Where Is Your New Business Coming From?
We all know ‘that’ broker who seems to network easily and new business just keeps walking through their door. But not all of us are built that way (at least from my point of view), so how do we mere mortals bring in new business and grow our books? We know market rates have increased over the last few years, and they probably won’t go backwards for a while, but this isn’t something we control.
I realised a long, long time ago (settle down…) that if I wanted to grow my book, I needed other options. So I guess my question is, what is your plan? Where do you want your new business to come from? Below are some general options that we see in the market and while not exhaustive, hopefully it can help remind us what’s available to grow our business;
Buy books/businesses – Business owners
Where available, this option works if you have the time, resources and mindset to fully commit to it. Buying books will contain risk, so first step is completing your due diligence to get a feel for the book, the clients and if it suits you and your business. If you buy it, the best practice is to complete full reviews with the clients, ideally in the first year. Any book can look good in the due diligence phase, but I don’t think I’ve seen one purchase where there was sufficient client information.
Overall, this is an effective way to grow your business, though it does come with risk. And getting your hands on a book isn’t always easy. Ausure Head Office work closely with our branches and can often assist business owners that are look to grow by aligning them with others in the group that are getting ready to retire or move out of the industry.
Grow internally – business owners & team members
It’s a fact that most businesses do not currently have Cyber or Management Liability as part of their insurance program. While this can be seen as a bit exposure if we haven’t offered these options to our clients, it’s also a sizeable new business opportunity. These are just two products that I find relevant for all business clients, but I’m sure you can find other products relevant to your book of clients.
And because I’m not a sales type person, I found the best way to approach this was to change my mindset from thinking it was “upselling” to “giving more advice”. Because that is what a quote is. It’s simply advice from you to your client about transferring their risk. If you prefer to think of giving more quotes in a completely different way, then that’s great as well. I think whatever is your trigger to provide more advice (quotes) to your clients, the better.
This has less risk, and in fact it increases your professionalism and compliance. And if you do it often enough, it should increase the value of the business, given a higher policy count per client, which increases profitability and generally leads to higher retention.
Digital leads
Digital leads can be difficult for traditional brokers to grow accustomed to. Often, the types of leads that come through online are from individuals or businesses looking for something specific, like Liability Insurance. However, it’s important to recognise the opportunity these types of leads bring. Whilst they may be enquiring about Liability Insurance specifically, it provides the broker the ability to build a relationship with the client and offer a full insurance program for their business.
Charline Mitchener Ausure Marketing Manager explains “As the brokers compete with Insurer’s online sales, Ausure continues to evolve its’ offering for our AR’s and clients. It’s important to remember that insurance online will never ‘replace a broker’, but simply allows a brokerage another way to gain clients.”
Ausure have spent significant time on improving the Ausure Websites search engine optimisation. This has resulted in an increased amount of leads and client enquiries coming off our branch landing pages.
Ausure continue to provide new lead generation, based on what is coming through. At last check I think there were about 100 leads last month which have been distributed to the local offices.
