Page 60 - The UnCaptive Agent

WHAT KIND OF AGENCY DO YOU WANT TO START? 33

relationships will either have to reinvent their business
models or go out of business.
Artificial intelligence and the massive adoption
of online purchasing by consumers have resulted in
people expecting that solutions be tailored to them.
According to a 2019 Salesforce (the world leader in
customer relationship software) survey of over eight
thousand consumers, seventy-three percent of buyers
“expect companies to understand their needs and expec-
tations.” This overwhelming percentage of consumers
who demand understanding of what they need and
want is only going to increase. And price is just one of
the things they want. The others are personalization of
recommendation and experience. How can an agency be
competitive in this kind of reality if they don’t focus on
building relationships? There is a huge opportunity here
for entrepreneurs and a gigantic (and ultimately fatal)
risk for status-quo-oriented agency owners. According
to the same Salesforce survey, fifty percent of Millennial
and Gen Z respondents (the largest cohort of insurance
buyers as of this writing) responded in the affirmative
to the statement, “I generally ignore communications
from companies unless they’re personalized for me.”
Today, personalization is key to client relationships.
Local agencies do this human-to-human, but increas-
ingly, online vendors are using artificial intelligence to
speed up this knowledge and make its use less and less
expensive. Still, agents who focus on knowing their
clients and serving all of their insurance needs can
be competitive and profitable. Those just focused on
price, which an algorithm will always do better, need
to rethink their strategies.
So, as you begin your new agency, don’t follow that
path. Focus on building strong relationships with cli-
ents, and you will prosper. Life insurance is one of the