Katlyn Eggar on Why Being "Casually Confident" is Secret to Closing Online Leads

in a crude laboratory in the basement of his home hello everyone and welcome back to the show today we have a very dynamic guest someone who i think you're going to absolutely adore this conversation it's caitlin egger the director of education and development at quantum assurance international and we've actually had one of caitlin's counterparts on the show jeff shee who is one of the founders of quantum and you probably heard quantum's name tossed around caitlin was interviewed by cass and and you know just quantum is making a big splash in the independent channel is they basically build out their network of agents and are doing some really dynamic things and why i wanted to have caitlin on is she made a comment on cass's podcast buying leads online is more predictable than referrals and i just love that concept whether you agree with it or it makes your skin crawl either way you can't deny that it is a perspective and i think it's worth exploring and i'm excited i was i was very excited to have caitlin on the show she absolutely crushed and you're gonna take something away from this episode so uh just super happy to have her on uh before we get there i want to give a big shout out to my people at better agency betteragency.io betteragency.io you gotta check them out i'm telling you they are just like i predicted tarmica i predicted tarmica i've been telling you about tarmica for six months seven months before that since january i think i've been telling you about tarmica and obviously tarmica is taking the world over the exact same thing is about to happen with better agency the exact same thing is about to happen with better agency because this is insurance agency owners building technology to push our industry forward these are game-changing equalizing technologies i use better agency i absolutely love it absolutely love it so go check out better agency if you're looking for a crm if you're looking for a tool that's more plug and play that you don't have to be a rocket ninja you know automation warrior in order to use if you're looking for something that's already got copy built in that's already got campaigns built in that has a sales pipeline a service pipeline a renewal pipeline i mean this thing captures notes tasks attachments it captures phone calls it captures your text messages it captures all your emails i mean it is the most dynamic system that is also easy to use so go to betteragency.io betteragency.io today get a demo know what the tool is so even if you're not ready right now at least you know go get that demo betteragency.io tell them hanley sent you all right let's get on to caitlin egger so okay so you are traveling again you're in some other place i don't know anybody during covid that travels as much as you do well we're like in our van it's pretty germ free in there you know there's at least there's no covid in there as far as we know so as far as you know yeah depends on who you talk to there's covid everywhere right so we we were working we had never tried working from home uh before and so we sent our sales teams to work from home back in march and we're you know working from our home offices and um we'll we definitely will get back to the place where we're like back in the call centers on a regular basis and everything but um it works so well and since we're still kind of in that like limbo time or like some people are working from home some people are in the office we've um we've just been getting out about and seeing going out and seeing people where they're at instead of flying them in or putting anybody on their plane and um it's worked out well for us and the kids they've got their school books with them and um it's been a it's been great so you're in the you're in the van driving around and then you you just work live out of a hotel or whatever you know it's yes but it's only been like 10 days so i wouldn't say you know it's not like permanent we we still have a home base in texas but did you think about going rv did you think about going rv we joke about it um but we bring our nanny with us so she's got to have her own space and all that good stuff so yeah um yeah so hotel rooms are a little bit easier for bringing the whole crew and i think we're we're getting we're getting good at it like i um i packed a little bit less this time around we're trying to go a little bit more reasonable with what we're packing every trip and i try to bring everything but the kitchen sink with me when we go yeah how old are your kids five and six oh yeah so i get yeah the interesting thing so mine are six and four and uh and the interesting thing about that i found about that like covid hasn't it doesn't mean anything to them they just completely adapt like they're just like oh this is okay this is the new world fine all right we're good like you know i think they're flexible yeah they just you know i think i definitely see this is not a judge on parenting but the parents who have like gone a little covid crazy and like had their kids like in bubbles and they can't see other kids and they're like alone all the time when you finally interact with one of those kids those kids are like bananas but the kids that have been allowed to see other humans and interact with them a little bit like those kids they could care less can we talk about how awkward it is to set up playdates for the kennels right now because you everyone there's like this whole spectrum there's the people that are like oh we don't we don't do playgrounds right now like we're just not yeah we'll do picnic but if we're six feet apart sick maybe six feet apart yeah and then you have the people that are like hey want to go to the trampoline park and bring the kids yeah so until you know you're like i don't know how to like send this text message you start out and you're like so does um does helen want to do a zoom play date with karis and you know bring her dolls and they'll talk toys and then like hey do you guys want to do a picnic we'll bring a kickball it's so funny i completely agree so we kind of started that way and then now we're just like look we don't even believe in covid so if you're on that you know what i mean i mean i i believe in it it's a joke but like as far as like i mean unless you show up at my house with like covid snot dripping out of your nose i basically am just gonna assume that you wouldn't come over if you didn't think that you were at least okay right this whole thing has been a roller coaster because back in march and april i felt like whole country on the same page unity if you're walking in the park it's like you you nod you're like you know we were um walking the golf course it's across from our neighborhood back in april and a couple that was coming in the opposite direction i think the lady like sneezed and i'm like it's okay probably allergies and she's like oh my gosh i'm so sorry thank you and you know everybody's on the same page and now i feel like we're in this um interesting space where everybody's on a different page and you have no idea where this you know the person that you're talking to what their preferences are what they feel comfortable with so we've been doing a lot of um uh air elbow bumps yeah it's it's funny i uh so that's a texas reaction in new york they would have been like kick them out put them in jail bubble them bubble wrap six feet apart it was good it was yeah brand them right on the forehead sneezer in public right run them down that that's how it would have happened here people are bananas up here like i get it i get it and the other part about it too is like um i agree with you on how so because of how crazy some people up here are there are the crazies on the other way too that are still like walking into convenience stores with no mask on and can we talk about the gas stations for a minute if that you know that i love them i'm glad they're open but it's not the clean you know just bring your hand sanitizer try not to touch anything when you're in there yeah and i guess yeah that's i mean look i'm i personally i'm not afraid of covid i'm not afraid of it from my wife i'm afraid for my kids if i were 65 and had a pre-existing condition i'd be scared as hell but in general though i completely get the hey just just throw a mask on i don't love it i actually hate it i hate wearing a mask i don't like that i can't see people's faces i just i like you know you had to like learn to smile with your eyes a lot you know what i mean like because you smile yeah because that's all people can see but at the same point put the freaking mask on it's a stupid mask you you walk in the store put the mask on wear the mask in the store and leave i don't love it i don't necessarily consider it like um i i just i i think it's crazy that there are still like these grumpy old fat white dudes that are rolling into the store like i ain't putting my mask on screw you like come on what's funny is when you're on a road trip you you do stop in a lot of you know different gas stations in different states and there's definitely a difference you can definitely tell where you are based on whether the have a mask on or not um i i just i um i feel like it's been so hard for families and moms to figure out like what do we do how do we take care of our family you know our high-risk loved ones but we don't want our kids in a bubble and it's really hard because there's all these unknowns these huge decisions and at the end of the day we want what's best for our kids and for you know grandma and grandpa and you know the loved ones in our life so i i definitely think it is harder for people that live really close by to their grandparents yeah or someone that's a loved one that is high risk and you know while the stats for children overall are you know not as you know maybe frightening as for some of the adults there are kids that have you know um you know immune system issues and and stuff so i certainly have you know compassion for all the moms out there that are no matter where they are on that like space like spectrum of like you know how much space they want and it it's been really tricky just figuring this whole thing out hasn't it i agree and and i think that is a perfect um segue into the topic that i wanted to discuss with you which is uh uh i had heard your name um before and then you were on cass's podcast which was awesome i thought it was a great great show i was you know i was really taking in what you said and um and in particular and and you know when we had a chance to talk a little bit um you had even said like it wasn't why you went on the show but it's kind of where you went and and i wanted to take that conversation even further which was the idea of buying leads or just growing your business via leads and this is a huge huge bugaboo for me because um uh david carothers is is gonna uh have to take a drink or make fun of me or whatever because i use this analogy too much but but my philosophy kind of in life but in but particularly when it comes to growing a business is like the bruce lee model like be like water right like fill the cup that's in front of you and you know i think we get so dogmatic on certain ideas that we allow ourselves to be boxed in or to we'll we'll allow we'll allow our business to stagnate at the expense of doing something that we view as below us and and in our industry particularly on the independent side now coming from all state right like coming from the captive side i think for for you and quantum having this kind of captive uh legacy to them like a legacy culture to you guys it's just like part of the deal it's part of the business like this is what you do to grow in the independent side it's like you're a loser you oh you buy leads ah you have to buy leads you know what i mean that's like a scarlet letter that you wear around a conference if someone finds out and um and i've always like it's been something i've always i built my book of business way back when um when i first started in this business on net quote net quote a dollar a lead oh i remember that i'm getting flashbacks now yes yeah you'd get and when net quote added text messages that's when it really took off for me because i had a phone that actually did text messages so when the text would come through i could get to that person first because i had the text on my phone so like it was you know and i don't even talk about that memo i don't know why but like i i got a lot of my escape velocity stuff so you know i i harassed my family i wrote my family and then after that who do you write right so i'm doing all the standard stuff net quote was a big part of that so i look at today and i'm like oh my gosh it's a decade later and people are still acting like online leads are somehow less value folks i just wrote a homeowner's account today from a bought online lead and it took me an hour right an hour an hour and that's not an hour is worth of work that's like the lead came in and an hour later i had a bound policy from a bought lead i paid seven dollars for the lead and an hour later i signed a 1300 homeowner's policy so this is this is what this is a real way to grow your business and you know what's interesting is i don't think it's just independence that you know think internet leads might be beneath them or something that people used to do 10 years ago i see it on the captive side every day and so i think there's a lot of reasons for it but if you think back to how agents used to build their business before internet leads if you're buying an agency from your dad your uncle your grandpa and you have this legacy agency and you're in this family of insurance agents no way they built their success on internet leads right they were out there getting to know people in their community your dad was probably showing up when somebody had a claim and being there and it they passed on that personal touch and that care for people in their community so it became this standard of quality right because of how it used to work right but i think you can do both i don't think that your agency has to stop networking i don't think that you have to stop showing up for your referrals or stop working those mortgage broker relationships but we have this sea of opportunity in front of us right now that's working and you can get in front of quality clients you can position your agency where clients are doing their shopping and really have the best of both worlds but it's all about the systems in your agency and having a process for being able to navigate two very different conversations and the conversation with a referral because your buddy sent them over and said you know hey man call this guy he's really good is a completely different conversation than reaching out to somebody who came to you because they were online because they googled like you know insurance chantilly van virginia and so it's you're you're asking your team to be flexible and you got to have a strategy in place but at the end of the day it's about meeting our clients where they're at so ryan um like you know if you don't mind sharing yep what about your family do you guys buy any products online do you are you guys on do you shop online for clothes school stuff like most people there's a heavy stream of amazon boxes that that arrives at my house yeah i mean that that that you know what's i think what's interesting so it's interesting to me about this part of the conversation is it comes back to something that is kind of the core differentiator i i believe in our industry so i believe there are two types of agents there are there are business owners and there are agent owners agent owners they just like to write insurance so for them a referral comes in it's great they can buddy them up yeah beat them at golf the other day yeah he refers me some business bro you know bro it up and then you you put their insurance package together it's already sold because your referral so you kind of just walk through the coverages with them show them the price here's what it is great give me your credit card done i'm an insurance agent that's amazing right that's an awesome way to do business except you can't really grow in anything more than a slightly linear path on that methodology you can't so what happens is the next thing agents do is like okay i'm gonna be growth focused i'm gonna go after mortgage broker referrals okay that's a great path and you can grow gnn has grown that way a lot of people have grown that way a lot of people have grown that way which is good but you have to reach out so that's level two um you still are at the discretion of those loan officers thinking about you sending you referrals there's all kinds of things you can do but it's still a teed up lead the online lead like i'll just take this guy that i just wrote today um you gotta sell him you have to talk to him you have to get to know them a little bit on the phone i mean they don't know you from adam or eve they have to they have you actually have to talk to them on the phone and say here's what my agency does here's why you should think about working with us versus someone else here's why i gave you this policy and you have to justify the premium that you're quoting them and i think that that level of sales i think when when agencies hit a certain size or agencies of a certain disposition they just do not want to be bothered with that they just don't they just don't want to do it it feels beneath them to have to explain why they're offering a certain premium to someone they just want they just they just want the person to take it i think that there's a difference in strategy here right because when you're working the referrals and the mortgage brokers and that's great if you're seeing results from that keep doing it that's awesome like don't let that fall by the wayside but that's in a little bit more of an organic flow to where your sales are coming from right someone reaches out to you because you are top of mind so you can live a lifestyle where insurance is what you do it's a part of who you are you're talking about it on social media you're reaching out to your buddies you go to some networking events you golf you make sure that you're introducing yourself to the mortgage brokers in your network and they are they come across your path but that should grow organically as a complement to the actual business processes that are already occurring within your agency so working your digital marketing leads and having a predictable flow of internet leads coming in that's your bedrock foundation that's what sets the motivate motivation for your team the momentum for your team the culture for your team so that they're just clipping along at a pace it's not about like oh internet leads are beneath us well you know what's beneath us is sitting around tapping our fingers waiting for the phone to ring that's what's beneath us and so you can shift the whole mindset and culture in your agency by giving your producers what they want and that's having a warm lead in front of them and someone to talk to because man if you can get a live person on the phone and that that's half the battle right there so it's all about increasing their at-bats and when you do that it starts to take shape it takes a little bit of time to figure out but when you do now you have this predictable flow that's coming into your agency you can really crack open this conversation start looking at the data start figuring out how many you need to buy for which person and what the close ratios are and how much you have to invest to get the premium that you need but the referrals are still happening because it's organic you're still talking on social media you're still you know engaging people that you come across in an everyday basis whether it's online or in person right now and so you're still getting referrals but you're not crossing your fingers holding your breath hoping that this mortgage broker relationship is going to work out because you know what that mortgage broker that has you know huge office and 40 brokers and you're like oh my gosh this relationship is amazing and they're going to send us so much business what happens when one of your producers something goes wrong you lose that relationship or you didn't do anything wrong you did an awesome job but their brother opened up an agency around the corner and boom now that person's getting all of their referrals so work them get to know people make sure you're top of mind and that they look at you as being the go-to person for their referral business but we can't bank on that it's not as predictable it's not as um i don't think it's as as steady and consistent and predictable as what we like to tell ourselves that it is yeah because um just because it's a great client just because it's a great quality lead just because it's high retention just because it's less expensive doesn't mean that we're not missing profit and revenue opportunities in other areas yeah i completely agree and i think that it so it's it's funny i i um i i've really covet has made me reevaluate my strategy in a lot of ways just just from the nature of the shake-up and i've i've kind of taken a two-prong approach to growing my agency i use uh david carruthers killing commercial method i work you know going after the middle market working with comp i went and got my certified uh workers comp advisor designation from the workers comp institute just uh just because i wanted everything i can get because i believe that that's a really solid way to bring in the type of businesses that i want to work with and businesses that'll appreciate the advisor relationship okay the other side of it is i have an incredibly uh deep belief that a base of personal lines is important to the longevity sustainability and just the um the you know keeping your beta down right like you don't want huge swings in your agency you want your agency you want to be have predictable income predictable growth and so so what i what i what i'm doing is backfilling my work cold calling you know doing content marketing outreach to these middle market accounts with personalized accounts okay how do you get personalized accounts when you're a startup agency you get personalized accounts by i'm testing different lead providers and what i found just a couple weeks into doing this is if you have a straightforward process that gets a hold of the people quickly and delivers value they choose you like it's it's really wild like all this oh you know it's so difficult to get a hold of these not really i haven't found it difficult to get a hold of people you have to be responsive you can't call them back two days later you know but lead comes in crr hits them with a couple messages saying hey we're working on it we'll be in touch really soon you get back to them with a with an introductory quote you call them on the phone you talk about the quote you revise it you and then you close the business it's it this isn't rocket science to me it's it's just and there's no reason that person can't be a good good just because someone filled out a form somewhere online doesn't mean that they're a bad account like i guess i just exactly that idea i hate we all shop online for everything else so uh there's nothing wrong with a client going online to google cheap insurance um winston-salem right that's just what they've been trained to do by all of the ads out there our job is to give them a reason to stop their insurance shopping journey today yeah and so it's a it's a tall order we have to up our game that we're talking about taking this conversation next level this is a more intricate conversation than just working with a referral that already has some trust in you because they heard about you locally or through someone that they know you're already kind of a little bit ahead because then they at least have heard positive things about you there's some social proof there going on that's on your side but you don't have to lean on that like a crutch because you're already an amazing agent you're already providing a ton of value you just have to go in it casually confident and show up and be ready to um clip along at their pace you have to be on fire and on point because you only have a couple of seconds to capture their attention so you can't sound like you know uh you know the the kind of sales people that you know don't have a likable personality over the phone you know you you've got to sound casually confident like you're they've reached the right person and that you're gonna be able to take care of them but not like oh this person's just calling to sell me something nobody likes getting those telemarketing calls where someone's like you've won a free cruise right so there's certainly a technique to what that conversation needs to sound like and it's just about being real and authentic and not sounding like super over salesy be somebody that they want to talk to on the phone yeah i think i think the idea of casually confident is really important because if they yeah and and caruthers talks about this all the time in his stuff about how about they can smell they can smell your your like premium your they you can they can smell that all you want is the business right they can smell it in your or they can hear it they can smell it and and immediately it turns people off but if you can talk to them in a way and again i'm not the best on the phone by any regards but you know if you can if you can talk to them in a way that shows them look i would love to work with you here's what my process is here's what my product is but if you decide that i'm not for you then you know that's that's fine with me even though you know you want to sell as many as you can um but you if you give that air off to them they don't feel like you're putting them into a corner and i think that's what turns off a lot of the people who first approach you who um in this case we're talking about online leads you know these people don't have trust in you they filled out a form you're the one that approached them so there's no connection yet if you try if you box them into a corner early they immediately have their guard up and they think that you have some sort of ulterior motive or or get the sense that maybe you do and if you can approach them in a way that says look you know this is just this is the option it's the option i would give you everything that i've done says to me that this is going to be really good for you long term but i need you to take a step towards me too do you have to want this um and that seems to draw them in a little bit uh versus just here's what it is take it or leave it you know or like the it's just you know it's a completely different thing what i hear producers do most often is they get that person on the phone and they're like hey i got your request can i you know can i give you a quote for your insurance the person says sure okay so what kind of car you got a toyota highlander let me verify some information i work with seven carriers i'm gonna be able to shop this for you i don't know if any of this sounds familiar but i i hear this often because it's what um it's what our gut tells us we're supposed to say so we're just winging it and what we actually have to say to be successful feels a little counterintuitive at first we can't start by saying i'm an independent agent and i'm with value insurance and i work with this many carriers and i'm gonna shop you start by making it about them first they've never heard of value insurance agency right that's not one of your strong points so if they ask you oh now who are you again where are you calling from that's the right time to introduce your agency but don't start with something that just isn't gonna land or hit home start by making it all about them and so the way that you pull off the things that that you just mentioned ryan about not um coming on too strong is start asking them questions about them who doesn't like to talk about themselves right so who are you insured with right now oh my gosh tell me about that your rate run up tell me what happened and you're having an organic conversation at this point you're not trying to fill that first two minutes with everything about you and how many carriers you have and how you're going to shop them and it makes it a little bit easier to get a conversation going so the question that i that i asked i try to start with in any of these types of conversations is so what's going on you filled out a form somewhere what's going on why did you do that and and i just try to keep it as open and as generic as i can and let them go because they may have filled out a form for homeowner's insurance but really they're going you know man my car insurance goes up every year my agent is my agent's this or my you know my i'm getting divorced from my wife or you know i had a really bad claim you have no idea what's actually going on you just know that they had intent so if your first thing is let me give you a quote they're gonna say like just like you said they're gonna say sure where if your first question can kind of catch them off guard which is hey you know the way i usually start or the way that i start these conversations when when whenever i get and i kind of picked this up when i was doing a lot of content marketing and i had a lot of inbound content you know people were calling me off the internet because of my website um now the murray group reaps all that benefit you're welcome shorty but um uh you know i would just say hey you know my name is ryan i'm the owner of rogue risk uh what's going on why'd you fill out the form and they'll you'll hear them pause for a second because that's not what they're expecting they're expecting you to go okay you know how many cars you know what's the vin number of your car hey you know what what price do i need to be there that's what they're expecting when you just ask them what's going on they'll go up well my rate's going up three years in a row okay why is that well i had a really bad claim oh okay so now in your head now you're starting to you can actually be a value provider well what did the claim look like well i had this twelve hundred dollar claim why'd you put a twelve hundred dollar homeowner's claim in who told you to do that you know what i mean like and now you can start to drill into what actually is their motivation and by the time you get to the end of that conversation one you most likely have all the info that you need two with realty track and red fin and zillow you don't need to ask them how old their home is like if you're still asking someone well how old is your home you're that's you're wasting time and you sound like like you those questions are even though the carriers still want to know that information and need to know it i guess to a certain extent you should not be asking people that information in my opinion you should not be asking that it's all there if if you know so while they're talking i'm okay 22 johnson road okay bang i'm looking at okay so so so you had a 1200 came okay it looks like you have a flat roof is that true yeah okay is that a rubber roof yeah yeah okay good okay boom boom and you're just verifying what's on realty track or whatever and once i see that a couple of pieces of information the same i know i'm close enough that i don't need to ask them any of the other bullshit questions about their home right do you have a dog yes or no if that matters to some of your carriers and and then it actually sounds like a real conversation and i think that completely throws people off guard a pattern interrupts their lead their classic experience that they get right you can retrain the client surrounding what they expect out of their insurance shopping experience so i'm glad we're talking about this because some of the things that i hear most often are things like oh i tried internet leads but nobody picked up the phone or you know what i bought a bunch of them and i i quoted a ton but none of them closed or oh yeah you know i'm not going to go that route because there was this agency that came into town and they were selling all this business and we found it was all state minimum it all fell off the books so i think there definitely has to be a strategy around it and what you just hit the nail on the head because the sales conversation it has to be a client focused value-based conversation where you're asking meaningful questions and you're selling with a purpose and so before you think about buying internet leads again before you think about giving it another go there's a couple things that have to fall into line first and the first one is your what your conversation is going to sound like so start before you invest in the leads thinking about it like a sales engineer sales engineer this conversation call a buddy and role play it with them and say hey here's what i'm thinking the the best technique is refine it um i'm the director of education and development at quantum so it's it's my job to write our sales processes and our top pass and our scripts and capture what's working for us on the front lines every day through our direct channel through our agency channels so that helps automate the sales onboarding process for the people that are showing up for our clients making our company great every day and selling with purpose is our hallmark quantum sales process that walks our agents through exactly how to begin this conversation you have to start by making that instant connection that you spoke to ryan so that you can overcome objections to the quote it all starts with having the right mindset so go into that call assuming that that person is not going to want to talk to you don't go into the call assuming that they're like oh hey ryan you're the owner at rogue risk oh my gosh i'm so glad you called me today yeah you're not Jeff Bezos or you know what i mean like you're they don't care to talk that you own the business i actually had that happen one time and i was like oh my gosh i think i'm being secret shopped so um you have to plan out what the sales conversation is going to look like and have a plan for how you're going to drive a client focused buying experience from the very first 30 seconds of the call all the way through the close so you can actually create a buying experience for the client that empowers them to end their shopping journey today you can actually one call close this car and home bundle for this family by doing a total risk review for their family right there on the phone live without hanging up and you can end the call with a great client just like you did you said it was yesterday or today and so you've got to go into it with a plan and i suggest practicing first if internet leads you tried them before and they didn't work for you or this is a new process for your agency you can go into it on the cheap right like you can start by like cutting your teeth on this you don't have to go in and day one like dump like ten thousand dollars into this or you know one or two i'm definitely not spending ten thousand don't don't start there right because before you play in the major leagues you practice there's a ladder right so this is a harder conversation you want your team to be prepared so that they can get their confidence up so that looks like hey whoever is the sales leader in your agency for a lot of our listeners it's probably the agency owner and that's great if that's you and you don't have a sales manager right now awesome you should be in front of your team coaching role playing creating that coaching culture of feedback within your agency on a daily basis so if internet leads are new to you try to carve out some time where you're learning to sell them yourself first or if you have a sales manager your sales manager has some time where they're figuring out this sales conversation first because once you or your sales manager has a great close ratio on internet leads now you can start training your team on it and start unleashing that lead source to your your sales force right so ease into it learn it yourself first because let me tell you this is a fun conversation once you're like man like i i've never seen our quote volume i've never seen close ratios like this i've never been able to drive business like this before we just wrote a ton of clients i just bundled they're all multi-line you're excited about it now you have a reason for your team to be excited about it so have a plan and start there because it then you know you're starting with maybe some cheaper like aged leads just you can get really good at talking people into getting a quote with you and then you're going into it really strong at your at bats right then you can start dabbling with some more expensive lead sources but i think sometimes we're so um so worried that internet leads won't work that we try to buy the most expensive leads first and then because we're still cutting our teeth on it we don't end up making enough money on that batch of leads to just keep throwing money at it and so we pull back and we stop and we go back to what we know which is the the client referrals and the mortgage referrals i think a couple other important ideas is have have have some you have well let me start that again you oh my gosh i've done too much talking already today so i think an important point here is to you need to have some sort of automation system for this to work and the reason i say that it doesn't have to be super sophisticated or it can be but you definitely have some way when that lead comes in there needs to be an immediate touch and for my from so i use better agency everyone who's listening probably knows i use better agency i think it's a phenomenal tool when a lead comes in they immediately get an email and a text from me the email basically outlines their expectations which is i am going we've received your information someone is working on your account right now if we have enough information to provide you with an introductory quote you will receive a video breakdown and proposal in your email within an hour if not we'll be reaching out to you either way thank you the text message so that just sets the expectation we're we're efforting you didn't just put your information into the into the ether and it's gone right right like someone is here there's real people behind us the text message simply says hey thanks we got your request check your email it breaks down the process that's it that's all the text message says so then then have a couple days of that broken out where you're hitting them again hitting them again so just to say hey you know we never got a hold of you we never did this because you know it takes multiple times i think people feel like if they don't pick up the phone on the first try oh oh my god it's not it's a bad lead bad lead uh when we were at trust when i worked for trusted choice.com oh my god i i we recorded i mean you probably know this from listening to quantum agent calls but like we recorded all these calls um that would go to agents and like basically the agent would one pick up the phone and immediately try to disqualify the lead oh you only want renter's insurance oh you're you're 24 oh you know i really only have progressive and it's probably gonna be like 30 000 is that okay with you no okay bye or if they if they did get an inbound lead they would never call the person back or they would just email them back and be like oh they never got back to me it's like you need to email them seven times maybe because i right i love producers like that because it creates low hanging fruit for for our million dollar producers over at quantum so you're just warming them up the good news is i feel like i feel like this is what i love about the independent channel especially the last five or six years um i think the last five or six years in the independent channel the the game has really been stepped up i feel like there's a lot of people who i think in general everyone is way more open and i think what that has done is shown people hey look you can be so many things like i would like to consider myself middle market whale hunter because this morning i was working on a 200 000 premium account that i have two carriers that i'm kind of you know positioning against each other for this proposal and then i'm also writing an internet lead for 1300 homeowner's policy and and my reason for saying that is like caruthers always says you have to be and i keep quoting caruthers he just he's awesome dude's like wedged into my brain but um you have to be a swiss army knife right there's being you need to be good at a couple things but but they can be different things you can be that that macho whale killer you know whatever and write some homeowners insurance or some auto insurance through internet leads too like you can do both those things and i think that's completely okay and ultimately i think it's a smart decision because i think one it keeps you fresh two i think it spreads out your um your book of business so that if a certain part takes a hit or something happens you have some sustainability and it's just more business like why sit around during the day and like look at you know ben shapiro videos on facebook when you could be when you could be closing a homeowner's account right you know you know what the number one most motivating thing is for a you know a frontline sales producer uh a sales agent that's writing business what's the number one most motivating thing for that person we think it's time off we think it's bonuses we think it's oh we're going to give you you know your kid's birthday that's awesome but you know what the number one most motivating thing is for our sales team writing a policy writing business have you ever seen them more excited like jumping up and down i mean if you come to one of our call centers we're like hooting and hollering and like the music is blasting and there's nothing more exciting than writing business because that's what sales people are here to do that's where they get their adrenaline so create a environment for them where that happens for them day in and day out yeah and you're gonna see their energy go up you're gonna see that momentum build in your agency and sales is a mindset game you have to have that momentum where you're that snowball is rolling downhill and it's just getting bigger and bigger and more energy and you're gonna see the culture in your agency become more fast-paced and get it you can have you know that music going have everybody at their stand-up desk one thing that works for us is an open layout because then your sales people aren't in these they're like individual little offices and you're like hey go make 300 phone calls and they go in their office and they're like oh my god it's so terrible you can have them out on an open sales floor with music with stuff on the tv screens where they're just like you know cranking through the dials just like rocking it together as a team having fun this doesn't have to be like hey guys i really need you to grit your teeth and i like really need you guys to just rip this band-aid and i just really need you guys just do this for the agency you can make this super fun and totally transform what the day-to-day life looks like in your agency where they come in and they have clients to talk to um because that's what's going to be most motivating for them and when when you see that happen this is one of those big massive action steps that you can take that has that ripple effect that we all want we're all looking for like what's that big step that i can make where everything else is going to fall into place now if you can figure out this digital lead marketing game not only has the culture in your insurance office shifted to a different kind of sales office with that faster pace and that energy now you have the predictability into the numbers you're able to back dial it to come up with a strategy for the numbers that you want to hit and you see you see a difference in your recruiting efforts i i talk to agents all the time that are like hey you know what i've got these ads out i'm just not it's just so hard to recruit people i'm not sure how to find the top talent and when you have these success stories that you can get in front of candidates and you say hey you know what our agency operates a little bit differently than the one down the road because you're going to have warm leads you're not clients that reached out that want quotes that want to talk to you that's a whole different recruiting conversation than like hey man i'm looking for somebody with grit because we go to we go door to door here now i've been door to door several times when i've gone door to door to you know get quotes for all kinds of things it's a great method it works don't stop doing that if you're especially a commercial producer but it does make it a little bit harder to recruit people because then you're only finding people that are like yeah i'm all for that let's do this and go door to door right now you're opening yourself up to all this talent that could really rock it on the phone yeah i i agree with you i agree with you wholeheartedly i think uh i imagine the quantum salesforce kind of like jared belford you know wolf of wall street like up there like bang himself in the head with the thing and screaming into the microphone you know and uh everyone's losing their mind you know um no it's so funny yeah oh it we have um a really diverse team so just so many fun personalities but most recently um you can check out our linkedin quantum assurance um one of our producers um just this week hit um five hundred thousand dollars in premium in less than her first six months with our company and she's you know she is um just this awesome young woman who just gives it her all for her clients every single day she's not a pushy salesperson she doesn't have that like aggressive sales conversation by any means but you know what she's casually confident she's prepared and she shows up for her clients and doesn't just give them a halfway presentation she doesn't say hey you know what thanks for giving me all that information i'm going to work up your quotes and call you back she stays on the line with them until she gets them taken care of and her she i mean we're talking quality business we're talking bundles we're talking great clients she does amazing but she doesn't have this stereotypical like you know wolf of wall street feel at all total opposite and i'm just so proud of her because she uses the resources we give her we have an amazing education program at quantum settling with purpose really works and so she puts her resources to work and she studies them and she doesn't turn it off and she is trending to be a million dollar producer in her first year at quantum and she's not the only one um but it's just we can totally change our expectation of what an internet lead conversation has to look like yeah i think i think that's great two other things that i'd like to say are um one you you don't have to work for the bundle every time sometimes solving someone's problem is enough in the first conversation to start the relationship if their issue is they you know they're just getting crushed on on on their auto insurance and like that's the problem that they need solved and wrapping their brain around bringing their home in or whatever in that conversation is just too much but you can solve their auto problem there solve their auto problem and and then come back and then you know and again this is what a good crm good note taking you know good process good cross-selling is all about because then you can notate the system and say hey a month from now i want to circle back with you let's talk about bringing your home in it'll it'll probably save you money across the board but today i'm just glad we got your auto taken care of they're going to be so happy because you didn't shove the auto down or the home down their throat too you know because sometimes people are all different some can take in the whole conversation some just want you to solve their problem and i think that's a big piece the other thing too is um on you know you can turn a lead into so a lead comes in from the online and and and a lot of people go well yeah you know they're buying leads but you know how much what their attention on that's probably shitty well it can be just like anything else or if you treat them like real people and not online leads it can be the same as every other piece of business because you set expectations because you you onboarded them you talk them through what to expect you help them understand your service process you got them all the information that they needed to move forward with their life you save them money maybe you sent them some messages during their policy period about your agency or about their insurance program you cross sold them you ask them for referrals a google review and now come renewal time they're not shopping anymore because no one likes to shop i think that's the thing like i feel like to me the way that i've always approached this is and again i told you i i told you on the phone buying online leads is a blind spot for me in terms of doing it as an agency owner but but the concept and working and talking to people is is very familiar and you know for me the idea has always been that's why you're doing it and if someone's shopping online it means they're lost right they're like a lost child they're they're they're walking the streets of new york with no real idea of where to go and it's why they keep trying every store that they walk into because they're just trying to figure out where do i belong and if you can show them what it's like to work with your agency a really good process a good product you know you care about what what what's actually wrong with what the what problem they're trying to solve and you treat them well after the sale they're they're not gonna shop anymore no one enjoys shopping for insurance it sucks it's terrible you think they're just gonna be like you know what i had a tremendous experience i have a great price great product the people i work with are awesome i'm just gonna go shop for insurance again this year nobody no one does they just want to have a great enough experience that they don't have to worry about it anymore so they can take a back seat and it's totally opposite for us right because we could talk insurance all day but this is our hobby this is what what we do who we are i know one of my the top things on my list for what's most fun and we can't expect that out of our clients yeah well i you know i we could talk about this all day i want to be respectful of your time um i appreciate you coming on the show i think um i think what you guys at quantum are doing is really shaking up the industry in a very positive way i know um i know different people have different feelings about these big sales focused agencies when they come into our space i mean i'm sure you've gotten some of that feedback uh because i just know how agents think but i think in truth um i love when when when a driven group of people come into this space that have a distinct path that have a philosophy because what it does is it forces all of us to rethink you know regardless if anyone actually believes anything that we said i'm positive that if they listen to this whole episode it at least got them to start thinking about how they operate their agency and just the value maybe they said you know what i listened to all of it i believe it all but it's still not for me no problem i think what's good is that we're having these conversations and that we're kind of putting out into the open that there is this way of of helping grow a business that that isn't negative like it has negative connotations but it isn't actually negative it can be very positive not negative at all for your client if you're showing up with quality and if they can tell that you care and that's why quantum was born because we're we're really helping fill this need in the agency space where someone can bring their agency on board to quantum and immerse themselves in this ecosystem where we say hey we believe in the agency model we believe in you and what your teams are already doing and we're here to help you level it up we help you figure out how to have that mega startup we're probably six million dollars in internet lead experience of working with thousands of internet leads over the past 10 years trying to crack this code of what that conversation should sound like and that really helps our agents hit the ground running so that we can take the mystery out of how do we scale our agencies and start seeing results that we've never seen before and then you see your your agency and your lifestyle benefit but also your teams because you're making it easier for them to do what they're passionate about it yeah i think it's great thanks for coming on the show i wish you guys nothing but the best and i look forward to the next time we can connect this was a blast stay safe and healthy yeah hey guys wasn't that just a tremendous episode i loved talking to caitlin she's just dynamic and what they're doing over at quantum i think is really amazing stuff and whether that's the way you want to build your agency or not it doesn't matter what matters is that you know what what do you know other ways that people are thinking about our business because you can always take little pieces and plug them in where they make sense for what you're trying to build and that's the beauty of an independent agency so i just want to say to you thank you for listening to this show i love you for listening to this show it means so much to me i love putting these podcast episodes together and if you enjoy this show you know i would just ask that you tell one friend just tell somebody you know just say hey maybe you want to listen to this show it just helps our audience grow and if you're feeling super froggy hop on over to itunes leave us a rating and review there that just helps more people find our show just helps more people get in the ecosystem which is what this is all about sharing ideas introducing people all right enough of me let's get on to the brilliant the brilliant brock berrigan running this off you go fuck yourself with your fat fucking ass you oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh Thank you.

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