Close Only Counts In Horseshoes

Getting closest to the peg in horseshoes will win you the game, but just getting close to reaching your customers in advertising will waste a lot of your money. 

I speak with a great deal of agents who go through “slow times”; when the phone just isn’t ringing.  Sure they find tasks to fill their day with servicing, but new business production takes a plunge.  Believe me, nothing makes you feel worse as an agent than to work your tail off but at the end of the week your score card is blank.

In a recent conversation one of my agents told me that he was “waiting on the phone to ring.”  If I wanted to be mean I could have told him that the definition of waiting is “to remain inactive or in a state of repose until something expected happens.” 

Promoting your agency and yourself takes action.  If you sit and wait on the phone to ring, you might as well lock your doors, hang the closed sign, and go golfing for the day.  In fact, I would recommend that.  You would actually have a better chance at making a sale. 

What do you do during the slow times?  Do you wait or do you make things happen? 

For example, I was watching television the other day when a commercial for a local trial attorney came on and his jingle was “call Star Star Law” (**LAW).  It was sung lyrically and repeated about 15 times during the ad at which point I was ready to turn it.  I grabbed the remote thinking why would you waste your time making that?! Right after turning the channel, my little two year old niece was playing in the floor, not paying me any attention, singing “call Star Star Law.”  I cannot tell you the phone number to any other lawyers in town but I know his by heart.

I know one agent who took the money he would have spent on a Yellow Page ad and bought one of those traveling food vending trailers.  He strategically placed his agency logo on it and he donates it for free to civic groups to use to have bake sells out of.  Not only is he providing a community service and a good deed, he’s getting “miles” of promotion out of it for his agency.

You don’t have to have a marketing degree or access to expensive ad departments like the show Mad Men.  My grandfather used to say you “gotta fish where the fish are.”  Sometimes all you need to do is get out from behind your desk and go meet people.  They’re out there!  They’re at Starbucks getting coffee or the local diner eating lunch.  They’re at fairs and community events.  But the one place you won’t find them is in your office.

Tomorrow, if you’re setting in your office and no one calls before 11:00 am for a piece of new business, grab a stack of your business cards and hit the pavement.  Don’t return until you’ve talked to at least three new people.