Any telesales manager will tell you tonality matters when making insurance sales calls.

But just sounding incredibly energetic the whole time isn’t going to cut it.

You have to know when to add inflection into your voice and when to bring a more serious tone to the phone call. How can you practice this part of your calls? We’ve got some ideas for you.

Record your insurance sales calls

Our founder, Cody Askins, used to place a recorder on his desk and record his half of the phone calls to listen to himself later. Hearing how you sound on the calls may be weird at first but stick with it. You’ll not only pick up when you let your tonality lapse but you’ll hear where you can improve verbiage and etc.

There are also apps you can download for free to record your calls on your cell phone. However, be sure your state allows this because it could be illegal. You may also have to let the other person know you are recording.

Put a mirror near the area you make calls

This is an old trick but can be a nice reminder.

You’ve likely heard the phrase “smile and dial.” So, having a mirror nearby can help remind you to smile (when appropriate) and improve your posture while calling. You may not always be cognizant of your frown or slouching.

Role playing

We must say it at least a couple times a week. But role playing is helpful in so many ways. You get to rebuttal objections, improve your phrasing, and work on your tonality all in one fell swoop. Doing it in the morning helps avoid “practicing” on your first few insurance leads of the day, missing out on sales.

Role playing helps not only you but, if you practice with fellow insurance agents, the other participant. So, if you have an office — you should be pushing to do this every single day.

If you need more help than just improving your tonality to close more insurance sales, Cody Askins’ foremost passion is training insurance agents on how to be more successful.

We all want to be a successful insurance agent. However, not everyone is practicing the proper daily habits to accomplish their goals.

One of the obvious ones is a good work ethic. You obviously have to put in the time to prospect, call the prospects, closing deals, and maintaining the relationships.

Let’s look at the not-so-obvious daily habits you should practice:

A successful insurance agent learns from a mentor

Having a mentor who is where you want to be has proven time and time again to be a good tactic. A successful mentor provides a road map to the destination you wish to reach. They can teach you how to overcome difficult objections, how to properly build your agency, and anything you need to know to reach your idea of a successful insurance agent.

Pay attention to digital communication

You want to stay top-of-mind and reach your customers wherever they interact with brands. The most successful brands now are the ones who were able to reach customers on social media first and effectively. So, don’t dismiss the newest apps or social media. Don’t be afraid to take risks because it can pay off in a big way. A decade ago, salespeople would’ve thought it tacky to text prospects. Now, it’s an effective sales tactic.

Train daily

So many insurance agents are missing out on sales because they are jumping into their day without warming up first. If you work out, you don’t start putting up heavy weight right away. You stretch or put up light weight to warm your muscles up first. You should warm up before trying to sell policies too. Role play with other people in your office, listen to your calls and see how you can improve, listen to audio books, or whatever you can do to get ready. Don’t miss out on sales by bumbling your first appointment or call. Practice every day and watch your skill improve as well as your close percentage on the first call or appointment of the day.

Achieving your income goals is much easier with blueprints of success. Cody Askins, a successful insurance agent himself, provides accountability, direction, and training to agents in his Success Society program.

There are a couple of things you can do to prepare for and improve your AEP Medicare sales.

Preparation is going to be key as there is seemingly a gold rush for Medicare. More and more insurance agents are wanting to sell Medicare because of the growing number of 65-year-olds.

So, to get a leg up, you’re going to have to prepare for Medicare’s Annual Enrollment Period (AEP).

Pre-AEP Medicare sales tip: Warm them up

Before the Annual Enrollment Period begins, warm up your prospects.

You’re likely thinking, “Isn’t that illegal?” Not if you’re careful.

What you are not allowed to do before Oct. 15 is sell. However, there is no sanction or fine for simply keeping in touch.

So, to gain an advantage on all these newbies and your other competition for AEP Medicare sales is push some of your marketing dollars towards an earlier date.

There is going to be tons of advertising throughout the AEP. Depending on the competition level in your area, a Medicare prospect could be receiving several pieces of direct mail advertising a day.

That’s not counting TV ads, digital marketing, print advertisement in their newspaper, and etc.

However, there will be much less struggle for attention beforehand.

So, let’s look at what you can and can’t do.

How to legally advertise before AEP

You cannot directly sell your products before Medicare’s AEP.

That means you cannot have any of these things in your advertisements before Oct. 15:

• Specific benefits regarding your policies
• Pricing for your policies
• Any call-to-action regarding sales

What you can do is have friendly reminders about the upcoming AEP, encourage them to inform themselves regarding Medicare, and maybe put a little information about your business (without any call-to-action, though).

While this sounds like a waste of your marketing budget, what it does is show the prospect you are not a fly-by-night operation. Your business will have a better recall when it comes time for them to make a decision regarding their Medicare coverage. Some of the prospects you’ll hit will notice you’ve been reaching out to them a lot longer than others, who showed up when it was most convenient.

And same as campaigns you run during AEP, these advertisements are perfectly legal to run across all platforms of media.

If you’re looking for other pre-AEP Medicare sales tips, Cody Askins works with some of the top Medicare agents in the country and can help you become a power player as well.

New insurance agents ask all the time whether it would make sense for them to hire an appointment setter.

There is a simple answer to this question: if you can see that it will help, then yes.

It is ultimately going to come down to a math problem.

First, you’re going to need to have the money to cover the position. Sounds obvious, but you need to be making enough money that you are able to continue paying yourself and then cover another person. If you aren’t a good closer, it’s probably not a good idea to try to juggle paying another salary.

Now, let’s get to that math problem.

Cost to benefit of an appointment setter

If you are ready to hire an appointment setter, first you have to decide how you will pay them. Will you pay them by the hour or pay them commission?

Our suggestion is to pay them an hourly wage and, if you can afford it, have them work about 20 hours a week setting appointments for you.

If it sounds costly, it really isn’t. Suppose you pay your appointment setter $12 per hour. That’s $240 per week. As long as they’re setting appointments at a good clip for you, you’ll quickly make that salary up if you’re able to close even 25% of them. At that rate, you could even offer some sort of bonus for kept appointments.

Smiling and dialing is a unique skill. If you aren’t that great at it, find someone who is and you do what you’re best at — closing.

Know your numbers

To make sure this will continue to be fruitful venture for both yourself and your appointment setter, you need to know your numbers:

• What is an average commission you make from a sale?
• How many of those sales do you need to make to cover your salary and the appointment setter?
• What is your average close percentage? (How many appointments do you sit with before you make a sale?)
• So, how many kept appointments do you need?
• Say about only a third of your appointments are kept (or whatever average you typically see), how many appointments do you need them to then set?

This now needs to be your weekly system. In the meantime, you can work to improve your close percentage and they can also work on keeping more appointments. Let me know if I can help in that department.

I work with insurance agents every week on systems they can use with an appointment setter, improving close percentage, and much more.

When it comes to how to brand yourself as an insurance agent, a lot of agents don’t think it is important.

That’s right, many agents either don’t take it seriously or aren’t exactly sure where to begin.

It’s importance is clear when you think about it: Website design, marketing materials, even the header on the invoices you send your clients should have a clear, cohesive design that identifies the brand you’ve established.

How to brand yourself successfully

Branding yourself in the insurance industry requires two things (initially):

1. Tells the customer what makes you different than the competition
2. Makes your mission statement apparent

For example, think about a McDonald’s and Burger King commercial. They’re both fast-food burger joints. But you know the differences without me telling you, don’t you?

This becomes incredibly important when it comes to selling insurance because it’s a very attractive industry. As such, thousands of people each year get their licenses and go forth to sell insurance.

To help you figure out what it is you want your brand known for, ask yourself:

• What problem in this industry do I solve?
• How do I solve that problem differently than anyone else?

Still having trouble? Ask your customers if you’ve already started your business. If you haven’t started your business yet, identify a specific problem that matters to you and set out to solve it.

Be sure your mission statement is specific.

For example, great customer service is NOT a good mission statement. Instead, say something like: We call ahead of premium increases so you can make informed decisions.

What to do after

Once you have your brand decided, it’s time to take action.

That means coming up with a marketing plan that conveys your messaging.

Marketing videos, social media ads, and whatever else you think will be an effective medium to get your brand out there and in front of the people you can help.

Your messages should focus on informing, not selling.

Maybe a testimonial video ad that tells a true story of how you went above and beyond for a client.

Or you can do infographic ads for Facebook and Instagram.

Just focus on putting the attention on what you can do for the clients and what they need.

If you still don’t know how to brand yourself as an insurance agent or need help getting started, our Success Society members get lots of help from me and my marketing company.

In the insurance sales world, it is imperative that agents are self-starters and keep their foot on the gas.

Going 100 percent every day is not easy, however, and sometimes the drive just isn’t there some days.

Cody Askins has three rules he uses to help with his self-discipline:

Write down your insurance sales goals every day

Physically writing your goals down, studies show, commits them to memory. Doing it every day should make it foolproof.

Want to increase your close rate on your final expense leads? Write down a goal to track your numbers and identify where you’re coming up short in insurance sales (not enough touches, setting appointments, or closing at the end) and then make it a goal to beat your percentage each week. Find material to study on how to close final expense leads and practice through role-playing or other means of practice.

Be sure your goals are S.M.A.R.T. — Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time-bound.

Make it public

This may be scary but, to paraphrase Theodore Roosevelt, nothing worth doing comes easy.

Making your goals public puts pressure on you to commit and accomplish them.

Post on your personal social media that you’re struggling with your insurance sales and want to convert more of your final expense leads. Post your results each week.

Don’t worry about their reactions. This is for you, not them. People who doubt you and post negative comments are usually jealous because you aren’t afraid to go after your goals like they are. Instead, use it as fuel and proof that you are uncommon and bound to be part of the 8% in this business that make it longer than 3 years.

Don’t add time

DO NOT waver on your deadlines and put off starting your goal.

The time to jump on your goals is NOW when you feel the urge to accomplish them. Especially in the insurance sales world. Pointing back to the example of improving conversion rate on final expense leads, doing so would mean more money, right? So, wouldn’t it make sense to start working towards that goal as soon as possible?

These are just three rules that Cody follows. There are many other blogs or books offering advice on how to accomplish your goals but it all boils down to: Do it and do it now.

If you need a coach to help you stay accountable and provide you with more insurance sales tips, Cody’s Success Society is what you’ve been looking for.