Why You Must Have Effective Systems to Become Successful in the Insurance Or Financial Profession

When you consistently deliver exceptional service to your clients that meets or exceeds their expectations, they'll become your advocates and buy from you for years to come. The key word is "consistently." This means you must do it every time a client does business with you.

Most agents have a hard time just meeting their clients' expectations, let alone exceeding them. And for the few who actually do meet their clients' expectations, they don't (or don't know how to) do it consistently.

For example, one time they may meet their clients' expectations. Another time they may fall short. The third time they may exceed them. The fourth time they may meet them. The fifth time they may fall short again. And this cycle repeats itself.

Guess what negative effect this inconsistency will have on your clients?

Inconsistency will ruin your credibility and drive your clients crazy, forcing them to stop buying from you!

In your experience, I'm sure you've dined at restaurants where they served inconsistent food quality or rendered inconsistent service, or both, haven't you?

Didn't this inconsistency in quality or service annoy you somewhat (or maybe even a lot) because you didn't know what to expect the next time you go to that particular restaurant? Perhaps, to avoid getting disappointed again, you may have stopped patronizing that restaurant completely, right?

Unfortunately, this situation is not unique to the restaurant industry. I bet you have discontinued doing business completely with some other organizations because of their inconsistency in quality, service, or both, haven't you?

Guess what?

Your own clients would do the same thing.

That's right, when receiving inconsistent quality or service, or both, from you or your agency, many or all of them will stop doing business with you... sometimes forever!

The question you may be asking right now is...

"How Do I Consistently Meet My Clients' Expectations?"

Well, you do this by setting up systems in your business.

In short, a system is a way of doing things by following a set of rules or procedures that produces predictable and consistent results every time.

To put it another way...

A System Allows You To Consistently Deliver A Minimum Standard Or Level Of Performance!

After you've set up a system or a series of systems to at least meet your clients' expectations, you'll be able to deliver a great level of service every time they do business with you.

Let me now share with you a business that operates on incredible systems to help you fully understand the importance and appreciate the enormous benefits that systems can provide.

Have you been to McDonald's lately?

Here's a multi-billion dollar international business operated, efficiently and profitably, by a bunch of teenagers who are no more intelligent or disciplined than the teenage children you know.

Have you ever wondered how these kids could prepare food that tastes exactly the same and provide the same level of service every single time - regardless of which McDonald's restaurant you go to, whether in California, New York, England, Australia, or Japan?

The answer is, you guessed it, they have SYSTEMS to perform the various activities in their business. And because these systems work so well, any teenager can operate them and the results will be the same every time.

Whenever you go to a McDonald's restaurant, you always know what to expect. In other words, what the food is going to taste like and what kind of service you'll get.

Here's what's so amazing about McDonald's. Although the food isn't the absolute best, everyday, in the United States alone, more than twenty-three million people eat at McDonald's.

So, if the food is not that good (and the prices are not much cheaper than the other restaurants in the area, some of which may offer better food), why do so many people eat at McDonald's every day?

The main reason is McDonald's offers their customers a very important benefit that most other restaurants don't.

Can you guess what it is?

You're right, if you said...

Control!

Because their customers get consistent quality of food and service each time they visit McDonald's, they feel like they're in control.

Can the same thing be said about your agency?

Whenever clients do business with you, do they feel like they're in control of the situation?

For example, when you tell them you'll get back to them within 24 hours, do you actually reply to them within the time promised? Or, when customers ask two of your employees the same question about a claim, will both of your staff members give them the same answer? Or, if one of the things you do to make your clients feel special is to send them a birthday card on their birthday, then does each one of your clients get a birthday card every year?

If you answered, "no" to any of these questions, it means you don't have effective systems in place to provide your clients with control.

Why is it so important for your clients (and also for you and me) to have control or to feel like they're in control?

Well, in this beautiful world of ours, there are so many things that simply don't work the way we want them to. Most people are experiencing a lot of discomfort and frustration in their daily lives. There are so many things that are out of their control.

Let me share with you some examples:

How do you feel when you go to a restaurant where you have to wait for over an hour when the hostess told you it would only take about fifteen minutes?

Out Of Control!

How do you feel when the mechanic told you your car would be ready by noon but it wasn't when you got there?

Out Of Control!

How do you feel when your medical bill is twice as much as the amount you were quoted?

Out Of Control!

How do you feel when someone cuts you off?

Out Of Control!

How do you feel when your daughter tells you she's going to drop out of college?

Out Of Control!

How do you feel when an employee calls in sick on the day you're leaving for your vacation?

Out Of Control!

How do you feel when the rental car you reserved at the airport was given to someone else and there was no more available?

Out Of Control!

How do you feel when the check your customer promised to send two weeks ago, arrived two months later?

Out Of Control!

How do you feel when you were put on hold for five minutes when you were told, "Just a second?"

Out Of Control!

And how do you feel when you were transferred to another person after you've just been on hold for five minutes?

Out Of Control!

As you can see, there are so many situations that can make you feel "out of control."

The same thing is true with your clients. So if they're going to give you their hard-earned money, they expect to be in control of the situation.

Because your clients rarely get to experience the feeling of being in control from other agents or businesses, it'll make you stand head and shoulders above everyone else!

They'll be so pleased if they always get consistent and predictable results, which meet or better yet, exceed their expectations each time they do business with you.

Also, after you've set up effective systems in your business, you'll be able to produce consistent and predictable results every time.

To maximize your profits and to create a business that will allow you to work the number of hours you want, you need to systematize your daily activities, so they're done the same way every time.

If you want to build your million-dollar agency or practice, you must set up effective systems to perform the following functions:

1. Answer the phone.

2. Greet clients.

3. Process policies.

4. Provide quotes.

5. Follow up on quotes.

6. Resolve customer complaints.

7. Hire, train, evaluate, and compensate employees.

8. Submit proposals to your carriers.

9. Process claims.

10. Collect premiums.

11. Manage cash flow.

12. Build rewarding relationships with your carriers.

13. Thank clients for their business.

14. Astonish your clients several times a year.

15. Renew policies.

16. Sell multiple policies.

17. Track marketing campaigns.

18. Get an abundance of qualified leads.

19. Turn prospects into customers.

20. Convert customers into clients.

21. Transform clients into advocates.

22. Nurture clients.

23. Obtain referrals regularly.

Effective systems have made McDonald's the most profitable and successful restaurant chain in the world. And efficient systems can make your agency or practice one of the most profitable and successful insurance operations in the nation.

Ken Varga was in the insurance business for 33 years and created an agency that had 459,182 policyholders. He sold his business in 2001 for more than $100 million. He's written a book called, "How To Make A Fortune In The Insurance Profession," which shows insurance agents and financial advisors how to build their million-dollar agency or practice in record time. Best of all, you can get it absolutely free.

Check out what some agents and advisors have said about his strategies and systems...

"One idea alone has helped me make an extra $93,400.00 in new commissions, both from cross-selling additional products and generating new referrals!" ~ Walter Dobrowolski, San Marcos, CA

"I doubled my insurance production last year thanks to your strategies." ~ Barbara Boyce, Dallas, TX

"I've had your program for about two and a half years. And during this period, my income has more than doubled." ~ Mark Brady, Roseburg, OR

"Bring in about 10 new clients a week." ~ Ron Martinez, Aurora, CO

This is the greatest insurance selling program I have seen and used in 10 years of being in the business! Very client centered! My financial agency's retention rate is over 97%." ~ Andy Zurbuch, Bloomington, IN

Get Varga's free book and take your business to the next level fast.

How to Produce Effective Local Advertising

Everyone knows that the internet is now a major force when it comes to promoting your business on a local level. However, that doesn't mean that local newspaper advertising is dead, and when used in the right way it can be a very effective lead generator for your business.

The first thing you need to realize about local advertising is that the people who sell it, the ad salespeople, are not your friends. They want to get you to spend as much money as possible, and the success of your business is a low priority. Once you realize this, you can stop thinking that their advice is good advice, and start to think more about what's best for your business.

The first piece of advice you want to ignore is that the people who produce the ads for the newspaper actually know what they're doing. They don't. Many of them have no skills in writing copy, or designing ads in a way that gets a response. So forget the large ads with beautiful photographs, and instead think about making your ad look like a piece of editorial. That means more text, fewer pictures, and printed in black and white. (A splash of color is fine. Just don't overdo it)

Next you want to write the ad like a piece of editorial, and make it look like a piece of editorial. Why? It's a fact that people read editorial, but generally speaking they don't read ads. So by making your ad look like a news story, you immediately stand out from all the other ads.

Somewhere in your "news story" you want to offer the readers something for free. A good idea is a free report that tells people how to choose the right product or service provider in your industry. You need to offer useful information, and people will be glad to read it.

In order to get the free report, the reader has to call you, or send in the coupon you placed in "ad".

You also want to give the reader the opportunity of downloading the report from your website. In order to do this, get your web designer to set up a dedicated page with an email capture form. Once the prospect gives you the email address (and ask for physical addresses and phone numbers too), they can download the free report automatically. Any web designer worth his salt will know how to do this, and if yours doesn't, find one who does.

Put all these techniques together, and your advert immediately becomes more effective because the advertisement is no longer trying to sell directly from the page, but is being used as a lead generation tool. Once you have people's details, you can then market to them at will, by email, by post (direct mail and postcards) and even by telephone.

Using advertising in this way also has the added benefit that it can cut your advertising costs, because your advertisement can be much smaller once you cut out the pictures and huge headlines and concentrate on a simple message that enables you to collect leads.

The newspaper might not like you doing this, and might want you to place the words "Advertisement" or Advertisement Feature" above the ad. But many newspapers are stretched for cash at the moment, and they're unlikely to turn down revenue. The ad salesman certainly won't like it, especially when he sees his commission has been chopped down in size. But you're in business to make money, not subsidize the newspapers. Use the techniques mentioned above, and local advertising (or any kind of advertising, regional or national), can be made to pay, and pay very well.

Steve Prescott is a direct response copywriter and marketing strategist who specialises in creating results-based marketing systems by integrating direct response copy with internet marketing techniques.

His report Small Business Power Marketing is a blueprint for creating a lead-generation system using a mixture of traditional advertising and internet technology. Visit http://www.mrsteveprescott.com/powermarketing to claim your copy now.

How to Produce Effective Charity Fundraising Videos

Video production is perhaps the most powerful medium around for communicating the work of non-profit organisations, but how do you produce a really effective charity fundraising video?

Identify Your Target Audience

Before you start to think about the content of your charity fundraising video, it's absolutely essential you determine exactly who it is aimed at?

Is the video to target people who already support your cause, prospective supporters or even government legislators? What specific demographics do you want to target? Teenagers, young adults, or middle-aged professionals? How far and wide do you want the film to be seen? Is it a local, national or international issue? And most importantly, exactly how do you want your audience to think, feel and act once they have seen your video?

It's crucial that all of these questions are answered and that your objectives are crystal clear, as this is what will determine the kind of video you'll need to commission.

The Content

The key to successful charity fundraising videos is always compelling story-telling.

If the video is to provoke action and inspire change, an audience must be able to make a genuine emotional connection with what they're seeing. Being transparent and demonstrating tangible impact is also crucial. Potential donors will want to see exactly where their hard-earned cash will be going, who it will be spent on and why. It's also useful to substantiate any claims you make with expert opinion.

Duration

The length of your film will of course depend on a number of factors, but less is often more, particularly if you want the video be successful online.

People lead incredibly busy lives in the 21st century and you have to ask yourself how much time you are expecting people to give up to watch your film. You don't want them to switch off before the call to action.

Distribution

Charity marketing videos are incredibly versatile and once produced, can be streamed online, duplicated onto DVDs, used in one-on-one meetings or as part of fundraising presentations and events. For maximum possible exposure, it's very important that you incorporate the video into your organisation's website, preferably with access to it from the homepage.

You should also distribute your video across ALL of your online marketing channels. That means sharing the videos via online networks, video-sharing sites, blogs, Facebook and My Space accounts, where they quickly become part of larger online discussions, commented upon by multitudes of online viewers.

There's even a special section on YouTube dedicated to non-profits which includes enhanced promotion and a direct fundraising option via Google Checkout. A number of sites are also emerging that specifically host fundraising videos and when used in tandem with these sites, charity fundraising videos can be an exceptionally powerful medium for conveying the importance of any cause.

Although fundraising videos can be produced in-house using consumer camcorders and basic editing software, for a fundraising film with real impact it's always best to work with an experienced video production company who can get the best out of contributors and tell a truly emotive, visual story.

Follow Spectrecom on Twitter

Christiaan Harden is the Business Development Manager at Spectrecom Corporate Video Production, an award-winning corporate video production company and market leading producers of online corporate video in London, England.

Spectrecom have produced a variety of charity fundraising videos for a number of organisations. Supportive of local business, charities and running free training courses for the local community, Spectrecom's environmental policies have been featured by corporate video production industry body, The International Visual Communications Association (IVCA) in their yearly report.