An Early Lesson from the Field: Insurance Prospecting Is a Numbers Game

Insurance Prospecting

To every new agent who has sat down and counted the sales they expect from the people they know best: my early lesson from the field was simple and humbling. You will never know who is going to buy. Insurance prospecting is a numbers game. We can preplan every week, but we must never prejudge a single prospect.

We do it at the kitchen table or at the office desk. The names on the list are relatives, friends, old schoolmates, neighbours, people we have known for years. Surely familiarity counts for something. Surely they would rather do business with us than with a stranger.

That belief has led me to some rude awakenings, going right back to when I came into this business in 1981.

What is the Project 100, and why does it disappoint so many new agents?

When we come into the business, we are asked to prepare a Project 100: the top 100 people we know from family, friends, the neighbourhood, school, past employment, and chance encounters. From that list, we do an income potential analysis, calculating how much production we will write and how much we will earn.

It is a sound exercise, and I would not remove it from any onboarding programme. The trouble is what happens to the numbers afterwards. These projections are seldom realised, and not because the information is wrong. They fall short because this is a people’s business, and people are rarely that straightforward.

The Project 100 is to a new agent what a chart is to a fisherman. It shows where the fish should be, not which ones will bite.

Great expectations built on familiarity can lead to great disappointments.

In my experience, very few agents manage to sell to more than 20 per cent of that list of so-called hot prospects. An agent who plans a first year around the other 80 per cent is planning for disappointment. That disappointment is real, and it is the stretch where good people need the discipline to keep going.

Why do strangers sometimes buy before friends?

Ask any agent, and you will hear the same thing. When we go into the field, we cannot tell which prospect is going to buy and which is not. Many a time the sale is made to a stranger long before the people who know us well have signed anything.

The reasons are many. A relative may not want family looking into their finances. A friend may find it awkward to take advice from someone they grew up with. The stranger carries none of that history, so they judge the conversation on its merits.

The principle: preplan, but never prejudge

A great lesson this business should teach every one of us is that insurance prospecting is a numbers game. If we see a certain number of prospects and apply the same professional approach each time, a certain percentage will buy. What we do not know is who.

We can preplan, but we must never prejudge. The plan tells us how many people to see. It cannot tell us which of them will say yes.

Some of the friends you have now will never do business with you, while some of the people you meet for the first time will become friends for life. Some of your closest relatives will never buy from you, and someone you once disliked might become your best client. This business is a great revealer. It tells you who is who.

How agent training and development should apply the lesson

If the numbers game is real, our habits have to match it. This is what the lesson asks of new agents, and what I would ask every manager to reinforce:

• Keep the Project 100, but treat it as a starting point. It is the first 100 names, not the only 100, and it is not a forecast.
• Plan activity, not outcomes. Decide how many people you will see each week and hold to it. Prospecting remains the lifeblood of this business, no matter what the market looks like.
• Rate prospects on need and ability to act. How well you know someone tells you nothing about whether they will buy.
• Keep adding names every week. A growing list means no single refusal carries more weight than it deserves.

The same professional approach, friend or foe

Here is the part of the lesson that is easiest to miss. The adviser must adopt the same professional approach with friend or foe if we are to improve the statistics. With people we know, we relax. We skip steps, assume the sale, and then take the refusal personally. With strangers, we do the work properly. Is it any wonder they so often buy first?

I am Carlyle Fletcher, a Chartered Life Underwriter (CLU) and Million Dollar Round Table (MDRT) Life Member. Across more than four decades in the field, training agents in Trinidad and Tobago and across the Caribbean, I have seen this lesson hold true. So this week, go back to your list. Take out the names you had already decided would buy, and the names you had already decided would not. Book appointments with both, and give each one the same professional conversation. A good beginning makes for a better ending, and it starts with an open mind about who will buy.

Frequently asked questions

What is a Project 100 in insurance?

A Project 100 is the list of the top 100 people a new agent knows, drawn from family, friends, neighbours, school and past employment. An income potential analysis is then built from it. Carlyle Fletcher treats it as a sound starting point for prospecting, but never as a forecast of who will actually buy.

Why is insurance prospecting called a numbers game?

Because if an agent sees enough prospects and applies the same professional approach to each, a certain percentage will buy. No agent can know in advance which individuals those will be. That is why agents should plan and measure activity, while holding back judgment about any single prospect.

Should agents treat friends and family differently from strangers?

No. In Carlyle Fletcher’s experience, agents often relax with people they know, skip steps and assume the sale, while doing the work properly with strangers. The same fact-finding, presentation and follow-up should apply to friend or foe. That consistency is what improves an agent’s results over time.