The time is now to start prospecting life insurance online

Life insurance agents should be marketing online because that's where potential customers are spending their time and getting their information.

According to a LIMRA report, 85 percent of consumers research life insurance online before purchasing a policy, and close to 50 percent of the people who bought life insurance in 2015 did so online or over the phone.

That's a massive opportunity that most agents are missing out on… and that trend just keeps growing.

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The evidence of this is powerful. In 2016, some agents have as many as one or two conversations an hour from online inquiries, compared to the one or two conversations per day that they had just a few years ago.

The internet has changed the way in which we do business. You have a golden opportunity to make the most of it.

Building a marketing mindset

Shortly after I got my life insurance license, I learned what is now the old-school way of prospecting. I talked to my friends and family, networked with anyone and everyone, cold-called for several hours a day, and asked my clients for referrals. Using such exhausting prospecting methods, it's no wonder why so many of the life insurance agents I started out with quit within three years.

To make my life insurance business work online, I learned I had to change my mindset and let go of some of the outdated strategies that were ingrained in me during those early days.

Mindset Shift No. 1: Online marketing can take the place of all of that old-school prospecting.

Right now, you might feel as though you don't know enough about online marketing for this to be true in your business, but that will change quickly.

Prospecting — whether you're doing it online or offline — isn't something that comes naturally for most people. You have to learn and implement a whole new set of skills.

Educating yourself on the digital marketing strategies and implementing what you learn IS the new prospecting… and that's where the shift in your mindset needs to happen.

This educational process is part of your prospecting efforts, not as taking away from your prospecting time. Don't worry about 'being productive' here — going through the process to really learn online marketing is just as productive as cold calling a list of prospects that three other agents also just bought… in fact, it's much, much more productive.

Remember: that focused effort is much more effective than relying on natural talent.

I've trained many agents in this process over the last few years. None of them had any experience in online marketing. What they all had was a willingness to put in focused effort. They committed to learning the process and skills, which allowed them to generate hundreds of leads every month, and to eclipse competitors who had been online for much longer.

Mindset Shift No. 2: Only sell to people who want it.

You've heard it a hundred times from the old-school agents: "Life insurance is sold, not bought."

This antiquated sales mantra assumes that you have to force the customer into buying coverage by hitting all of their emotional triggers, and pushing them to think about horrible worst-case scenarios.

This may have worked in the past, but it's not the case any longer. Consumers today want to be educated, not sold.

By offering your services online, you're completely flipping the script.

Remember: Thousands of people are looking for life insurance information online every day.

Those people will buy from you if you can talk with them for a few minutes and answer their questions in an honest and accessible way.

If people are looking for the information, they probably want to buy. They want to get it sorted out, on their own schedule, and they'll happily do business with someone who makes the process easy for them.

In the history of selling life insurance, the most exciting, profitable time to be doing it is right now.

The advances in technology and the shifts in consumer behavior and psychology have redefined what it means to build a successful, long-term life insurance business.

You have an opportunity here that most agents throughout history could never have dreamed of.

This is an abbreviated excerpt from "The Digital Life Agent", available on Amazon.com today, a resource that will lay out a roadmap (with case studies) for online prospecting.

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