The All Aboard Newsletter

November was what we’d consider a “fight.”

Filled with challenges, a few wins, and a few mistakes too.

These are the types of months that can be so, so frustrating. But, they’re also the types of months that act as catalysts for growth. The months that make you question all types of processes and strategies and encourage you to try new things.

They’re not fun, but its where the growth occurs.

Lets dive in!

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November Results

The Numbers

November felt like a battle all month.

But in retrospect, it was our 4th best month of the year. I’m shocked to see it.

Its a great reminder that sometimes perception doesn’t equal reality, and that challenges (or triumphs) can paint your recollection of an event for better or worse.

We’ve had a lot of moving parts lately and that has made things seem more challenging than they might have actually been.

A few of our veterans have moved on to pursue new opportunities. One being a new agency owner and another going to run a corporate sales team. We couldn’t be more proud!!

Their departures have opened opportunities for new people in new roles, and with new opportunities, there are often growing pains. Nothing new.

So perhaps its those growing pains that we’re feeling, that are painting November as a “tough” month as we battled through all the ups and downs.

One of the biggest challenges in November (and currently) is that quote volume has been wildly inconsistent.

Worse, that trendline? Yep, pointing pretty hard down and to the right. No bueno man!

But the reasons for the quote volume being inconsistent were numerous. It would be wrong to say it was only one thing that was driving the lower quote volume. Some reasons:

• There was a lot of PTO taken in November (Normal this time of year)

• Customers have seemed “cranky” lately - Election fatigue? Holiday Stress? Life is pain? All the above?

• New marketing tactics (some good, some not so much).

• New people and new SDRs getting bullied on the phone.

I’m confident there are more reasons, but I won’t belabor the point by listing off a million things.

What matters most is that we need to get the trend going back the other direction (Northeast bay bay!).

The sales cycle we typically see (Median time from quote to bind) is around 14 days.

That means that the quote volume we have today, will dictate our results 14 days from now. And whenever you finish your month on a downward activity trend, you’re in for a bumpy ride in the weeks that follow.

Sales forecasting is pretty simple. Its largely just a mechanism of (Quotes x Closing Ratio) and realistic expectations.

And whenever our numbers are down (719 in November .vs. 956 in December) we dive in to these two metrics (Quote Volume + Close Ratio) to figure out where to focus and get back on track.

Something that popped out right away is that we had two big issues with Homeowners. First, our close rate was down 4% month over month. Next that our quotes were down by almost 160 households.

That might not feel like big difference, but it ends up being worth about 20 Homeowners policies, $42,000 in premium, and around $15k in revenue. Pain.

It helps us to watch product close rates month over month, because it can be an indicator of a few things like:

• If the marketing/leads need tweaking.

• If the team is struggling with a certain product line.

• If we’re missing opportunities by not quoting high closing lines.

The reality is, that we can always find opportunity in the data. But what makes the data great is that we can find the BEST opportunity to focus on, instead of throwing a bunch at the wall and seeing what sticks.

As a leader, especially if you started in sales, its easy to think you know what the issue is. Data can tell you if you’re right or wrong.

We all go back to our own “playbooks” when times get tough. The things that worked for us in the past. Just remember, the problem yesterday probably isn’t the same as the problem today, even if it looks similar.

Don’t do that.

Look at the data.

New problems need new eyes and new approaches.

The Marketing

One of the questions I’ve fielded consistently over the last few weeks was something to the effect of:

“Has your lead performance been down?”

The answer is an easy and overwhelming yes.

You can see it in the graphic above. Our quote rate dropped by almost 5% from October to November, and while some of that was our fault (we had a bunch of things erroneously marked DNC 🤦🏻‍♂️), we have noticed a drop in metrics that go beyond that error we made.

And, to be honest, its really not that uncommon for volume to get tight and performance on leads to suffer in the last two months of the year. We’ve seen it every year since 2018.

People are busy. Employees are tired. It happens. But its not an excuse to not perform, and certainly not an excuse to let standards slip. We hold the line, and push that line forward over time.

Like most months, we spent around $45,000 on marketing in total, but something that was really encouraging, is that we had our lowest % of NB from leads EVER!

Only 62% of our New Business came from leads in November, with the rest of it coming from a variety of sources. We’re getting more call-ins than ever (thanks google reviews!), our team are cross-selling like champions. To add to it, we’ve started a few new marketing tactics!

This will be incredibly important as we go into 2025 and work to reduce our marketing spend in response to the commission changes we’re dealing with.

The new tactics are:

• SDRs calling “Lists” - aka winbacks, requotes, x-dates, etc.

• Facebook Generated Leads (Giveaway Style)

• Live Inbounds (Pay per Call)

The Facebook leads have yielded us nothing so far, and while I’m admittedly a bit discouraged, I’m not ready to give up. I know for a fact that some of the best performing leads that we buy (and close) are generated on Facebook. Its not a matter of if we figure it out, its when.

The other two tactics though, have been quite surprising.

The Live Calls have been encouraging. We didn’t start them until late in the month, but what we’re finding is that the prospects that we’re getting are very interested in getting a quote and are ready to move forward when we meet their needs. While they’re expensive, it doesn’t really matter if they close. Remember the cost per acquisition formula:

Cost Per Lead / Lead Close Rate = Cost Per Acquisition

If a call cost $75, but it closes at 20%, then we have a cost per sale of $375, and that works all day long.

But the real success has been putting our SDRS (outbound callers) on our requotes from earlier this year. We got the new auto product in September, and are starting to work our way through the people we quoted but didn’t close in January through August.

To be frank, we’re stoked with the results. From the transfers in November, we’ve written over $70,000 in premium and are sitting at an ROI of nearly 150% and its just the first month!

Just make sure if you decide to do this yourself, you scrub your lists and follow TCPA laws to keep yourself compliant. This is something we can help you with at Next Call Club if you want to outsource it (the calling, the list cleanup, and the CRM help).

Looking towards December and 2025

We’re already 1/3 of the way through December and the end of the year is quickly approaching.

Our 2025 strategy has been set for a few weeks now, and we’re putting final touches on compensation plans, training strategies, and tactics that we’re counting on to make 2025 great.

To recap what some of those are from my issue a few weeks ago we’re:

• Implementing quality assurance in both Sales and CX to monitor for a few key points (Referrals for instance).

• Setting a goal to get our average home premium to $2,250 to recoup the commission cuts we’re getting on 1/1.

• Creating awareness, training on, and writing a ton of Flood insurance.

2024 was a hard year. But it was a great year too.

Oh yea, one last thing. We sold off one our agencies!

We are officially under $40million in premium again, but expect to get right back over that hump when November growth releases.

We’ll continue to sell of some of our books this year. But we’ll continue to buy books as well.

Many of you have heard of the strategy we use in acquisitions: Buy, Build, Sell, Repeat.

So, if you’re looking to buy some premium in Georgia, holla!

Until next time - Thanks for reading and shoot me an email if there is anything I can do to help you!

P.S - Those graphics you see are the real dashboards we use at Peachy every single day (amongst probably 20-30 more). We now offer services to help you get dashboards just like these PLUS our help analyzing and deriving insights from that data. Lets talk!

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.

2.) Curious about your own numbers how they relate to Lifetime Value (LTV), Year 1 Cashflows, and Segment analysis? I help agents with this in my 1:1 Consulting Program!

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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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