Try Mining for Business

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So often I am asked by colleagues how best to find clients to sell insurance to.  The starting point is to ask yourself if you are a “prospector” or a “miner.”  What’s the difference? 

Prospecting is the physical search for something, while mining is the physical process of extracting something.

By prospecting, you are looking for new clients, and there is no direct evidence of existing business between you and the other party.  You are seeking new clients to buy something you are selling.  It typically entails a lot of cold calling and mass marketing.  This is not a bad thing to do, in fact, this is necessary for most sales professionals at some point in their career.

Suppose you are selling excess, supplemental disability insurance.  You first need to develop a plan to market this type of product to prospective clients.  Do you target specific types of clients or do you shotgun to everyone?  There is much consideration to do.

In mining, you are only searching for sales within your known customer base, meaning you are marketing only to customers who have purchased from you in the past.  While mining, you are working with previous or existing customers, but with a new-to-them product.  It is a great opportunity to see your client again and keep the connection going.

Although mining can be limiting and often the client pool is much smaller than when prospecting, there is absolutely something to be said about the factor of familiarity.  Mining is more comfortable and allows you to leverage and transact business with a client that has a proven track record of listening to you, perhaps trusting you and using you to address their financial protection needs.

Your client files hold the key to new referrals as well as repeat customers.  In a sales world with so much competition, find success by mining for business.