How to Close 89% of Inbound Leads

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I'm here on a job site with Tim who owns his own electrical contracting business. Three employees and two work trucks. Tim traded up to Geico Commercial Auto Insurance. We're positively here where he needs us most. They sure are.

With step-by-step help on all his insurance needs. All for shockingly low rates. Shockingly low, huh? It's just a little bit of electrician humor. Do you get it?

I got it. You know, it feels like we have a real connection. All right, I'll stop. Get a commercial auto insurance quote today at Geico.com and see how much you could save. It feels good to Geico.

Happy holidays. Want to give your host a gift? Consider subscribing, rating, and reviewing the show this holiday season. It really helps the show grow. From all of us at Believe, have a Merry Christmas, everyone, and a happy holiday.

In a crude laboratory in the basement of his home. Well, everyone, and welcome back to the show. Today, we have a tremendous episode for you. It's going to be a solo episode. I want to break down a concept that I feel like is classically misunderstood in our industry.

And while the words are used quite often and thrown about, especially when it comes to inbound leads, paid leads, any kind of leads that aren't like referrals or referred over by a friend or a current client, The actual context around them, the details, I feel like are never truly articulated in a way that you can use. And this is why I think so many organizations actually struggle with inbound leads. And it really revolves around the concept of time to contact. Like, you got to, you know, people be like, you got to, you got to get on those leads. You got to get them a quote as quickly as possible.

And, and we, we make all these, we put all these automations in place. And we put all these, um, triggers and we set up our systems and we set up our carriers and our markets in order to, uh, you know, get that quote out as quickly as possible. And I think it leads to us doing a lot of things wrong. That's going to be the topic that we talk about today. That's going to break it down specifically from things that, uh, have learned at Rogue Risk.

You know, we're doing 300 to 400 inbound leads a month and we're learning a lot every single month still. And after three, you know, almost three years, it'll be three years in March. Um, we've kind of really dialed in on some, some, some key ideas that I want to share with you, particularly around, uh, this idea of speed to quote. So, uh, before we get there, I want to give a big shout out to, uh, our sponsor of the show, our, our title sponsor here is Tivoli, formerly commercial insurance.net. Tivoli is, uh, the leading provider of new customers, uh, to the commercial insurance industry.

If you're looking for warm, uh, live phone call transfers from pre-qualified leads where you get this full survey done for you and they're kind of handed to you and you pick up the phone and you have a business owner on the other line looking for help. Um, Tivoli is a wonderful source of business. We've been using them for years now. Become close with the team and, uh, just incredibly excited to, to, uh, share Tivoli, their message with, with you guys, the listeners to this show, because we use Tivoli every day. This is, yes, they sponsor, but we pay for leads, uh, a large number of leads every month at Rogue as a way to supplement our inbound stuff.

And it gives us a nice consistent base, lets us be a little more dialed in on the lines of business and the, uh, industries or, or, um, you know, NACE codes that, that we want. And we know we're getting a good qualified lead and that's what you really like. So, uh, guys, Tivoli is a wonderful resource. We've been using them, like I said, for a few years now, and I highly recommend that you check them out. That's T-I-V-L-Y.com, T-I-V-L-Y.com.

Go to Tivoli.com. Again, they used to be in commercialinsurance.net. Now Tivoli, uh, if you go back in the archives, you can listen to the episode that I recently did with, um, this, uh, CEO and, uh, and Kim Reed, who's I think head of operations at Tivoli. And, uh, they just break down what they've learned over more than a decade of inbound lean generation, Tivoli.com, T-I-V-L-Y.com. Go to Tivoli today.

Check it out, guys. A big fan, uh, uh, uh, client and, uh, just very excited to have them as a sponsor of the show. Also, guys, if you want deep dives into some of the things that, uh, I read some of the concepts that run through my mind as I strive for peak performance, not only in my professional life, but in my personal life as well, in my relationships and, uh, my health and fitness and mentality and psychology and all those kinds of things. Um, I have an outlet that I've created, findingpeak.com. Go to findingpeak, like findingpeakperformance, findingpeak.com, where just talk about these ideas and, and look, not all of them are fully baked out, uh, in my life.

There are things that, that I kind of start and stop on, but, but reminding myself of these concepts, writing about these concepts, sharing the ideas with you guys, it certainly helps me get better. And hopefully some of the ideas, uh, will help you get better as well. So if you're interested in that, um, we also do, uh, we also have a paid, uh, version of it. So, so most of the content is free, um, but there is a small paid version. I think it's like seven bucks a month.

And I do deep dives on, uh, kind of the, the peak concepts related to growing rogue, running rogue, um, inbound business. You know, we get kind of really hyper tactical, um, and, and very in depth in, um, you know, for the, for the paid members. They also get to, paid members get to comment and, you know, I prioritize all those comments and stuff like that. So, um, it's a, it's a really cool little thing. Um, and it's a good outlet for me to get some of these, uh, peak performance ideas and professional development ideas off my brain.

Um, and in front of you guys and the things that I think about every day when I'm doing my work, whether it's the podcast or run a rogue or speaking or any other things that I do in my life. So if that interests you, go to findingpeak.com, subscribe, it's free. Uh, would love to see you there. All right. So, uh, with that, let's, let's kind of get to this concept of, uh, time to quote.

So, um, the first thing that I want to talk about is just, you know, a slightly more philosophical concept. Um, insurance is terrible to most people. Uh, I don't, that shouldn't be a surprise to any of you. Um, no one likes insurance. Most of us listening to this don't love insurance.

We, we love it because it's what we do and it's how we make money. But like given, given the option of, you know, being a professional sports player or artist or whatever your favorite other thing is, you most likely wouldn't pick insurance. At least the vast majority of us wouldn't. Um, but for whatever reason, we fell into this industry. It became something we were very good at and passionate about.

Um, and now it, you know, now we, maybe we do have a love, but, but it's not initial. It comes with time and there's absolutely no way that we can expect our customers, our prospects, you know, any non-insurance person to love insurance. In fact, uh, many of them either are, you know, have a, have a small level of disdain for it or an outright hatred. And, uh, but in my point in saying that is we get these small windows at which insurance consumers, our clients, our prospects will open their mind up to insurance, right? They don't want to think about insurance all the time.

No one wants to think about insurance all the time. Certainly no one who is not in the insurance industry and does it for a living. So, so what happens is, you know, some percentage of the time, we'll call it 98% of the time, insurance is not on people's brain. They don't want, and not only is it not on their brain, they, they like actively don't want to think about their insurance. They don't want to think about what coverages they have.

They don't want to think about how much they're paying. They don't want to think about anything that has to do with insurance. They want to operate their business or, you know, move through their career, do the things they have to do, get the tasks off their desk. They want to spend time with their family or do things that they enjoy. They enjoy doing or basically anything else in their life other than insurance.

However, when someone has a problem or they need a quote, they need a new policy or they're struggling with their current agent or broker or insurance provider or a client comes to them and asks them for a certificate of insurance and they don't understand what that means or how to get it or do they have the right coverage and maybe they realize they have the right coverage for one policy but they don't for another and they need someone to help them. They need someone to help them and for a brief period of time, they will kind of open their brain up to the idea of talking about insurance because the vast majority of time, no one wants to talk about insurance. No one, you know, this is why cold calling is so hard, especially in our space and, you know, and the really, you know, pathological people in our space can say, you know, cold calling is great and it works and it does. It does work but, you know, you have to be able to plow through a lot of negativity and that's because people don't want to open their brain up to the idea of insurance. They just don't.

They want, there's a million other things to think about than this promise that they can't touch, can't feel, can't see and just hope someday when they actually really need it, it responds. Every month, you know, they are putting cash out, you know, for this product that they hope they never use, right? I mean, it's just, you know, we know that's our value proposition and we can say it's about protection and we can say, you know, it's about creating foundational strength and we can say it's about sustainability or whatever we want. But the reality is people do not want to think about insurance, okay? But for brief periods of time, when they have a need, they will open their brain up to the concept of insurance, right?

They will fill out a form. They will go onto YouTube and watch a few videos. They will make a phone call to someone who they find in a Google search, right? They will open their brain up to the concept of insurance, to the idea of talking about it, to considering it, to procuring the policies that they need. And we must operate in that window, okay?

So first and foremost, when we talk about speed to quote, the clear issue that we have to clear up, the misconception where many people go wrong is they believe speed to producing a bindable quote is what insurers care about the majority of the time and it is not. In my opinion, this is very similar to the price conversation where people, you know, I think today, you know, the people who still sit in the conferences and lean back in their chairs with a frustrated face and say, you know, people who go online are price shoppers, you know, those are becoming less and less. I think the reality more and more is that, you know, the best customers, the worst customers and everybody in between shop online for insurance just as we do for just about everything else. It doesn't mean at some point we might not want an in-person relationship. It doesn't mean we might not want a phone call or a text message or a video proposal or whatever.

But at some point, pretty much all the insurance consumers that exist in the world are going online to look for something. Okay. And when they do, they are raising their hand and saying, hey, my brain window is open to insurance. And if you're willing to come over and look in, I'm willing to communicate with you. And while that window is open, we have to get in contact with them.

So the key metric is not speed to quote. The key metric is speed to contact. Okay. Speed to contact. How quickly can you, from the time someone raises their hand and opens the insurance brain window, how quickly can you be the one standing in front of that window saying, hey, I can help you.

Right? Like, that's the game. It's one of the reasons why I love Tivoli. They have 98% of the leads that come into the Tivoli ecosystem are contacted in under two minutes. I would say that is well within the standard deviation of the insurance brain window for most potential customers.

Right? So that's well within that window. Two minutes. You probably have somewhere between 15 and 30 to get in contact with somebody. If someone reaches out to you via form fill or text message or email or phones you and leaves a voicemail, which is weird, right?

Or just a normal message. Someone on your team takes a message. And it takes you a couple hours to get back to them or a day or two. There's a good chance that window is going to close. And what happens is it closes to you.

Not to everyone. That window closes to you. So this is a key concept here. The concept is speed to quote is not as important, not nearly as important. It's not even a metric that we actually track right now.

But we do track speed to contact. When someone raises their hand and says, hey, the window to my brain for insurance conversations is open, how quickly do we get to that? Because that window is specific to us. What's going to happen is they're going to raise their hand and they're going to open that insurance brain window and they're going to say, you know, rogue risk, you know, you're up. You know, if you can get a hold of me and you can get back to me and you can stand in front of me and establish a connection, then I'll be your customer.

But if you can't, I'm going to close the window to you and I'm going to go open it up to somebody else. And that's what happens. I mean, we see that over and over and over again on the accounts that come into rogue risk that we don't get back to fast enough. They just move on. They just go to someplace else.

Now, what you might be saying is, Ryan, you know, these price shoppers, they're all in a rush and they're all in a hurry and, you know, everyone that comes in online, they want it now, now, now. And some of that is true, but most of it is not a true obstacle. They're things people say, right? I mean, this is, you know, everyone who actually doesn't sell on price. I know there's a lot of people out there that say they don't sell on price, but they really do.

For those people who actually, who very legitimately do not sell on price, they'll tell you things like, you know, price, you have to address price, but price is really the reason people buy. Well, speed to quote is the same exact way. People may act with urgency. You must address their urgency. But oftentimes, the absolute bottom line fastest quote is rarely a decision-making factor.

Now, there are some extenuating circumstances like, hey, I need to get on this job site. I can't get on this job site until I get a workers' comp COI. Okay. In those scenarios, you know, speed really does matter. Your ability to turn a quote around really does matter.

But it is rarely a deciding factor versus do I trust you, do I feel like you're getting me the right products, and do I feel like you're going to be easy to do business with, right? Those are the three factors. What's up, guys? Sorry to take you away from the episode. But as you know, we do not run ads on this show.

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Peace. Let's get back to the episode. Those are the three factors that we're seeing at Rogue routinely lead to higher close ratios. Can you establish trust? Can you provide me with the solutions that sound legitimate and sound like they're going to help me?

And are you going to be easy to do business with? Now, ease of business doesn't mean you have some fancy app or portal or, you know, you can text the entire thing or whatever. All it means is you're going to be reasonable. You're going to be reasonably easy to get a hold of. You're going to be reasonably easy in follow-up.

You're going to be, you know, maybe you can use multiple communication mediums. You know, I can, I can, I can email you and then we jump on the phone quick. And then after that phone call, we text for, you know, for the remainder of the information that I need, right? Like that's a, that's a reasonably easy path. I, you know, I, I initially reached out via email and then we talked on the phone and it was easy to get a, get you on the phone.

And then once I had you on the phone, we established a text message was going to be a perfectly fine communication, uh, moving forward. And we use text and, and, and everything got done. That's, that's easy right there. That, that's no special tech. I mean, email, phone, and text yet that is a very common customer journey.

When they come to Rogue Risk, they come, they come in through an email or a form fill, which ultimately comes to us as an email. Uh, we respond and connect with them via phone. And then a lot of times move that conversation to a text message conversation, just because it's easier for people. And once you have the big pieces of information, any follow-up piece of information can oftentimes just be text back and forth. And when, when we, when we think about that, why is speed to contact so important and why is speed to quote less important?

Okay. So in this game of inbound leads, I'm not talking about referrals. Referrals are completely different. Paid, you know, paid ads, um, can be a little different. Um, you know, cold calls are very different.

Um, but when it comes to inbound leads, these people only have a mild, a very small amount of trust. They have enough trust to reach out and test you, but they trust has not been built yet. So the very first way you can build trust is by showing that you give a crap and contacting them as fast as you possibly can. Get them on the phone, get, get a connection. It's a phone business.

Get on the phone as fast as you can. Bam. Get them on the phone. Once you have them on the phone, now you can slow down. Now take a big exhale.

Now you can start to figure out what the problem is. And while you're doing that, you're passing it through a series of either mental or real filters that allow you to figure out if this piece of business is one you want or not. And start to set expectations about what the process may look like. I mean, the truth be told, you get a welder, it's just going to take a couple days, right? There's just not a great mechanism today for turning around a welder in an hour.

It's just, it's just not going to, it's not really reality. Now, can it be done? Sure, there are a couple markets that may be able to make it happen if it's in the right state and, you know, the right size and all that kind of stuff. But do you even really want that? And frankly, I don't think anyone needs that.

What they want is they want to build trust, you know, or sorry. What you want is to continue to build trust with them by setting expectations and then meeting those expectations. So what does that look like? So the first expectation is if I fill out a form on your website that you're actually going to prioritize getting back to me. So rapidly getting back to that person is key, right?

An autoresponder is a great way to at least let them know that you got it, right? So maybe they get a text and an email that says, hey, we got your request for a quote or your interest form, whatever you call it. And right now you're being routed to the most appropriate account manager on our team and they'll be in touch within 15 minutes, right? Something like that, right? If that's your SLA and, you know, then if you do that, you call them in 15 minutes or whatever, you've just established that you say what you do or you do what you say.

You just established that you do what you say. You said that you were going to call them and you did it. Bam. The little trust meter, right? So you think about in order for someone to buy from you, the trust meter has to be full or near full and it starts at zero.

They don't know who you are. So there's zero trust and they watch some videos online and your trust meter goes up a little bit and then they read some stuff and they see some reviews and the trust meter goes up enough to where they're willing to fill out a form and they fill out that form and they get an autoresponder that says, hey, thank you. We're going to call you. We want to talk to you and that's going to happen in 20 minutes. Let's just say, okay?

And then you call in 20 minutes. Trust meter, whack, that goes up even farther. Now, you're at a level, if you've just done those things, you're at a level where you can come in, take a deep breath or exhale, whichever makes more sense, and say, okay, prospect, what can I do for you? So what we say, what I say, what I say, we're training the team. Not everyone does it exactly this way.

We're working on that. But what I say when I get an inbound lead is, you know, say the guy's name is John. Hey, John. My name's Ryan. I saw you need some help with your insurance.

What can we do for you? And just let the guy talk. Or I really like, other than what can we do for you, I really like how can we help? Hey, John. Saw that you filled out a form on our website that you were looking for insurance.

How can we help? And just let them talk. Because what they're going to do is give you the entire playbook for all the barriers you need to hit, all the obstacles that they're going to present, most likely, and also places where you can set expectations, meet those expectations, and continue to push that trust meter higher. Right? So they're going to say, hey, Ryan, a common one we get is, hey, Ryan, I just hired my first employee, or employees.

I hired employees for the first time. And I need workers' comp insurance. Okay, great. What kind of business are you in? Right?

And notice that the first question I didn't ask was, hey, where are you located? What's the name of your business? I didn't go right into information gathering. Right? Going right into information gathering is actually going to start to knock your trust meter down.

Right? Because now it feels like a sales, now it feels like you don't give a crap about them. What it feels like is you just want the info so that you can sell them something. Right? So that's why I just ask, well, how can I help?

They're going to give you all the info, most likely. Well, you know, I've been in business for three years, kind of always been on my own in this painting business that I have, and I decided it was time to expand, and I hired two new guys that are coming in to help me, and to get on a lot of the job sites any workers' comp. Okay, great. Do you have other forms of insurance? What do you got?

What's going on? Well, yeah, I've had general liability, and they're going to get a little squirrely there because they called about comp, you're asking about something else, that makes them feel a little squirrely, right? So I don't spend time, I'm just trying to see what's up. Hey, you know, I got general liability from next. Okay, cool.

Well, no problem. We're going to get your comp squared away. We'll have some questions about the general liability later, but how about we just get your comp squared away so you can get on the job? That sounds great. So what I want to do is notate that the person has other policies, and they may even say, hey, you know, I'll throw, if you can help me with my comp, I'll bring the GL over, no problem.

They'll probably offer that sometimes, but you don't want to press them for the things that aren't a problem. Right now, what this guy is telling me, this John is telling me that the general liability is not a problem. He can get on his job set with a general liability. Now, if you're a purist and you're listening to this, you're going, right, they have exclusions, all that is true. I know that's true.

I'm not a dummy, but they didn't call about their general liability, and they're getting on job sites. What they have established is that the issue is getting on job sites, and they can't get on job sites without their comp, and he's got these employees, and he needs to get that squared, and he's getting on job sites with his GL. So for me to press that issue is going to decrease the trust meter, and all I'm trying to do is push that trust meter up. So, you know, I'm going to say at this point, I'm going to go, hey, John, well, here's the deal, man. We work with thousands of customers every year.

I personally work with hundreds. Workers' comp is my specialty. We're going to get you squared, man. You're good. You're in the right spot.

I'm going to have some questions for you, which we're going to go through, but I got you. We're good. And what you may actually hear, I love this line. I use it a lot of, don't worry. We got you.

You're good. That we got you. You're good part. What that says is, you, John, you, client, you can exhale. You can exhale.

Take an exhale. Now, if he was a dynamite manufacturer, I'd be like, you know what, bud? This one's going to be some work. We're going to have to get after this one. Are you ready for that?

It's going to be expensive. Are you good? Do you feel like, are you thinking you're walking into a $100 policy here or a $10,000 policy? What do you think? And I'm going to feel them out, but something that I know we can write, you know, I know is kind of right in our sweet spot.

I'm just going to say, you're good, man. We got you. And you will, you almost hear them visibly or hear them. You will, you will hear them exhale. Like you'll, you'll literally hear like a little bit of stress relief in their body.

Trust meter goes up. And, and now we start setting expectations. So what I say, you know, here, I'm going to probably figure out what the timeline is. And I'm going to say something like, uh, John, you know, what are we looking at for time? You're like, is this a rush?

Like, do you need this today? Do you need it tomorrow? Is it, could, could it be a couple of days? Not that it necessarily will take that, but just to give me an idea of where you are. And a lot of times they're going to go, Hey, you know, I don't need it today, but would really love it tomorrow, the next day, because I got to get on this job site on Monday or whatever.

Okay. No problem. I'm fairly certain with a high level of certainty that we can hit that timeline. How about this? If I can get you all wrapped up tomorrow, uh, and get a quote over to you and it makes sense, nice, nice, competitively priced.

Are we, are we good to move forward? Like, is there anything, is there anything like, are you working with your cousin or your brother or, you know, your niece or something? And, um, you know, and, and, and sometimes I'll try to, I try to say it in like a way that makes it, I don't know, trying to, tries to not make it seem like such a harsh question, but it's very important, especially on inbound. Again, you're establishing trust with them. You need to get something a little back from them.

So if they go, Oh no, no, no affiliation. I just Googled next and, uh, found them and they, you know, I needed it to get on a job and said, so I did, but I don't really have a person. And if you can help me out, then, you know, we're good. Awesome. All right.

Here's what happens next. Here's what happens next. Another key phrase. If you're writing this stuff down, here's what happens next. I have some questions.

I have to gather some information. Um, so I'm going to ask you, I'm going to kind of rapid fire a few questions at you so that I can get what I need to understand your business so that I can go out to the carriers and give them what they need to get prices. Uh, we have 50 plus carriers here at Rogue, but I'm probably going to shop you through about four of them because I know those are going to be for the four most competitive, just, just so you have an idea of what we're doing. And frankly, if, um, you know, and maybe I usually pick a carrier in my head that I think would be interested. I, I, you know, for something like a painter, I may say, you know, frankly, if, um, if pie or guard comes back with competitive pricing, that's probably where I'm going to go.

Um, and I would probably skew for pie over guard at this point, just cause they're way easier to deal with. So, uh, you know, so I say that, you know, so I say that right to them. I'm kind of letting them know. And what I'm trying to do is establish, Hey, I have a plan, right? You're good.

Right. I told them they're good. We got you. Well, they're not good. If I'm not giving them the plan, I'm going to lay the whole, plan out for them.

Right. So here's what happens next is the trigger to say, one, listen to here's the plan, right? I'm going to gather this info. Once I get this info, I have a few carriers, even though we have 50, I'm really thinking about four. And even inside those four, there's kind of a prioritized list with one or two that I'm really hoping will, will pick up your pop, will pick up your account.

And, uh, and one, they love that shit because you're establishing yourselves an expert. And two, they feel like they're part of the game now because maybe they've heard of those companies. Oh yeah, I've heard of pie. Haven't heard of guard. Um, and I'll be like, doesn't matter.

Both of them are A rated companies, good companies. I love both. So, um, so, uh, now, now they feel like they're part of the game. All right. So I'm going to collect some information.

Um, shop those carriers out and those carriers are going to come back to me with their best offers. And, and I'm going to take a look at those. I'm kind of going to compare those companies with your company, um, my understanding of how they handle claims and all that kind of stuff. And what I'm going to do is I'm going to, um, send you an email, okay. With my recommendations in it.

It's a three part email. Okay. The first part, the top part is going to be in the body of the email. It's just going to be a high level breakdown of, uh, of what I recommend. The second part, and you're going to see it, it'll be like a little screenshot of like of a video.

Um, it's a, it's a actual video. If you click on it, it'll take you to a short video. Usually takes me three minutes, five at most. And I'm going to break down exactly why I chose that company, the coverages and all that. I really appreciate if you watch that because, um, that's going to explain to you exactly why I chose that company and it's going to break down the coverages and all that.

And then lastly, I'm going to attach at the bottom of that email, the carrier proposal, the actual proposal that I get from the companies. And the reason that I do this job, the reason that I do this customer client prospect. It's because I want you to know everything I know. I hate when I go to buy something and I feel like the salesperson knows all the things and I don't really know all the things and they have all the power and I have none of the power. I hate that.

I hate it. So I don't want to do that in my business. So what I'm going to do is give you everything I have. You're going to have the carrier proposal, which is exactly what I get from the company. You're going to get a video breakdown from me that you can watch and re-watch a hundred times if you want.

And you're going to know the high level details of that policy and why I recommended it. And the reason that I send all this over to you, John, is because I want you to know everything that I know. So if we need to have another phone call, we're having a very productive phone call where we're on the same level. How's that sound? That sounds amazing.

Okay, great, John. Well, here's the deal, man. I got all the info I need. I'm going to go get to work. We established that tomorrow, you know, we'll kind of close the business tomorrow.

If I can get it done by then, that's a good time frame for you. Yes, it is. Okay, I'm reconfirming. And then watch out for that email. I may, John, if it's cool with you, I may just hit you with a quick text when I send out the email so that you know that I sent it so you can go check.

Is that cool? Yeah, that's cool. That's great, man. That's great. Perfect.

All right, bud. Well, hey, I hope you have a great day. Really appreciate you calling in and I'm looking forward to doing business with you. Bam. That's how you handle an inbound lead.

So by prioritizing time to quote or time to contact over time to quote, what we're able to do is rapidly build trust but still give ourselves the space and the leeway to do the actual work of producing a quote that is what they actually need, right? We don't want to just rush through something and it allows us to work through the carriers that we need to. Now, if this was an ENS account, if this was a shipyard welder, right? One, I don't know that I would take a shipyard welding account because that would be tough, although kind of fun. But let's say it was, right?

Well, now I know I'm going to need marine coverage and I'm going to need a specialty and I'm going to probably have to go ENS for some of it and depending on the tools and what they're doing and if it's in harbor or offshore and all that kind of stuff, right? Then I would say, hey, what you're asking me for, we can definitely do but you're looking at a minimum of a week to two weeks to get this done. Does that time frame work? If you're like, no, I need it tomorrow, then I'm just going to say, hey, I really, really appreciate you reaching out and we're going to keep your contact information in case I come up with a good solution in the future but you're probably going to have to reach out to someone else because I just can't accommodate that timeline and what that does is it establishes to them a level of trust that they're going to bank so that if I ever do reach out to them in the future, if they do have another need, they're going to say, you know what? Those guys couldn't help me but man, they were pretty upfront and honest with me and for that reason, I'm willing to reach back out.

My point in sharing all this with you is that you don't need to approach a cold, you would approach a cold call different and you don't need to approach a referral this way. But an inbound lead, someone who's only built a small level of trust, we have to continue to build that trust meter throughout the entire process and it starts with meeting expectations, using urgency and prioritization as a way to show them that they matter by being open and transparent, by establishing what the next steps are and giving them a game plan, showing some internal expertise and knowledge to the industry, some industry expertise. And by creating a situation in which they don't feel like they're being sold but rather, you are partnering on a solution for their needs. And if you can do those things, as I've mapped out in this podcast, you will be highly successful. When I was doing this every single day, I was using Agency Zoom at the time when I was tracking the metric, when I got, you know, for the leads that I actually sent a video proposal to, you know, so some got sorted out because they just weren't good fits or I would send them, we sell leads back into Tivoli too if we don't want, if we can't help them.

But for the qualified risks for our agency that I got to the video proposal stage with, I closed 89% of those accounts. 89% of those accounts were sold. So that's a pretty decent number. I feel pretty good about that. And that is what we're trying to do at Roke and teaching the team how to do it and why it's important.

Again, the why is very, very, very important. You have to spend time. Think about this. Think about that trust meter. How are you building that trust meter?

Anytime you go into sales mode, you are diminishing that trust meter. Anytime you just get to asking questions that you need to fill out in a cord form without previously establishing a level of trust and helping them understand why you need to ask those questions, right? You're going to diminish or at least put that trust meter on hold or kind of not grow the trust meter, I guess. Kind of running that out quite a bit. But my point being, this is how you do it.

I've done enough of these to the, you know, I've done a thousand of these or more. If I count my entire career, it's thousands. And this is what I do. And I do it over and over and over again and over again. If you're wondering how we do our video proposals, we use Better Proposals.

It used to be Neoteric Agent. We use Better Proposals. Love Better Proposals. Love Neoteric Agent, you know. I was kind of jealous when the guys at Better Agency bought it because I kind of wanted to buy it.

Neoteric, that is. So that's what we use. That's how we do what we do. That's how we establish trust, continue to grow trust, and then ultimately close new inbound qualified leads at an 89% clip. If you have questions about this, I'd love to hear.

You guys can hit me up on LinkedIn or, you know, subscribe on FindingPeak and ask me questions there. This is what we do, guys. This is kind of the inside baseball. This is exactly how we close inbound leads at Rogue Risk. and it doesn't always happen perfectly every time, but as you get better, it happens perfectly more often, and your closing ratio will go up. Your customers will be happier.

They won't feel sold. They'll feel like they were part of the solution, which will ultimately lead to a higher retention rate on the back end when it's time to renew those policies a year after you sell them. So I hope this helped. Guys, I love you for listening to this show. I think you're all amazing.

I've been out on the road the last couple weeks. I was in Buffalo, and I was in Austin speaking, and being back out in front of audiences and sharing what I've learned at Rogue has been incredible. Love speaking. It's probably my favorite thing in the world to do professionally. It's tough to be on the road.

It's tough to be away from my kids, so there's some realities to life, but, man, I love being back out there. I love you guys for listening to this show. I hope you're absolutely crushing it, and with that, we're out of here. Peace. Close twice as many deals by this time next week.

Sound impossible? It's not. With the one-call-close system, you'll stop chasing leads and start closing deals in one call. This is the exact method we use to close 1,200 clients in under three years during the pandemic. No fluff, no endless follow-ups, just results fast.

Based in behavioral psychology and battle-tested, the one-call-close system eliminates excuses and gets the prospect saying yes more than you ever thought possible. If you're ready to stop losing opportunities and start winning, visit masteroftheclose.com. That's masteroftheclose.com. Do it today. If you like the show, please take a moment to rate, review, and subscribe.

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