Page 105 - The UnCaptive Agent

78 THE UNCAPTIVE AGENT

favor, their common courtesy produces a “yes” nearly 100
percent of the time. When you explain how important it
is to you, they often become quite eager to help. While
campaigning, the favor I asked was to put a campaign
sign in the voter’s yard. I received permission to do that
about a third of the time when the voter had already
told me they were voting for one of my opponents! I
think it was hard for them to drive past my sign in their
yard on election day! Don’t you think it will be hard for
someone who gives you a referral to buy their insurance
anywhere else? I do! And so future new business is
assured—and your retention rate goes up, too!
Cold calling is sometimes considered a sales strategy.
But I consider it a highly effective marketing strategy as
well. I entered the property and casualty business after
three years and three elections as a politician, and my
friends were exhausted from me asking them for favors
(I was, too!). I didn’t have any money for direct mail
campaigns (or any other advertising, for that matter).
Cold calling became my marketing strategy, and it was
highly effective, generating $100,000 in agency com-
mission in my first year in business.
I’d made over twenty thousand cold calls to voters
asking for their vote. In fact, I spent so much time on
the telephone I couldn’t hold the receiver up to either
ear—my ears were too sore! Calling insurance con-
sumers with a brief pitch asking for their expiration
date seemed easy by comparison. And I remembered
and was encouraged by the experience I’d had as a life
insurance agent, where cold calling had been my only
way of making sales.
My company’s primary marketing strategy continues to
be cold calling, even today.
While the telephone is an incredibly effective and
time-efficient means of prospecting, I have found