Business of Insurance Podcast

Episode 72 - If you’ve been listening to the last few episodes, we’ve been breaking down the steps you need to consider before starting a business. The concepts shared in these episodes are the foundation of building a successful business, no matter what kind. Bottom line in business is You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know You see, too many people jump into starting a business without doing any planning. Then they wonder why they aren’t finding success, as if business should just fall from the sky! For some people even if they don’t plan, they might get lucky but the majority of people put in a lot of hard work, time, money and sweat equity to get their dream of owning their own business off the ground. For many people it’s trial and error It’s figuring out what to do as they run into trouble or finding answers when they least expect to.  Even if you do extensive planning and research before you start your business, you will hit obstacles, but the more you are prepared with your foundation, the better chance of success you will have. In this episode I want to recap the top 5 things I think you should focus on when planning to open your business. I’ve talked about these before, but I’m hoping that if they have their own episode, you’ll pay attention. Quick recap Marketing Plan Focus Business Team Capital Contracts What’s your end game Ideas To Consider Have a plan. You can take courses on how to create a business plan, and your plan can be 30 pages or 3 pages. I’ve even heard of a one page business plan, but it’s hard to get a lot of details on one page!   There’s two things I think are essential in your plan.  The first is marketing. And I think this needs to be very well defined. Maybe you need to do a little market research to test your idea before you can create a solid marketing plan, but without this, you are doomed. I also think that when you define your marketing plan up front and look at the costs for each tactic you want to implement, then you can budget accordingly which is the se cond part of the plan that I think is essential. I’ll get back to that part but let's talk about marketing first. The second is financial - For someone like me, this is the toughest part because while I understand math and some accounting, financial projections aren’t something I can easily wrap my head around. I see this part as start up costs - what you need to really open your doors, how much capital do you need to pay yourself or a staff for the first year while you are growing your business and how much reserve do you need in the event things don’t go as planned? Map this part out, give it to your banker friends and ask their opinions. This is essential and often overlooked by many startup entrepreneurs. It’s why first year entrepreneurs have such a high failure rate. Focus on what you want to do - It’s ok to pivot down the road as many companies do, but if you are starting as an agency, an insurance company or a related insurance partner, be focused. Don’t try to be all things to all people. It is the greatest component of success for startups. Put together  you business team. I’m not talking about staff but the other professionals that can guide you. Don’t hire your family member if they don’t specialize in what you need. For example, you need a business attorney, not the family law attorney. Get a good business accountant, and make friends with your banker, payroll, bookkeeper, human resources and even other insurance professionals that aren't doing what you hope to do. This ties into the financial piece, but having enough capital to get you through is essential. This is really the hardest part. So many people want to start but don’t have the capital. They bootstrap it which can work but it would be so much easier if there was capital. If you are working as you are thinking about starting a business, get your loan while you are working for someone else because once you become self employed, the lending rules change and it’s not easy. In 2023 when everything is out of whack from COVID, getting a bank loan is really difficult so get it before you leave your salaried income. Contracts - Be sure to read all of your contracts thoroughly. I would strongly recommend having them reviewed by your business attorney. It might cost a few extra dollars, but trust me, they’ll see things in a different light than you will and offer good tips for negotiation. If you have a partner, have a contract - the more detailed the better. It needs to discuss what is involved if there is a breakup. Better to get it right before you start then pay thousands when no one is talking to each other. A business breakup is no different than a marital breakup. Your business pre-nup is the most valuable document you can create. Have contracts with business vendors, employees and review your insurance company contracts thoroughly. Don’t sign on the dotted link just because you get offered a contract. This last one is a bonus idea but I think it is essential to set yourself up with the end in mind. It doesn’t matter if the end is 30 years away, be thinking like that. Build a business you can sell if you need to. We don’t know what life will bring us tomorrow so if you set it up right from the beginning, you don’t need to worry about a surprise obstacle getting in your way.  If you can’t tell from the past few episodes, this is my passion. I love helping people get started in business. I’m not as good with someone that already has 100 employees, but for the start up, my heart sings!  If you have questions, feel free to reach out. You can find me on LI and FB. I have a group called The business of insurance, but it’s not that active. If you want to be a part of it, let me know and I’ll let you in! Thank you for listening to this series on how to start a business. If you know someone thinking about getting started or someone that has been in the business for a short period of time, please share this information with them.  It’s free and valuable! SHOW THE LOVE If you haven’t done so already, please follow, like or subscribe to this podcast on your favorite podcast player. The terminology for this has been changing, but we want you to get our podcast when new episodes are published, so check the platform where you listen to podcasts and make sure we are in your playlist!  We are on all of the platforms including spotify, IheartRadio and Apple podcasts.and Google Podcasts. SPONSOR Insurancemailboxpower.com CONNECT WITH THE PODCAST ON SOCIAL FACEBOOK GROUP FACEBOOK PAGE TWITTER ABOUT THE HOST This episode of the Business of Insurance podcast is produced and hosted by Debbie DeChambeau, CIC, AAI, CPIA - an entrepreneur, business advisor, insurance professional  and content creator. Her goal is to inspire you to think differently and explore ideas that disrupt the status quo.  Debbie has an extensive business and marketing background with a focus of helping insurance professionals be more successful. She also works in the health insurance space, focusing on helping people navigate the Medicare Maze. She is the co-author of Renewable Referrals. Connect with Debbie on LinkedIn, Twitter or Instagram.  

EP -71  If you haven't listened to episodes 65-71, they set the stage for this final episode on things to think about when starting your own insurance business. Regardless if you are starting an agency, an insurance company or a related business to the insurance industry like technology, claims or risk management, the concepts of starting a business are the same. These are discussed in these episodes and can help with your thought processes and planning. Pre-planning, part 2 provides ideas to implement 6-12 months before you are ready to open your doors. If you don't have a year to plan your business, you can fast track these ideas. It's the concepts that you want to consider to assist in starting your business with a greater chance of success. Months 6-9 Define business objectives  Pick a name for your business  Look for office locations  Write a business plan  Month 10 Decide legal form for your business Set up recordkeeping system Establish a relationship with a banker Open a business checking a account Month 11-12 Prepare cash flow projections Define amount of investment you’ll need Prepare financial statements Obtain license insurance, permits Secure financing Set up office and operational space Purchase business cards, office supplies Hire staff SHOW THE LOVE If you haven’t done so already, please follow, like or subscribe to this podcast on your favorite podcast player. The terminology for this has been changing, but we want you to get our podcast when new episodes are published, so check the platform where you listen to podcasts and make sure we are in your playlist!  We are on all of the platforms including spotify, IheartRadio and Apple podcasts.and Google Podcasts. SPONSOR Insurancemailboxpower.com CONNECT WITH THE PODCAST ON SOCIAL FACEBOOK GROUP FACEBOOK PAGE TWITTER ABOUT THE HOST This episode of the Business of Insurance podcast is produced and hosted by Debbie DeChambeau, CIC, AAI, CPIA - an entrepreneur, business advisor, insurance professional  and content creator. Her goal is to inspire you to think differently and explore ideas that disrupt the status quo.  Debbie has an extensive business and marketing background with a focus of helping insurance professionals be more successful. With over 30 years in the industry, mostly on the property and casualty side, she currently works in the health insurance space, with a focus on helping people navigate the Medicare Maze. She is the co-author of Renewable Referrals.Connect with Debbie on LinkedIn, Twitter or Instagram. 

EP - 70 This episode provides additional insight into starting your own business in the insurance industry. We'll cover ideas to help you map out the process over the course of several months so you don’t have to do everything at one time. We'll talk about tasks that can be broken down over 12 months or done in 30 days if you don't have much time. Month 1 -2  Define your ideas - what area are you going into? Agency, carrier, claims, Life, health, will you just do something like work comp, airlines or medicare? Maybe you are thinking technology in the form of a CRM for insurance, maybe you’ll white label a product that is working in another industry. There are a lot of things in between, these are just examples. But give some thought to your direction. Will you set up your business like everyone else or do you have ideas for being innovative? I don’t believe any of this is incorrect, you just need to define what you want to do and make sure you have done the research and have a great plan for moving forward. Month 2-3 Assess the impact on your life and family - I believe this is often overlooked and is an essential component of going into business. A business is like having another child. It is expensive, it takes a lot of your time, it can eat up your resources until you start making sales. Your spouse needs to buy in emotionally and financially. When I started my first agency back in the early 90’s I thought I had my husband's support. We agreed that I could tap into our home equity loan which was $25,000. Our marriage was set up where we each paid 50% of everything so I needed that money to pay my portion for awhile.( 2 kids with childcare, mortgage, groceries, and a car payment, along with the business expenses) 6 months into starting my agency, my husband was freaking out. I was making sales, but not enough to pay 50% of my bills around the house. Since I was home based, he thought I was doing nothing all day and that we could stop sending the kids to daycare and same some money. He just didn’t get it. Ultimately, we got divorced and while it was over a completely different issue, my being self employed weighed into it heavily. When I went looking for another partner, I wanted them to be in sales and understand being in business. I wasn’t going to be with someone else that did not understand you have to make some sacrifices short term for long term success.  I can’t stress how important it is to get complete buy-in from your spouse or partner about how the finances and time will be for the next 2-3 years. If you aren’t making money after that then you might need to reassess! Month 3-6 Locate sources of business advice and support - in the last episode, episode xxx, we talked about different members of your team. This wasn’t people that would be on your payroll but people that you would get advice and wisdom to make sure you are successful. If you missed that episode, please go back and listen to it again. THIS EPISODE OF THE BUSINESS OF INSURANCE PODCAST IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY INSURANCEMAILBOXPOWER.COM How will you announce your new business? How will you thank all the people that support you? Consider insurancemailboxpower.com. This great platform lets you send gifts, cards, direct mail and other marketing pieces to your clients, prospects and those that are supporting you along the way. Since we are talking about getting started in business in this episode, once you decide on your company name and logo, you can create a few custom items to see how it feels. Put the name and logon on a coffee mug, order yourself  some custom pens. Just test it out to see how it feels before you commit to the final copy.  Use my affiliate link and go to insurancemailboxpower.com where you can set up a free 14 day trial  account. Send yourself a few products and see how it feels.  When you sign up for a pro or executive account, I’ll share some of my designs with you that have been generating results for me! Continuing in month 3-6 Obtain necessary skills - depending on what type of business you are starting, will depend on the types of skills you need. If you aren’t good at sales, take some sales classes. If you aren’t good at leadership, take some classes, if you don’t know what is involved in running a business, take some classes. Do this before you get started, so you have a better chance of finding success earlier, not after you open your doors. You’ll always need to be learning and there are different ways to get the information that you need, but the more you do this before you open the doors, the less mistakes you’ll make when the doors open. Research carriers, IMO’s, Aggregators,industries etc.If you are going on the agency side, who will you write your business with? I think it is really important that you really do your due diligence here. Get the contracts. Read them. Have your lawyer review them. Sit on them and make sure you ask questions. Don’t take anything for granted. It’s easy to sign one, it is not always easy to get out of one. It might mean going to a few industry events to ask people who they are using, getting some feedback from others before moving forward. By doing this part before you open your doors, you will save yourself a lot of time and aggravation down the road.  Topics to consider: What are the sales expectations, what technology do they provide?  Can you test ride it?  What type of support is available?  How are commissions paid?  What about overrides and contingencies?  What happens if you want to leave or move to another organization? What happens if you sell your business? There’s a lot of information you need before you sign up that will help you to be more successful.  Since there’s a lot of information to planning to open your business, we are going to stop here for today. We’ll pick up what to do in the next episode.  So until then, KEEP CREATING OPPORTUNITIES   SHOW THE LOVE If you haven’t done so already, please follow, like or subscribe to this podcast on your favorite podcast player. The terminology for this has been changing, but we want you to get our podcast when new episodes are published, so check the platform where you listen to podcasts and make sure we are in your playlist!  We are on all of the platforms including spotify, IheartRadio and Apple podcasts.and Google Podcasts. SPONSOR Insurancemailboxpower.com   CONNECT WITH THE PODCAST ON SOCIAL FACEBOOK GROUP FACEBOOK PAGE TWITTER ABOUT THE HOST This episode of the Business of Insurance podcast is produced and hosted by Debbie DeChambeau, CIC, AAI, CPIA - an entrepreneur, business advisor, insurance professional  and content creator. Her goal is to inspire you to think differently and explore ideas that disrupt the status quo.  Debbie has an extensive business and marketing background with a focus of helping insurance professionals be more successful. She also works in the health insurance space, focusing on helping people navigate the Medicare Maze. She is the co-author of Renewable Referrals. Connect with Debbie on LinkedIn, Twitter or Instagram. 

EP 69 - We get training for being an insurance agent but we don’t get training for being a business owner. They are two completely different hats. If you want to succeed in Business you need to have a team. I was recently listening to another podcast with an angel investor and she said the first thing she looks for is who is on the team and what is their experience. You need a team. It’s nice to think you can do everything yourself, but something will be lacking if you don’t bring on help. So here’s what your team should look like. Accountant  Consult with an accountant for guidance on your entity choice. Have your accountant show you how to initially set up your books -  Use your accountant as an advisor to different financial decisions you can make with your business. Meet with them quarterly for business planning ideas Bookkeeper - someone that can help with commissions, payroll, balancing your accounts  Lawyer  Get guidance on your entity structure Let them review and create different documents for you Marketing  Let them help with your webite, branding and a marketing plan Insurance - if you aren’t doing commercial P&C on a daily basis, partner with someone that is and let them be your agent. They can talk to you about the newer coverages like cyber and  AI but also make sure you know about the other coverages usually offered in a BOP.,  Banker  Get to know several bankers. They can be your best friend. They work with a lot of other businesses, they have their pulse on what is going on in the economy and they know who is lending, who isn’t and where you can find money. Human Resources   Find an outsourced HR firm that you can use. Maybe you need them once a month, or once a year,  having the professionals at your fingertips is a great way to keep yourself out of hot water with employees.  Mentor / Coach  They can save you years of mistakes because they’ve been there, done that. Rather than trying to figure it out for yourself, they have the answers. SPONSOR Insurancemailboxpower.com CONNECT WITH THE PODCAST ON SOCIAL FACEBOOK GROUP FACEBOOK PAGE TWITTER ABOUT THE HOST This episode of the Business of Insurance podcast is produced and hosted by Debbie DeChambeau, CIC, AAI, CPIA - an entrepreneur, business advisor, insurance professional  and content creator. Her goal is to inspire you to think differently and explore ideas that disrupt the status quo.  Debbie has an extensive business and marketing background with a focus of helping insurance professionals be more successful. She also works in the health insurance space, focusing on helping people navigate the Medicare Maze. She is the co-author of Renewable Referrals. Connect with Debbie on LinkedIn, Twitter or Instagram.  

Today’s episode is one of several episodes about how to get started in the insurance business. I’m not talking about becoming an agent, I’m talking to those of you that are thinking about starting an agency, an insurance company, or an an insuretech business. There’s a lot more to hanging a shingle that says you are open. As part of the planning process for starting a business there are some concepts to consider, these are about yourself. As exciting as it is to start a business, there’s a lot to consider. It’s not all glamor and glory! Most business owners would agree it’s a lot of hard work, a lot more than they expected. It’s long days, weekends and holidays. Many business owners lose their marriages over their business. As I mentioned in the last business, 90% of business fail in the first year.  The circumstances around why they fail vary, but often it’s with the concepts I’m discussing today.   In the last episode we talked about why business fail:   Lack of a marketing plan  Missed market shifts  Ignoring the customer Lack of financial understanding Poor management Location  Motivation  Life’s distractions  Lack of planning  INTRO FOR PART 2 - RECAP THE ABOVE AND THINKING BIGGER AND W HY YOU WANT TO START A BUSINESS The first thing I want to talk about is    Thinking Bigger As you are thinking about starting a business, don’t think about something small to just pay your bills or starting something as a hobby while you raise your family. Think in terms of building something that you can be proud of, that you can expand, most importantly, that you can sell! Think in terms of how you will build a team, how you’ll grow so that it isn’t just you doing all the work all the time. There are a lot of companies that encourage you to grow your business by recruiting - that’s not what I’m talking about. Build a business where you own the business and the people on your team are your employees. While the network marketing concept works, I personally don’t think that is a good business model at all. You don’t have much control and it’s not a model that you can scale and sell! One day I’ll really talk about how I feel about network marketing and recruiting, but for this purpose, I want you to think about a team that supports you, that helps you to be more successful, that you can delegate to and have them expand your brand. Women who start businesses often have a smaller vision. Don’t get mad at me for saying that but after teaching this presentation for over 5 years, it’s something that I’ve witnessed firsthand. Women who start businesses often think about a business that is close to home and around their family and not something that is  scalable. I can’t tell you how many women want to start a baking or food business or a party business for kids. I’m not saying that’s a bad idea but after many of them have done their market research they realized that it wasn’t a business that they could really make a profit or build to sell.  Insurance is a little different. Since COVID, a lot of people have realized that they can run this type of a business virtually, but I’m not sure if that is sustainable long term. Good market research will help to prove that. There are so many different type of insurance businesses that you can start: i.e. an agency, a brokerage, an FMO, an insurance company, a captive, a direct writer. You can focus on life, health, personal lines, commercial, yachts, tech or international. Under the umbrella of insurance, you have a lot of choices! This is why you need a plan. I talk about having a plan all the time but remember fail to plan, plan to fail.  ADVERTISEMENT This episode of the business of  insurance podcast is brought to you by insurancemailbox power. Part of being a business owner is implementing systems and processes that can be automated as much as possible.  As you are planning your new business, you need to be thinking about your marketing. Insurancemailboxpower.com is a great platform for this. You can send post cards to prospects, regular cards to clients and referralpartners You can test the markets with just an investment of a few hundred dollars and send a mailing to a list of prospects.  When you start a new business if you are going solo, there are a lot of balls to manage at one time.  The more you can automate, the more time you will have for business development.  If you want to learn more, go to insurancemailboxpower.com. Sign up for your free 14 day trial and see how you can automate some of your marketing. Understand yourself better:  Why do you want to start a business?  This is the most important conversation you need to have. I mentioned it a little in the last episode, don’t go into business because you think you can do it better than someone else….unless you really can.  Here’s some reasons why people go into business: Create a career for yourself - while there is plenty of employment opportunities today in 2022, that wasn’t always the case. Back in the 80’s a lot of people went to college and couldn’t get jobs. When we went into lockdown with COVID and a lot of people lost their jobs, and the entrepreneurial type started delivering groceries and filling grocery orders.  People will find work when they need to. Starting an insurance business can be a great career - the question is, are you better as a business owner or as an employee or subcontractor to someone? Some people go into business because There’s a demand for what you are selling. Insurance is a product that people need, but not all people know they need insurance. Not all people want to spend the money for something they may never use. If you are connected to a few auto dealerships, it’s easy to get auto insurance from new car buyers.There’s a demand because people can’t drive their car off the lot without car insurance. If you are connected to some mortgage lenders, it is easy to sell homeowners insurance because people can’t go to closing without homeowners. I was speaking to someone recently who couldn’t understand why she had to pay money for automobile insurance all of her life and she’s never had an auto claim. Money spent for nothing is the way she looked at it. So while people need insurance, it’s not always an easy sell like a new iphone or a new tesla! Another reason people go into business is because you want to make a difference - wanting to make a difference can be a good reason to go into business, especially insurance, because you can really make a difference in this industry. But are you setting up your business to make a profit while making a difference? Just something to think about. An obvious reason why people want to go into business it to make money - when you work for someone else, they often determine your salary. If you are on a commission basis, then you will determine your salary but not all commission positions pay fairly. And not every position can be sales…..it’s a good reason to want to go into business, but it is also important to understand what it costs to get started and the ongoing business expenses of running a business. Money for marketing, taxes, general overhead can be more than you think. The expenses are ok so long as you are generating revenue, but there's a lot that goes into sales and business development! Travel - Many people go into business ownership to be able to work from anywhere. Since COVID, I’ve somewhat set my business up that way.  In the insurance business that is possible, especially with virtual meetings today but you need to make sure you are in compliance with state laws as you do this. You must also have a strong marketing plan in place where people can find you and send you business regardless of where you work. ABOUT THE HOST This episode of the Business of Insurance podcast is produced and hosted by Debbie DeChambeau, CIC, AAI, CPIA - an entrepreneur, business advisor, insurance professional  and content creator. Her goal is to inspire you to think differently and explore ideas that disrupt the status quo.  Debbie has an extensive business and marketing background with a focus of helping insurance professionals be more successful.  She is the co-author of Renewable Referrals and produces two other podcasts, Divorce Exposed and Seniors We Love.   Connect with Debbie on LinkedIn, Twitter or Instagram.  

WHY DO BUSINESSES FAIL? EP 66 - In this episode, we are talking about the top 10 reaosns businesses fail and what you can do to keep your business from failing. This episode is one of several episodes about how to get started in the insurance business. I’m not talking about becoming an agent, I’m talking to those of you that are thinking about starting an agency, an insurance company, or an an insuretech business. These are real issues to consider. It’s geared for those of you who are thinking about getting started or those that have started and are looking for ideas to build a better business. Every business has similar issues. It doesn’t matter if you are an insurance agency, a contractor or a tech company. If you are running a business you will have similar challenges. So before you open your doors, before you invest in the expansion, give some thought to these concepts and work through them before you take the next plunge!    So to recap reasons why businesses fail: Lack of a marketing plan - Before you open your doors, have a marketing plan - if you take nothing else from this episode, it should be plan, particularly having a marketing plan. Missed market shifts - are you entering an area that is shifting? Is this the time to be a flood expert? Is this the time to sell long term care? Is this the time to be a virtual office or to have a brick and mortar location?  What is your plan to provide great customer service? If you are a solo preneurer, can you handle 20 calls a day, do your accounting, quoting and marketing? While your clients must come first, it’s essential to have a plan to manage this Are you overexpanding before you are ready? How much more successful can you be if you just have one location? What do you know about your accounting?   What is your management style? Poor management is the fastest way to have high turnover and lose business. Are you a control freak? Are you meak and mild? If so, take a look at your management style. If you don’t have the skillset, takes some classes on how to effectively manage or hire a good manager as soon as you can. Location - Can you prospects find you? Does your office feel inviting? Do you need a location? Motivation - why do you really want to open your own business? Makesure you are doing it for the right reasons. Life’s distractions - do you have support if life gets in your way? What does that look like? Lack of planning - I mentioned that you need a marketing plan but you also need a business plan. It doesn’t need to be a 50 page document but you do need a plan. Something to track and measure your success. Would you take a trip without a map? It’s not different with your business.  Remember, FAIL TO PLAN, PLAN TO FAIL.    Remember, these are all just different reasons why businesses fail. Some of them you can’t predict and some of them with some adjustments you can easily course correct. Having a realistic plan will really help you to see great results.  I don’t want you to fail, I want you to succeed. But if you don’t have experience running a business, these are concepts you need to think about to increase your chances for success!  UNTIL NEXT TIME KEEP CREATING OPPORTUNITIES CHECK OUT OUR SPONSOR: insurancemailboxpower.com This is a mailing service I’ve been using for over a year now and I love them.  I send all of my birthday cards, thank you cards and marketing post cards from this platform.  My birthday cards are automated. I set it and forget it. The only thing I have to do when I add someone new is to put them into the automation series and the rest is done for me! I have marketing mailings scheduled for several months. I blocked out two days to set everything up and now I just watch the phone ring! Check out Insurancemailboxpower.com and see how you can stay top of mind with your clients and referral partners. Tell them Debbie DeChambeau sent you! ABOUT THE HOST This episode of the Business of Insurance podcast is produced and hosted by Debbie DeChambeau, CIC, AAI, CPIA - an entrepreneur, business advisor, insurance professional  and content creator. Her goal is to inspire you to think differently and explore ideas that disrupt the status quo.  Debbie has an extensive business and marketing background with a focus of helping insurance professionals be more successful.  She is the co-author of Renewable Referrals and produces two other podcasts, Divorce Exposed and Seniors We Love.   Connect with Debbie on LinkedIn, Twitter or Instagram.  

SET UP YOUR BUSINESS PROPERLY EP 65 - Today’s episode is one of several episodes about how to get started in business. Some of you might be working for someone now and thinking about going off on your own and some of you might just be entering the industry and doing so as an independent. If you are in either of these two categories or if you are someone that works with agents that are working independently, this episode is for you.  I started in this industry on the property and casualty side and quickly moved into commercial insurance when I started. Working with my dad, his personal lines clients were all starting their own businesses and they came to him for advice. We basically learned as we went along what we needed to do to help them. Fast forward 30 plus years, I’ve had many years of educating business owners about getting started. When I first started in sales, I got involved in teaching insurance to a local SCORE chapter. If you aren’t familiar with SCORE, it’s called Service Corp of Retired Executives. It’s a division of SBA, the small business administration which is a wealth of information for business owners, new and experienced. If you aren’t familiar with them, go to sba.gov to learn more. In this particular SCORE chapter, they did a 3 hour program for new business owners. The first hour was on accounting with a local CPA, the second hour was was legal, taught by a business attorney and the third hour was insurance, taught by yours truly!  The legal was mostly entity structures and contracts.  Since I went last, I always heard the lawyer’s presentation which is how I learned so much! Fast forward 20 years, I started volunteering with the Maryland Women’s Business Center and taught a class called The ABC’s of Starting a Business. This class was 4 hours and went over why businesses fail, entity structures and then the next steps to get started in business.  I taught this program for over 5 years. It was my ‘give back’ to the business community. I believe I educated over 500 new business owners in this program. The Women’s Business Center is also a division of SBA, like SCORE, so we have to work within their guidelines.   Today I’m sharing a segment of that class, on entity structures. I see so many agents asking about them in the different groups I’m in and I want to clarify things about these entity structures that is essential to understand, especially if you are thinking about going the DIY route. I don’t recommend DIYing this important segment of starting your business, but some people just want to save a few dollars and don’t care about the rest.  Before getting started, my advice to people is to always talk to both your CPA and your attorney.  Why? - Your situation is different than mine as is your risk tolerance. I can’t tell you what is right for you because I don’t know your situation. So when you take advice from someone in a FB group or a stranger, you are creating potential problems for yourself! Your CPA can guide you better from a tax perspective. Understanding if it makes sense financially to set up one of these entities and getting guidance on how to do it properly from a tax perspective. Make sure your CPA has experience dealing with business owners as well. Some CPAs just do taxes or audits and aren’t up on all the issues relating to business owners. You attorney will guide you from a legal perspective. Understanding the risks involved and how to create the proper documents, how to sign your contracts, how to handle multi states. All of these are essential if you are going to be in business for yourself. Make sure your attorney is a business attorney, not a criminal, divorce or personal injury attorney. Just like with the CPA, you want an attorney that focuses on working with business owners because they are usually more on top of the current laws around business owners and doing things properly. When I started in the business back in the 70’s we basically had 3 different entity structures to choose from. You were a sole proprietor, partnership or corporation. In the mid 80’s the LLC entity structure was beginning to emerge and it really began to pick up speed in the 90’s. Now an LLC common place. There are some variations of different entity structures like a PLLC or an L3C or a B corporation. So, knowing which entity structure is right for you depends. For today, I’m only going to focus on the sole proprietor, LLC and corporation.  Let’s start with sole proprietor - this is basically you the individual operating as a business owner. It’s your name trading as (T/A) or doing business as (DBA) your insurance agency. My first insurance agency was Debbie DeChambeau t/a The DLD Group. I was a sole proprietor when I set up my first agency in 1990.  Being a sole proprietor allows you to deduct your business expenses at tax time, but it does not provide any person legal protection.  You’ll get some protection from your general liability or your professional liability policies, but if you lose your case, you could also lose your house and all of your assets, depending on the court ruling. You’ll want to check with your state, but most states require you to complete a form with the state that you have created your business and you’ll want to get a tax ID number in the name of that business. Once you’ve done those two, then you go to the bank and open a business account and have all of your business income deposited into that account. You can have it deposited into your personal bank account, but that means you are mixing funds which can become an accounting problem, so it’s best to keep them separate and pay yourself when you need to. Again, your accountant can guide you through this better but these are the basics. If you decide to create a corporation, also known as the letters INC, then you are basically setting up a separate entity. I like to think of it as another person, and that’s the business. When set up and managed correctly, a corporation protects the personal assets of the stockholders, president, VP, etc, which is usually you, the business owner. When setting up a corporation, you create articles of incorporation, establish bylaws, appoint directors, have a shareholders agreement. These documents must be set up according to the laws of your state and include the right information about your business. When it comes to taxes, the corporation files it’s own taxes then the stockholders use that information on their individual taxes. This has long been a complaint of corporations, having to do the business return, then do the individual return. It’s where the term, ‘double taxation’ is often used. You might have heard the term, don’t pierce the corporate veil. This is a test if there is a lawsuit that would protect the stockholders and officers personally. It’s essential that everything is done correctly for that protection to prevail.  If you are in the commercial / business side of insurance industry, this is something you probably know well., Those of you in other areas of insurance, might have heard this in passing but never really understood it. If you are going ot be in business this is the one of the most important pieces you should understand By everything I’m referring to contracts, agreements, processes, etc. This is where your attorney can fill you in better, but bottom line, if you are going through the expense of setting up a corporation then it’s important to do everything correctly. Before I talk about a limited liability company, let’s hear from our sponsor: This episode of the business of  insurance podcast is brought to you by insurancemailbox power.com Part of being a business owner is implementing systems and processes that can be automated as much as possible. Let’s talk about onboarding new employees or team members, especially since we are talking about entity structures today.  In an era when a lot of business owners are struggling to find staff, how do you make a new employee feel welcome, make them glad they decided to work with you? Everyone wants to be recognized, so lets talk about how you could go above and beyond to make your employees really glad they are part of your organization.   Let’s start with day one - what if you have a coffee mug with their name on it, a box with brownies and popcorn to get them through the first week.  Maybe week 3 you send the employee a water bottle with their name on it and a card letting them know that you are glad to have them on board.  From there, you could set up a system that something is mailed to your employee every month or every other month. Maybe you send a gift card, maybe you send a phone holder, coasters or or a personalized notebook  When you have an account with insurancemailboxpower.com you can set this up and let it run for as long as you want to delight your employees. If you want to learn more, go to insurancemailboxpower.com. Be sure to indicate Debbie DeChambeau sent you. When you sign up for a pro or executive account, I’ll share some of my designs with you that have been generating results for me! Now, let’s talk about LLC’s An LLC is a limited liability company. Many people want to call it a corporation, but technically, it isn’t.  As I mentioned earlier, there were very few LLC’s prior to the mid 80’s. When they were first created, many businesses were hesitant to set them up because the corporate veil hadn’t been tested. Business owners were concerned if an LLC  would really protect them like a corporation. In the 90’s more and more states allowed them and now they are fairly common place.  An LLC designed to provide the legal protections like a corporation but the tax structure is different with an LLC, it’s similar to a sole proprietor.  An LLC can elect to be taxed as a sole proprietor, partnership, S corporation or C corporation. This is one of the reasons a lot of companies are attracted to the LLC. It’s also why it is essential to talk to your CPA about this. Some people think an S C

SMALL THINGS MAKE A BIG DIFFERENCE EP 64 - Todays episode was inspired by a recent CE class on Ethics. There were many great ideas shared, in a boring ethics class, but the tips I'm sharing today were from the discussion.  There was actually a list of 50 risk management tips and I've taken 10 of them and offered my thoughts on them from my own experience in the industry. States didn't always require ethics, it's only been a requirement for about 20 years. When I first entered the busines we didn’t have to take ethics. It’s a good refresher but it can also be boring!  I’ve titled this episode Risk Management Basics because you might find these ideas fairly basic. The reality is, someone new might not even know these things and a few of them it might take a few years before someone figures them out. Personally, I think they are essential, so if you are new, figure out how to incorporate them into your business and if you aren’t doing these things as an experienced agent, now might be a good time to start! Maintain All Licenses Understand the value of professional development Don’t promise more than you can deliver Verify Fax Transmissions Use Coverage Checklists Use Standardized proposals Checkall policies and endorsement for accuracy Document coverage rejections Avoid giving recorded statements Fire Bad Clients CHECK OUT OUR SPONSOR: insurancemailboxpower.com This is a mailing service I’ve been using for over a year now and I love them.  I send all of my birthday cards, thank you cards and marketing post cards from this platform.  My birthday cards are automated. I set it and forget it. The only thing I have to do when I add someone new is to put them into the automation series and the rest is done for me! I have marketing mailings scheduled for several months. I blocked out two days to set everything up and now I just watch the phone ring! Check out Insurancemailboxpower.com and see how you can stay top of mind with your clients and referral partners. Tell them Debbie DeChambeau sent you! ABOUT THE HOST This episode of the Business of Insurance podcast is produced and hosted by Debbie DeChambeau, CIC, AAI, CPIA - an entrepreneur, business advisor, insurance professional  and content creator. Her goal is to inspire you to think differently and explore ideas that disrupt the status quo.  Debbie has an extensive business and marketing background with a focus of helping insurance professionals be more successful.  She is the co-author of Renewable Referrals and produces two other podcasts, Divorce Exposed and Seniors We Love.   Connect with Debbie on LinkedIn, Twitter or Instagram.  

THERE IS MORE TO THIS INDUSTRY THAN MAKING MONEY EP 63 - Like teachers, social workers and doctors and nurses, you have the power to make a difference. This episode provides three examples of how people have benefited from having a solid insurance policy and an agent that will works for them. It also talks about a few situations where agents need to do a little more to protect the people they serve. CHECK OUT OUR SPONSOR: insurancemailboxpower.com This is a mailing service I’ve been using for over a year now and I love them.  I send all of my birthday cards, thank you cards and marketing post cards from this platform.  My birthday cards are automated. I set it and forget it. The only thing I have to do when I add someone new is to put them into the automation series and the rest is done for me! I have marketing mailings scheduled for several months. I blocked out two days to set everything up and now I just watch the phone ring! Check out Insurancemailboxpower.com and see how you can stay top of mind with your clients and referral partners. Tell them Debbie DeChambeau sent you! ABOUT THE HOST This episode of the Business of Insurance podcast is produced and hosted by Debbie DeChambeau, CIC, AAI, CPIA - an entrepreneur, business advisor, insurance professional  and content creator. Her goal is to inspire you to think differently and explore ideas that disrupt the status quo.  Debbie has an extensive business and marketing background with a focus of helping insurance professionals be more successful.  She is the co-author of Renewable Referrals and produces two other podcasts, Divorce Exposed and Seniors We Love.   Connect with Debbie on LinkedIn, Twitter or Instagram.    

STAYING FOCUSED ON A MONITOR FOR 8 HOURS EP 62 - This episode is about getting CE credits As a CIC, we are required to do annual updates and the classes are usually a deep dive into a topic that you won’t find elsewhere. I’ve done updates every year since 1992. In 2012 I did an update and received a certificate that I had been a CIC for 20 years. To my surprise that meant that I only had to do my CIC update every other year now, instead of every year.  This created CE issues for me because I need 24 hours of CE’s a year in my state and since the CIC updates are only 16 hours, I’ve been scrambling for a few years  to get my 24 in the allotted time. In the past, I just did my update every year and there were my CE’s. I never thought twice about it. Over the past 10 years, I’ve found myself scrambling at the last minute! Before COVID they were all in person.  It was great, you could go to Florida for an update, make a vacation out of it, learn something new, meet some new people and it was an experience, not something that was dreaded. Not everyone likes to travel, or to be out of the office for a few days at a time, so many people do their updates close to home. After doing them for so many years, you get to know a lot of the attendees and it becomes a little like old home week!  I’ve seen people I worked with in the 80’s, 90’s and even people I coached in my business development groups in these updates. One of my earlier podcast guests, Laura Bianchini, was scheduled shortly after seeing her at a CIC update! Listen to episode 8 Finding Your Niche   for that conversation! In my area, we had one instructor, Jerry Milton, who was a mainstay. He told a lot of jokes and stories around insurance, keeping  us entertained as we talked about business auto exclusions (I know, boring right) or is it an inland marine or business auto exposure! Sadly we lost Jerry a few years ago just after his retirement, but for anyone who’s older listening to this and has taken a few CIC classes, will remember Jerry. RIP Jerry Over the years, the CIC society has updated things a little bit, taking them from 2 ½  days to 2 days but always in person. The classes usually start at 8:00 am and end at 5:15, allowing 10 minute breaks in between and also an extended lunch break because the hotel restaurants often had difficulty feeding 400 people in 60 minutes!. During the morning session and the afternoon session they send around a form to sign that you are there….if you miss signing the form, you don’t get credit, so everyone is always watching out for the form. You never know when it is going to be passed around. If you had to get up and take a phone call or use the rest room, you could. If you needed to be out for more than 10 minutes, often you could get an ok from the educational coordinator. Basically if you weren’t there, they didn’t notice it! Last week with COVID, I did my first virtual CIC update. It’s also about time for me to renew my state license, so I needed to get 24 hours of CE’s. (or so I thought, but I’ll elaborate on that later) Since CIC updates are only 16 hours, I needed two different classes. I decided to do a basic update on life and health, thinking it would be a refresher but hoping they would talk about a few topics that I’m not as confident about (annuities and LTC). I cleared my calendar, no appointments, nothing to do for 2 days but watch my computer monitor and listen to someone talking. First, I need to say that I don’t really watch TV, so watching my monitor for 8 hours a day felt a little challenging. When I’m working, I usually have 20 tabs open, looking up something I don’t know or doing some other type of research to get answers to my questions. The thought of sitting at my computer for 8 hours was concerning but I had to get the CE’s. What caught me by surprise was the pop up quizzes. The three pop up an hour quizzes that apparently if you miss one, you don’t get CE’s. Seriously! Contrast this with the in person events where you can come and go to the facilities and still get credit but if you miss one pop up quiz you don’t get CE’s. I wasn’t liking that but I really needed my CE’s so I was determined to get through it, plus it was a topic I really wanted to know about. I made it through the first 4 hours before lunch and I heard the instructor say that several people hadn’t responded to the pop up questions so a lot of people were going to be disappointed when they found out that they weren’t going to get CE’s.  OMG, how did people miss them……I was (or thought I was) glued to the monitor. I wasn’t doing any work, I wasn’t talking on my phone. I didn’t have any background distractions. Heck, I even held off going to the bathroom until an assigned break. I did look at some of the handouts as they were referenced, which meant looking at a different monitor. But it was fairly close to the main monitor, so I thought I would see any pop up questions or a change in the screen.  ln my mind, I wasn’t (or so I thought)  I wasn’t one of those people.  But the instructors comment about missing the quizzes stuck in the back of my mind. Before I tell you what happened, I wanted to mention our sponsor, insurancemailboxpower.com This is a mailing service I’ve been using for over a year now and I love them.  I send all of my birthday cards, thank you cards and marketing post cards from this platform.  Depending on how many I send, I only have to pay for postage.  I’m using a plan that has unlimited postcards, both 4x6 and 5.5 x 8.5. All I pay for is the postage and I send a lot.  I am also in the process of setting up a birthday club. It’s a great way for me to stay in touch with people and have their birthday…..think about it…how many birthday cards do you get as an adult? Probably not that many and you probably remember the people that send you a card! Check out Insurancemailboxpower.com and see how you can stay top of mind with your clients and referral partners. Tell them Debbie DeChambeau sent you! Ok, back to my CE rant….. I made it through the first day but it was hard…..there might have been a moment or two where I started to day dream, after all, how much can you absorb about annuities and long term care in one sitting? Day 2 was a little better…at least the instructor made reference to the pop up or would pause in his talking so it was a signal to look at the monitor. Day 2 was about Medicare and Medicaid, which is what I do everyday, so listening to him, seeing if I could pick up a few new nuggets was easier. However, it is also easy to daydream when you could be the one teaching the class!  On Monday I received an email from the National Society that I did not answer all of the pop up questions and therefore I did not earn CE credits!  What! I was shocked. I’ve been doing my CIC update for over 20 years (actually 30 this year plus the 5 years it took to earn the CIC  designation) Not once did I not get CE credits when the classes were in person! How is it that my first virtual update and I don’t get any CE credits? Ugggggg I was pissed. I immediately sent an email back asking which pop up questions I missed. I think this virtual pop up system is flawed. I get that a lot of people will sign on, go play golf then come back and think they should get credit so they have to do something to  keep you honest.  But I think there should be a little grace in missing one or two or maybe 3 over the course of 2 eight hour days.  I feel bad for anyone that had something happen to their stomach and a child needed a glass of water and they missed the pop up question.  I’m sure I’m not the only one that hasn’t earned their CE’s because they missed a pop up…..but that stinks.  I did some serious soul searching after getting the letter. It was $500 down the tubes….I would never go to the casino and spend that kind of money, I hate throwing it away on CE’s!  Then I looked into my state account about how many credits I needed. How was I going to get 24 CE’s in less than 30 days? And how much more was I going to have to spend? In my state account, I knew I had a few credit hours because I took my LTC certification in 2021 and paid for the credits when I did my AHIP certification for Medicare. So I knew I had something and maybe didn’t need the entire 24.  Well, as I did this, good things began to appear that I either didn’t know about or I had forgotten.  For producers in MD that were licensed at least 20 years prior to 2008, you don’t need 24 credits, only 8. Ethics was 3 and then I needed a few for life and health and a few for P&C.  Whew….was I relieved. I have an ethics scheduled in a few weeks and am doing another CIC update with the society where I’ll get the rest of the P&C credit hours. Or at least I hope I will!. This next update is what the society calls their Mega - in the past it was a week long session of classes that you could take and pick the ones that were of interest to you. I did a MEGA about 8 years ago in Colorado and it was fascinating. This was right as Marijauna was being legalized in CO and one of the sessions was on issues employers faced with the legalization and the impacts with employment liability and workers compensation policies.  Another session I took back then was on cyberliability. That’s a topic that has always fascinated me. I remember them talking about a claim where a pizza restaurant had been fined over 50k for sending unsolicited texts messages as a marketing campaign. This was tied to the CAN SPAM ACT which I was well aware of from all the teaching I’ve done on email marketing with Constant Contact. I hate when I get unsolicited text messages knowing they are violating the CAN SPAM ACT. One day I’ll find the time to respond…but if you aren’t familiar with it, do your homework.  As usual, I digress! Since COVID, the Mega has pivoted to Virtual and different classes are now offered over the course of 12 months. So you can take 5 classes of your choosing. I took one yesterday on current eve

HOW TO PREP FOR YOUR FIRST NETWORKING EVENT EP 61 - IF YOU ARE NEW TO NETWORKING, THIS EPISODE IS FOR YOU. My name is Debbie DeChambeau, I’m your host, I’m an entrepreneur, business advisor, insurance professional  and content creator. I want to inspire you to think differently and explore ideas that disrupt the status quo.  When I’m not helping individuals with insurance, I facilitate business development groups. Before COVID, they were all in person. Today, they are all virtual. I facilitate 5 a week and have been doing this straight through COVID!  For years I’ve been told I’m a great facilitator, but transitioning the skills to virtual has taken some time. I think I’ve mastered it, but I’m always observing others and tweaking my skills. I create the agenda’s and because I’ve been doing this for so long and I’m a lifelong learner, I usually add some golden nuggets to help with the topic of discussion. Recently we had a discussion about networking and members were asked to share their best networking tip for someone new to networking. I’ve compiled them and added some commentary, hoping these ideas will help you become a better networker. If you’ve been locked down in COVID, if you are new to networking or if you want to be a better networker, I think you’ll appreciate some of these ideas. I’m going to share the tip that was provided and then add some commentary to help you understand the context and how you might incorporate the idea into your own style. For this conversation, let’s assume that you are going to an event that is specific for networking. It could be an event that has 10 people or 100, the number there really doesn’t matter. In my opinion, the number of attendees really doesn’t matter. If you are at the right event with the right people, you’ll get value. In preparation for this event, here’s a few tips that were provided: Networking is a long game and doesn’t happen overnight. Plan ahead what you want to get out of the meeting/ goals/ who are you looking to meet/ engage the other person and get to know them vs. them really getting to know you.  If you know who is going to be at the event, research 2-3 people that you really want to meet  Set a goal, maybe to meet 5 new people, force yourself out of your comfort zone  Try to diversify your network - don’t be afraid to network outside of your sphere Good reason to follow up with everyone! Plan time for follow up - need a plan for this Block time on your calendar  Connect on LinkedIn / Social Send an email Send a handwritten note Follow up with everyone  Go to the event alone - encourages you to step out of your comfort zone and to talk to people you don’t know. Key to networking is to network, don't stand in a corner alone Get there early, be one of the first ones to pick up the name / tag, there's a few people you know, just in case  Force yourself to just show up  Save alcohol and food for later Try different type of events at first to see what works best for you and what feels most comfortable - i.e. big events vs. small; lunches or happy hours  Initially,  you might go to every event, but afterwhile, you’ll need and want to be more selective about the events that you attend.  Understand who you are targeting and attend events that are focused on your target market  Have your intro prepared so that it sounds polished but not salsey. Have a simple 5-10 seconds/ 30 seconds and a 60 second intro prepared because you never know what amount of time you’ll be allotted.  15 second: My name is Debbie DeChambeau, I’m a medicare broker and I help people navigate the Medicare Maze 30 second: My name is Debbie DeChambeau, I help people navigate the Medicare maze by educating them on their options, answering questions and researching the best plans based on their lifestyle 60 second: My name is Debbie Dechambeau, I am a Medicare broker, working with people that are turning 65, retiring or on disability and in need of Medicare Insurance. I help people understand all of the rules around Medicare and also educate them on their options from original medicare to medicare advantage (you know, those Joe Namath commercials) and everything in between. This includes dental, vision, hearing and cancer. We talk about some of the things they can expect from Medicare and how to plan accordingly. Practicing your introduction NOT SURE WHAT TO TALK ABOUT? Think about the following: FORD - FAMILY, OCCUPATION, RECREATION, DREAMS Try to connect with people on a personal level. If you don't feel a vibe, you probably won't connect professionally Relax and let yourself off the hook. It’s about having a conversation that is hopefully memorable. Your conversations don’t have to be work related. Remember, the first meeting is a starting point. When you meet with someone that you already know,  ask them how you can help them  ask them to tell you something about what they do that you don’t already know. Be patient, know that it's not going to happen overnight, need to build the relationship; Before you get referrals, people need to know, like and trust you. One way to start that is to see what you can do to help someone else. Try to give more than you receive VIRTUAL EVENTS Virtually, put your contact information in the chat.  Save the chat, be sure to follow up

WHAT MARKETING TACTICS WERE EFFECTIVE IN 2021 EP - 60  When I first started this podcast, my plan was to focus on how amazing a career in this industry is. My business at the time was marketing, I helped companies attract new business. My goal was to work with insurance professionals and help them with marketing. Then, my mom got sick and I realized that it was time for me to get back into the insurance business. Ive been licensed for more than 30 years, but I took a detour…..and now I’m back in the insurance business, focusing on individual benefits packages, specifically for those on Medicare. I’ve been applying my marketing skills to my new insurance agency and the phone has been ringing off the hook. The busy season in this space is October 15 - December 7. It’s like tax season for accountants. You have a certain amount of time to help everyone! Honestly, it’s insane! Today I’m going to talk about my marketing experience last fall, what worked and what didn’t.  I’ll wrap up with my marketing focus in 2022.  TARGET AREA The primary area I focused my marketing efforts on was the eastern shore of MD. There’s a lot of farm area, a lot of retiree’s and as you get closer to water, there’s a few very densely populated areas. I want to work this market because I hope to purchase a home there soon and live there year round! I’ve been traveling this area all my life, but have never thought about living there until recently!  You could say that it’s new to me and I don’t know that many people there, so not only am I a new agency, I’m marketing in an area where I don’t know many people. Oh, and we are in the middle of a pandemic, in a state that is fairly conservative with masking and activities! My marketing plan for 2021 included the following: Worked at a retail store - Cost of $1500, but my FMO and upline each contributed $500 so my net cost was $500. Direct Mail - spent about $2000 on postage for  mailing postcards. The service I use does not charge for printing Speaking Events - educational events on Medicare - had a $5,000 budget to promote Referrals from clients - mailed a clever post card and asked people to tell their friends and family about me - postage cost included in direct mail THE FEELING OF OVERWHELM 3 weeks in, I began to panic…and for me, panic creates paralysis. Fortunately I found someone to step in and help me with a lot of the back end work, but training someone new in the middle of your busy season, isn’t the smartest idea. One thing I did that kept me so busy is that I put my calendar link everywhere so people could schedule meetings at their convenience. The concept was great,because it kept me from having to do the back and forth scheduling, but the problem was that I was booked from 8 am to 8pm with minimal time to go to the bathroom or get some food. My lesson learned was to modify my schedule somewhat to leave time in between meetings to finish up paperwork and take care of life’s necessities. When I originally set up my calendar, I blocked out the time I would be in the retail store, but not for everything else. Over the 10 week period of AEP, I ended up with over 150 prospects and wrote almost 100 new policies. That doesn't include my current clients who also needed reviews. So, let’s dive into each of the items on my marketing plan and discuss what worked and what didn’t.  WHAT WORKED? Worked at retail store - pay to be there, had to commit to 20 hours a week, table at the end of the cash registers (not a lot of privacy)  Build rapport When someone sitting with me, 3 people would stop; when I was alone, felt like having to reel them in -  Visible to everyone  Company branding, not my own; had table top posters, my laptop and mask said ‘ask me about medicare’ Not a lot of privacy - tried to schedule zooms Referrals from pharmacy Several employees purchased insurance Why it works at this retail store - near retiree community, not in the big city, biggest competition is TV ads, and people asking me what the ads were all about. Direct Mail I use a platform called insurancemailboxpower.com I get unlimited postcards, I just need to pay for postage and I get 250 free cards to send each month, again I just pay for postage.  insurancemailboxpower.com - bought leads; created postcard geared towards veterans Handful of calls - less than 10 - I’ve heard that direct mail wasn’t working as great as it had in the past. I think if I were going to try this again, 1) I would send 3-5 cards 2) it needs to be done more than one year 3) I think advertising workshops might work better than trying to get them to call me! Next year I think I’ll do another postcard mailing to current clients letting them know I’d be at walmart again and maybe a mailing to one community (in real estate they call that a Farm area) but I don’t think I’ll buy a lot of mailing lists or mail outside of one zip code. SPONSORED BY INSURANCEMAILBOXPOWER.COM REFERRALS Aside from Walmart where people could see me regularly, referrals is where most of my business came from. The referrals came from Financial advisors Financial advisors do reviews with their clients at the end of the year -when people are thinking about retiring, it is often at the end of the year which coincides with AEP - and November was the great retirement month - ironically I think November was dubbed the Great Retirement Month - where more people retired than any other month in history! My plan when I first started the agency in 2019 was to focus on marketing to referral partners. I had to get past the loss of my mom, but as I did that, I started setting up meetings with financial advisors, positioning myself as a resource and seeing success….then COVID hit and well, we know what happened there. I fell off the wagon of reaching out to referral partners and didn’t do much to build up any new relationships. That stopped January 1 as I’ve already started touching them and letting them know I’m here as a resource.   Another place where I was surprised to receive a lot of referrals was from a local list serve. Now, I must be honest, I have no idea how to get on this list serve, but two people posted about me over the past 12 months, and boom, it really made a difference.  One of the people that talked about me is someone that was is also a medicare agent. I had agreed to mentor her and show her the ropes, but after a few meetings, she decided the business wasn’t for her so when she hung up her hat, she started to promote me. She’d been promoting her husband who is a hairdresser on the list serve with great success, so when she wanted to thank me for the time I had invested in her, this is what she did.  A second person that offered to promote me on his list serve is someone I volunteer with at a local tennis tournament. We've worked together for several years as volunteers and last year he offered to promote me and boom, the phone just rang, rang and rang….. SPEAKING AT EVENTS This was going to be my number one tactic for marketing when I started over the summer  Luckily, I met a few wonderful agents who wanted to partner. I had tasks, they had tasks. We both met our obligations, except for execution. I got the funding for mailings, they got the venue, but we never got the mailer designed and sent - part of that was a carrier issue, part of that was my limited time - by the time we got the funding, it was early October - the events could have been anytime in October or November, but at that point I was slammed.  Needless to say I put a lot of energy into speaking events, only to not have one from October to December. To recap, most of my business in 2022 came from working at the retail store and referrals. referrals  from strategic partners, clients and list serves. It doesn’t matter if you are selling medicare, life insurance, boat insurance or high end homeowners. Figure out who can refer you business and build relationships with them.  Referral partners differ for different product lines. You just need to figure out who is ideal for you and start building relationships with them. I did an episode about referrals awhile back, it’s episode 6, so check it out if you want to learn more about building your referral business.  As the dust has begun to settle and I’m putting a bow on all of last years business implementing my marketing plan for 2022. My focus for 2022 is my referral partners. I plan to mail them once a month, send them items of value and make sure they feel loved. I want to be their go to partner for their clients with Medicare questions. We really never know what will work from one year to another, but outside of insurance, I have been teaching people how to build their business through referrals for over 20 years. I know what needs to be done and how to do it…… If I do another episode next year on what worked in 2022, I’m confident that I’ll have doubled my referrals from my referral partners. In addition to focusing on my referral partners this year, I’ll also do more public speaking and webinars. I believe it is a good way to get in front of people and let them know they shouldn’t be calling the 800 number! I plan to mail to my current clients and referral partners once a month this year and ramp up my webinars and my podcasts! Stay tuned for updates on the results I’m seeing! Until next time, keep creating opportunities.

CONTRACTS - DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE SIGNING? Do you know how it could impact your career? EP - 59 For this author, contracts are a sensitive topic. Almost a hot button. My major in college was law enforcement….I was facinated by reading case law, often which is developed because of contracts. As a Certified Insurance Counselor, that’s 90% of the training….what does the insurance contract say and how does it relate to what we as the agent do, what the insurance company does and what the insured does. Most people don’t ready the insurance policy very often and in and in a digital world, that contract is often sent in the middle several other emails and just gets filed….not like the piece of paper that we once received and put in a filing cabinet.  I’m a stickler for reading contracts and I think a lot of it is my background. As an insurance agent, you have a few important contracts that you are signing, and it’s important that you understand what you are signing where you put your signature could impact your career. For this discussion, I’m primarily going to focus on employment contracts, because that is what will impact you, the insurance agent, the most.  I’m at a place in my life that I won’t sign another employment contract. In my world, also known as a non compete.  Before I talk more about contracts, I want to introduce you to our podcast sponsor, Insurancemailboxpower.com. I’m so excited to have them as a sponsor and if you haven’t checked them out, please take a few minutes to go to insurancemailboxpower.com.  They’ve agreed to be the sponsor for a few episodes, so I want to provide you with ideas on how you can use this platform to grow your business. Since we are talking about contracts and potential new employees, let’s say you are the owner hiring someone new. You want to make the experience of working for your agency one that is welcoming, where the new employee is excited to come to work and be part of your organization. What if you send them a welcome packet before their first day, include a coffee mug with their name on it, include a greeting card that talks about how excited you are to have them on your team and you send them some brownies to get them through the afternoon slump! You could just do that or you could create a drip campaign for all new employees where you sent them some love every few weeks or months depending on your budget and what you feel is appropriate. Maybe you send them a gift card, a personalized pen (with their name on it) a personalized water bottle, game set or even some sweet treats. Insurancemailboxpower.com has a lot of gift items to choose from and they are adding more every week. What is really nice about this is that you can brand what you send with your company information but you can also personalize it with the employees name on it, you can automate the campaign so that once you set it up, you can forget about it. But you can send the goodies throughout the year and make your employees feel like  you appreciate them.  Go to Insurancemailboxpower.com to get your free 14day trial and tell them debbie DeChambeau sent you! Now, let’s get back to talking contracts When I first started in the industry, I worked for my dad and as a high school student, I don’t think he was worried about anything. Also, he was just learning the business himself, so an employment contract was the farthest thing from him mind.  I stopped working for my dad after about 10 years and the next agency I worked for hired me on as a CSR/Account Manager. I was responsible for servicing the accounts, I didn’t have much of a relationship with the clients, other than processing paperwork. I believe I had to sign an employment contract / non compete, but can’t remember. It was the next 3 agencies I  worked for that had me sign contracts and it’s something I’ll probably never do again.  The first contract I had to sign was when I was hired as a producer. Every producer had to sign one and honestly, I was so happy to have the position, so it wasn’t an issue. Until some things happened inside that agency that I couldn’t stomach any longer and I needed to leave. The issue was I had built a relationship with a lot of people that I was their insurance advisor, they counted on me for my advice and it had taken me awhile to earn their business. The document I signed said I couldn’t contact those clients for a certain number of years. This was pre internet, so they couldn’t find me as easily as they could today, but I know a few of them tried and did eventually find me. I still couldn’t write their business until the time had passed but they were not happy about that!, at all! And I felt I had lost some friends. When I left the first agency, I had an attorney review the contract so I had a full understanding of what I could and couldn’t do. Why did I invest the money into having an attorney review? Because I’m not an attorney, I know how to read the contracts but I don’t know the laws. I live very close to the MD/VA line. The employment laws between those two states are very different. ….Paying an attorney for one or two hours of service is much better than paying them to defend you in court if you are sued for violating the contract!  Contracts are real life. Employers have you sign them because they are serious about keeping their business. They will sue you if you violate them and then you will have to pay to defend yourself. Depending on how big the company you worked for is, could depend on how vigorously they pursue you….but they have deep pockets. You might not! The second place I worked for I thought was going to be a forever home, so again, signing the contract wasn’t as big of a deal, but I did have it reviewed by an attorney before I signed it and the attorney offered a few suggestions to help me modify their contract to make it a little easier on me. They gave up one or two items, but they weren’t anything of significance.  When I left the second agency, I again faced the same issue that I faced the first time...I had clients that trusted me, that wanted to work with me and that couldn’t because of my contract. The good news / bad news is that I had not written that much business with the second agency before I realized what a crazy business it was. I’m serious when I say crazy…..their staff punched a time clock and literally lined up 10 minutes before it was time to leave waiting to clock out at 5:00. No one gave any extra at that agency. It was like a ghost town at 5:05. Completely the opposite of anything I had ever seen in the companies I had worked for in the past.   On Fridays we started the 5:05 club with the producers because we were the only ones left in the office. The 5:05 club was our in house happy hour. We had some great beer tastings then! The one really good thing about that agency was its location. It was an hour away from my home, but it overlooked National Airport...many of you listening might know it as Ronald Regan Airport, right outside of Washington DC. I saw Bush Sr. leave office and learned that when a president leaves office, they take a helicopter ride around the Capital ...at least up until #45 they did this, I could see that from my office. I also saw the funeral procession for Jacquie Kennedy Onassis as it arrived at Regan Airport. It was a stunning view looking at the Potomac River! It was easy to leave that agency but it was hard to leave that view! When I left that crazy office, I started my first agency. While being my own boss had been in the cards since I worked for my father, it was a lot harder to get started then what someone starting today has to go through.  I had been offered a position with Nationwide Insurance as an agent, but their contract stated that I had to sell a certain number of life products in order to maintain my contract. My issue then as it would be today is that what if their product wasn’t the right fit for my client. I’ve clearly been on the independent side for too long, having access to all of the options that need to be explored for clients! What I remember saying since I started my own agency is that I would never sign an employment/non complete agreement again. I never want to leave the people who have built their trust with me because of a piece of paper. I don’t think I am unique with this feeling but at the same time, clients come and go. So it shouldn’t be the only driver in what we do but it definitely can have an impact.  There are a lot of industries that require their employees to sign an agreement, it isn’t just insurance agencies. I’m perfectly ok with it so long as it’s fair. There are some contracts that are very unfair and potentially worth fighting, if you have the resources. If you have listened to some of the earlier episodes, I talked about the business groups that I run in addition to running my insurance agency. For those of you who are familiar with BNI, my business groups are similar, but more about business development and creating opportunities inside and outside of your business. One of my members is a mortgage broker. After about a year of being a member, he decided he was going to start interviewing other lenders to work for because he wasn’t having a good experience with the company he’d been with for 15 years. He was very mythological with his interviews and narrowed it down to two companies. The one that he decided to join really impressed him. The CEO flew in to meet him and his wife for dinner, discussed how he could reach him personally if he had issues, confirmed everything that was discussed with respects to office, salary, benefits, etc. .Mike, the mortgage broker, signe the contract and was so excited to work for the new company. He had a new role, felt really comfortable, was transitioning his business then we went into lockdown. Then the new business he brought to the new company wans’t getting processed. He was told 60-90 days before he could get anything done. At his old company he was gett

EP 58 - A Business Needs Prospects To Grow  What is the best way to find them? Is there a magic formula? That’s what we’ll be exploring in this episode of The Business of Insurance Podcast. If you are responsible for business development in your firm, then this episode is for you. In many of the insurance groups that I’m in, the one topic I see the most discussion around is marketing. It’s one of those aspects of being in business that people need to know about, because without some sort of marketing, there won’t be any business coming in the door to pay the bills. In the insurance industry, there are some people talking like the’ve discovered America, when in fact, a lot of ideas have been happening for decades. Sometimes they are given a new name, sometimes there’s a new spin  on how to deliver, but bottom line, there’s not a lot that’s new in marketing in the past few years.  If you are new to owning an insurance business, it might seem new to you, but most things that people are doing in marketing today have been around for at least 10 years and longer.  With that being said, technology is constantly changing therefore how we implement our marketing is always evolving. Adding marketing to your  business with success is another story.  I think it’s important to say that marketing and sales are two different things. Marketing is the tactic to bring awareness and for getting the phone to ring, sales is getting someone to give you their credit card or payment information. Sometimes they are considered one, but in my opinion, they are two different skill sets. One person can and sometimes needs to do both, but without marketing you might not have any sales. You’ve heard me say this in other episodes, but you need a marketing plan and you must watch out for the shiny object syndrome. If you aren’t familiar with the shiny object syndrome, it’s when you hear of a new idea and want to implement it, without exploring if it will work with your current marketing plan. Let me explain a few concepts: Understand that a marketing plan, ,also known as a marketing strategy (see I told you some things just get a different description but they mean the same thing) - but a marketing plan is something you create to implement and measure. It’s a road map. It shows what you want to do and when and how to get people to notice your business.  Let’s just say that you are creating a marketing plan. In your marketing plan, you might decide to focus on referrals. Included in your plan around referrals would be the types of referrals you are going to develop - maybe you’ll create some mailings or a system to get them from current clients, maybe you’ll implement a plan to go to different networking events to meet new people, maybe you’ll implement a plan to reach out to CPA’s and develop relationships with them in hopes of getting referrals. Each of these ideas around referrals is a tactic, but you need a plan to make sure you get those referrals.  If I were to ask you how you were going to get new business and you said referrals, that’s great but how are you going to do that? That’s where your marketing plan comes into play. Let’s break down the three ideas I just gave you, referral from clients, referrals from networking events and referrals from strategic partners like CPA’s and bankers. If you want to get referrals from clients,  you might want to print cards that say The Greatest Compliment I could ever receive is a referral from you, my client. You might decide that with every new client you get, you send this card to them 2 weeks after the close of business.  Maybe you will also send a postcard 6 months after you get each new client reminding them how much you appreciate their business and that you are never too busy for their referrals.  With this one idea -you need to design the piece or pieces, have it printed and then establish a system for them to get mailed.  You also need to establish a tracking method so that after 12 months you can see if it was successful.  You also want to make sure you block time on your calendar to revisit it after 6 months to see how consistent you’ve been at executing your plan just for getting referrals from your clients.  It’s great to create a plan but if you don’t execute it, if you aren’t evaluating the data, you are kinda wasting your time! Now let’s talk about using networking as a way to generate referrals Will you join organizations? Which ones? Trade associations, local chambers, community groups?  Will you get involved?,How much time will that take and do you have the resources to manage it,  How many events a week or a month will you attend,  What follow up plan will you have for the people you meet after attending those events and  How will you measure your success? As you can see, creating a plan can be involved. In my opinion, the more detailed it is in the beginning, the more you will see and you can measure the success. I’ve brought up measuring your success a few times already in this episode. It’s important. There’s a saying in the marketing world...if you aren't measuring, you aren’t marketing. I think it is very appropriate for business! Before I talk about another term that is essential in marketing, I want to introduce you to our podcast sponsor. They actually tie in nicely with what we are talking about today as they are another marketing idea for you to explore in your business. The concept isn’t new, but it’s a new platform to help you personalize, automate and stay top of mind with prospects and clients. It’s called Insurancemailboxpower.com.  It’s a card, post card and gifting platform with a built in lead development system. Today we’ll talk about the birthday card feature. What if you started sending birthday cards and half birthday cards to all of your clients, friends and referral partners? You can put their name on the front and the inside, insert your signature and also brand the card with your contact information on the back! There’s no ‘hallmark’ on the back or anyone else's information….just yours or whatever you choose to put there., I like to put my logo, web address phone number and tag line on the back as another message branding my company.  When you go to insurancemailboxpower.com, you can get a free 14 day account and utilize all of the products available. Put $10.00 on to your account for postage and send a few cards to yourself so you can see the quality! They have a ton of online training available so you don’t have to feel lost when you sign up . Check out Insurancemailboxpower.com and see how you can stay top of mind with your clients and referral partners. Tell them Debbie DeChambeau sent you! Now another term to be familiar with is marketing tactic.  A  tactic might be the networking piece I mentioned above, maybe it’s email marketing, direct mail or just door knocking. The tactics are the items in the plan that bring awareness to your business and hopefully make the phone ring.  Here’s where things fall apart and this isn’t just for insurance professionals, this happens to a lot of people and businesses.It’s a big reason why people hire coaches! This is what is known as the shiny object syndrome. Did you jump on clubhouse when it was all the buzz? Did you jump on tik tok with videos. If they were in the plan you created, great. But I’m guessing if you said yes to jumping on Clubhouse, it wasn’t really part of your plan, there was just a lot of buzz about it and you didn’t want to miss out. Maybe you went back and modified your plan, which is perfectly ok, but hoping on and saying your business need s a presence there is what I call the shiny object syndrome.  I’ve been teaching about social media since 2005. First We talked about LInkedIn, then Twitter, then FB. Then Instagram, Mixed in there was get on YouTube,your website needs to be mobile friendly, get online reviews, buy online advertising. I’ve talked about and taught about all of these over the years. The reality of it is, if it’s not part of your plan, you don’t need to jump on. Maybe you evaluate it to see if it make sense but don’t jump on just to jump on. If you have plenty of business, if you have extra dollars to throw at it and you have a lot of extra time, then be my guest, but most people aren’t in the position to throw a lot of dollars or time at something with no plan.  There are things going on in the insurance industry that some people think are new and trendy but honestly, they've been thriving in other industries and they are just catching on in the insurance industry. So let's talk about what's been around for awhile. Podcasting Email marketing  Referrals Direct mail Advertising Creating events  / Speaking for leads Trade show booths Writing a book Developing Courses You tube Video Social media -groups The new kid on the block I’ve talked about a lot of these tactics in different episodes of The Business of Insurance podcast and I’m sure we’ll talk about them more in the future! When it comes to marketing your business, I caution you about trying to do everything on your own. When you have a lot of time and not a lot of money, it might make sense to do this, but you have to pay attention to the ROI.  Honestly, if you are in business, you must think like a business owner. The business owners that see the most success are the ones that can delegate. Do you need to know how to create a podcast….it won’t hurt, but think about how long it will take you. Researching equipment, sound strategies, editing, promotion, and the list goes on. Hiring someone to do it for you will get it done faster; do you need to know how to create email campaigns? It won’t hurt, but  you could be attending a networking event or making 10 prospect calls in the time it would take someone else to create the email for you.  If you are new to the business and working for yourself, please take some classes on how to run a business. Your local SBDC, SCORE and WBC are great resources. Go to SBA.gov

EP 57 Continuing Education for Insurance Professionals. I know, it’s a boring topic, but I hope to get you thinking outside the box today. Many of you listening might already be doing this, but let’s get more people heading this direction. Welcome to another episode of the Business of insurance podcast My name is Debbie DeChambeau, I’m the host of this podcast, I’m an entrepreneurer, business advisor, insurance professional  and content creator. I want to inspire you to think differently and explore ideas that disrupt the status quo.  Todays episode is for everyone in the insurance industry, but if you are dealing with clients or helping to train insurance agents, this episode is especially for you.  You see, getting into the insurance industry is fairly easy. You take a test, get licensed with a carrier or broker and start selling or working.  Most people say the license test doesn’t really cover what is needed for the types of policies you will offer as an agent. In my opinion, that statement is 100% correct. It just covers the basics and even covers some things that many of us will never use in our insurance career. But we need to know them for the test. Once you get licensed in the insurance industry, you need to update your license every year or two or three, depending on the state you are in. For many people, they just go online, find a course that they can get the proper number of hours and are done with it until next time. It’s an afterthought for many, just doing what they have to do to get by.  We are all busy, I get it.  In addition to barely getting annual CE’s in, there are many licensed agents that don’t have a dual license, they only have the original license. For example ….. someone that started with a life and health license never gets the property and casualty license. Do they need to???? NO!  But here’s why I think it’s important to have both. You need to position yourself as an advisor to your clients, not think of yourself as a sales person. The insurance industry has a bad reputation, and in some ways well deserved. It’s too easy to get in to the business….but if you are in the business to do the right thing for your clients and not just make a sale, then you will position yourself as an advisor, a risk manager. Someone that is looking at all aspects of insurance protection so that your clients understand their options. If you only have one license, it can make it hard to expand your conversation.  It’s hard to position yourself as an advisor because you don’t know what you don’t know. Just like your clients don’t know what they don’t know. With the internet, people have the opportunity to learn more, but there’s also a lot of misinformation on the internet and it’s our job to help our clients understand. That’s what we get paid for!  A lot of people get their licenses and then consider themselves an independent agent and open their business doors. The licensing class is what they have to run their business! Minimal product training…., minimal industry training...minimal business training. There’s a big learning curve in the industry and most people don’t realize that until they are in the middle of it.  While it sounds so great to be on your own, working alone adds additional challenges to learning the technical components of the industry in addition to learning how to be a business owner. It becomes a ‘hope and pray strategy’ that they are doing things correctly. In the back of their mind they know they have E&O and think they are good. For this reason, I think it’s important that you expand your education and think about getting some additional certifications such as  CIC, CPCU or CRM on the property and casualty side to a CLU, CHFC or even a CFP for those with a life and health license. BREAKDOWN OF DESIGNATIONS:  CIC - Certified Insurance Counselor - geared towards the property and casualty independent side - takes a dive into policy forms and provides a lot of real life examples CPCU - Certified Property and Casualty Underwriter - like the name says, it’s geared towards the property and casualty side - has historically been pushed on the carrier sde, particularly for underwriters CRM - Certified Risk Manager - there’s a version for commercial and a version for personal lines. I think we could all benefit from understanding risk management.  CLU - Chartered Life Underwriter - it’s the life/health equivalent of the CPCU CHFC Chartered Financial Consultant - geared towards financial consultants who are more on the life and health side - CFP - Certified Financial Planner - also geared towards financial planners  but more on the investment side - encouraging them to take a risk management approach for helping their clients, not just focusing on investments. My husband obtained his CFP shortly after 9/11. It was a time when the market was down and a lot of people didn’t want to talk about investments, so I actually encouraged him to pursue it because I knew the value long term of how it could help him. While I didn’t get the Cruts and Crats portion, I did review the property and casualty portion and could see it was in-depth and valuable. This is showing my geeky side, but I really enjoyed doing some of the reviews with him as I learned a lot for my own practice. This is a high level overview of some of the designations. Do some research to see what makes the most sense for your career. There are many other designations, and new ones are popping up all the time - for example, the CPIA which is the Certified Professional Insurance Agent which is for all agents, and focuses on sales processes, ethics and marketing using insurance as the platform. I earned the CPIA designation about 4 years ago and CiC designation  more than 25 years ago…. With the CIC designation, I have to complete a minimum of 16 hours a year doing an approved update so that I can keep using the designation. Yes, every year I have to update my designation by taking 16 hours through programs with the The National Alliance which is the organization that manages the CIC, CRM and many other designations. For this particular designation, you have to do the update before your birthday each year. I always try to take the sessions that are new, trendy, innovative, because a lot of them are the same and are repeated frequently.. For example, I was fascinated by cyber liability sessions back in the mid 2000’s. Not enough businesses have cyber liability today and in light of recent hackings, they are probably more aware of it now than ever. So those people that paid attention to cyber liability years ago should be crushing it now! That combined with a good risk management strategy can open a lot of doors and set agents apart from the pack. In a recent CIC update, I took the medicare and medicaid session. Now,I’ve done that many times. I admire the instructor a lot. I took a session with him back in 2012 or 2013 and he blew me away. It was right  after the Affordable Care Act had been passed and he read the 2000 plus  pages of the document and taught us what we needed to know. We were talking about aspects of the ACT  before anyone. I digress…..The recent sessions I took were around medicare/medicaid and long term care and different uses of life insurance. I’ve taken several of this type of session many times over the years and I always learn something new. For example, this time I learned about the new hybrid life and long term care policies. Yes, insurance companies have finally figured it out!  What I always find interesting in these sessions is how many property and casualty agents know very little about life and health. These are agents that have been around for awhile. Many of them do this particular session because they are thinking about retiring in a few years and feel like it’s time to start learning.  Think of all the missed risk management opportunities with their clients because they didn’t know what they needed to know. Now, I would guess the same would apply to a life and health person sitting in on a property and casualty class but it’s like the hands are in front of their face saying, no, I don’t want to know about this. It’s too overwhelming and my brain can’t handle it! I’m not saying you need to be an expert...because I do believe in focusing on one area. But you need to know a little bit...you need to know enough to ask a few questions that could lead to an introduction to someone on your team.  Imagine writing car insurance for someone for 10 years and in year 11 they passed away. They left behind a wife and 3 children under 10…..and no life insurance. You talked to them every year updating their car information but because you focused on car insurance, you never asked them about life insurance. You were their trusted advisor……. In this scenario, you probably wouldn’t get sued for not asking about life insurance, but there are circumstances that if you don’t address certain issues, and then there is a loss, you could get sued.  As an insurance professional, it is to your benefit to position yourself as a trusted advisor. To take the sales notion out of it and make sure your client is aware of what insurance products are available to protect them. It’s important for them to know what is not covered, just as much as it is important for them to know what is covered.  Don't make any assumptions.  I also offer this from first hand experience. You see my sister passed away at the young age of 36. She wasn’t sick, she just didn’t wake up one morning. She left behind 4 children. One under 5, one under 10 and 2 teenagers. She stayed home and did daycare. Her husband worked but they counted on her income as well. Plus, her staying home meant they didn’t have any daycare expenses. When she passed, there was no life insurance. Financially, he was devastated. He lost her in come and had to pay for daycare, so it was almost a double whammy from the financial perspective. I was / am an insurance agent. I never talked to the

EP 56 - Are You Leveraging The Mailbox For Marketing? Are you taking advantage of snail mail to stand out? Birthday cards, holiday cards, postcards and even newsletters can be sent through the mail and have a big impact on your marketing efforts. Here’s an overview of what we discuss in this podcast episode. Holiday Cards There are many types of cards that you can send. If you want to stand out, consider these types of cards Seasons Greetings, Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas Thanksgiving Cards Happy New Year Cards Birthday Cards Some of your clients don’t have their birthday recognized by anyone, getting one from you could be a wonderful gift and a great way to stand out. Send to  Clients Strategic partners Automate sending birthday cards: Email birthday cards - Constant Contact   Snail Mail cards using a new service called Mailbox Power Newsletters My audience is over 65, they appreciate having paper to read while reading morning coffee and not being attached to an electronic device all the time. Sometimes, it is nice to read things that aren't online and getting distracted by what can happen online.  Avoid the rabbit hole Postcards Tips for healthy living Best practices Recipe’s  Outdoor exercise tips Hand Written Note Cards Try to send one hand written note card a day. Make it a challenge for yourself Stay top of mind with your referral partners Referral Thank you card ideas Send 4 cards a year to referral / strategic partners Holiday Heart Healthy, something to get through the winter Welcome to Spring 4th of July Halloween Create Systems so that the activities don’t slip through the cracks. Use a CRM, an excel spreadsheet or a calendar to keep track of your note card activity and contacts. SHOW THE LOVE If you haven’t done so already, please like or subscribe to this podcast on your favorite podcast player. We are on all of the platforms where you listen to podcasts including spotify, IheartRadio and Apple podcasts. We’d love a review on apple podcasts. SPONSOR This episode of the Business of Insurance Podcast is sponsored by Lynn Michel Insurance. Do you know someone turning 65 that needs help with purchasing Medicare insurance? Let Lynn Michel be your business partner. They’ll take care of your client and make you look good in the process.  Lynn Michel Insurance, LLC 301-996-2328 Lynnmichel.com Connect with them on social media  Facebook, LinkedIn,  Twitter CONNECT WITH THE PODCAST ON SOCIAL FACEBOOK GROUP FACEBOOK PAGE TWITTER ABOUT THE HOST This episode of the Business of Insurance podcast is hosted by Debbie DeChambeau, CIC, AAI, CPIA - an entrepreneur, business advisor, insurance professional  and content creator. Her goal is to inspire you to think differently and explore ideas that disrupt the status quo.  Debbie has an extensive business and marketing background with a focus of helping insurance professionals be more successful.  She is the co-author of Renewable Referrals and produces three other podcasts, Business In Real Life and Divorce Exposed and Seniors We Love.  Connect with Debbie on LinkedIn, Twitter or Instagram and Clubhouse @dldechambeau SPECIAL CREDITS Special thanks to Mihir Celly for editing this episode  

EP 55 I PASSED MY EXAM NOW WHAT? Life and Health This is the second part of our series on career opportunities in the insurance industry.  The focus is on the opportunities available to you as a life and health insurance agent. If you passed your property and casualty exam, be sure to listen to episode 54 where I talk about some of your options with that license. Life and health are completely different industries inside of the insurance world and both offer several options. So many people think insurance is all about sales. While it is definitely a component of the industry, there are a lot of other areas where you can work and not do sales. T For example, there’s underwriting, accounting, claims, and I’ve heard one of the departments that makes a lot of money is the actuaries. So if you are a numbers person, it’s something to consider! LETS EXPLORE LIFE OPTIONS DIRECT - Mass Mutual, Northwestern, Prudential - I’m sure there are others but these are some of the bigger names that people recognize Northwestern has a great internship program - Sean, Bob Quinn, Josh The positions I mentioned above from being an underwriter or doing claims would also be available with these types of companies. CARRIER - Another area on the carrier side is selling products to other agents. A very good friend of mine worked for Hartford for many years. He started just out of college.  His role was to work with independent property and casualty agents and help them help their clients. Ironically, when he first started with Hartford, my dad was his first agent client. It’s how we met. He went on to be one of the national leaders with Hartford before retiring. My friend has now started his own off shore insurance company and I hope to bring him on as a guest at some point because I’m really not clear what he’s doing today, but know he’s doing well!  SIDEBAR -except it just goes to show you that the opportunities are unlimited. INDEPENDENT - like the property and casualty agent, you can also be an independent life insurance agency, where you focus on selling life insurance products or some of the other products that I’m going to discuss in a minute. As a solo, you can go to an MGA or other broker that will help you get contracts without production requirements.  Think about approaching a small P/C agency and working with them with life and health. Many P/C people run from Life/health so this could be a win win for both of you! ANCILLARY - Other products that we often think of life insurance professionals selling are term insurance, whole life, final expense. long term care, and a hybrid life/LTC. LTC isn’t really a life product, but the hybrid version today is very exciting in my opinion and worth exploring as an agent.  There’s a lot of cool things you can do with life insurance. I’ll be honest, I’ve always been a basic life insurance agent, not selling anything too sophisticated, but there is a lot that can be done in this arena.  Once I brought my friend from the Hartford on an appointment to see one of my government contractors. He was talking about some sophisticated life insurance planning techniques to help the two business owners. They were talking on the same page although I must admit, I was a little lost in the conversation. There is so much that can be done with life insurance, it’s not just a straight term or whole life sale.  The more assets someone has, the more fun putting together life insurance policies can be because there’s more to work with! WHAT CAN YOU DO WITH HEALTH INSURANCE? GROUP - independent agent, work for a company like Kaiser Generally group health is for businesses. Similar to the last podcast episode when I talked about business insurance. Obviously, if you have a group, it’s a group of employees that work for the company.  2-50 50 and above INDIVIDUAL - this can be a tricky business, but there is a career here. The ACA is different in many states and many states have plans that work around the ACA. Sadly, there is not a lot of commission with the ACA plans and there is also certification, which can scare many people away! The money for you as an agent is earned when you can cross sell products such as dental, life and cancer. During the COVID pandemic, a lot of people are losing their group health insurance, so there is a lot of demand for individual health insurance plans. While they might not be able to afford other insurance products during the pandemic, if you take good care of people, when they do get back to work, they’ll be prospects for other insurance products then! MEDICARE - this is where I am today. I must admit, I love this part of the business, but there’s a lot to it. For one thing, if you want to sell medicare advantage and prescription drug coverage plans  you have to take an annual test called AHIP and you have to re-certify with each insurance company each year to sell and get renewal commissions. With many of the tests, you only get 3 tries and you have to get a 90% or better each time. Honestly, that can be nerve wracking and stressful. And the commissions aren't huge. But there’s a demand for the products and you won’t find someone on every street corner selling medicare like you might with car or life insurance. Most seniors need some sort of dental, vision and hearing plans as well as cancer insurance. When you can sell these products, your commission increases significantly and that’s where the business can be attractive. Medicare is highly regulated with a lot of rules and regulations. For some people, that can be a deal breaker for a career. The opportunity to help people is something I really enjoy so it’s why I love the industry so much. There’s also what we call ancillary products - these would be things like cancer insurance, dental and vision and hospital indemnity policies. Depending on the state and situation, there are many options for these. You probably wouldn’t want to just sell one of them but when packaging them with a life policy or health policy, you are really helping your clients and making some money at the same time.  There are career opportunities for each of the type of products mentioned, You can find positions on both the agency and carrier side. You’ll need someone to design the products, market them whether you are marketing directly to the consumer or marketing to other agents. Underwriting Claims Customer Service Technology How do you know who to work for? Finding the right fit isn't always easy! Most organizations are ethical and work above board, but there are some bad companies out there. Some are known as multi level marketing type companies. They’ve been around awhile and I don’t think it’s a good option, but ...I”m just going to leave it there. Do your research, talk to other agents outside of the company and get their input before putting your heart and soul into them. One of the most important things you can do as an agent is to look at the financial ratings of the companies you represent or work for. If they are struggling financially, do you really want to sell their life insurance policy? What if they aren’t around in 10 years to pay claims on the people you were trying to protect. If an insurance carrier has financial difficulty and can't pay claims, the State Insurance Departments are the back up system. As an agent, it’s not something your clients should have to deal with. This is where integrity is important and you don’t sell insurance just for the commission, you sell the insurance because it is the right thing for your client. You need to understand what is covered, what isn’t covered, what the rate history has been and you should always look at the financial ratings before presenting a product to a client.  I can’t stress this piece enough. I said this for the property and casualty side, but if you try something and find you don’t like it, there are so many other options to consider in the insurance industry. Don’t give up on this career path because the first job or the first boss didn’t work out! Pick one area, learn it and learn it well. Become the expert in the area then move on to something else.  Remember, there is a lot to insurance. It’s not simple and black and white. So many people really don’t give it a chance and so many people really don’t understand what is involved.  Most people don’t choose insurance as a career, most people fall into it. I encourage you to make it a choice as a career.  I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. This episode of The Business of Insurance podcast is brought to you by LynnMichel Insurance. Lynn Michel is an independent insurance agency helping seniors with their medicare benefits from medicare advantage to prescription drug and medicare supplements. If you have someone that needs help and this isn’t your area, please connect with Lynn Michel Insurance. They won’t take your clients from you, their goal is to help you look good! In the US, October 15 - December 7 is annual enrollment period for those on Medicare. If you know someone that is over 65 and currently receiving Medicare benefits, this is the time for them to review their plans and see if there is a new plan that makes more sense for them. During this time, medicare recipients are bombarded by mailers and commercials, so please encourage them to talk to a professional and review their options. If the professionals at Lynn Michel can’t help them, well refer them to another professional that can! If you aren’t focused on the medicare market, let Lynn Michel Insurance be your resource. Check them out at lynnmichel.com or connect with them on social.  That wraps it up for this episode. I hope you’ve taken away a few ideas that you can implement. If you like what you’ve heard, please subscribe but more importantly, please tell a friend or a colleague about the podcast.  Until next time, keep creating opportunities. SHOW THE LOVE If you haven’t done so already, please like or subscribe to this podcast on your fa

EP 54 - I PASSED MY EXAM NOW WHAT?  Property & Casualty The topic in this episode is a suggestion from one of the apple podcast reviews (iTunes). I’ve also heard from people that are just studying for their test, so I thought I’d create an episode to give you some ideas for your next steps. Even if you have been in the industry for a while, you might listen as a refresher or share with someone you are mentoring.  If you are in sales or thinking about going into sales, I’ve included a few extra nuggets for you towards the end. Since the core of this podcast is why the insurance industry is a great place for a career, I thought I’d take the question and offer some ideas. If you are listening to this and have other ideas, let me know and if I get enough of them, I’ll put together another episode on the topic. I passed my exam, now what Did you get your license before you were hired? Congratulations, a lot of people don’t do this, they get their license once they’ve been hired. I know some investment firms hire you and give you the first 90 days to get your license completed. That will put you behind the 8 ball because those 90 days could have been used for prospecting, and a good sales person will understand this. If you are someone that has chosen a career in insurance, getting licensed is the first step. No matter what direction you go with your career, it’s a big learning curve. The licensing portion is only the basics. A lot of what you learn in the licensing process is not what you will be dealing with in the real world. If you are headed into sales, you need to focus on the sales process first, but I would recommend that you take some other classes about 3-6 months into your career to expand your knowledge. Work towards a certification. It will set you apart from those that haven’t furthered their education,  many but more importantly, it definitely expands your knowledge base. It’s often a way to fast track the OJT. One little nugget Share about your license. Over the years I’ve seen many agents trust their employer with handling their license, from making sure they renewed it to making sure their CE’s were completed. The agents just went about their day to day duties until one day they realized their license had expired or they didn’t do their CE’s and then chaos sets in. My suggestion is that you stay on top of when you need you do your CE’s and your renewal and that you process your license renewal, don’t let your agency or employer be responsible for this.. You worked hard to get your license and you don’t want to take any chances.  Over the years I’ve had a few friends lose their license because they thought their employer had taken care of things, and they didn’t! Nobody wants to go through the licensing process twice! Now that you are licensed, let’s talk about working in the property / casualty side of the house.  CAREER OPPORTUNITIES For today, we'll focus on the agency side of things, not the insurance company side. Most insurance company personnel don’t have to have their license because they aren’t selling anything. At least that is what I think. I’ve never worked on the carrier side, so if I’m wrong, I know someone will correct me and I’ll update the show notes! On the agency side you work for a Direct Writer or an Independent Agency  Personal lines - protecting cars, homes, trucks, motorcycles, campers, boats, You might provide insurance for special art pieces or airplanes, you might need to protect their household staff or international travel needs. Depending on the market you live and work, some of these accounts can be over $10,000 and I’ve seen them over $100k. Some agencies have high net worth divisions that focus on the individuals that have a lot of assets that need protecting. Commercial lines - this is primarily business insurance. Look around you at where you eat, your gym, office buildings, amusement parks and contractors. Special events, franchises and medical facilities all fall into this category. In my opinion, it’s good to specialize in something. If you’ve listened to other episodes,  you’ve heard me say that I specialized in construction contractors when I was selling. At one time I knew every electrical contractor in town because of a special program we had.  Here's how unique the business can be: I heard a really cool story recently and it's how you can make insurance as interesting or as boring as you want. A friend of mine, also an insurance agent, has a client that does a big convention every year. All I know is that it is really big and it makes the client almost 90% of their annual revenue. Each year, they purchase event insurance. This year, as the agent was negotiating the coverage and premium, he kept asking for more coverages. The premium got up to close to $200k for this event.  Since the premium was so high, the agent started asking for everything to be thrown in to be covered. Even pandemic insurance! Not having any clue that we’d be having a pandemic. The policy was written last fall so the pandemic wasn’t even on the radar. His client's event is cancelled. The client is going to receive close to $40 million dollars because of what the agent negotiated. While this is an abbreviated version of the story, it’s an example of a few things in the industry that you’ll learn over time. One, everything is negotiable, you just need to know what to ask for, Two, every risk is different which makes the business so interesting. Whether you are dealing with a special event or insuring a doctors office, you’l have different insurance protections that you’ll want to discuss and that in my opinion is what makes this a great business. Personally, I'm a fan of the commercial side because it’s what I’ve always known and where I’ve always worked. There’s a need for people in both sides of the house and you just need to find a place that you feel comfortable and enjoy.  Let’s talk about the types of places you can work. We have Direct Writers and Independent Agencies Direct writer - someone that works for a company that only represents one company.  Allstate / State Farm / Farmers / Liberty Independent agent - represent multiple companies Small agency Large agency - Willis Tower Watson Consortium - HUB International National NFP Next I want to talk about some of the positions that you’d find on the agency side. The direct writer has a few of these but the independent agent has more of them. The direct writers often received these services from the home office. Sales: There’s inside sales and outside sales; Inside you might be responsible for selling to anyone who calls in or you might be responsible for making cold calls. Some of the bigger agencies might even have a call center, but I’m not a fan of those. I realize it’s a way of running a business, but there’s no personalization there. If you want to build a book of clients that you’ll have with you throughout your career, a call center isn’t the place to be looking!  Most of the time, but not always, personal lines is more of an inside sales position and commercial or business insurance sales is out of the office.   CSR / Account Manager:  Someone that manages the paperwork or client requests, policy changes, reviewing the policies when issued by the carrier.  Some sales might be expected but in many agencies, not required. Many agency principals wish their CSR’s would sell more, but the CSR doens’t usually think of themselves as a salesperson, so this is often a challenge for agency owners. Listen to episode 21 titled Steady Sales with Sheldon Snodgrass. We talk about the concept of helping CSR’s mindset.  There's underwriting i.e. looking at a risk and pricing it. Not done too much on the smaller agency side but larger agencies often have this capacity. There’s pricing policies using rating tools which are mostly online today but larger accounts also have pricing flexibility that smaller accounts don’t have, so larger agencies will often have some underwriters on staff for this purpose.  Marketing: two types on the agency side - and many direct writers don’t have this, it’s mostly on the independent side -  Marketing accounts to the insurance company Marketing the agency - someone who manages the social media, advertising, website, etc. This is a newer role on the agency side, but a critical one. Most of the direct writers do this for their agents Claims: Some agencies have a separate claims department. They want to manage the claim process and have the information flow through the agency before reaching the  insurance company. Some agencies have the ability to pay small checks on their own rather than having to wait for the insurance company to investigate which makes it easier for the insured to get back o their feet.  This varies from agency to agency, city to city and carrier to carrier. Loss control or risk management:  Often times larger agencies will have one or two loss control people on staff. This is a little more of a specialty position but one that is very valuable for agents to provide their clients. For example, a restaurant might need a loss control person to help them with purchasing the proper equipment for safety, for training staff on safety measures or to implement proper protections in the restaurant.  Life & Health: Some property and casualty agencies will also have a life and health division. I’ll talk more about that in another episode, but it’s an option.  As you can see, there are a lot of choices to consider if you want to work in the property/casualty side of the industry.  Insurance companies have similar types of positions. When you work for the insurance company your client is usually the agents, not the consumer. This isn’t the case 100% of the time because if you work for someone like GEICO or USAA, you are selling to the consumer YOU HAVE OPTIONS What I really want to leave you with here is that there are many options. If you are in a position that you don’t like, it shouldn’

EP 53 - AUTOMATING YOUR SYSTEMS This is the last episode in our email marketing series. If you haven’t listened to the others, I’d encourage you to start with episode 47 for the email marketing series and if you want to learn a little more about marketing, listen to episodes 44 and 45. The topic today is a little more advanced. With the exception of the concept around birthdays or anniversaries, I would not suggest you introduce this aspect of email marketing until you have your basic email marketing campaigns set up and running consistently.  We are talking about automation.  You might hear the term autoresponders or automation, for email marketing, it’s the same concept. Basically we are discussing  a series of emails that you can schedule in advance that are sent based on a certain trigger.  The trigger might be someone downloads something or it’s a birthday or they sign up for something.  It’s a series of emails that go out on a pre scheduled basis once the trigger has occurred. You might send one email or you might send a series of 10 emails over the course of 3 months. How many and how often are up to you and over time, things you’ll have to measure and probably revise. While for the most part, you set it up and your done, if you aren’t getting the responses you want, that’s where the revisions come in.  Many CRM programs have autoresponders built in. Check with your platform to see how much of this can be done with the system you're already using. If you have an older platform or you aren’t using an agency crm, then I’d suggest that you use an ESP (an email service provider). We talked about ESP’s in episode 48.  Integrate them so you don’t have to use two separate systems.  If you are in the process of looking at a new platform, I’d suggest that you look for a platform that can perform these services for you as part of the features they provide. Keep in mind some of the features that you should look for based on what has been suggested on other episodes in this series. There are many different uses for autoresponders. For this episode, we will focus on 4. Automate electronic birthday cards  Onboarding process for new employees Automated series for new customers Automated series for the digital documents that you give away So let’s start with an easy one: Automated Birthday Cards Sending a birthday card is one of the simplest forms of marketing you can do. I love the idea of sending birthday cards in the mail, but if you don’t have the budget or if your client list is really to big to do this effectively, I’d encourage you to look at automating birthday cards through email. It’s not as effective, but it does work! It’s a touch. It’s better than not doing anything at all.  Here’s how I would suggest you do this. Make sure you have the birthday for all of your clients and referral partners. Each platform is going to operate differently on how you set up the birthday cards. In Constant Contact which is the platform I’ve used the most, I put everyone with a birthday into a list and its triggered with the date of their birthday and then email is sent automatically. Every year, on January 1, I go in and update the card that is sent, I.e. update the graphic and then the email cards are sent automatically the following year on the right date.  Sending birthday emails is automated, it won’t get dropped if you get busy because it’s automatic. All you need to do is remember to change the graphic once a year, but even if you don’t do that, the email will still get sent.  Use marketing automation to onboard new employees Think about this - you bring on a new employee and what happens? They have an orientation on the first day, then paperwork for taxes, health insurance, employee handbook, etc and for the first few days can feel  overwhelming.  Then there’s an orientation about where everything is. They are put in front of a computer and depending on their experience level, they might be handed clients to work with and they are off and running.  Think of your first day on the job. Every company is different, but it’s usually on the first day, a ton of information is thrown at you and then you start working! And then you forget some of it and feel embarrassed having to ask about the simple stuff! But what happens is they forgot about what the kitchen policy is, they forget about what needs to be logged into for the first pay period, they forgot about who they need to contact for taking PTO or working overtime.  Your onboarding emails can cover these topics or whatever is relevant to your onboarding process. As part of your automated onboarding process, drip out the important stuff over a period of days or weeks to remind them of the things they might have forgotten. You could do that in all of them. This helps you to know the new employee is engaged and doing what you want them to do. By sending an automated email series using a platform that has metrics built in will also allow you to check if the new employee is even reading the email, much less taking the action you’ve included. One of the reasons I’m suggesting that you send more emails than less is that too much information in one email can get lost. When the subject line in each email tracks with the content, it’s easier to do a search to get the details. Remember the KISS principle. Plus, if only one email is sent and it’s really long, it’s very likely that it won't  get read in its entirety because it is so long.  So think about your new employee onboarding process. What are the steps that you go through and what could you automate? Once the process is set up, all you need to do is add the new employee’s email address and the rest will happen automatically! Here’s an idea for a sequence - but I’m sure your sequence would be much better. Keep in mind that I’ve been self employed for 20 years, working for myself mostly without a staff and things have changed in the onboarding world, so your list might reflect changes in procedures. Day 1 - welcome - include a video from the different key staff members to help them get oriented Day 2 - list of contact people - maybe include where they can find the list as it is updated or who is leading other departments that they might want to introduce themselves to. Day 3 - overview of kitchen policies - lunch etiquette Day 4 - employee handbook - highlight 3 items that you want them to understand. Give them an activity to complete on the handbook and that way you know they have  read the email! Day 5 - computer policies - email setup, templates, CRM details Week 2 - Frequently accessed websites for work to be performed Wee 3 - Schedule a meeting or lunch with agency owner (include calendly or scheduler link) Week 4 - expense reports, supplies,  Week 5 - 30 day check in - what are we doing well, what do you need help with I’ve listed 5 weeks worth of emails - 5 in one week and then one a week for 4 weeks, but you could do this as long as you need to. My list only includes a few topics but think about what you cover in your initial onboarding meeting. Take some of those topics and drip them out into an email. One of the things you could also do in each email is to have some sort of call to action in each email. I mentioned that for the employee handbook,  An automated series for things you give away Before I dive into this idea, when it comes to attracting new clients, you often need to get them to know like and trust you before they will do business with you.  While a lot of what we do in the insurance business is offer quotes, and we are always hoping to get someone to allow us to give them a quote, it’s very possible that they aren’t actually ready to make a switch to you yet.  They don’t know you well enough, they don’t like you or trust you enough to make the leap.  So your job is to stay in touch with them. You could add them to your regular email campaigns, or you could set up an automated system to keep them engaged, to show a little bit more about who you are and the value you bring to your clients and maybe through that series of automated emails, you’ll win them over sooner. There are many ways for doing this, but today we are talking about email marketing automation so I’m going to focus on email examples  In the last episode we talked about building your list and one of the ways to do it was to give something away.  Once you’ve come up with something to give away (also known as a lead magnet), then you want to drip some emails to them with additional valuable information in hopes of getting that person to trust you enough to do business with you. You can drip emails to a lot of people without having to talk to them and get business when you least expect it. Let’s say you are targeting business owners and you create a booklet about hiring best practices. When the business owner downloads the book, they are then sent to a list that is set up for your automation series and you can send them several emails as a way to stay connected. For example, the first email would be the booklet that you sent them The second email might be talking about contracts for new hires and why working with an employment law attorney is beneficial The third email might talk about  one or two coverages employers need for protecting their employees like WC and covering their equipment while working remotely or on travel The fourth email might have some digital security issues The fifth and final email might be about an event that you have, let’s say a monthly webinar that they could sign up for. The idea around having the monthly webinar series is that if someone downloads your booklet and also signs up for your webinar, they are interested on some level about what you are offering.  The webinar could also be an invitation for a meeting to introduce yourself and learn about their business. From there, you can implement your regular sales practices, but the first few steps, gaining interest have been automated for you.   Your work is c

EP 52 -  Collecting Email Addresses to GrowYour List This is the second to last episode in our email marketing series. If you haven’t listened to the others, I’d encourage you to start with episode 47 for the email marketing series and if you want to learn a little more about marketing, listen to episodes 44 and 45. In episode 47 we talked about list segmentation which is about managing your list, but it’s important to always be growing your list as well - why because that is new prospects for you. That’s part of marketing. In episode 47 we also talked about looking at your website for different ways you are collecting email addresses. Today we’ll take that a little deeper. Getting email addresses doesn’t just come from people visiting your website. You can ask on your social media posts, you can have give aways, contests, webinars, workshops, community events, things where people need to sign up for something and give you their email address in the process.   Why do you need to grow your list?  If you are someone that is investing in social media you might be thinking, “do I really need to do worry about email marketing?” My answer to this is  if you aren’t, you might be out of business before everyone else. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and whatever new platform is developed is rented space for you. Today, they are all free. Today, they control what people see, unless you pay them. It’s basically a pay to play game for them. So if you aren't paying, not many people are seeing your content. When FB first started with the business pages, as a trainer, I was telling everyone to create one. Those that did, those early adopters, had their pages seen...for awhile. Then FB went public and then they needed to start making money. So then the business pages weren’t seen as much and if you wanted your business page to be seen, you had to pay. Now its advertising The newest thing is groups. Build your community in a group. For now, everyone is seeing what is posted in your group. Before long, FB will have ads in the groups and you’ll have to decide how valuable it is.  I don’t fault FB. They are a business. Businesses need to make money. In the case of social media, it’s offered to the consumer for free, they get use to things, it’s almost like an addiction but AI decides what the consumer sees. The people you want to target might not be in their sightline.  By having the email addresses, you own it. You aren’t dependent on paying FB or even worrying about if FB exists because you reach your prospects and clients on your terms. Personally, I think that’s much better than having your business dependent on another! It’s really important to understand that social media is rented. You don’t really have people’s contact information. It’s hard for you to reach out to them.  With email marketing, you are in their inbox and as long as you are sending valuable content, they'll keep you there! Ok, enough about that.  I’ve used Constant Contact as my ESP for many years and I’ve been one of their partners for a long time as well. Since I’m not actively doing marketing for others today, I reached out to other CTCT partners in our community and asked them what they see as good ways of growing your list today.  Some of the ideas I’m discussing today are coming directly from them and these are people who are working with clients everyday, helping them with their marketing. If you want to check them out, check out the show notes at thebusinessofinsurance.com where I’ve linked to their websites where they were available.  What can you do to grow your list? Website - This is a no brainer and can be done a few different ways. In episode 47 I suggested you do a website audit.  Where are you collecting email addresses on your website? In my opinion, you should have some form of email capture on almost every page of your website. From giving things away to just getting more information, if you don’t ask, you won't’ collect.  This ties into what Amy Morales of Kapeesh Marketing says because she feels that many small business owners feel embarrassed or too modest to ask customers to follow them online or join some kind of digital marketing effort. Just as these business owners champion "shop small" and "shop local," they should feel empowered and completely capable of asking friends and customers to support them online and join them on an email list. I think some of this is because we don’t want more emails in our inbox so why should we ask other people for their email. I understand this but if you are sending out valuable information, people should be happy to get your emails. It’s the people that send out useless information that people will unsubscribe to.  I’ve seen this a lot over the years myself. I even see it today with the clients in my CEO roundtables at Select Business Team. People don’t want to seem pushy or upset anyone so they don’t ask for the emails and they don’t put the tools on the website or other platforms to get people’s contact information.  Just start with capturing an email, then you can get more sophisticated to capture other information.  Now I’m in complete agreement with Vee Tanner of The Biz Tech Wiz   who says, don’t put ‘sign up to get my newsletter on your website.  That worked 20 years ago, but it doesn’t work today. Not many people are going to knowingly sign up for your newsletter today. Some will, but many of us are in email overload, so we only want emails that we can use or benefit from! I recently started playing pickleball and I’m interested in playing in a particular community so when I found out someone was sending an email in that community about pickleball, I did sign up. It’s valuable to me! So while some people in certain circumstances will sign up when it says sign up for our newsletter, you would be better off calling it something else. If you just have the newsletter then say something like Get Information On Protecting Your Family or if you are focused on the B2B market, say something like  Get Details on Managing Your Business. Ideally you want to say something about staying in touch and offering something to download or get my free checklist or tool that benefits you. Amy Morales says this is what is working and can be done in several different ways. So, what can you give away? This is the million dollar question many of you will ponder.  Throughout this email marketing series, I’ve given you a few ideas but here’s a few more: Fire Escape route planning tool The most overlooked insurance purchases (cancer, umbrella, LTC, event, cyber Hiring a nurse advocate Caring for your Pets The topics for what you can give away are unlimited. It will take time to develop or you can purchase a white labeled piece which will save you a lot of time and probably money if you purchase it this way. Michael Loschke of Arista Advisors suggests that you have to have a compelling value proposition and the key objective is to become a close trusted advisor. He follows the advice of financier and philanthropist, Michael Milken's and suggests creating deep emotional relationships" (something to which every agent/sales pro should aspire) - Health, Wealth and Children. BTW, the latter is often pets for seniors and empty-nesters. ;) Ask people join your list  by phone or email or online zoom, "He’ll say to people, our clients receive special email offers and content on health, wealth, and children. May I add you to our VIP list?" Another way to Build your List is Webinars Webinars - Citrin Cooperman  is a large CPA firm and they have been doing almost weekly webinars on PPP loans during the pandemic. They hit the market early with their webinars and now they are pivoting to other topics but when they started the webinars, no one else was doing them. They kept going when others only did a few. Now they have pivoted but they’ve built up a loyal following because of what they offered during the pandemic. It’s not too late to start doing webinars around the pandemic. One of the hot issues that I’ve been reading about is mental health. Kaiser Foundation put together a return to work guide and a large portion was focused on addressing mental health. Aetna is doing a big webinar in June 2020 and a section is on mental health.  Does mental health apply to insurance?  You decide. While webinars are a great way to offer a service, if you promote the webinars on social platforms, when people sign up for the webinar you now capture their email address. During the webinar, I would offer another opportunity to give them something and have them sign up directly into your email platform to show that they signed up, but you could use their email address from signing up for the webinar and upload into your ESP pretty safely.  Workshops are very similar to webinars but are face to face. In 2020, I’m not sure how many people you will get to attend an in person workshop because of Covid. If you are listening to this podcast in 2021 or 2022, it might not be an issue at all! Like with webinars, your workshop topics can be about anything that will bring people together and help you grow your prospect list and email list. You can advertise them on your social platforms, send snail mail invitations, promote through your referral partners, put up flyers in different venues. Everything is focused on getting people to register or attend so that you can obtain their email address and you can stay in touch with them. There is a larger agency outside of Baltimore that started doing events a few years ago and 20 people showed up, now they have close to 100 people showing up every month. (at least prior to Covid they did) They’ve built their list by having these monthly events with speakers and inviting people - growing their list and their prospects at the same time.  Networking events  - Networking events is another strategy you can implement for growing your list. I like to call it offline to online. They  could be from ones you put toge