Increasing Life Insurance Sales While Battling the Holidays
If only life insurance could be wrapped up as a gift and placed under a tree…
It’s that all-too-familiar time of year again. Colder temps, holiday parties with friends, football on Sundays, and relaxing time with family.
Yet, despite all the things that make the holidays wonderful and memorable, this is the season that makes salespeople want to run and hibernate until the New Year.
Selling life insurance around the holidays seems like a daunting task to most agents, and for good reason.
Consumers are more concerned about shopping for presents than they are about making long-term buying decisions.
The problem is most prospects would rather put off a decision like buying life insurance until after the holidays, leading to the dreaded “call me next year” excuse.
Unfortunately, too many agents also fall into the holiday season trap, letting distractions break up their routines, and accepting the excuse that next year will be a better time to discuss such an important matter.
Well, it’s time to put the eggnog down and realize that by the time January rolls around, many of these deals will never close. The time to strike is now.
Our business of selling life insurance runs on activity, and if your activity falls during the holiday season, so will your sales. If you are not prospecting, following up, marketing, and making a high volume of phone calls per day, your sales will suffer.
So how do we combat slowing sales, decreased interest from consumers, and our own waning self-discipline around the holidays?
Here are three things you should keep in mind as we enter into this crazy season.
Embrace Data Trends for Traffic and Leads
To set yourself up for success during the holiday season and into the new year, it’s important to understand how traffic and leads vary during these times.
As a Ninja Quoter customer, you have access to “Ninjalytics” which charts your traffic and lead volume.
To show you how interest levels vary around this time of year, we pulled a snapshot from a holiday season a few years back:
This chart shows us that consumers are as much as 30% less interested in life insurance around the holidays than they are in January and February.
Discouraged? Don’t be.
Since the numbers speak for themselves, you can rest assured that you will be plenty busy starting in January as long as you’ve invested in your digital marketing.
By readjusting your sales strategy to accommodate the holidays (which we will discuss in the next section), you can close deals before the New Year and dedicate the first part of the year to the new leads who are excited, eager, and ready to pay.
Now for some tips on how to close more deals in the weeks to come…
Set Your Schedule Up for Holiday Success
First things first. Before you start brainstorming how you’ll adjust your sales strategy, you must sit down and schedule your sales activities to keep the momentum going.
We all know that reduced activity = reduced sales, and this time of year, there is an increase in distractions for everyone.
Take the time to block out prospecting, follow-ups, information gathering, and making a high volume of phone calls per day in your calendar.
If you need to set up reminders or notifications, do so.
Be sure to set daily activity targets, such as making 100 calls a day, and commit to reviewing those targets at the end of each day to hold yourself accountable.
Tip: We also have a post dedicated to converting more niche life insurance leads by developing buyer personas that can increase your sales any time of the year.
To make it easier on yourself and your loved ones, be sure to build your personal holiday activities into your calendar as well.
The more you plan for all of these activities in advance, the more you will stick to them and avoid falling into a holiday trap.
Adjust Your Holiday Sales Approach
Since people will be quick to get you off the phone and have you call them next year, you need to give your prospects a compelling reason to make a decision now.
Without much leniency in pricing, you’ll have to reframe your pitch and make them feel an even greater sense of urgency.
As the chart above shows, more people will be trying to purchase life insurance after the New Year than right now.
If your customers take the time to purchase now, they will receive faster follow-ups from their agent (i.e. you) and have their policy approved faster, ultimately saving them time and unnecessary headaches.
Communicate With Your Customers to Increase Holiday Sales
The silver lining to the holiday madness is that everyone you talk to can relate to buying something that everybody else is trying to buy.
Need to go to the grocery store after work in the few days leading up to Thanksgiving? Yeah, it’s like that.
Give them a holiday-themed analogy that makes them shiver at the very thought of “standing in line” with 30% more people, or say something to the effect of:
“John Prospect, this time of year is a nightmare as it is, I get that. In my world, if you apply for life insurance in January, you’re like everyone else out there. Let’s get your application submitted before the rush.”
“Time to beat the rush of the New Year’s resolution crowd. Get your application in now and save yourself the aggravation of waiting sometimes 3 months for a policy approval if we apply after the holidays with everyone else.”
If you make your already-stressed-out customers realize that waiting will not be beneficial to them, you may be able to keep them on the phone for longer and have a higher chance of closing them.
Strategize Your New Year Follow-Up Calls
Okay, so you’re not going to be able to convert every prospect with the first-in-line concept. That means you’re going to need a strong follow-up strategy.
Never let them off the phone without scheduling your next call, and be sure to go beyond just a verbal confirmation.
Get the earliest commitment possible after the New Year. Don’t let them push you off until the end of January — that’s far too long and you might as well consider them gone.
Create a shared calendar invite with notifications. Always be sure to set an appointment in your calendar and send them an invite from Google or Outlook. If they do not accept it immediately, call them back that day. Your time is valuable.
Set up reminder emails or texts. In the days leading up to this appointment, stay on top of your prospects by sending an email or text reminding them of your time together.
Personalize your emails with helpful links to keep them engaged. In between your first call and your follow-up, consider sending a personalized message with a link to one of your blog posts or a life insurance article you think they would find helpful. This will keep both you and the idea of buying life insurance top of mind.
Once you have your client on the phone again, know that you have a lot of great post-holiday and New Year ammunition to work with.
Final Thoughts
Many of the people you talk to during the holidays are committing to resolutions to be better spouses, parents, and people. They are committing to becoming the best version of themselves, and want to set their year up for success.
Remember that we are selling a product that taps into all of these emotional triggers. So, you can leverage this time of year and people’s ambitions to sell them the best policy possible.
Set yourself up for success by creating a game plan that carries into the new year.
As a life insurance agent, you fully understand how important the product is you’re selling, and it’s your job to remind your prospects of that when their heads are buzzing with an ever-growing to-do list of holiday errands and tasks.
Plan your strategy, commit to working full-time, hold yourself accountable, and maintain an unwavering opinion that now is the best time for them to take care of their family’s future.
From the team at Ninja Quoter, we wish you a happy holiday and happy sales season!
