 
By Don Runge, CLU
Regardless of how long you’ve worked in insurance sales, I’ll bet you have worked a bad lead at some time. Believe it or not, though, there is no such thing as a bad lead—and the reason I say this is that no lead is a surefire appointment. Every lead has the potential to be a good lead—and even a great lead.
Some agents have false perceptions about what a lead is or what it should do. Your role is to see, meet and interview as many people who meet your basic market profile characteristics. Let’s examine some of the existing agent myths regarding bad leads and see just how debunking these myths can help you develop an approach for converting any prospect into a client
- Leads are guaranteed sales. This perception couldn’t be further from reality. No one can guarantee a sale. A lead is basically designed to provoke a prospect—hopefully enough that they will request some information.
- Leads guarantee that the repliers will remember sending their reply card back. Can you remember all of the mail you responded to during the past three weeks? Probably not! It is very difficult to remember anything you did three weeks ago, let alone what mail you received or cards you mailed back. If you assume your prospect doesn’t remember sending the card back, it’s easy to adjust your appointment approach accordingly.
- Leads guarantee appointments. There are few, if any, guarantees in life. I don’t know any salesperson or agent who can guarantee any appointment, even if they set it themselves. People have a lot going on and are dealing with a constantly changing environment. They have a lot of other daily activities that have higher priorities than meeting with an insurance agent. You have to follow through, contacting leads and convincing them that your information is important enough for a meeting.
- Leads need to be more qualified. What do you need to know about a person to prepare yourself to contact them for an appointment? Some agents want all kinds of information, such as income, health status, checking account, interest, etc. What they really want is personal information that can help them convert this lead into an appointment because they are prequalified. But being more qualified doesn’t make someone more interested in meeting with you.
- The more information a prospect provides on a reply card, the better the lead. This can be true, but not necessarily! Just because you have more information about someone, that alone will not improve your ability to convert leads into appointments. For example, knowing a prospect’s exact income won’t help you set an appointment with him—but it might create a false perception on your part. “The higher the income, the better the prospect,” may or may not be true. You won’t know how good that prospect is until you meet him and complete a factfind. Even then, you won’t necessarily know someone’s income until you earn his confidence over time.
Copyright 2005 Don Runge. Used with permission. All rights reserved.
Don Runge, CLU, is president of DMR Marketing Inc., a lead consulting and recruiting firm in Plano, Texas. He has more than 35 years of experience as an agent, sales manager and marketing executive. For information, call 877-733-4878 or visit www.leadguru.com.
November 2005
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