The All Aboard Newsletter

In today’s newsletter we’ll be covering our July results, talk through how we’re generating 200+ quotes a day with internal outbound callers, and chat through some of the general fear and sentiment about market changes.

Lets take a ride!

Reading Time: 9 Minutes

July Results + Breakdown

907 Total Items Sold!

As expected, July started slowly.

Given our lower than expected quote volume in June, it was no surprise when that materialized in July with less than ideal sales numbers.

Pair in the decreased quote volume with extensive amounts of time-off for the team, and it was always going to be an uphill battle to keep production near the 850 item average we’ve enjoyed since May.

In the last issue, we explained that we were going to focus on a few tactics to combat the lower volume, namely:

• Overspending on Marketing

• Conducting extra trainings to improve close rate

• Focusing on referrals

We can proudly say we were successful in executing on all three tactics.

We increased our marketing spend by about 20%, did extra trainings using our "Drive-By” method, and rolled out our Lifetime Referral Program.

In short, it worked.

The results in the back-half of the month illustrate the need and benefit of some basic forecasting.

Spending time thinking about what “next month” is going to look like gives you an opportunity to pivot and make changes quickly.

You’re able to impact the future, rather than get left holding the bag wondering what the hell happened.

Given the size of our team (17 salespeople in July), we expect about 40 items per day.

As you can see above, in the first half of the month, we were falling short on a consistent basis.

After the first week, we were trending to have our worst month since February. We knew we needed to do something, and we dug in to find where we could make impact quickly.

We realized that extras weren’t being quoted, so we started talking about the quote volume on those lines every single day.

We realized that referrals were lagging, so we rolled out the new lifetime referral program.

Sales were slow relative to what we expected, so we did drive-by trainings on asking for the sale, overcoming objections, and bundling.

By the 2nd week of the month, we started to push our production trend up day-over-day.

In the 2nd half of July, we caught fire. The last 8 days of the month we averaged over 40 items per day, and broke 60 items on 5 of the 7 remaining days of the month.

It was a hell of a finish.

Its a great reminder that a slow start doesn’t have to dictate what the rest of the month looks like. You can be a 2nd half team.

Huge weeks happen, so don’t give up, because at the end of the day, we’re not really playing the game for the month.

Play the long-game.

Extend your time-horizon.

It takes some of the pressure off in the short-run, and helps you reset to focus on what truly matters (But hit that VC!).

July Breakdown

In early July, our close rate was unacceptably low.

Whether it was the long-weekend for fourth of July, bad luck, or something else, it contributed heavily to the slow start.

Fortunately, the close rates started to rise pretty quickly after the team normalized.

By the end of the month, July represented one of the highest close rate months for auto, and even though home insurance close was down slightly, auto production more than made up for the lagging home close rate.

And while we’re absolutely stoked about our auto production and our auto close rate, we have some work to do on the property side.

Here is why:

We wrote 60 renters policies in June, and 86 renters policies in July. That doesn’t seem like a big issue until we realize that we wrote about 30 less home insurance policies in July as well.

That means our marketing mix is hitting more renters than homeowners, and while we have some success with people who rent, our rates don’t typically favor those clients.

To compound the issue, Renters represent lower premium, lower retention, and a lower commission rate.

The lifetime value of a person who bundles Auto+Home is roughly 2.25x that of someone who bundles Auto+Renters for our agency. This is partly due to the lower commission rate, partly due to the lower premium, and partly due to the lower retention that comes with someone who rents vs owns.

So while Renters can be a nice supplement to the portfolio, we want to limit the overall exposure and ensure we’re getting more Auto+Home bundles.

Overall, the core product production was good, and we’ll be working to target more homeowners in August and the rest of the year.

Quotes from extra lines fell off a cliff, and unsurprisingly so did production on those lines.

After doing 100+ extras in May, we regressed to the mean of 50 extra items in June, and stayed there through July.

So as we enter August, we’re refocusing on bundling three-lines every time, and setting a stretch goal of 1,100 items and $1,300,000 in annualized premium.

This type of month would represent a number roughly 10% higher than our best month ever, but we think we can do it.

We now have 20+ people who are quoting and actively focused on outbound sales.

Here is what we need to do to hit the item goal with our current team:

These numbers seem totally doable given the goals that we’ve laid out for the team in the past.

We typically want to see our team doing 14 quotes per day (Lines, not HH), which means that if each of the 20 producers were firing on all cylinders, we’d hit about 280 quotes a day.

Its important to note, that 3-4 of our producers are entering their full month selling, so we won’t count on them to hit the full-goal.

But we’re going to push for it, because if we can do it, it means we should beat the 1,100 item goal without much of a hitch.

Its easy to talk about with math, much harder to execute in reality.

But we do hard things, and we set big hairy audacious goals.

How we generate 200+ Quotes a day

I often get asked how we our agents are able to do so many quotes per day.

The answer is a relatively simple formula:

• Internet Leads

• Strong Outbound Processes

• An in-house Telemarketing Team

• Salespeople 100% focused on Selling.

And while it feels like second-nature to have a team of Sales Development Representatives (Thats we call our Telemarketers), it wasn’t always that way.

When I first got my start as a sales manager, I took over a team of incredibly knowledgeable and talented sales people.

The problem?

They were used to waiting for the phone to ring, disliked making outbound calls, and widely lacked the skills to do so.

Direct mail was driving inbound calls, and those calls were closing. However, we couldn’t get enough volume, and mail was quickly becoming too expensive to scale.

Low volume and high cost per acquisition isn’t a winning formula if you’re trying to grow and hopefully hit a bonus.

We needed to supplement with outbound efforts.

So to make a long-story short, we bridged the skill gap by bringing in junior sales people, and had them start their career as outbound callers.

They would dial out, on both real-time leads and leads from the agency like winbacks, requotes, and monoline clients, and then they would transfer that call to a more skilled sales rep who knew how to close.

These groups complemented each other.

One group had knowledge and closing ability, the other had tenacity and no fear of rejection.

It was a match made in heaven.

We used this method for a number of years, and it wasn’t until 2018 that we decided to have a team of SDRs full-time.

The challenge with using your aspirant sales people as SDRs is that once they master the role, they’re moving up. In some cases, thats awesome, but in other cases, it means your callers are always operating below the overall potential of the position.

I can clearly say that having a full-time SDR team has been game changing for us. Now, we typically have 5 to 7 full time SDRs at any given time.

Its a perfect position for someone with no experience to come in, work for 6-12 months while getting their license, and then move up. If they can’t or won’t do the SDR job effectively, they’ll never make it as salespeople in our system.

But thats just the added benefit, the real win is in the acceleration they provide for the sales team.

We expect that each SDR gets about 20 transfers per day on average. Here is what those 20 transfers mean from a production stand point.

Take the following example where a caller only averages 15 Transfers per day (Our minimum expectation).

• 15 Transfers Per Day (No quote, no transfer credit)

• 75% Quoted Bundle Rate

• 21 Days in a Month

• 20% Item Close Rate

When a caller performs at this level, we can reasonably expect for that caller to generate 26 Line Quotes Per Day.

That equates to 551 Line quotes per month.

At a 20% close rate, thats an item contribution of 110 Items per month.

But when we share these numbers, many agents can’t believe it. They don’t think its true.

And I get it

Outbound sales is not easy. Its high-rejection, its a total grind, and its not a glamorous job.

But we look at our callers differently than most people. Instead of them being “low-man on the totem pole” they’re celebrated.

They’re not paid $12/hr, in fact, some of our more tenured callers are at $20/hr. People tell us we’re crazy when they hear that.

I wholeheartedly disagree.

If someone can drive enough activity to generate 110 items, they’re absolutely worth 20/hr.

We have 6 people in this role today. Its a big part of why we can push 800+ items consistently.

To compound their contribution, they ensure that our leads are called promptly and sufficiently.

Many agents have salespeople who make outbound calls on live internet leads, but its not uncommon for leads to sit there, uncalled if everyone is on the phone.

SDRs fix this problem. They ensure the leads get called, they prevent your sales team from burning out, they keep your best closers talking on the phone, and oh yea…. They’re cheaper than buying live transfers from the big live transfer companies.

Our salespeople do make outbound calls on leads, but maybe 30-50 calls per day tops.

The SDR team are accelerators and arguably the most important part of our sales strategy. We typically buy about 15-16 leads per person on the phone, and have a call cadence to call those leads 12-15x over a ninety day period.

There are a number of ways to build your team, whether in-house, outsourced, or somewhere in between.

If you do decide to outsource it, you have options to hire in the U.S, near shored, or offshored.

There are pros and cons to each, and perhaps I’ll cover those in a later issue if there is enough interest.

In short though, we prefer to hire in the U.S for a number of reasons including:

• TCPA Risk is significantly lower

• No timezone differences

• More control over the process

• An additional job created for someone residing in the U.S

I’m seeing more agents leaning in on this strategy, and it makes sense.

Economically it works, and the best part of it all… It Scales!

This is a topic I could talk about all day.

If you need help building an outbound team, shoot me a reply and I’d love to chat more.

On my mind this week:

Anxiety around changes and the hard market

Lately, insurance companies have been in the news… A LOT.

Whether its State Farm pulling out of California, AAA and Farmers coming out of Florida, Progressive and Geico shutting down marketing, or Allstate posting rough earnings numbers.

Its clear that we’re in a hard market, companies are struggling to get profitable, and changes are abound for all of us.

There are rumors flying around, fears being expressed, and negativity everywhere you look on social media.

But its important to remind ourselves that most of the country has just experienced a 3-5 year stretch of near perfect conditions for growth and writing new business.

Was COVID a massive challenge for all of us? Definitely.

But didn’t most of us get better and more robust as leaders, agents, and professionals?

Didn’t we learn new skills, overcome unspeakable challenges, and adjust faster than we ever thought we could?

For most of us, the answer is a resounding yes.

People have been home! They’re answering their phone and responding to direct mail. With all of the challenges we had, it was a perfect environment to write new business and grow.

But now the cycle is coming around. We’re taking rates, dealing with non-renewals, and customers are shopping at heightened rates.

But its going to make us better. Smooth seas don’t make good sailors.

And with all the anxiety out there, its important to remember that when you’re feeling anxious, you’re living in the future. You have to remind yourself that you should focus on what you can control, here and now.

The best remedy for anxiety is action. What can you do today to hit your goals, and set yourself up for next year?

Personally, I’m trying to diversify my offerings. I don’t want to be caught with my pants down if my carrier decides to stop writing in Georgia.

If that happens, we’ll be ahead of the curve with other product lines. If it doesn’t, awesome - now we’re diversifying our revenue.

For the last decade, there has been downward pressure on renewals. We used to be able to “rest and vest.”

That isn’t ideal for carriers, and almost every company in the industry is lowering commission rates where they can.

They’re putting huge incentives out to sell, and grow. They want growth, so does Wall Street.

Remember what I always say - Choose the game you want to play.

Examine the incentives laid out for you, and think long-term.

Are you building your agency to hit a quarterly or year-end bonus?

Are you trying to maximize profit?

Are you trying to grow as fast as possible so you can sell the agency down the line?

Keep those questions in mind, and plan your strategy accordingly. Its ok to pivot, but don’t pivot too much.

I’m not an actuary, but I full expect the insurance industry to be tumultuous through the end of 2025.

That means we have a lot of work ahead of us, a lot of changes coming, and new skills to learn to stay ahead of the curve.

Don’t get left behind.

Andrew’s Picks

This week, I don’t have any picks. I could probably dig some out, but I typically like to share things that really inspired me. I’ve been busy with travel lately, so instead, I’m pointing you to one place.

I sat down with a good friend Peter Vitale where we talked about the greater insurance industry, scaling an agency, and how agents can use data to make better decisions.

Let us know what you think! Link below:

What did you think of this week’s newsletter ?

Shoot me a reply with a comment, question, feedback, or something else!

I’d love to hear from you!