The Ryan Hanley Show - RHS 168 - How to Close 89% of Inbound Leads

Episode Date: January 27, 2023

Became a Master of the Close: https://masteroftheclose.comIn this episode, we break down the exact process Ryan Hanley uses at Rogue Risk to close 89% of inbound insurance leads.Yes, that's right. This process, executed properly, results in enormous conversation rates for inbound leads.Listen and learn for yourself...Resources Mentioned: Reach out to Ryan Hanley Rogue Risk Finding Peak SIAA Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In a crude laboratory in the basement of his home. Hello everyone and welcome back to the show. Today we have a tremendous episode for you. It's going to be a solo episode. I want to break down a concept that I feel like is classically misunderstood in our industry. And while the words are used quite often and thrown about, especially when it comes to inbound leads, paid leads, any kind of leads that aren't like referrals, aren't referred over by a friend or a current client, the actual context around them, the details, I feel like are never truly articulated in a way

that you can use. And this is why I think so many organizations actually struggle with inbound leads. And it really revolves around the concept of time to contact. People will be, you know, people be like, you gotta get on those leads. You gotta get them a quote as quickly as possible. And we make all these, we put all these automations in place and we put all these triggers

and we set up our systems and we set up our carriers and our markets in order to, you know, get that quote out as quickly as possible. And I think it leads to us doing a lot of things wrong. That's going to be the topic that we talk about today. It's going to break it down specifically from things that I have learned at Rogue Risk. We're doing 300 to 400 inbound leads a month,

and we're learning a lot every single month still. And after almost three years, it'll be three years in March, we've kind of really dialed in on some key ideas that I want to share with you, particularly around this idea of speed to quote. So before we get there, I want to give a big shout out to our sponsor of the show. Our title sponsor here is Tivoli, formerly commercialinsurance.net. Tivoli is the leading provider of new customers to the commercial insurance industry. If you're looking for warm, live phone call transfers from pre-qualified leads where you get this full survey done for you and

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

And it gives us a nice consistent base, lets us be a little more dialed in on the lines of business and the industries or, you know, NACE codes that we want. And we know we're getting a good, qualified lead, and that's what you really like. So, guys, Tivoli is a wonderful resource. We've been using them, like I said, for a few years now. And I highly recommend that you check them out.

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

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

of these concepts, writing about these concepts, sharing the ideas with you guys, it certainly helps me get better. And hopefully some of the ideas will help you get better as well. So if you're interested in that, we also have a paid version of it. So most of the content is free, but there is a small paid version. I think it's like seven bucks a month. And I do deep dives on, uh, kind of the peak concepts related to growing rogue, running rogue, um, inbound business. You know, we get kind of really hyper tactical, um, and, and very in depth in, um, you know, for the, for the paid members, they also get the paid members get to comment and, you know, I prioritize all those comments and stuff like that. So it's a really cool little thing. And it's a good outlet for me to get some of these peak performance ideas and professional development

ideas off my brain and in front of you guys and the things that I think about every day when I'm doing my work, whether it's the podcast or running rogue or speaking or any other things that I do in my life. So if that interests you, go to findingpeak.com, subscribe, it's free. I would love to see you there. All right. So with that, let's kind of get to this concept of time to quote. So the first thing that I want to talk about is just a slightly more philosophical concept. Insurance is terrible to most people. That shouldn't be a surprise to any of you. No one likes insurance. Most of us listening to this don't love insurance.

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

And there's absolutely no way that we can expect our customers, our prospects, any non-insurance person to love insurance. In fact, many of them either have a small level of disdain for it or an outright hatred. But my point in saying that is we get these small windows at which insurance consumers, our clients, our prospects, will open their mind up to insurance, right? They don't want to think about insurance all the time. No one wants to think about insurance all the time. Certainly no one who is not in the insurance industry and does it for a living. So what happens is, you know, some percentage of the time, we'll call it 98% of the time, insurance is not on people's brain. And not only is it not on their brain,

they like actively don't want to think about their insurance. They don't want to think about what coverages they have. They don't want to think about how much they're paying. They don't want to think about anything that has to do with insurance. They want to operate their business or, you know, move through their career, do the things they have to do, get the tasks off their desk. They want to spend time with their family or do things that they enjoy doing or basically anything else in their life other than insurance. However, when someone has a problem or they need a quote, they need a new policy or they're struggling with their current agent or broker or insurance provider or a client comes to them and asks them for a certificate of insurance and they don't understand what that means or how to get it or do they have the right

coverage and maybe they realize they have the right coverage for one policy, but they don't for another. And they need someone to help them. They need someone to help them. And for a brief period of time, they will kind of open their brain up to the idea of talking about insurance. Because the vast majority of time, no one wants to talk about insurance. This is why cold calling is so hard, especially in our space. And, you know, and the really, you know, pathological people in our space can say, you know, cold calling is great and it works and it does. It does work. But, you know, you have to be able to plow through a lot of negativity. And that's because people don't want to open their brain up to the idea of insurance. They just don't. There's a million other things to think about than this promise that they can't touch, can't feel, can't see, and just hope

someday when they actually really need it, it responds. Yet every month, you know, they are putting cash out, you know, for this product that they hope they never use, right? I mean, it's just, it, you know, we know that's our value proposition. And we can say it's about protection. And we can say, you know, it's about creating foundational proposition. And we can say it's about protection. And we can say, you know, it's about creating foundational strength. And we can say it's about sustainability or whatever we want. But the reality is, people do not want to think about insurance. Okay. But for brief periods of time, when they have a need, they will open their brain up to the concept of insurance. They will fill out a form. They will go onto YouTube and watch a few videos.

They will make a phone call to someone who they find in a Google search. They will open their brain up to the concept of insurance, to the idea of talking about it, to considering it, to procuring the policies that they need. And we must operate in that window. So first and foremost, when we talk about speed to quote, the clear issue that we have to clear up, the misconception where many people go wrong,

is they believe speed to producing a bindable quote is what insureds care about the majority of the time, and it is not. In my opinion, this is very similar to the price conversation where people, you know, I think today, you know, the people who still sit in the conferences and lean back in their chairs with a frustrated face and say, people who go online are price shoppers. Those are becoming less and less. I think the reality more and more is that the best customers, the worst customers, and everybody in between shop online for insurance, just as we do for just about everything else. Doesn't mean

at some point we might not want an in-person relationship. It doesn't mean we might not want a phone call or a text message or a video proposal or whatever. But at some point, pretty much all the insurance consumers that exist in the world are going online to look for something. And when they do, they are raising their hand and saying, hey, my brain window is open to insurance. And if you're willing to come over and look in, I'm willing to communicate with you. And while that window is open, we have to get in contact with them. So the key metric is not speed to quote. The key metric is speed to contact. Okay. Speed to contact. How quickly can you, from the time someone raises their hand and opens the insurance brain window, how quickly can you be the one standing in front

of that window saying, hey, I can help you, right? Like that's the game. It's one of the reasons why I love Tivoli. They have 98% of the leads that come into the Tivoli ecosystem are contacted in under two minutes. I would say that is well within the standard deviation of the insurance brain window for most potential customers right so that's that's well within that window two minutes you probably have somewhere between 15 and 30 to get in contact with somebody if someone reaches out to you via form filler text message or email or phones you and leaves a voicemail, which is weird, right? Or just a normal message.

Someone on your team takes a message and it takes you a couple hours to get back to them or a day or two. There's a good chance that window is going to close. And what happens is it closes to you, not to everyone. That window closes to you. So this is a key concept here. The concept is speed to quote is not as important, not nearly as important. It's not even a metric that we actually track right now, but we do track speed to contact. When someone raises their hand and says, hey, the window to my brain for insurance conversations is open, how quickly do we get to them? Because that window is specific to us. What's going to happen is they're going to raise their hand and they're going to open that insurance brain window and

they're going to say, you know, rogue risk, you know, you're up. If you can get a hold of me and you can get back to me and you can get ahold of me and you can get back to me and you can stand in front of me and, and, and establish a connection, then I'll be your customer. But, but if you can't, I'm going to close the window to you and I'm going to go open it up to somebody else. And that's what happens. I mean, we see that over and over and over again on the accounts that come into rogue risk that we don't get back too fast enough. they just move on. They just go to someplace else. Now, what you might be saying is, Ryan, these price shoppers, they're all in a rush and they're all in a hurry. And everyone that comes in online, they want it now, now, now. And some of that is true, but most of it is not

a true obstacle. They're things people say, right? I mean, this is, you know, everyone who actually doesn't sell on price. I know there's a lot of people out there that say they don't sell on price, but they really do. For those of people who actually, who very legitimately do not sell on price, they'll tell you things like, you know, price, you have to address price, but price is really the reason people buy. Well, speed to quote is the same exact way. People may act with urgency. You must address their urgency. But oftentimes, the absolute bottom line fastest quote is rarely a decision making factor. Now, there are some extenuating circumstances like, hey, I need to get on this job site. I can't get on this job site until I get a workers' comp COI.

Okay, in those scenarios, speed really does matter. Your ability to turn a record around really does matter. But it is rarely a deciding factor versus do I trust you? Do I feel like you're getting me the right products? And do I feel like you're going to be easy to do business with, right? Those are the three factors. What's up, guys? Sorry to take you away from the episode, but as you know, we do not run ads on this show. And in exchange for that, I need your help. If you're loving this episode, if you enjoy this podcast, whether you're watching on. If you're loving this episode, if you enjoy this

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and want to bring them in and share their stories with you, I need your help. Share the show, subscribe if you're not subscribed. And I'd love for you to leave a comment about the show because I read all the comments. Or if you're on Apple or Spotify, leave a rating review of this show. I love you for listening to this show

and I hope you enjoy it. Listening as much as I do creating the show for you. All right, I'm out of here. Peace. Let's get back to the episode. Those are the three factors that we're seeing at Rogue routinely lead to higher close ratios. Can you establish trust? Can you provide me with the solutions that sound legitimate and sound like they're going to help me? And are you going to be easy to do business with? Now, ease of business doesn't mean you have some fancy app or portal or you can text the entire thing or whatever. All it means is you're going to be reasonable.

You're going to be reasonably easy to get a hold of. You're going to be reasonably easy in follow-up. You're going to be, you know, maybe you can use multiple communication mediums. You know, I can email you and then we jump on the phone quick and then after that phone call, we text for, you know, for the remainder of the information that I need, right? Like that's a reasonably easy path. You know, I initially reached out via email and then we talked on the phone and it was easy to get you on the phone. And then once I had you on the phone, we established a text message. It was going to be a perfectly fine communication moving forward, and we used text, and everything got done.

That's easy right there. That's no special tech. I mean, email, phone, and text. Yet that is a very common customer journey when they come to Rogue Risk. They come in through an email or a form fill, which ultimately comes to us as an email. We respond and connect with them via phone, and then a lot of times move that conversation to a text message conversation just because it's easier for people. And once you have the big pieces of information, any follow-up piece of

information can oftentimes just be text back and forth. And when we think about that, why is speed to contact so important and why is speed to quote less important? So in this game of inbound leads, I'm not talking about referrals. Referrals are completely different. Paid ads can be a little different. Cold calls are very different. But when it comes to inbound leads, these people only have a mild, a very small amount of trust. They have enough trust to reach out and test you. But trust has not been built yet. So the very first way you can build trust

is by showing that you give a crap and contacting them as fast as you possibly can. Get is by showing that you give a crap and contacting them as fast as you possibly can. Get them on the phone. Get a connection. It's a phone business. Get on the phone as fast as you can. Bam.

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

It's just not really reality. Now, can it be done? Sure, there are a couple markets that may be able to make it happen if it's in the right state and the right size and all that kind of stuff. But do you even really want that? And frankly, I don't think anyone needs that. And frankly, I don't think anyone needs that. What they want is they want to build trust, you know, or sorry, what you want is to continue to build trust with them by setting expectations and then meeting those expectations. So what does that look like? So the first expectation is if I fill out a form on your website that you're actually going to prioritize

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

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

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

Trust me to whack, that goes up even farther. Now you're at a level. If you've just done those things, you're at a level where you can come in, take a deep breath or exhale, whichever makes more sense, and say, okay, okay, prospect. What can I do for you? So what we say, what I say, what I say, we're training the team. Not everyone does it exactly this way. We're working on that. But what I say when I get an inbound lead is, you know, say the guy's name is John. Hey, John. My name's Ryan. I saw you need some help with your insurance. What can we do for you?

And just let the guy talk. Or I really like, insurance. What can we do for you? And just let the guy talk. Or I really like, other than what can we do for you, I really like how can we help. Hey, John, saw that you filled out a form on our website that you were looking for insurance. How can we help? And just let him talk. Because what they're going to do is give you the entire playbook for all the barriers you need to hit, all the obstacles what they're going to do is give you the entire playbook for all the barriers you need to hit,

all the obstacles that they're going to present, most likely, and also places where you can set expectations, meet those expectations, and continue to push that trust meter higher. So they're going to say, Hey, Ryan, a common one we get is, Hey, Ryan, I just hired my first employee, or employees, I hired employees for the first employee uh and or employees i hired employees

for the first time and uh any workers comp insurance okay great what kind of business you in right and notice that the first question i didn't ask was hey where are you located where where what what's the name of your business i didn't go right into information gathering right going right into information gatherings actually going to start to knock your trust meter down, right? Because now it feels like a sales, now it feels like you don't give a crap about them. What it feels like is you just want the info so that you can sell them something, right? So that's why I just asked, well, how can I help?

They're going to give you all the info most likely. Well, you know, I've been in business for three years, kind of always been on my own in this, uh, this, this, this painting business that I have. And I decided it was time to expand. And I hired two new guys that are coming in to help me and, um, to get on a lot of the job sites, any workers come. Okay, great. Um, do you have other forms of insurance? You, do you, what do you, what do you got? What's going on? Well, yeah, I've had general liability, and they're going to get a little squirrely there because they called about comp. You're asking about something else. That makes them feel a

little squirrely, right? So I don't spend time. I'm just trying to see what's up. Hey, you know, I got general liability from Next. Okay, cool. Well, no problem. We're going to get your comp squared away. We'll have some questions about the general liability later, but how about we just get your comp squared away so you can get on the job? That sounds great. So what I want to do is notate that the person has other policies, and they may even say, hey, if you can help me with my comp, I'll bring the GL over, no problem.

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

But they didn't call about their general liability and they're getting on job sites. What they have established is that the issue is getting on job sites and they can't get on job sites without their comp and he's got these employees and he needs to get that squared and he's getting on job sites with his GL. So for me to press that issue is going to decrease the trust meter and all I'm trying to do is push that trust meter up. So, so, you know, I'm going to say at this point, I'm going to go, Hey, John, well, here's the deal, man. We work with thousands of customers every year. I personally work with hundreds. Workers comp is my specialty. We're going to get you squared, man. You're good. You're in the right spot. I'm going to have some questions for you, which we're going to go through, but I got you.

We're good. And what you may actually hear, I love this line. I use it a lot of, don't worry. We got you. You're good. That we got you. You're good part. What that says is, you, John, you client, you can exhale. You can exhale. Take an exhale. Now, if he was a dynamite manufacturer, I'd be like, you know what, bud, this one's gonna be some work, we're gonna have to get after this one, are you ready for that, like, it's gonna be expensive, are you good, are you like, do you feel, like, are you thinking you're walking into a hundred dollar policy here, or a ten thousand dollar policy, what do you think, right, and I'm gonna feel him out, but something that I know

we can write, you know, I know is kind of right in our sweet spot. I'm just going to say, you're good, man. We got you. And you will almost hear them visibly or hear them. You will hear them exhale. Like you'll literally hear like a little bit of stress relief in their body. Trust meter goes up. And now we start setting expectations. So what I say, you know, here, I'm going to

probably figure out what the timeline is. And I'm going to say something like, John, you know, what are we looking at for time? Like, is this a rush? Like, do you need this today? Do you need it tomorrow? Is it could could it be a couple days, not that it necessarily will take that, but just to give me an idea of where you are. And a lot of times they're going to go, hey, you know, I don't need it today, but would really love it tomorrow or the next day because I got to get on this job site on Monday or whatever. Okay, no problem.

I'm fairly certain with a high level of certainty that we can hit that timeline. How about this? If I can get you all wrapped up tomorrow and get a quote over to you and it makes sense, nice competitively priced, are we good to move forward? Like is there anything like are you working with your cousin or your brother

or your niece or something? And sometimes I'll try to say it in like a way that makes it, I don't know, tries to not make it seem like such a harsh question, but it's very important, especially on inbound. Again, you're establishing trust with them. You need to get something a little back from them. So if they go, oh, no, no, no affiliation. I just Googled next and found them and they, you know, I needed it to get on job site. So I did, but I don't really have a person. And if you can help me out, then, you know, we're good. Awesome. All right. Here's what happens next. Here's what

happens next. Another key phrase. If you're writing this stuff down, here's what happens next. Here's what happens next. Another key phrase if you're writing this stuff down. Here's what happens next. I have some questions. I have to gather some information. So I'm going to ask you, I'm going to kind of rapid fire a few questions at you so that I can get what I need to understand your business so that I can go out to the carriers and give them what they need to get prices. We have 50 plus carriers here at Rogue, but I'm probably going to the carriers and give them what they need to get prices. We have 50-plus carriers here at Rogue,

but I'm probably going to shop you through about four of them because I know those are going to be the four most competitive, just so you have an idea of what we're doing. And frankly, I usually pick a carrier in my head that I think would be interested. For something like a painter, I may say, frankly, if Pi or Guard comes back with competitive pricing, that's probably where I'm going to go. And I would probably skew for pie over guard at this point just because they're way easier to deal with.

So I say that right to them. I'm kind of letting them know. And what I'm trying to do is establish, hey, I have a plan. You're good. I told them they're good. We got you. Well, they're not good if I'm not giving them the plan. I'm going to lay the whole plan out for them, right? So here's what happens next is the trigger to say, one, listen, two, here's the plan, right? I'm going to gather this info. Once I get this info, I have a few carriers. Even though we have 50, I'm really thinking about four. And even inside those four, there's kind of a prioritized list with one or two that I'm really hoping will pick up your account. And one, they love that

shit because you're establishing yourselves as an expert. And two, they feel like they're part of the game now because maybe they've heard of those companies. Oh yeah, I've heard of Pi. Haven't heard of Guard. And I'll be like, doesn't matter. Both of them are A-rated companies, good companies. I love both. So now they feel like they're part of the game. All right. So I'm going to collect some information. I'm going to shop those carriers out and those carriers are going to come back to me with their best offers. And I'm going to take a look at those. I'm kind of going to compare those companies with your company, my understanding of how they handle claims and all that kind of stuff. And what I'm going to do is I'm going to send you an email

with my recommendations in it. It's a three-part email. The first part, the top part, is going to be in the body of the email. It's just going to be a high level breakdown of what I recommend. The second part, and you're going to see it, it'll be like a little screenshot of a video. It's an actual video. If you click on it, it'll take you to a short video. It usually takes me three minutes, five at most. And I'm going to break down exactly why I chose that company, the coverages and all that. I'd really appreciate it if you watch that because that's going to explain to you exactly why I chose that company and it's going to break down the coverages and all that. And then lastly, I'm going to attach at the bottom of that email the carrier proposal,

the actual proposal that I get from the companies. And the reason that I do this, John, the reason that I do this customer, client, prospect is because I want you to know everything I know. I hate when I go to buy something and I feel like the salesperson knows all the things and I don't really know all the things and they have all the power and I have none of the power. I hate that. I hate it. So I don't want to do that in my business. So what I'm going to do is give you everything I have. You're going to have the carrier proposal, which is exactly what I get from the company. You're going to get a video breakdown from me that you can watch and re-watch 100 times if you want.

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

Well, here's the deal, man. I got all the info I need. I'm gonna go get to work. We established that tomorrow, you know, we're gonna close the business tomorrow. If I can get it done by then, that's a good timeframe for you. Yes, it is.

Okay, I'm reconfirming. And then watch out for that email. I may, John, if it's cool with you, I may just hit you with a quick text when I send out the email so that you know that I sent it so you can go check. Is that cool? Yeah, that's cool. That's great, man. That's great. Perfect. All right, bud. Well, hey, I hope you have a great day. Really appreciate calling in, and I'm looking forward to doing business with you. Bam. That's how you handle an inbound lead. So by prioritizing time to contact over time to quote, what we're able to do is rapidly build trust, but still give ourselves the space and the leeway to do the actual work of producing a quote that is what they actually need, right? We don't want to just rush through something.

And it allows us to work through the carriers that we need to. Now, if this was an ENS account, if this was a shipyard welder, right? One, I don't know that I would take a shipyard welding account because that would be tough, although kind of fun. But let's say it was right well now i know i'm gonna need uh marine coverage and i'm gonna need a specialty and i'm gonna probably have to go ens for some of it and depending on the tools and what they're doing and if it's in harbor or offshore and all that kind of stuff right then i would say hey what you're asking me for, we can definitely do, but you're looking at a minimum of a week to two weeks to get this done. Does that timeframe work? And if you're like, no, I need it tomorrow, then I'm just going to say, hey, I really,

really appreciate you reaching out and we're going to keep your contact information in case I come up with a good solution in the future, but you're probably going to have to reach out to someone else because I just can't accommodate that timeline. And what that does is it establishes to them a level of trust that they're going to bank so that if I ever do reach out to them in the future, if they do have another need, they're going to say, you know what, those guys couldn't help me, but man, they were pretty upfront and honest with me,

and for that reason, I'm willing to reach back out. My point in sharing all this with you is that you don't need to approach a cold call different and you don't need to approach a referral this way. But an inbound lead, someone who's only built a small level of trust, we have to continue to build that trust meter throughout the entire process. And it starts with meeting expectations, using urgency and prioritization as a way to show them that they matter by being open and transparent, by establishing what the next steps are and giving them a game plan, showing some internal expertise and knowledge to the industry, some industry expertise, and that, and by, you know, creating a situation in which they don't feel like they're being sold, but rather you are partnering on a solution for their needs.

And if you can do those things, as I've mapped out in this podcast, you will be highly successful. All right. When I was doing this every single day, I was using agency zoom at the time when I was tracking the metric. When I got, you know, for the for the leads that I actually sent a video proposal to, you know, so some got some got sorted out because they just weren't good fits. Or I would send them I we sell leads back intuitively to if we don't want if we can't help them. But for the for the for the qualified risks for our agency that I got to the video proposal stage with, I closed 89% of those accounts, 89% of those accounts were sold. So that's a pretty decent number.

I feel pretty good about that. Um, and that is what we're trying to do at Roke and teaching the team how to do it and why, uh, it's important. Again, the why is very, very, very important. You have to spend time. Think about this. Think about that trust meter. How are you building that trust meter? Anytime you go into sales mode, you are diminishing that trust meter. Anytime you just get to asking questions that you need to fill out in a chord form without previously establishing a level of trust and helping them understand why you need to ask those questions.

You're going to diminish or at least put that trust meter on hold or kind of not grow the trust meter, I guess, kind of running that out quite a bit. But my point being, this is how you do it. I've done enough of these. I've done 1, thousand of these or more. If you count my entire career, it's thousands. And this is what I do.

And I do it over and over and over again. If you're wondering how we do our video proposals, we use Better Proposals. It used to be Neoteric Agent. We use Better Proposals. Love Better Proposals. Love Neoteric agent. I was kind of jealous when the guys at Better Agency bought it because I kind of wanted to buy it. Neoteric, that is. So that's what we use. That's how we do what we do. That's how we establish trust,

continue to grow trust, and then ultimately close new inbound qualified leads at an 89% clip. If you have questions about this, I'd love to hear. You guys can hit me up on LinkedIn or subscribe on Finding Peak and ask me questions there. This is what we do, guys. This is kind of the inside baseball. This is exactly how we close inbound leads at rogue risk. And it doesn't always happen perfectly every time, but as you get better, it happens perfectly more often, and your closing ratio will go up. Your customers will be happier.

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

I've been out on the road the last couple weeks. I was in Buffalo and I was in Austin speaking and being back out in front of audiences and sharing what I've learned at Rogue has been incredible. Love speaking. It's probably my favorite thing in the world to do professionally. It's tough to be on the road. It's tough to be away from my kids. So there's some realities to life. But man, I love being back out there. I love you guys for listening to the show. I hope you're absolutely crushing it. And with that, we're out of here. Peace. Close twice as many deals by this time next week.

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