.

Whether purposefully getting into the industry or wandering into it by accident, these young professionals are bringing their new ideas about business with them. And they are either joining our teams or the competitors’ teams. Regardless of which team they join, they are changing the rules of the game. And everyone who wants to continue playing the game has got to learn these new rules and start playing by them too.

They get it

I recently spoke with a group of university students who have formed a professional women’s organization and are actively recruiting business community members to help prepare them for their careers. One of the things that struck me as awe-inspiring about these students (besides their obvious initiative) was the understanding they had of the distinction between a personal and professional presence (both in-person & online), and how they are actively pursuing the professional because they understand the importance of it. It’s so important, in fact, that the university is offering free courses to its students to help them develop a professional online presence.

Even though these students have likely grown up having Facebook accounts for connecting with friends, these women all had very well-done LinkedIn profiles that put to shame most experienced professional profiles I see.

Granted, there is college and internship information filling in these profiles right now, but these women get it. They know how to present themselves in a professional manner and they have yet to even graduate. When they do graduate, they are going to Wow! their future employers and intimidate their competition right from the starting line.

As seasoned professionals, it’s our choice to jump in and learn these new rules – and  help make some new rules of our own, or wait for the competition (internal or external) to overtake us and render us irrelevant.

We recommend that every agency owner, manager, and producer maintain a complete and up-to-date profile on LinkedIn. It’s a minimum expectation of any business professional.

@wendykeneipp

Like this post? Subscribe to BGN Blog.

We all know how important the first impression can be.  It’s even been said that we form an opinion of others in just a few seconds.  While that first face-to-face meeting is still important (make eye contact, firm handshake, dress the part, all that good stuff), it is rarely our true first impression any longer.

Ask yourself, what do you think is the first thing that prospect does when considering taking a meeting with you?  Probably the same thing you do when you want to learn more about someone; you turn to the Internet.  Nowadays, before taking a first meeting with anyone, we tend to go through the ritual of searching their name on Google, seeing what they Tweet about, reviewing their profile on LinkedIn, and reading what they have blogged about. 

Your online presence is your new first impression. Whatever your prospect learns through what they find (or don’t find) about you online is now the first impression they are going to have of you.  So, when you and the competition show up for that “first meeting”, it is no longer an even start, someone has already created an advantage by what they have communicated through their online presence.  Will that be you or your competition?  This really is an opportunity for you to create a competitive advantage. 

First, take a little time to define your personal brand. In other words, what are the clear, powerful, positive thoughts you want your audience to have when they think about you?  What do you want them to know about you and why they should work with you?  What is it that makes you different from your competition?  What is your unique value proposition?

Next, develop a strategy to start communicating that brand online through your blog, Twitter, LinkedIn, white papers, etc.  Make sure what your audience finds when they look for you online makes, and reinforces, your desired first impression.

It won’t happen overnight, but you will be pleasantly surprised at how quickly you can elevate your online presence and start separating yourself from your competition.

We often refer to brand as the clear, powerful, positive thoughts you want your audience to have about you.  However, despite what you want your audience to see in you, it is their actual experience that will determine the brand they place on you.

When a prospect has accepted a meeting with you, they form pre-conceived ideas of what that experience will be based on similar experiences they have had with other brokers.  Then, when the meeting takes place, they spend their time looking for ways to reinforce what they had pre-conditioned themselves to expect.  When they recognize messages in your presentation that they’ve heard before, they tell themselves, “I knew it; they’re all alike.  Why would I go through the hassle of making a change?”

Fortunately, you are able influence and alter what they actually experience.

Your brand, and the communication of that brand, is your opportunity to prepare them in advance of your meeting to be looking for what it is that makes you different.

By doing so, when they hear the different message you bring, they are able to say, “Oh, that’s what she was talking about.  I’ve never heard that before, but it makes sense.  Maybe she is different.” 

By communicating what you want your audience to see, you have now given them an opportunity to recognize and focus on your differentiators.  By doing so, you give them the opportunity to make those differentiators the focus of the brand they assign to you. 

I know this sounds obvious, but if you don’t prepare them to be looking for specific differentiators in advance, they will look right past it in their attempt to identify what is familiar to them.

So, where does this brand message have to exist?  EVERYWHERE

Your brand has to be a very intentional part of the messaging you take to your prospects in every communication and in every interaction.  It may start with your website and your blog and your tweets but, marketing and sales materials are only the start. 

While the marketing and sales materials can help establish your brand, the only thing that can sustain that brand is the actual client experience.  It is the experience that will ultimately determine your brand in the eyes of the customer.  If you reinforce through actions the same message you proactively communicate through words, that brand will continue to become more deeply ingrained and much more clear in the mind of your audience.

However, if your actions conflict with your message, the brand your clients assign to you will become fuzzy and will eventually become whatever is being communicated through your actions rather than your words.  As our mothers always told us, actions do speak louder than words.   


Photo by Harry Cheng.