Tag Archives: branding

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Hope is Not a Strategy

Stop chasing your competitors and Think Different!

Hope is not a strategy

One of the most frequent questions we get from insurance agents is, “Why is that agency doing so much better than me?” Implied in this question is, “How can I be more like my competitor?”

Is this really what you want to do with the business you build — to be a follower?

I hope not. I hope your thinking is more along these lines: “I want to do it much better.”

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani is attributed to be the first to use the phrase “hope is not a strategy.” In September 2008 at the Republican National Convention, his speech included these words:

“Because ‘change’ is not a destination, just as ‘hope’ is not a strategy.”

Shortly thereafter, on January 23, 2009, Dr. Benjamin Ola Akande posted a copy of an open letter written to Barack Obama. Dr. Akande, an economist, scholar, and the Dean of the business school at Webster University in St. Louis, used the phrase “Hope Is Not a Strategy” as the title of his letter.

His main goal was to advise Obama on how to bring life back to the economy of the United States. The lines from which this famous quotation comes are as follows:

“Yet, the fact remains that hope will not reduce housing foreclosures. Hope does not stop a recession. Hope cannot create jobs. Hope will not prevent catastrophic failures of banks. Hope is not a strategy.”

There is a lesson to be learned that has nothing to do with the economy and everything to do with your future success.

You cannot just wish away your problems. You cannot bury your head in the sand and refuse to recognize that younger generations are demanding different kinds of experiences. You can no longer sit back and just assume that the insurance companies will take care of your agency. Just sitting around thinking about how the current situation could be better is not going to change anything.

You need to take action.

One of the ways you can begin to take action is to closely examine what you do well and think about how you can be different while at the same time being yourself.

While you can learn from studying other competitors’ marketing methods, you will only frustrate yourself if you attempt to follow their path step-by-step. So instead, spend your time strategizing on how to differentiate yourself by understanding your core competencies.

One of the ways you can begin taking action is to ask yourself these key questions that will help you understand the core strengths of your organization.

The following questions will help you get started:

  1. What is unique about your organization?
  2. What makes what you do different than everyone else?
  3. Do you have niche markets where you are successful?
  4. What areas of your agency are most profitable?
  5. What are common traits of your most profitable clients?
  6. What services do you currently provide that are not profitable?

These questions will help you to begin understanding what your unique positioning in your marketing area should be.

Once you have thought through and answered these questions, it’s time to make some changes in how you operate. Focus on what you do best, and makes you the most money. Seek out the clients you like to work with and develop strategies to get more of these types of clients.

Will there be problems? Of course!

Remember, you are doing this to play to your strengths in a way that is profitable. Your goal is to achieve a sustained competitive advantage by understanding and enhancing what is unique about you and your agency. You want to either provide completely different services than your competitors, or provide similar services. But in different and much better ways.

Think Different and take action. Stop following; make the hard decisions necessary to be a leader in your organization and your market.

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Why Every Producer Needs Their Own Website

I have said many times: consumer-buying habits are changing dramatically — both for individual consumers and business consumers.

Every producer should have a website.

A larger percent than ever of individuals are starting their purchasing research online. And if you’re not findable online you are invisible to a growing segment of the buying public.

This is why I believe that every producer in an insurance agency needs to have their own branded website.

I understand that most producers have relied on the agency to create the agency website and enhance the agency’s Internet presence. And that’s worked fine for the last 10 years. But consumers continue to change and if producers want to continue to be successful they need to begin working on mastering their own Internet presence.

Producers can no longer rely solely on the agency to market the products and services they offer. Producers need to work on their own personal brand in their own personal marketing so they are visible to the prospects and clients they want to do business with.

People buy from people they know, like, and trust.

The best way to help people know who you are, begin to like you, and learn to trust you with their financial resources and future is to demonstrate your expertise online. And one of the primary ways to do that is by creating a personal website.

Your website may be the most intimate way you touch your reader or sales prospect. It is also the platform best suited to educate prospects on why you are the authority on insurance protection and the person they should work with.

In a recent presentation I was talking about the advantages of creating a virtual agency. I gave a couple of examples of successful agencies that have no physical office. During the break, a participant approached me and asked if I would be willing to share contact information for these agents. I did give him the contact information.

I found out later that the participant did try to contact one of the agents. The agent in my example sent me an email asking me about this particular person and where I had seen him. He could not find any information online about this particular agent. It caused him to question whether he should respond to the email or not.

This is one simple example of the negative consequences of not showing up online. I am absolutely convinced that prospects search for information about you online before they ever agree to allow you to take up their time by setting an appointment.

Creating your own personal branded website is easier than you think. Begin now to take those steps to create the website and then add articles and information that show your expertise.

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What Does Your Email Address Say About You?

I recently read an article titled AOL Email Address Brands You As Technologically Obsolete. The article said that having an outdated email address from a company like AOL brands a person as being someone who is not willing to move forward with technology. The article specifically discussed people looking for a job and how an employer might question a candidate’s suitability for the job simply because of the email address he or she uses.

The same can be said for insurance agents. What does your email address say about you?

I am intrigued by how many agents are using various “old” email addresses as their primary means of contact. I have a rather large database of agent email addresses due to my weekly email newsletter (TechTips) that I send. So I did a simple search for some common email domains with the following results.

  • AOL: 105
  • Yahoo: 174
  • Hotmail: 90
  • Gmail: 452

Each of these email addresses is free. But in this case, “free” may be costing you a lot.

When I receive a business email that is using one of these free services I—correctly or not—make some basic assumptions. My first assumption is this person is not really serious about building and marketing their agency. Second, while they may be serious, they just don’t understand how to keep up with today’s technology changes and improvements.

Every communication leaves an impression. Your agency website is your online front door. Emails you send to prospects and clients invite people to come to your “office” (your online storefront) to learn more about what you have to offer.

You may question my inclusion of Gmail on this list. I have a Gmail address. But I don’t use it for business purposes or as my primary email address. Feel free to use Gmail as your email client to manage your incoming email. It works very well for lots of people. Just don’t send me a message from your Gmail account if you want me to pay attention to it.

Setting up a hosted email account with your own domain email address is easy and inexpensive. I don’t know why everyone doesn’t do it!

For example, GoDaddy.com offers email hosting services starting at $16 per year for one email address. A bundle of five email addresses starts at $32 per year. Using a hosting service like this allows you to read, reply, and store your email in the cloud with their Web-based email, or you can set up your email on your computer with your favorite email client, like Microsoft Outlook. You can also access your mail from your iPhone, BlackBerry, or Android devices.

There is simply no reason not to have a unique email address that reminds people about your brand. And every time you send an email from one of your email accounts, you’re telling the recipient your domain name and encouraging them to visit your website.

I realize that most people who subscribe to TAAR are not likely to have this problem. But I encourage you to help your fellow agents who might be using these outdated addresses to spend the small amount of money required to get a real email address.

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Add Branding to your Web Site

As you are surfing the web you may have noticed some web site that add a logo to the address field in your browser. Called a Favicon (which stands for “Favorite Icon”), it is a customized icon image that you can add to help your web site stands out from the crowd. Every time someone navigates to or bookmarks your site, your customized icon will be displayed in their Favorites folder in place of the generic Internet Explorer logo. This function cannot be turned off and is completely transparent to the browser. Your site can become much more noticeable among the other bookmarks, something that may help you draw more repeat visitors.

Creating your own Favicon is an easy process. First, you’ll need to design your icon. Because the image size is 16×16 pixels, you need to keep the detail to a minimum and use only a few colors. You’ll need to make a file called “favicon.ico” in authentic icon format. It is important to note that an icon file is not a bitmap, and a bitmap file cannot be renamed with an .ico extension. There are a number of different online Favicon programs that will help you create your version. Google for Favicon to see the options.

After you’ve created your icon and named it correctly (favicon.ico), you have a few choices: First, you can place a copy of your icon in the root directory of your Web site where most of your pages likely reside. If you have a large site with multiple directories, you should place a copy of your icon in each directory. Once this is done visitors to your site will automatically see your new logo.