Hiring new insurance agents, or have your recruits recently passed their state insurance exam? Now it’s time to transform them into effective producers. So, where do you start?
Here the experts at WebCE have compiled ten useful and practical tips to help you train your agency’s new producers and augment your agency’s training program.
Top 10 Tips for Training New Insurance Producers
FREE Guide for Creating an Employee Training Program
Professional development and employee training is crucial to your agency’s success as a modern, agile, successful business. Agencies who implement comprehensive professional development and employee training programs see improved morale, reduced turnover, higher profits, and more.
WebCE is here to support your firm and your employees. That's why we created this completely free eBook as a guide to creating an employee training program. This guide is intended to be a first step in building your agency’s training program by exploring the importance of professional development and consistent employee training along with factors to consider when choosing a professional training provider.
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1. Remind Them They Are Part of the Sale
This is something your new agents need to understand immediately: they are part of the sale. What does that mean? Before potential clients purchase something, they see the agent as part of the purchase — and clients want an insurance agent who is professional, competent, and seems like someone they can trust.
So, how can producers help sell themselves to clients?
- Dress professionally
- Avoid slang
- Reference the agency’s combined experience
- Be enthusiastic
- Show interest in their clients
There are many more tips which could be given just for this, but most importantly, make sure your new producers understand they are an important part of what they’re selling.
2. Have Them Identify Every Lead’s Buying Triggers
While price is definitely a factor clients consider when purchasing a policy, it’s often not the only factor. Most of the time, another buying trigger has prompted potential clients to decide to buy a policy.
A good exercise for new salespeople is to have them (at least attempt to) identify these buying triggers for all new leads. This will help them understand that even though price is important, there’s always more to the equation.
3. Record and Listen to Phone Calls
One of the most helpful training tools for salesman working over the phone is to have them listen to their past calls and discuss what they did well and what they could do better. This direct guidance from a mentor can help them make valuable and noting specific changes to improve their performance will help them know what right things they should continue doing.
On the other hand, don’t push this too far — you don’t want your new producers to feel like you’re listening to every word they say over the phone!
4. Team Them Up With Winners
One of the best ways to learn to sell something is to watch a good salesperson at work. New producers could learn a lot from watching their more experienced coworkers, so pair them together! You could have them together as a team or have your new agents spend part of their training period just observing your veteran salespeople. It’s always good to allow your new team the opportunity to ask them questions, too.
5. Give Them Questions to Ask Their Leads
Your new agents are going to need some guidance. If you’re putting them on the phones but not giving them a specific script, at least make sure they have a list of good questions to ask their prospects. Make sure these are prominently visible on all your new producers’ desks or workstations.
6. Make Them Practice Sales
As the saying goes, “Practice makes perfect,” but let’s face it: practicing can be frustrating, especially for sales. It’s something that helps everyone get better, but it’s also not likely your agents will do it on their own without you pushing them. Consider having your new agents practice in front of a mirror, or team up two new agents and have them take turns role-playing as the salesman and the client.
There’s a lot of creative ways to help your agents practice as salespeople. Most importantly, make sure the practice is consistent.
7. Set the Positive Example
As their mentor, it’s up to you and the other experienced team members to set the example for your new agents. Your new hires are new to the insurance industry or maybe even new to the workforce in general. They’re going to be paying close attention to what you and your colleagues do and say.
That doesn’t mean you or the other senior members of your team must be perfect salespeople. It just means you must set the example of professional work behavior and not give new hires an excuse to develop bad habits or a bad attitude right out of the gate.
8. Teach Time Management
One of the easiest ways to be a lousy salesperson is to have poor time management skills. But like other skills, time management is something to be learned.
You can help teach your new producers positive time management skills by structuring their workday. This way your producers will know what they need to be working on at any given part of the day.
9. Show Them the Easy Claims
Newly licensed producers will see more of the bad claims than the smooth claims, but you don’t want your new hires to think every claim goes badly. That’s not the case. Most insurance claims are easy and straightforward. The problem is your new agents don’t see those claims as often because when everything is going smoothly, policyholders don’t call the agency to work it out.
Make a point to periodically show all your producers (no matter their level of experience) the number of ‘easy’ claims. This will remind them your agency sells quality policies, and they can be proud of the product they are selling to clients.
10. EXCEED Producer Training from WebCE
The EXCEED training solution is another great way to train new producers and improve their knowledge. With EXCEED, your agency can deliver consistent, engaging, and practical training to bridge knowledge gaps or build a solid foundation of insurance product expertise.
EXCEED was “designed to fill a need for newly licensed producers, agents, and CSRs,” says Josh Klarin, training program director at WebCE. “The content is organized into series by categories and then into short, engaging episodes, using adult learning principles to provide real-world scenarios that give users the chance to apply what they already know.”
The EXCEED program comes in a variety of packages — the Personal Lines Series, Commercial Lines Series, or the EXCEED Everything Package. To learn more about the EXCEED training solution from WebCE, visit the EXCEED training catalog or register for a free EXCEED product demo.