Sales & Marketing
Sales & Marketing
Sales & Marketing
Life Insurance
How Can a Sole Owner Assist a Key Employee…
Authored by Gary Peterson A key employee who plans to purchase the business at a sole owner’s death guarantees personal job security without the risks associated with launching a new business venture. If, however, payment of the life insurance premiums required to fund an insured buy-sell plan imposes a financial hardship on the key employee, it may be to the owner’s advantage to help the key employee with the premium payments. In this way, the owner assures his or her family of receiving the full value of the business at the owner’s death. There are three ways a sole owner can assist a key employee with the premiums required to fund an insured buy-sell plan: Salary Increase The owner could increase the key employee’s compensation to cover at least a portion of the insurance premiums. Personal Loan The owner could make a personal loan to the key employee for at least a portion of the insurance premium. A schedule for the repayment of these loans could then be included in the buy-sell agreement. Split-Dollar Plan The owner could loan the key employee all or part of the insurance premium with the loans secured by a collateral assignment of the insurance policy. Unless, the key employee pays the employer market-rate interest on the loans, however, the key employee is taxed each year on the difference between market- rate interest and the actual interest paid, if any.
Sales & Marketing
Bring Social Media Into Your Marketing Plan
Authored by John Schraut Any insurance industry publication you look at now has ways to use social media. So my question to you is – do you have a Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn account for your business? If not, you are losing out on a way to connect with other professionals and potential clients. Best of all it’s FREE! In a recent survey I saw, it said; More than 60% of advisors have used LinkedIn to gain new clients. 75% said it has improved their effectiveness of their referral network. So how many clients have you gained from your social media marketing plan? If you answered “zero”, Financial Brokerage can help! Call us today to learn more!
Technology
Still Using Post-It Notes to Manage Your Day?
If you’re having trouble managing your day-to-day activities, have you considered CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software? I’m not talking about tools like Microsoft Outlook where you set a reminder on your calendar, but am instead referring to full-fledged CRMs that allow you to manage the sales process from start to finish. You’ll know who you should call on a daily basis, track which activities are the most profitable and manage your marketing more effectively. Stay in front of your clients and market more effectively to prospects by sending e-mail or mail on a regular basis or at key intervals in the lifetime of current policy holders. Many CRMs have built-in “blast e-mail” capability where you can send out important information personalized with your contact information and then track which clients open the e-mail messages. Sounds like a good way to know which type of marketing really reaches your audience! If you’re looking to start small, there are MANY free CRMs on the market, one of which offers a license for three users at no charge; follow the link to www.zoho.com/crm/index.html. When you become proficient with your CRM or if you are looking for a CRM for multiple users and more functionality, we will have a solution for that very shortly! The CRM (coming soon) will not only allow you to do all the fancy CRM-like things, but it will be completely integrated within our current platform of tools – quoting, illustrations and iGO (e-app entry and drop-tickets). You’ll have only ONE location (our web site) to access for everything you need in your life…well, mostly. We plan on having more information on the new CRM in the next month or so. Stay tuned!
Life Insurance
Educate the Public About the Value of Life Insurance
If your clients and prospects were better informed about life insurance, do you think your job of selling would be easier?
I read an interesting article recently about the cost of insurance. The article describes a survey that asked consumers to estimate the cost of a 20 year, $250,000 level-term life insurance policy for a healthy 30-year old. Their answer was about $400 annually. The actual cost is half of that – around $190 annually.
Our job is, in part, one of educating and informing the people we work with about the value of and the remarkable affordability of today’s life insurance. If the public were better informed about insurance it would make our jobs easier. If we can demonstrate the real cost of life insurance and help them understand why it is important to have coverage for their families, the natural result will be more prospects and better sales.So if the population thinks life insurance is expensive or they don’t really need it, it is our job to educate them. Think about how you can expand your efforts to help educate your clients and your community about the importance of life insurance. An active approach to this can lead to more business for you.
John Schraut, Life Sales Manager