How To Get Your Staff To Sell More Insurance

You're staring at the New Business report for the month and a little disappointed at the number of sales you've had. It's not terrible, but by far not the best month ever.

You're a bit frustrated. You know that you could boost these numbers with just a little extra effort. And then you make the mistake of looking around at your team.

One of your staff members is making a personal phone call. Another appears to be surfing the Internet and you're not too sure if it is work related. There are papers everywhere but it looks like a bunch of service work and old filing that needs to be done.

You walk by and try to find out what's going on today. And you hear a lot of "Oh I've been swamped all day!" "The phone won't stop ringing!" But yet, it doesn't seem that busy and sales are down.

It's time to buckle down and get them motivated on the right tasks.

First, you need to let them know what you want. And for that, you need sales goals. Begin by breaking down the big agency goals into smaller individual goals.

Everyone needs to know what is expected. Buy a large dry erase board and hang it up on the wall where clients can't see it, but everyone in the office can.

Create a column for each team member and an area for the monthly agency sales goals.

This makes it clear what your expectations are. Plus it creates competition between your staff members. (If everyone has sold twice as much as they have, they'll get more motivated to get busy!)

Next, you want to pull the entire team together at least once a week and see where you stand.

Here are possible things to discuss:

Have each person bring a list of the quotes they've run that week.

Discuss why each quote sold or didn't sell.

Practice objections and "role play" sales situations.

Calculate everyone's close ratios. Give a random prize for the best sales of the week.

The goal is to focus on what you want more of. If you want them to sell, you need to be reviewing and motivating on a regular basis.

Having a team you can trust is important, but this is about more than just trust. This is about management and fulfilling your business goals. You have to be willing to "trim the fat" if something's not getting done the way you want. You can't be passive. It's about looking at that report at the end of the month and knowing you did everything possible to maximize it.