Learn ways to achieve insurance sales goals with these tactics from top experts
- Aim higher than your quota
- Reverse engineer your sales goal
- Measure your sales activities
- Review your status daily, or at least weekly
- Reduce the length of your sales process
- Increase your average sale
- Mine your social media
- Ask for referrals
You may lead a sales team at your insurance agency in achieving set goals. Or you may be an agent looking to achieve more sales in this year than you did last year. Either way, we’re more than halfway through the first month of the year, and it’s time to knuckle down to achieve insurance sales goals for 2020. Your focus should be on two things:
- Improving your ability to communicate value to your clients and prospects
- Accelerating your productivity.
“Well, duh,” you may say. “Those are obvious goals that are always in place.” If that’s the case, you’re right in line with 423 sales and enablement leaders who took part in a RAIN Group survey last year. This group also said their other goals are to
- Boost business with existing accounts (cross-selling)
- Increase retention and renewals
- Improve sales opportunity planning
- Win more against difficult competitors
- Optimize the sales process
View the infographic below for more results from the survey.
The question is, how do you actually achieve those goals?
First, a little empathy for you from Kendra Lee at KLA Group:
You set a bright, shiny optimistic goal, thinking that this year you really can exceed your quota by 20%, or earn 15% more than last year. You’re going to get out there, talk to more prospects, and win more clients.
By the end of January, you’re discouraged because it’s the same old story. Prospects are too busy to take your calls. December’s proposals are still lingering. Your pipeline is going stale. Your boss is standing over you – or if you’re the boss, you’re glaring at yourself in the mirror.
Here are a few tips from KLA Group, Acquirent and RAIN group to achieve insurance sales goals in a very successful 2020:
Aim higher than your quota. Set yourself a stretch goal of 125% of quota, says Acquirent. Doing this accomplishes two things: One, if you miss your stretch goal, you’re still more likely to hit your quota. And if you hit your stretch goal, you’re a hero.
Reverse engineer your sales goal. Working backwards, figure out what your average sale is; then determine how many sales you need to achieve your goal. Now determine how many sales you’ll need to make each month. Now you’re breaking it down into manageable chunks. Next, write down these monthly goals, along with how many prospecting calls, new appointments and proposals delivered that this would translate into. Keep them in front of you at your desk, on your computer, etc.
Measure your sales activities. KLA Group suggests picking just three metrics and then monitoring them closely all year long. They can be how much time you spend prospecting, number of new appointments set, appointments that convert, proposals delivered or more. You choose.
Review your status daily, or at least weekly. A good rule of thumb is to keep three times your quota in your pipeline – at all times.
Reduce the length of your sales process. How? By qualifying opportunities all along the way and following up more frequently. This way, you’ll be able to more quickly cull out opportunities that may look good – but aren’t.
Increase your average sale. Insert another option or two in your proposal that the prospect may not have thought of. For instance, if you’re proposing a BOP policy, you may want to add in a commercial auto, workers’ comp or business interruption option.
Mine your social media. Look at the connections of all your connections. There you’ll find a host of possibilities. Look for Facebook or LinkedIn groups in your area – and join them. Another goldmine of leads.
Ask for referrals. Nothing new, we know. Just do it. Set a goal of at least two per week.
Check out the RAIN Group infographic below for more tactics to achieve insurance sales goals this year.
