Phone Calling For Appointments -102

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Cold Calling Tips & scripts Used to Set Appointments

You have a list of names to call and you want start phone calling for appointments. So how do you convert a prospects name into an interview?

I know that most insurance agents dread the idea of having to sit down and make phone calls to set appointments. Especially when making cold calls. Unfortunately, this goes with the territory, and it is the main reason you got hired - "to call people and sell insurance."

Used properly, these life insurance selling skills can minimize your broken appointments and make you more efficient.

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Getting into the right mindset. Understanding the numbers game.

The sales business is a numbers game. Once you can accept the fact, that you have to get so many No’s before you get a Yes.

then your phone calling For appointments sessions to get selling appointments can become easier.

Then you can turn it into a game. Unfortunately many new, as well as existing agents, take a NO personally, and therefore they start feeling rejected, which makes them feel bad, and no one likes to do something that makes them feel bad.

If you have a good record keeping system, you should be able to determine how many calls you need to make to get a YES, or get an appointment. Once I understood this, I knew that if I wanted to set 7 appointments during my calling time, and my ratio was 8:1 then I knew I had to get at least 49 No’s out of the way. I learned not to take the No’s personally and realized that they are part of the business process of calling. See the article on what a producing agents work unit looked like.

Try to remember how you reacted to someone that was calling you on the phone to sell you something. How professional did that person sound? How did they try to get your attention? What did they say to disarm you? Was it amateurish or professional?

Our first article on cold calling prospects goes into some depth on these issues.

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In this 2nd part of our series of phone calling articles, we will address
the following subject matter.

• Ice breaking phone calls - Getting into the right mindset when phone calling. (published)
• Using a simple coding system to maximize your phone calling sessions. (pending)
• Team competition calling. (pending).
• Double booking appointments for maximum efficiency (being revised).
• The Buddy concept (pending.
• Setting appointments two to three weeks in advance (pending).

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Your phone calling sessions are only (1) one part of your
complete insurance selling system.

It is something that you will follow each and every time you plan on making phone calls. As time goes on, you will continue to refine it until you develop your own success formula.

Frustration and Failure is imminent, unless you have a system that is properly organized to make phone calls, firm them up and lock in those appointments.

Proper phone calling is a behavior management trait that needs to be developed in a positive way. If not, you will spend valuable time:

• spinning your wheels
• having appointments not being kept
• resulting in the loss of valuable selling time.

So in this series of upcomimg articles we will review the components of what an effective and efficient phone calling system should consist of.

It is strictly up to you, the new insurance agent, (after proper training) to develop insurance leads and insurance prospects to sell to. It is not up to anyone else. That is why you were hired. If the company could do it without hiring you, they would have done so. That is why you need to refine your phone calling and appointment setting skills.

When a person starts out selling life insurance there is a learning curve and a progression of how to get insurance leads. See the prospecting ladder.

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Making phone calls is the most effective way to contact people for appointments

And doing it the right way can be exciting and fun.

One big mistake many agents make when phone calling and setting appointments, is that they automatically assume the prospect will remember the time and date of the appointment or they wrote it down. (Wrong)

If you make that assumption, you will experience a lot of broken appointments. People forget very quickly. Properly developing this part of the appointment setting format alone requires an effective follow up system with the prospect.(We will address this in one of our next articles on phone calling for appointments.)

Remember these phone calling tips:

• Make sure your opening remarks don't sound skittish. Practice it till it sounds natural.

• Use a telephone prompter that provides answers to objections.

• Learning some key power phrases to use on the phone and keeping it simple is a formula for successful phone calling.

• Do not try to explain or sell the product on the phone. That is big NO-NO. Remember, you are only trying to sell the prospect on giving you an appointment. I have seen new agents talking on the phone with one person for over 40 minutes trying to explain the product. You can not get a application signed on the phone. Additionally, they could have easily made another 15 phone calls during that time.

• The best response when someone starts quizzing you is to say. “Mr. prospect, it would be a lot better for me to sit down with my charts and diagrams to explain this concept to you and we will know very quickly if this idea will fit your situation. Are daytime or evenings appointments better for you?”

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Our next article is called  Phone Calling for Insurance Appointments -103.

This article will explain a method that shows you how to comfortably transition into the right mindset so that you can start making those cold and frightful telephone calls with ease.

Learn and Earn

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