There’s a lot of ways to succeed as an insurance agent. But there are some certain actions you can take to guarantee you will fail.

So you must avoid these actions if you want to succeed.

1. Don’t buy leads
2. Don’t call leads
3. Don’t have a website
4. Don’t spend time or money marketing
5. Don’t know your product
6. Don’t know your customer
7. Don’t spend time doing income producing activities
8. Don’t start right away. Wait until everything is set up
9. Don’t run enough appointments
10. Don’t track your Key Performance Indicators
11. Don’t invest in yourself
12. Repeat the same mistakes
13. Don’t set boundaries (for clients and friends)
14. Don’t interact with your carrier reps
15. Don’t respect your carrier reps time (don’t bug them for silly questions or not attend their trainings)
16. Don’t attempt to solve your problem, instead repeat same mistakes
17. Don’t set fair expectations for prospects (you’re the expert, they need you to lead them to the next step)
18. Don’t try anything new
19. Don’t commit for 3 years
20. Don’t think long term
21. Don’t have a professional email
22. Don’t know who you are serving
23. Don’t lose money
24. Don’t pay for services
25. Don’t pay for lessons
26. Don’t let more always drive you
27. Don’t major in minor things

Don’t buy leads

New agents need to buy leads. It’s the lifeblood of your business. You don’t have enough referrals coming in to grow your business. You much invest in leads in the beginning

Don’t call leads

What’s worse than not buying leads?

Buying leads and then not calling them! Call reluctance, fear, or whatever you want to call it prevents a lot of agents from calling leads. This is worse than not buying them because now you’ve spent money. But if you don’t call the leads, you will never get that money back.

Don’t have a website

You need a website. You need a website more than you need a business card. Yes, it’s that important.

Not tech savvy? Fine. Pay someone to build it. It’s required for credibility.

Don’t spend time or money marketing

You can pay for clients with time or money. That’s it, no other options.

No money right now? Fine. Pay with time. Put in the effort to prospect. There’s a million ways to do it but you need to do it every day.

Have money? Great. You have options to put in the time or spend money to do more in less time. This is where every agent should be trying to get.

Don’t know your product

Your prospect should not know more about this than you.

Everyone starts new knowing nothing. But you should be putting in time understanding your product and industry every day. You do this for 6 months and you’ll know plenty.

Then each month you will learn something new because that’s how the insurance industry is.

I’ve been in this industry 13 years and I still learn something new each month.

Don’t know your customer

Are you talking to everyone the same way?

A person turning 65 about to start Medicare is a completely different conversation from someone buying their own health insurance at age 26.

What’s important to your customer?

Don’t spend time doing income producing activities

This is from Brandon Clay.

You need to spend time doing things that make you money aka income producing activities.

This is often the hard work people want to avoid. So you do busy work instead. Or you spend an hour “getting ready” to work.

Unless you commit to spending time doing things that grow your income, you will fail as a Medicare insurance agent.

Don’t start right away

So many agents way to start. Next week. Next month. Maybe it’s waiting for AHIP so you don’t have to take it twice.

Or not buying leads until your website is set up. Or not setting up your website until you know your product.

If you never start, you’re giving yourself an excuse to fail by telling yourself a story you are working. But you’re not.

Don’t run enough appointments

Not enough sales? Run more appointments.

Not a great “closer”? Run more appointments.

Need to practice your presentation? Run more appointments.

Need to cross sell more products? Run more appointments.

Running more appointments is the ONE THING that will make everything else easier in your insurance career.

Don’t track Key Performance Indicators (KPI)

What gets measured gets managed.

You are your own manager so measure what’s important. This could be different for you but at least one KPI should be initial appointments. That’s the 1 thing I track every week.

There’s other metrics I look at quarterly because I love analytics (closing rate, what did people who didn’t close, cost per acquisition, etc.)

Don’t invest in yourself

There’s a million things you can learn about insurance, sales, marketing, technology.

Improving your sales skills so you average $600 in commission first year for each client compared to $350 is worth a ton of money. If you only write 100 clients in year that is an extra $25,000 in income during one year.

Don’t learn from your mistakes

Do you keep running into the same issues? Maybe it’s organization or following up.

If you keep repeating your same mistakes the problems don’t just magically disappear.

Don’t set boundaries

Frustrated about clients calling you at 8:00pm at night?

Not getting your work done because your spouse asked you to walk the dog?

Don’t want to drive 2 hours for an appointment anymore?

You are in charge of your work and how you do that work. So don’t get frustrated doing things you don’t want to do.

You set the boundary and maintain it.

Set your business hours and let your clients know you aren’t available after hours.

Schedule your dog walk into your day but get your business work done.

Tell your prospects you don’t drive that far. They can drive to see you or you can do it remotely.

Set and maintain boundaries leads to a much more enjoyable life.

Don’t interact with your carrier reps

You should know your carrier rep. They have a vested interest in you growing your business with them. There are things they can do to support you including knowledge or financially.

Know who they are and interact with them.

Don’t respect your carrier reps

Most reps will do group trainings. Want to piss off a rep? Skip the training and then during AEP you ask them a bunch of silly questions that were covered in the training.

They are there to help you so meet them halfway.

Don’t attempt to solve your problem

Have a problem and believe it will always be there? That’s one way to guarantee it will never go away.

But chances are someone else has been through this before. Ask for help.

Don’t set expectations for prospects

You are the expert in charge of the process. They don’t know what comes next. You need to tell them so they aren’t confused. Lead them to the destination.

Don’t try anything new

Some agents do the same thing year after year after year.

You’ve done something wrong if you are still working business reply cards and knocking on doors 10 years later.

Don’t commit for 3 years

Too many people try to be an insurance agent and see how it goes. This is not something you try and see if you like it. Because the first year is the hardest year of your career.

So if you aren’t ready to commit to this for 3 years and then decide, you’re better off not starting at all.

Don’t think long term

So many agents are focused on this week. Getting sales. That’s important. But must step back and think about 3 years from now. Or 5 years from now.

Otherwise you will think short term and not make any strategic changes to your business. These are the opportunities for the biggest gains in your business.

Don’t have a professional email

If you are using JohnSmith@aol.com how do you think that appears to prospects?

It costs $60/year for a professional, branded email address. The credibility gained from that is enormous. Don’t think about it. Just do it.

Don’t know who you are serving

Yes, you are in business for yourself. But you are serving someone else. You are serving your clients. It’s critical to think about who you want to serve.

Because if everyone is your customer, no one is your customer.

Chris Westfall does a great job of this. His client is a Medicare supplement client. His agency will write a Medicare Advantage but that’s not their focus. They have one consistent message which draws people in.

Like him or not, he’s done an excellent job of knowing who he is serving.

Another example of this is an agent that focuses on dual eligible prospects. That is a unique type of client. They definitely need help. But they need very different help from a person turning 65 that makes $200,000 per year.

Think about the customer you want to primarily work with and find out what you need to do to serve them best.

Don’t lose money

Some marketing is going to work really well. Others are going to be complete flops.

If you are scared to lose money then you will have to stick with the status quo.

You can make the status quo work but it’s a lot more effort. And you will only hit singles when it comes to getting an ROI.

But if you are willing to test and try something new, it can be a huge opportunity for you.

Your downside is limited to your investment. Let’s say you test with $3,000. It’s a lot of money but worst case scenario you are out $3,000.

Best case scenario you find something that works awesome and you can continue to repeat it getting back $5 for every $1 you spend.

Don’t pay for services

Want to do everything yourself?

It’s going to take you twice as long because you are learning something new. Often it’s better to trust an expert to do it for you so you can focus on income producing activities.

Don’t pay for lessons

Lots of people have been where you are now. And some of them are now where you want to be.

So you can try to navigate the path on your own.

Or

You can pay them money for the lessons they had to learn with effort and time. This gives you a shortcut so you get to where you want to be faster.

Don’t let more always drive you

Set your work goals and do you work. If you set a goal of X number of clients or sales before you BLANK (are happy, work less, can take a vacation) you will continue to increase your goal.

Plan your work schedule and follow it. The results will get you enough. And do other things as you grow your business. Because you can continue to grow this just about as long as you live.

Don’t major in minor things

Certain things are important to your success. Others just aren’t. So don’t be the absolute best in the world at something that doesn’t impact your business.

Focus your time, effort, and growth on what actually impacts your business. Normally this is income producing activities such as marketing, prospecting, or running appointments.