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How to Increase Your Insurance Agency's Digital Presence
In this episode of the Insurance Marketing Brain Dump Podcast, Keagan Henson of BriteBee and Chris Paradiso of Paradiso Insurance talk with Sam Affolter, the senior director of research & innovation for Agents at Safeco.
1. About Sam | 1:32
Sam's team looks at discovering and developing new unexpected value for #insuranceagents and their customers. They are looking for the things that will enable agents to be competitive against direct. Sam started at Safeco in underwriting. He moved over to product then marketing. He then went on to help Amazon launch Prime Now. He is now back at Safeco where he helps fight against the direct to consumer. This is great because he is helping the agent while providing value to the carrier.
2. Importance of #DigitalPresence | 4:07
There are some carriers out there that are trying to get rid of the insurance agents. There are a lot more carriers that are trying to make sure they are in multiple different channels. Independent #agents and insurance people should be dipping their toes in the same water they are. Having a strong digital presence is the main way that smaller agents are competing with these large carriers. One thing is to be able to test things more. You want to feel confident about failing, but you're going to fail forward. When start small and fail, you allow yourself to grow by understanding why you fail. Agents need to start thinking like a start-up business. You are investing in multiple different things and although some may fail, one investment may boost your opportunities.
3. Thinking like a start-up | 6:18
Successful start-up companies utilize certain tools and have a certain mindset that helps them succeed. One of the things that can be very beneficial is using cheap tools like Rocket Referral to help market yourself. Working backwards can also help. Find out what you want your solution or your ideal state to be and work towards that. Figure out what you can do today to help you move towards that end goal. Working backwards allows you to realize whether or not an idea is a good one before you invest time and resources into it.
4. Testing Ideas | 10:38
Sam's team works with agents. They take ideas and put them in front of an agent panel to get an understanding of whether or not those are good things for agents. They then rank those and figure out which idea they should go after first because agents think they are the best. For example, say an agent wants to take an idea to the community by writing a press release, people that read the press release may not understand what it is about. You can then ask the question, "Why don't you understand?" Then you can figure out what you need to change to make them understand. The biggest take-away from this is to fail forward.
Connect with Sam Affolter here:
LINKEDIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samaffolter/de
TWITTER: https://twitter.com/samaffolter
To Learn More about BriteBee.com:
WEBSITE: https://britebee.com
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/BriteBeeCo
INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/britebeeco/
TWITTER: https://twitter.com/BriteBeeCo
LINKED IN: https://www.linkedin.com/company
Learn More About Paradiso Insurance & Paradiso Presents:
WEBSITE: https://www.paradisoinsurance.com/
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/InsuranceCT/
INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/paradiso_insurance/
TWITTER:https://twitter.com/paradisoins
LINKEDIN: https://www.linkedin.com/company/paradiso-financial-and-insurance-services/
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By BriteBee, Chris Paradiso, Keagan HensonIn this episode of the Insurance Marketing Brain Dump Podcast, Keagan Henson of BriteBee and Chris Paradiso of Paradiso Insurance talk with Sam Affolter, the senior director of research & innovation for Agents at Safeco.
1. About Sam | 1:32
Sam's team looks at discovering and developing new unexpected value for #insuranceagents and their customers. They are looking for the things that will enable agents to be competitive against direct. Sam started at Safeco in underwriting. He moved over to product then marketing. He then went on to help Amazon launch Prime Now. He is now back at Safeco where he helps fight against the direct to consumer. This is great because he is helping the agent while providing value to the carrier.
2. Importance of #DigitalPresence | 4:07
There are some carriers out there that are trying to get rid of the insurance agents. There are a lot more carriers that are trying to make sure they are in multiple different channels. Independent #agents and insurance people should be dipping their toes in the same water they are. Having a strong digital presence is the main way that smaller agents are competing with these large carriers. One thing is to be able to test things more. You want to feel confident about failing, but you're going to fail forward. When start small and fail, you allow yourself to grow by understanding why you fail. Agents need to start thinking like a start-up business. You are investing in multiple different things and although some may fail, one investment may boost your opportunities.
3. Thinking like a start-up | 6:18
Successful start-up companies utilize certain tools and have a certain mindset that helps them succeed. One of the things that can be very beneficial is using cheap tools like Rocket Referral to help market yourself. Working backwards can also help. Find out what you want your solution or your ideal state to be and work towards that. Figure out what you can do today to help you move towards that end goal. Working backwards allows you to realize whether or not an idea is a good one before you invest time and resources into it.
4. Testing Ideas | 10:38
Sam's team works with agents. They take ideas and put them in front of an agent panel to get an understanding of whether or not those are good things for agents. They then rank those and figure out which idea they should go after first because agents think they are the best. For example, say an agent wants to take an idea to the community by writing a press release, people that read the press release may not understand what it is about. You can then ask the question, "Why don't you understand?" Then you can figure out what you need to change to make them understand. The biggest take-away from this is to fail forward.
Connect with Sam Affolter here:
LINKEDIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samaffolter/de
TWITTER: https://twitter.com/samaffolter
To Learn More about BriteBee.com:
WEBSITE: https://britebee.com
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/BriteBeeCo
INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/britebeeco/
TWITTER: https://twitter.com/BriteBeeCo
LINKED IN: https://www.linkedin.com/company
Learn More About Paradiso Insurance & Paradiso Presents:
WEBSITE: https://www.paradisoinsurance.com/
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/InsuranceCT/
INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/paradiso_insurance/
TWITTER:https://twitter.com/paradisoins
LINKEDIN: https://www.linkedin.com/company/paradiso-financial-and-insurance-services/