I'd venture to say very few of them. Most of the people you're following up with think of you as a pain in the neck, and they'd like to get rid of you. They just don't know how to politely make you go away.



Is that the kind of relationship you want with your clients? Do you want them dreading your call avoiding you in public looking for another agent so they can dump you? Of course you don't.

The way you start the relationship between you and your new potential client with your first connection predetermines the outcome of your relationship. First impressions are lasting impressions that taint every interaction you have with a potential client moving forward. It takes a long time and hard work to charge perceptions.

So when you contact someone and you talk about your insurance, and you, and then you push for the appointment you've just doomed yourself to failure before you even had a chance to start. Most people will tell you ?no? in no uncertain terms ending the possibility of a relationship now, or any time in the future. Using this pushy selfish approach is a quick way to burn through a lot of really good potential clients, and damage your reputation in the process.

So how are you supposed to get appointments with people if you can't do it by pestering people you shouldn't be pestering in the first place? You do it by first becoming and behaving like a professional. Let me ask you, ?how many times has an accountant called you on the phone out of the blue and pressured you to meet for a free tax review?? Let me guess that would be ?never?.

How does a professional get qualified potential clients looking for them wanting to know more about what they can do for them, so they don't have to chase after people? It starts with understanding and recognizing a problem that exists that a large number of potential clients for you want to do something about. The key words here are problem and want.

For example, you may have potential prospects who want to shelter money from taxes now to use to supplement their retirement later that they don't want locked in an IRA. These prospects have a problem. Plus you know they want to do something about it because they're thinking ahead, and planning for a future they want to build. Let's call our prospect Bob.

Now if you called Bob on the phone and spoke to him the way you do now, in a self-serving pushy way, Bob would get rid of you and fast. He'd tell you any objection he could come up with just to get you off the phone and more importantly out of his life. Contrast that with a conversation where instead of even mentioning the word ?insurance? or any ?product? you talked about a problem. Now Bob recognizing that you're talking about the exact problem he has asks you to tell him more about that.

Could we make this situation even better yet? You bet. How about if we get Bob to call you the expert? That's not a problem that's what good marketing is all about.

Using effective marketing you present your problem based message in all your marketing communications. You make those communications in person in places where you know Bob is likely to be, in literature Bob already reads, in places Bob is already listening.

When Bob receives your communication he'll be all ears so to speak because you're talking directly to him. You've gotten Bobs attention. The next step is to get Bob engaged.

That's easy to do you just give Bob something to do. That's right you just tell Bob exactly what to do and how to do it and he will because Bob wants to know more. Now Bob is in essence chasing you rather than you chasing Bob.

Something big just happened here in both your mindset and Bob's. Bob doesn't think you're a pesky insurance sales person he wants to get rid of. Bob thinks you're an expert a professional who possibly has the answers he's looking for. Why, Bob thinks you may just be the trusted advisor he's been looking for.

Because you have qualified people contacting you and wanting to learn more you no longer feel like a hopeless loser like you do now. Instead you feel like the trusted advisor the expert you are. This shift in mindset is huge. It leads to the you want.

All you have to do now is back up this good first impression with a lasting impression that you're a professional by acting like one. That's means no high pressure tactics no coercive language no self-serving closing techniques. All those behaviors are counter-productive. Remember you don't want a one-time purchase you want a life-time client. That means you have to treat your clients with the respect and dignity they deserve from the beginning.