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 – with 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, it is always a time of year 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 with shopping for presents that can be wrapped and stuffed under a tree than they are with 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, let distractions break up their routines, and accept 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 still 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
In order to set yourself up for success during not only the holiday season but also the first part of 2020, it’s important to understand how traffic and leads vary during these times.
As a NinjaQuoter customer, you have access to an incredible tool called “Ninjalytics” that 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.
The trends have stayed the same in recent years.
This chart visibly 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 assure that you will be plenty busy starting in January as long as you’ve invested in your digital marketing.
Why spend that time chasing after people you didn’t close now when new people are eagerly awaiting your expertise?
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 equals 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 in the middle and end of each day.
We also have a post dedicated to converting more niche life insurance leads buy developing buyer personas that can increase your sales any time of the year.
You can see that post here.
Always keep yourself accountable, since nobody else will.
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 it and avoid falling into your own 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 more 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.
This means that 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.
Communicating This to Your Customers To Increase Holiday Sales
Well, the silver lining to any holiday madness is that everyone you talk to can relate to buying something when everybody else is trying to buy the same thing.
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 with 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 are 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 actually be beneficial to them, you will probably keep them on the phone for even 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, which 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.
- The earliest commitment possible after the New Year. Do not let them tell you end of January, that’s far too long and you might as well consider them gone.
- A shared calendar invites 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, then call them back that day. Your time is valuable, make sure they treat it as such.
- Reminder emails or texts. In the days leading up to this appointment, stay on top of your clients by sending an email or text reminding them of your time together. Be friendly yet be assumptive.
- Personalized 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 (or at least not last 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.
People are going to be 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.
We are selling a product that taps into all of these emotional triggers, so 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 swarming with an ever-growing to-do list of holiday errands and tasks.
Plan your strategy in advance, 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 NinjaQuoter, we wish you a Happy Holidays and Happy Sales Season!