What Are You Doing Differently in 2015?

[indienoise]

More and better follow ups. Insurance is currently a secondary thing for me, so my wife is coming on board this year to lighten my load on both fronts. I need to be more diligent about retention. A huge part of my business is nonstandard, so that means reminder calls to get payments in prior to cancellation. Hopefully i will also get the time to start calling the huge x date list ive created in nearly 2 years of quoting.

 

[Bittersweet614]

I have been tinkering around with several ideas.

First is to change my marketing strategy. I have been focusing on Medicare the last few years with the hope that I could do more cross sales to make better money. However, that hasn't been as effective as I had hoped (they always see me as a Medicare specialist and nothing else).
The problem I have is that I left a captive company, Bankers Life, in August and gave up all my renewal income. I had my best AEP this year but without the renewals and no MAPD payments till Feb the checkbook will be getting tight once the credit card bills from Christmas come in.

I am thinking about using mailers for LTC to households with 30k+ income. It will lead to fewer appointments (which is a goal of mine since my kids are all little) but I should make more per app, then I can do the Medicare since I am already in the house. I am curious to see how well I will be able to transition to Life and Annuity business since I am starting with LTC rather than Medicare

I also want to get involved online. I am just looking at my options - Facebook business page, LinkedIn, creating a website for quoting and selling LTC or Term Life.

For me, 2015 will be a year of trial and error. I want to give a few new ideas a chance and see how they go. When I was at BLC they always discouraged me from trying new ideas, just told me to follow the Bankers way and I would be fine.
I am sooooo glad I stopped drinking the Kool-Aid earlier this year!!!

 

[VaDwayne]

Hopefully I'll stay healthy as I had five surgeries this year and almost died in January. That's my number one priority, staying healthy or getting healthy!!!! I missed almost 5 months out of 2014. Thank God I sell commercial and had renewals coming in when I was off.

I am going to fish and hunt more, camp more, and spend weekends with my wife instead of the back of an ambulance.

As far as work goes, I'm going to maintain my book of businesses by making more visits this year to my clients. I'm going to get better at asking for referrals. My goal is to ask 25-50 people a day to buy insurance.

 

[Herkster]

1) Network better
1b) Get my face in the public so people know who I am - it's hard to do with a 7 month old at home, and it takes time away from what could be productive office time, but it's what I need to do.
2) Get off my ass and door knock/visit local farmers/home owners
3) Write more premium than I did in 2014 (my first full year as an agent)
4) Help get a referral drive started
5) We need to update our website, and I tried through most of 2014 to get that accomplished, and failed. I'll see who's arm I need to twist in 2015..
6) Be better at follow ups and clerical work

**Edit to add
7) Obtain life and health license
8) Obtain commercial lines license

 

[germanwine1]

After a year of floundering trying to keep my head above water and stay in the business I am going to buy some leads and ask for help on how to work those leads.

 

[sshafran]

I have been tinkering around with several ideas.

First is to change my marketing strategy. I have been focusing on Medicare the last few years with the hope that I could do more cross sales to make better money. However, that hasn't been as effective as I had hoped (they always see me as a Medicare specialist and nothing else).
The problem I have is that I left a captive company, Bankers Life, in August and gave up all my renewal income. I had my best AEP this year but without the renewals and no MAPD payments till Feb the checkbook will be getting tight once the credit card bills from Christmas come in.

I am thinking about using mailers for LTC to households with 30k+ income. It will lead to fewer appointments (which is a goal of mine since my kids are all little) but I should make more per app, then I can do the Medicare since I am already in the house. I am curious to see how well I will be able to transition to Life and Annuity business since I am starting with LTC rather than Medicare

I also want to get involved online. I am just looking at my options - Facebook business page, LinkedIn, creating a website for quoting and selling LTC or Term Life.

For me, 2015 will be a year of trial and error. I want to give a few new ideas a chance and see how they go. When I was at BLC they always discouraged me from trying new ideas, just told me to follow the Bankers way and I would be fine.
I am sooooo glad I stopped drinking the Kool-Aid earlier this year!!!

From Ohio? Just curious because your forum name has 614 in it...

 

[Bittersweet614]

From Ohio? Just curious because your forum name has 614 in it...

Its my old street address. I still love the house and the neighborhood, but when my wife got unexpectedly pregnant - with TWINS - the house became too small. Going from being done having 2 kids, 1 boy and 1 girl, to 3 boys and 1 girls changes things.

That is also a big part of the reason I am looking to make changes this year to free up more time for them. Sometimes its still hard to believe that my oldest is in Kindergarden already.

 

[briko3]

Its my old street address. I still love the house and the neighborhood, but when my wife got unexpectedly pregnant - with TWINS - the house became too small. Going from being done having 2 kids, 1 boy and 1 girl, to 3 boys and 1 girls changes things.

That is also a big part of the reason I am looking to make changes this year to free up more time for them. Sometimes its still hard to believe that my oldest is in Kindergarden already.

Did you immediately make an appointment with the urologist? Haha

 

[pfg1]

I plan to do ALOT of things differently.
This past year was one full of challenges for me across the board, business and personal. I'm going to streamline my focus, and implement some things I've been talking about doing for years, but never seem to do.

 

[briko3]

I plan to do ALOT of things differently.
This past year was one full of challenges for me across the board, business and personal. I'm going to streamline my focus, and implement some things I've been talking about doing for years, but never seem to do.

What specifically? . .