A young insurance agents guide to success

Being a young insurance agent can be both challenging and intimidating at times. People may question your capabilities because of your age. It’s important to remember that all the challenges you will face as a young insurance agent can be made easier by preparing for them ahead of time. Finding a mentor can really help with this process. The goal is to learn as much as you can in the early years to flatten the learning curve.

Many insurance agents today are advancing in age and are beginning to retire, and the trend will continue. This leaves a hole to be filled by new insurance agents. This is an opportunity for young independent insurance agents to step up and grab that opportunity.

Being an independent insurance agent can be a meaningful and rewarding profession. Don’t let temporary frustrations slow you down.

The tips in this article can help you deal with some of those challenges and help set you on a path of becoming a true professional.

Because you’re young, you may have some prospects who question your experience and capabilities. There are ways to overcome this, and one big way is by simply presenting yourself professionally.

To be sure you are making a professional impression, keep these things in mind:

  Dress to gain the respect of your prospect

When working with clients—especially in the senior insurance market—it's important to present yourself professionally. Although dress standards have relaxed over time, dressing conservatively can help establish credibility, especially when you’re new and may need to overcome perceptions of inexperience. Until you have years of experience and industry knowledge to back you up, looking the part is essential. Being well-groomed and mindful of how your appearance is received will help you build trust and avoid letting simple details, like your wardrobe, impact your ability to gain clients and grow your business.

  Be well prepared and organized

Nothing says "professional" like being organized and prepared. Before meeting with a prospect, do your homework—use any information you have to anticipate questions, prepare your own questions, and create a needs assessment. Take clear, organized notes to avoid searching for information mid-meeting. Just as with your appearance, being thoroughly prepared helps overcome any perception of inexperience and builds client confidence.

  Behave professionally

Even if your prospect is laid back and talking about the great time he and his wife had recently at South by Southwest, it’s not the time or place to tell them about how you were there in a Viking cosplay outfit drinking out of a skull mug for 2 days.

Keep your stories simple, appropriate and professional. You can be real while being selective about what you talk about and how you say it. Although you want to greet your prospect with respect, you should see yourself as an equal, regardless of the age difference.

Stay in the mindset that you are just 2 adults having a conversation. Of course, you will always need to be on time for every meeting and meet the deadline of every promise you make. Follow through is incredibly important. Tell your prospect what they can expect from you and follow through on all your promises without fail.

If you’re young and don’t have kids, this may not be the first thing you think of, but don’t forget to ask about your prospects’ children or grandchildren. Understand when people have children it re-prioritizes their entire lives. Everything they do, in some way, involves their children. It’s important to understand and recognize that if you are going to connect with them.

It seems like a simple thing, but when you don’t have kids you can easily look right past that fact and miss an opportunity. As a matter of fact, if your dealing with the senior population, you may end up talking to the children of your prospects, as they often have questions or concerns about the coverage their parents need.

Being a good listener is one of those things everyone will say they understand, but a considerable number of sales people just aren’t doing it right. Being a good listener doesn’t mean staying quiet. To the contrary, those that are considered the best listeners are people who periodically ask the right questions to guide a conversation in a way that promotes discovery and insight.

Good listeners know the subject well enough to be able to ask intelligent questions and then leave the appropriate space for your prospect to fully express themselves. A poor listener waits to find errors in the other party’s logic so they can correct them and introduce their own idea. That isn’t good listening. That’s called debating. That type of salesperson is trying to convince his prospect of something, so the interaction quickly becomes a one-way conversation.

Being a good listener is a big part of learning how to communicate with your prospects.

The best listeners:

• Make the interaction a two-way conversation and try to make it an enjoyable experience for the other party.
• Remove all distractions from the conversation, like phones or other devices, and focus on the other person.
• Seek to understand deeply what the other person is trying to convey, and what problem needs to be solved.
• Acknowledge and empathize with the emotions and feelings of the other person.
• Honestly care about the person they are with and the problem they are trying to solve.
• Ask clarifying questions to help bring insight to the issue being discussed.
• Wait until the other person is completely done sharing their information before attempting to offer a solution.

It’s important to be able to zero in on what the other person is getting at without wandering or changing the subject. The more you talk about what isn’t important, the more they know how little you’re listening.

Remember, the right question at the right time will build trust and further the conversation. By asking the right questions and listening intently you will not only understand your prospects better, but establish your expertise, and consequently - make more sales.

Being face to face with the population you serve is a must. It will not only get you seen and known by the people you meet, and the people they refer to you, it will give you insight into what they think is important and the questions they have. If you aren’t comfortable being in front of large groups you can start small.

Find small groups of your audience to get in front of. Don’t avoid it because it is uncomfortable. It will get comfortable if you put yourself in that situation, so start while you are young. If you are selling Medicare Supplements then you may want to give a talk to a group of seniors at a senior community, or offer a webinar online, making use of the email list you’ve generated by writing good content and collecting those leads.

However you do it is your preference, but you cannot easily replace the insight you get by speaking directly with your prospective customers. Just make sure you’re being genuine when you reach out. If you can’t honestly feel like you want to help the people you’re working with, they will sense that. It’s not the easiest thing to do well, but if you start while you are young you will become proficient at it and the benefits will become obvious.

It may help to join an organization like NAHU (National Association of Health Underwriters), in order to meet people in the industry and learn from your peers. You will need to spend time with your audience as well as your peers in the industry in order to learn and grow as a professional.

When you decide to become an insurance agent you are accepting the fact that you are building a business. You have to be willing to put in the work early to build your book of business, and this means the first 3-5 years may be lean years as far as your paycheck goes.

If you are in that early period and feeling a little frustrated, keep your head up. Think of the first few years as your investment in building your company.

When you do the work and put your head down for a few years, you will begin to see your book of business start to grow and understand the power of the residual income it can provide. At some point down the road you may even make the decision to add agents to your downline, and build an even larger business.

Remind yourself that this isn’t a 9 to 5 job where you are working to make someone else money. You are working for yourself and the work you do early in your career will bear fruit later on.