Building your own life insurance agency can feel like an insurmountable goal. Transitioning from a producing life insurance agent to someone building their own agency requires a new set of skills. Recruiting, onboarding and training will be new tools to add to your wheelhouse, and if done without intention, you may find yourself with an inefficient team.
We’ve put together a guide to help you build a winning life insurance team. From recruiting the right agents to building a team that can adapt to the industry, it takes a lot of intention to create a successful team.
Recruit the right kind of agents
Building a winning team requires hiring winning agents above all else. Winning agents should not be solely defined by who can sell the most policies or offer the highest coverage amounts. Instead, you should be looking for individuals who can also add to your organization’s culture.
Attract team members who are personable, determined and know how to work as a part of a team. It should go without saying that your team should be competent in the field, but sometimes those are skills that can be learned more easily than other innate abilities like good interpersonal manners or an aptitude for critical thinking.
Individuals with positive attitudes also make valuable assets when building your team. Someone who doesn’t get discouraged easily, stays persistent and even helps with team morale will be a great addition to your team.
Identifying top-performing life insurance agents requires more than spotting talent in the field. Consider recruits who share your organization’s core values and work well with the rest of your team.
Strategize your training and onboarding
Creating effective life insurance sales training methods will go a long way in driving your team to success. Not every prospective recruit will have life insurance experience, so it’s up to you to give them the tools and training to bring them up to speed.
Symmetry agents are supported by effective training from industry experts and veteran agents. Hosted within our one-stop site for agents, HQ, Symmetry agents have access to guidance for anything — whether it’s learning the ins and outs of a new product or finding a script to help with telesales, we have you covered.
Create a motivated sales culture
While we’ve already established that selling life insurance isn’t everything, it is important that your team feels motivated to help more families and sell more life insurance policies. To that end, give your team incentives to sell more and grow your business.
Building a motivated life insurance sales team can involve a couple of different aspects. To start, give your team visible leaderboards. The idea shouldn’t be making anyone feel bad about their numbers, instead, your leaderboards should celebrate the hard work of your top-performing agents.
To support team morale, you could also highlight the voices of your monthly top performers, asking them to share a few of their winning tips with the team during a group meeting or virtual call.
Beyond that, reward agents who go above and beyond selling life insurance. Offer them bonuses on top of their sales or put together an agency trip for the members of your team who sell the most in a given month. Whatever you decide on, give your sales team a reason to push harder each month while celebrating their continuous wins.
Nurture a team that can adapt to the industry
Life insurance sales is a changing market, and you need a sales team that can adapt. To keep your team up to speed in the insurance industry, be sure that your training is fluid and incorporates the newest life insurance information.
Make sure your team doesn’t fall behind on market trends or new regulations. Beyond that, keep your team aware of changing customer needs. While one product might have made sense a year ago, there might be an emerging policy that more easily fits their client’s needs.
Leverage technology
Speaking of adaptation, supportive technology is becoming more ubiquitous in life insurance sales. Life insurance sales technology (or insurtech) is shaping the future of the industry.
It is in the best interest of you and your team to leverage technology as much as possible. Look for technology that allows your team to automate tasks when it makes sense.
Scheduling appointments, organizing leads and even messaging clients can be automated. Through technology, your agents can free up more time and make stronger connections with their clients. A great example of that kind of technology is our proprietary software, Switchboard .
With Switchboard, Symmetry agents can easily create and run campaigns, design inbound and outbound funnels for client communication and even schedule their appointments. Best of all, it’s free to Symmetry agents. It’s just one example of the technology we use to support our agents.
Create an inclusive team environment
Inclusivity (and more importantly diversity) are important aspects of any successful life insurance team. Inclusivity in life insurance sales means perspective, and the more perspectives your team has to work with, the more likely they will be successful in their roles.
Beyond that, a strong promotion of inclusivity in your work environment will give all your team members a sense of belonging. This will foster a sense of trust and loyalty within your team. By looking for new opportunities to enhance your team’s inclusivity, you will be adding to the strength and overall well-being of your agency.
Build your team with Symmetry
Creating an agency you can depend on will require skills that take time to hone. Whatever standard you choose to focus on when building your own team, hopefully, there’s something in this guide that can lead you to success.
With intention and determination, building a winning sales team will come with time.
