Evan Carmichael advises a struggling insurance agent to define a clear value proposition, build a detailed target customer profile, and use a multi-channel strategy: attend events, develop referral partnerships, get local media coverage, and produce educational content. Evan credits his own growth to consistent video and content that builds trust before meetings.
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Hi, I'm Evan Carmichael. Welcome to another edition of Ask Evan. In today's episode, I'm going to answer a question from one of my newsletter readers, Joe, who's an insurance agent, pretty new to the business, and is having a hard time getting out there making sales apart from his blood relatives, and was wondering what my advice would be to help him grow his business. So, Joe, you're in a tough industry, lots of competition, and there's very little that separates the products that different insurance agents will sell. So the first thing that you need to do is come up with your unique value proposition. And what this basically is, is explaining what makes you different. So you're not just Joe, the average everyday Joe salesperson. You are XYZ. So what makes you different from everybody else? And when you introduce yourself, you have to put that in your statement and make everybody know that you are the insurance agent who helps these type of people. So you can differentiate yourself on the service that you provide and also going after a specific target market that's different than everybody else. So as an example, you know, everybody wants to go after the high net worth individuals, the people who are going to take out the big policies. That doesn't really help you so much. What I would do is try to target people who have specific interests. And learn about them, tailor solutions to help them, come up with other packages that you've seen work with that type of age group and demographics, and then be able to sell into them. You can also use shared interests. So, example, if you are a huge baseball fan and you love the Cleveland Indians, part of what you could do is take people to the games who, you know, when the Cleveland Indians are in town, and you can go off to customers who also like the Cleveland Indians. So it's a lot easier for you to connect with them, and it's a lot more fun to do business. So you're not just going after anybody and everybody who needs an insurance agent. You're going after the people who are ideal clients for you and you love working with and you have shared passions with. So identifying first, you know, your unique value proposition— who is Joe the Insurance Guy? What do you do that's different from everybody else? And then start defining who your customers are. So I would try to be as specific as you can with that. You obviously don't want to limit yourself off and say, you know, only people who like the Cleveland Indians and who are, you know, 50 to 55 and men, right? That might be a little specific, but you want to do try to define your target market as much as you can with your customer base. So look at your age group, look at interests, look at their stage in life, look at what some of their needs are. And build up a profile of ideal person that you want to target. And from there, if you can specialize in those people and you go and you tell them when you're meeting with them that you specialize with those types of people and you can show how you've helped people who are like them, they're more likely to want to sign up with you instead of, I'm Joe and I sell insurance to anybody and everybody, right? It's a lot harder to make that kind of sale. So you may be turning away business that you can make some money from but are not ideal clients and then focus on the ones who are great potential clients for you because you know you can service their needs. From there, once I can clearly explain why I'm different and I can explain the type of customers that I want to go after, then you can start with your marketing strategy. And for you, I try to look at events to start. So it's a very personal business. If I'm gonna work with an insurance agent, I want to know that again, he understands my needs, likes what I'm about, I can relate to him really well. And so events are a great way to do that. You're meeting people. Again, you know, you wanna make sure you're finding events where your target customers are hanging out at. So it's a great way to make those first connections. I would then look to get in front of connectors. So potential referral partners, who can you partner up with where you can refer them business, they can refer you business. I look to get into the local media. You wanna be seen as the local expert for insurance for, you know, whatever age group again, whoever your target customers are. And pitching the media is a lot easier when you have your unique value proposition and you know who you're targeting as your customers. Then you have a story to be able to tell instead of just, I'm Joe the sales guy, right? So getting the media, local media, especially if you can have some kind of ongoing relationship, if you're writing a monthly column, for example, in your local media, could really help. I'd then think about creating content, and for here you'd wanna be creating articles and other types of content that again are geared towards your target customer, educating them, creating a monthly newsletter that goes out that you also post on your website. So giving them ongoing useful helpful content that talks about where they're at with their stage of life that you might be able to help them with, and new products or services that you're coming out with that again could be able to help them. And then I'd also create video. And if somebody is meeting you at an event, or they heard about you through the media, or they read one of your articles, a great way to introduce yourself again is through video. Especially if you haven't met them yet and it's coming through a connector or media or another source. People, again, this is a very personal business for you. People will make decisions really quickly based on seeing you and hearing you. So if you create a quick video of yourself that goes up on your website when people land there, be able to learn a little bit about you, kind of see what you like, what you're about. Again, you're talking about these two things, your unique value proposition and the types of customers you like to deal with. And it goes a long way to be able to make a warm welcome online when you haven't actually met somebody face to face. And when I first started my business, my website is off my name, so EvanCarmichael.com, I kind of hid behind my content. We did a lot of profiles of famous entrepreneurs, and people started writing in asking about me and who I was. And eventually I started creating more and more content and got into video as well. And people seem to really like the videos, and it's a great way for people to kind of get to know me. And I've had people come up to me and feel like they already know me because they watch all the videos and they've seen all of them and they are regular viewers. And, you know, I don't know them yet, but it's great to meet them. So you can have the same relationship where people can come to your site, quickly watch your intro video, see you're a nice guy, see that you understand their needs, and you're catering just to them, and they'll start forming a relationship with you even though you haven't really started a relationship with them yet. So they're much more likely to pick up the phone and wanna call you. So I hope that helps. So again, come up with a unique value proposition. What makes you different? Identify who your target customers are in as much detail as you can. Then start your marketing strategy through events, going after connectors, getting into the media, create a content strategy, and creating some video as well. Joe, I hope that's useful. If you guys like the video, please leave a comment below, and it also— always appreciate it when you want to leave a thumbs up for the videos. So thank you, and we'll see you on the next episode.
