Use Your Expertise to Give Back
Remember when you first started selling insurance? Recall the nervousness you felt about making your first cold calls. The concentration you had to muster to keep track of insurance terminology and explain it in a way that someone else could understand. The confusion you had to sort through as you worked out systems and processes to track your business. With all of those emotions going on, you probably didn’t have the capacity to focus on much else.
At some point, this changed. You established a rhythm, more confidence, and a productive day-to-day routine. Your business grew along with your knowledge and understanding of the ins and outs of insurance. And you honed your ability to talk about insurance with all kinds of folks in all kinds of different situations. In short, you became an expert, maybe without even realizing it.
So what are you going to do with that expertise? Maybe it’s time to give some of it away.
Everyone needs insurance at some point, and there are many ways that you can share your knowledge about insurance with others to help make your community stronger. Here are a few ideas to get you started:
1) Mentor a New Agent
Don’t wait to be asked—if you’re willing to mentor a new insurance agent, make it known. Tell your agency owner or sales manager or look for a mentorship program through a professional or local service organization. You won’t just be helping your mentee, you’ll also be expanding your network, and it will help reveal to you where you still have areas of growth.
2) Speak at a School or School Club
Many high schools offer some kind of class related to life skills or have extracurricular clubs like Junior Achievement or Future Business Leaders of America. Especially during the COVID pandemic, you can be sure that there is a teacher or club advisor out there who would be thrilled to have someone else take an hour of teaching or supervision off their hands.
Give your local schools a call and offer to do an Insurance 101 session for the students. Focus especially on auto and renters insurance, two product lines that they are likely to need as young adults.
3) Volunteer with Foster Youth
There are hundreds of thousands of children and youth in foster care, and every year some of them “age out” of the system with little support. For these older youth, you can provide a real service by helping them understand insurance and how to shop for it, as they may never have gotten any education about different types of insurance, why they need it, how to compare rates, etc.
The foster-care system is seriously under-resourced across the nation, so bring persistence. You may need to make calls to multiple agencies before you find a way to help these youth; it will undoubtedly be worth it when you do.
4) Coach Other Vulnerable Populations
Foster youth aren’t the only vulnerable citizens in your community. Single parents, older adults, victims of domestic violence, resettled refugees…you’ve probably got lots of people around you who could use some help navigating the insurance world.
The nonprofit community is a good place to get connected with these individuals. Do an online search using keywords like “NAME OF CITY refugees nonprofit” and see what pops up. If you’re not interested in direct personal contact, you could also offer to write up educational materials.
The best part about volunteering to help others is it’s a great way to boost your own happiness, too. Study after study shows that people who volunteer are most satisfied with their lives and even report feeling physically healthier. In addition, teaching others can be good practice for organizing your thoughts and honing your presentation skills, which will benefit you directly in your own work.
Ready for some new prospects? Hometown Quotes has fresh leads for insurance agents all around the country. Give us a call at 800.820.8921 to learn more.
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