The opportunity to upsell

It's harder to get new customers. Besides the economic climate there's a lot of noise to overcome in order to get your messages heard. Wouldn't it make sense then to better sell to your existing clients? There are lots of opportunities to upsell your clients. All you need to do is put more thought into your customers' needs and what you have to solve those needs.

Each year as I receive my insurance renewals I'm surprised that my agent never takes the extra step to call me up and ask me if I need more coverage. It would take them an extra ten minutes in their day, they'd leave a better impression with me and they'd likely get more business. The simple truth is I do need extra coverage, but because no one has bothered to ask me and I'm too involved with everyday life to take the step to call and ask for more I'm left with the same coverage year after year. The result? I'm under-insured and my insurance company is leaving money on the table.

What extra services do you have that you could be offering to your existing customers?

Know your niche

Today marked my first entrance back into the design community after a two-year departure. I attended a seminar at the Boston Design Center on starting, managing and maintaining a design firm. I attended with the hopes of a quick refresher on the subtleties of design-based businesses and the speaker, Jared Miller, did not disappoint.

But it was the audience that will get the attention of this post. For the past two years I’ve been working in the insurance industry and attended a number of industry seminars. The audience always had the same composition – very serious, lots of suits, heavy text driven PowerPoint presentations and even-tempered, sometimes disengaged attendees. The audience at today’s seminar was all about business, yet lighthearted, suits were mostly absent being replaced with a mix of stylish/trendy clothing, large splashes of color and wild bags and accessories, people were friendly, engaging and full of life and the PowerPoint was full of images.

What’s the point? – Audiences differ by industry and if you’re marketing to niches (which in today’s marketplace you most likely are) you need to know your niches intimately. Messages should be tailored to them, presentations should be spoken in their language and representatives from your brand should blend and/or compliment the individuals that make up the niche. With a tailored message for each niche you’re more likely to create an engaging exchange with your prospect and once the engagement is created, your brand becomes open to having a meaningful conversation and taking the next step in creating your next customer.

Image credit: Sean Econo

Getting rid of the bad tables

Seth Godin’s The Bad Table post got me thinking about the group insurance industry. The post challenges readers to think differently about their “bad tables” (you know, the ones crammed in the corner near the noisy kitchen or next to the bathrooms). It suggests giving special service at the bad tables to make the entire experience equal with that of the good tables, but equal in a different way. The reason this makes me think of insurance is because the group insurance industry is famous for handing out lots of bad tables, usually to small groups. Insuring small groups can be risky because there isn’t a large pool of people to spread risk across. However, because small groups tend to have higher premiums (to account for the riskier nature of their size) they usually end up funding the discounts that the larger groups enjoy. And for their trouble, they get treated as second-class citizens. Many insurance companies create great new benefits, but usually with the fine print of “not available to groups of 50 or less members.” That leaves small groups paying more in premiums for fewer benefits. While not all insurance companies are guilty of this (Delta Dental extends new benefits to groups of all sizes), many are. Getting rid of the bad tables is something every business should strive to do. It wont be the easiest assignment, but it could be the most creative.