The All Aboard Newsletter

Hey everyone - Its time for the May update on Peachy Insurance’s growth!

Better late than never, right?

Truthfully, I should have gotten this out last week, but instead I decided to go down to Florida and go on the boat with the boys. Aye oohhhhh!

May was a bit of a slog, just like it was last year. It seems like every May we've got people on vacation or we’re taking rate increases (3 years in a row?!) and customers are just kind of cranky.

But the earth keeps spinning and we keep innovating!

The bad months suck. I think most of us can relate to that. When sales numbers are good, we're flying high and nothing can bother us. Peak euphoria.

When the sales numbers suck?

Well, sometimes it feels like everything is crumbling. Isn’t sales such a mental game?

But there's always wins to be found, progress to be made, and new things to be built.

For us, that looks like a new/expanded approach to marketing and some amazing momentum on the service side.

Let's dive in.

May Results

While April was our best month of the year, May was our worst (so far).

Whether it's because people were out, consumers are starting to get on summer break with their kids, or because we took yet another rate increase here in Georgia, the numbers just kind of lagged.

And when I break down the reason, it's pretty apparent why.

Take a look at this chart:

It's pretty obvious why we lagged, right? All our main drivers were down.

But we’ve got to dig deeper than that. It's one thing to know that your quotes, sales, and close rates are down, but its soooo important to understand why.

Let's start with sales. We know the basic formula of what goes into sales:

Quotes x Close Rate = Sales

Our target close rate is 20%. So what would our production have been if we had hit that target?

If we had closed at the same rate in May as we did in April (20%), we would have written 689 items instead of 597.

It's that simple. There's really nothing more to look at here. So lets go down to the next level.

Why was close rate down?

Whenever there is a rate increase, its easy to point our finger and blame it for any drop in efficiency. After all, we have taken rate after rate after rate. It seems like it's never ending. And while one rate might be seen as a “raise”, multiple rates in a row erode competitiveness.

And while I do think the additional rate has contributed somewhat, I don't think it tells us the whole story.

Here's why: We had one producer who ran at a 2% close rate in May (pain). Their pipeline looked good throughout the month, and they had previously hit some pretty big goals, so we thought, "You know what? Maybe they're just in a slump."

Well, they never got out of the slump and ultimately resigned from the role. Here's the really painful thing… This producer did 5 items on 289 quotes 😬.

The first thing to note is that if we exclude this producer from the overall team, the close rate increases from 17.3% to 18.6%….

To put that another way, If this producer had just closed at the average of 18.6, they would have written 54 items. Want me to increase the pain for you?

At $875 in premium per item, that is roughly $47,000 in written premium and almost $12,000 in revenue. Ouch.

Keeping a producer that's not performing too long has real consequences. They cost you money, bring down the team, and take sales away from other producers who are able to close deals.

Most agents across the country have at least one person like this and so many of us hold on for too long.

So, what about quotes? Why were those down?

Quotes were down about 8% overall. Considering that April had 22 days and May only had 21 days, the average quotes per day were only down about 3 quotes a day.

So there's not really a big concern there and while it's easy to look at the raw Number and say "oh wow, we were down so much on a per-day basis!” it's basically in parity. So, this is an example of digging a bit deeper and walking back concern.

1. One of the big wins this year is getting our quote rate back up on our internet leads, and that continued in May.
   
   The end of last year, right before all the one-to-one consent madness hit, we were quoting in the 16% to 18% range (down from 24% to 28% in Summer 2024).
   
   I share this to show people out there that quote rate is extremely important when it comes to any type of marketing. While internet leads are becoming a smaller part of our mix as we drive more organic business from referrals, cross-sells, winbacks, requotes, aged leads, etc, We still want to continue to build on the success that we're having with them.
   
   To put this into context for you, 1% quote rate on 5,500 leads per month is a big freaking deal.
   
   Here's the math:
   
   1.) 5,500 Leads at 1% Quote Rate
   2.) 55 Additional Households Quoted

   3.) 99 Additional Policy Quotes (1.8 lines per HH conservatively)

   4.) 18 Additional Items (18.3% close)
   5.) Additional premium of $16,000(ish)
   6.) Additional Revenue of $3,963
   
   To say it another way, At this level of lead volume, we're talking about $4,000 of revenue per 1% quote rate.
   
   I know some amazing agents who are currently running 11-12% quote rate.
   
   Imagine how much revenue and production you’d pick up if you could just get to 17% or 18%.
   
   There are a lot of ways to do this, but make sure you're checking for spam. Make sure your team is overcoming objections at the front of the call, And think about branded caller ID.
   
   If you’re having issues with either of these things, we can brand your calls and ensure you don’t flag spam through Next Call Club, just shoot me a note.

Bright Spot - Customer Service!

While we had a down month in May, one of the biggest bright spots was the work (and results) of our customer experience team.

I said it on this newsletter before, but we refer to our customer service team as customer experience because they're more than just customer service.

They're expected to provide an exemplary experience for our clients, make recommendations, and give advice. They're not there to simply take orders.

Sales is service, and service is sales.

In the month of April, the team beat their revenue goal for the first time ever and we're proud to say that they did it again in May.

Our is to cover 50% of the salary of the team with revenue generated by their production.

Behind the amazing leadership of Ashley Rocha and Pat Oliver, the team has put together a nice win streak.

What does this mean in real numbers? It means that we got over $19,000 of revenue from the CX team last month! Last year, we were averaging about $5,000 from this team.

Who wouldn’t want a $15,000 profit swing? After all the compensation cuts, who doesn’t need that type of swing?

So how did they do it? First, we can talk about the ways they got to that revenue.

• $7,395 from Direct Binds

• $5,103 from Policy Upgrades

• $4,320 from Cross-Sell Commissions

• $2,152 from Referral Commissions

So that's ultimately the breakdown. But it doesn't really tell us how they got there.

It all starts with our quality assurance process.

Coming into 2025, we wanted to make sure that we were being more consistent with our reviews and our referral asks. At the same time, our team wanted to make more money.

So we found a way to accomplish both things. We listen to 20+ calls per month (per person), and so long as they have 85% adherence to these goals above, they’ll get a $300 bonus. Its akin to “giving themselves a $36,000 raise.”

Do it or don't. It's that simple.

And we did this because we wanted to build the right behaviors and give people a reward for doing it.

Simply asking for a review, or simply asking for a cross-sell, or simply asking for a referral is not going to be enough to actually get those results.

So we do what everybody does and we train. Ashley and Pat have been very hard at work training the team, building their confidence, teaching them about products and services to ensure that they have the tools and knowledge to hit their goals.

And the best part about all of this is that we're just getting started. June is already shaping up to be an even better month than the last two months for the CX team and their production.

We're seeing cross-sells that they sent last month close every single day. Referrals that they got three months ago finally closing out. And it's all starting to click.

On both the sales and customer service side, we have a training calendar every month. Here is an example of May's training calendar.

As you can see, that's a ton of training. But hard work pays off, and we're confident that we'll continue to see amazing results in June, July, and throughout the rest of the year.

This week’s edition of All Aboard is sponsored by Next Call Club

Look the truth is, that every edition of All Aboard is sponsored by Next Call Club, but this week is a bit different.

We are helping agents all over the country (all carriers) grow in a profitable way.

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The leads you have not working or poor quality? We can help

Need internet leads because you can’t get volume? We can help

Love looking at data, but don’t know where to start? We can help

Need data analytics but can’t afford to hire an analyst? We can help

Need some telemarketing prowess to turn those leads into calls? We can help

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Or, you can book a time here: Click Me

Marketing to the “other” 60%

Ok so look, everybody who's followed me for any amount of time knows that I love outbound calling.

We wouldn't have been able to scale to 45 million(ish) In 7 years without it. In fact, for the first three or four years, 90% of our new business came from internet leads paired with aggressive outbound calling.

But here's the truth… If you're running a 40% contact rate, you're doing amazing.

So, what about that other 60%?

Imagine if you could tap into even 10% of that and convert them to a quote. Do you have any idea how much money that would be worth?

If you don't, then scroll up and read the first section of this newsletter because I laid it out for you.

I've been thinking about this a lot, and I've come up with a new strategy that we're beta testing right now. It's a way to hit our leads in every channel to communicate with customers the way that they want to be communicated with.

It looks something like this:

Let me break this down for you.

A lead comes in, and we all know what we're supposed to do.

We're supposed to call it, and ideally as fast as possible. Given our restrictions around text (not all readers will have this) We typically don't text much until we get the customer on the phone because we need to opt them in.

One of my own limiting beliefs has been that I shouldn't text a prospect a generic opt-in message without ever talking to them because the opt-in rate is pretty low. Well, I'm throwing that limiting belief out the window and saying screw it.

Let's think about this: I've basically been able to get 21-22% quote rate with a branded caller ID saying Peachy Insurance and a phone call.

(For those asking if I think Branded Caller ID is worth it… Absolutely)

Why? Well, because our digital presence is actually very good. When you Google "Peachy Insurance", you see that we have 650+ Google reviews, a beautiful website, and overall just a talented and attractive team 😜.

But for so long, we've been marketing in silos. So how do we find a way to make all of our marketing work together?

Well, this graphic shows us how.

In the “old” format, we only ran branded caller ID + a phone call. That might lead to them googling us.

Now, here is what happens in the “new” format:

First, a lead comes in, and before we even call it, it goes into a dynamic Facebook and Google audience. These people are going to be getting our ads, chasing them all over the internet. I want them to see Peachy Insurance every time they open their phone or desktop browser.

Then, either at the same time or later that day, depending on when the lead comes in, we are going to give them a phone call and they're going to see Peachy Insurance on their caller ID.

If they answer that call, great. We're quoting them! But if they don't answer, we're going to leave a voicemail again talking about Peachy Insurance.

(Something to note here is that most people read their voicemails now, so ensure that when you are speaking, you are speaking in a clear and articulate way. Keep it short and to the point.)

At the same time, we're going to text them. Maybe they see our opt-in message, and maybe they don't. If they opt in, we are going to work to get them on a phone call if possible, But if they won't get on a call, we're going to take an opportunity to try and quote them over text. I've resisted this a long time, but if I think about how I interact with companies today, I'd rather die than get on the phone with a company.

Okay, that was a bit dramatic. But you get the point. We're going to be texting now. They're again going to see the Peachy Insurance brand name.

Additionally, we never really leveraged email until we were already in the consideration phase, meaning that we have talked to them and are trying to close the deal.

Now we're going to send them anywhere from 12 to 15 emails over the next 90 days to try and get them to do a couple of things: We want them to call us, text us, or at a minimum be curious enough to check out our website.

Because if they don't call us or text us and go to our website, even if they take zero actions, that's a win for us. Why?

Because we have remarketing ads set up on Facebook and Google.

This is why the chart looks like a circle.

Now instead of hitting a lead 7-8 times by a phone call, maybe a voicemail here or there, we're going to be hitting them 30+ times over 90 days on multiple channels.

There is significant research that says a person wants 8-12 touch points at a minimum to buy from a brand. While we may have that as a captive carrier due to the big name brand, we certainly don't have it as an individual brand.

And if you're an independent agent, the challenge is even greater.

So let's put this all in context.

We'll now be hitting a prospect across 30+ touchpoints. Do we really believe that's not going to provide lift?

Of course it's going to provide lift!

What is all of this going to cost?

Once it's set up, probably less than $1,000 per month. If I get two extra sales out of all of this, I break even and I'm happy.

One last thing to note here. If you do not have your own website, you are severely limiting yourself. There are two reasons for that.

1.) The company has decided that they are going to use our name, image, and likeness. If somebody goes to our company page to get a quote, the direct business is going to write that, and we're not getting paid on that. I think this is absolutely despicable, but what can we do?

I'll tell you what we can do. Get our own website (check your compliance rules)

2.) The second reason you're limiting yourself is because if you don't have your own website, you can not set up retargeting. If you post on social media a lot, or you're very active in your community, wouldn't you want people to go to your own personally branded website? And wouldn't you want them to continue to see your brand over and over and over again?

Of course you would.

This works for legacy media too.

Think about if you have a billboard. How many people see that billboard? Wouldn't you want them to go to your website so you get the sale, not the company?

What if you have a drawing at a local event? Scan the QR code, go to our website, and enter for a drawing. Now, instead of getting one interaction with them, you can chase them all around the internet.

I know this is a lot to throw at you.

But as I set this up for my own agency, I'm helping others do the same thing. And if you need help, let me know. We can talk about my one-on-one consulting program.

Capture as much of that 60% that doesn't answer the phone. With shrinking margins, it's too important not to.

In Closing

I would be remiss if I didn't take a minute to give acknowledgement to Allstate for making some adjustments to agents' goals.

I've been pretty vocal about the incentive and goal structures that the company has created for us, and yesterday they rolled out some changes that give us some guarantees based on production.

While in my opinion they did not adequately address the issue with retention, and there is still risk to fall down a segment and cost large agents hundreds of thousands of dollars, it is a big step in the right direction.

2025 has been an extremely tough year for a lot of agents, and so many agents are working harder than ever.

In 2023, everyone said 2024 would be easier, and in 2024, everyone said 2025 would be easier. We all hope that 2026 is easier.

But don't expect it and don't count on it. Just keep trying to get better every single month.

Think about the game that you're playing. Run your own race and do what's right for you, your business, your employees, and your family.

Hang in there, it's really tough not only for the small agents, not only for the medium-sized agents, not only for the large agents, it's tough for everybody.

Stick together, keep chatting, and keep advocating for yourselves.

Until next time, bon voyage!

P.S. - I voice dictated this entire newsletter with very minimal edits.I did it with an AI-based voice-to-text program called Wispr Flow. It has supercharged my productivity and it's only $15/month.If you want to sign up, we both get a free month if you use my link. Check it out here.

Three ways I can help you:

1.) If you need leads, calls, or data analytics - We’d love the opportunity to show how Next Call Club can help you grow faster and more profitably than before.

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As always - Thank you for the support! I’m looking forward to bringing you insights, ideas, and actionable strategies multiple times per month! If you enjoyed this newsletter or it gave you value, please consider sharing it with a friend!

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