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Garrett White ( 680 days ago )	What sources worked best for your new customer prospecting and what sources were a loss? in General Marketing

Edward May ( 680 days ago )	From my experience there are two methods of prospecting customers the ones that cost and the ones that are free. I suggest exhausting free methods before spending any money. Some suggestions, go online and place free ads in local classifieds under "services" stating what you specialize in and include your contact info. Then see what's available in your area such as chamber of commerce events or local papers where you can place a press release. See who would be willing to offer referrals with your existing clients, these warm leads have been the most lucrative for me. The paid methods are more obvious, direct mail, newspaper ads, yellow pages, and buying leads would be a few. The main thing is to stay active, make a commitment to stay active everyday doing one or two of these until you start to see the level of activity you want.

Jake Ice ( 680 days ago )	As a trainer for new agents in our district, marketing is one of the critical elements we teach. Starting a new business requires using available capital wisely and not spending money on marketing efforts that will bear little or no fruit. In addition to the free services Edward talks about, here are a couple of other free or low-cost prospecting ideas: 1) Join a referral group (BNI, TNI, LeTip etc.) 2) Get involved in your community and local activities that will introduce you to people in your area 3) Hit the street! Visit the businesses you frequent (hair salon, sandwhich shop, coffee house, restaurants, etc.) as these are great sources for commercial prospects Starting an insurance business takes time, effort, energy, money, hard work and some luck. Maximize the potential of the number of people you can get to know through all the methods proposed on this thread.

Chuck Roberts ( 680 days ago )	Establishing a strong relationship with Apartment Managers is one of the biggest ways we have generated new business. We give them a referral gift of $10 for every person that says they were sent by that manager, as well as buy them Starbucks and lunch on occasion. We have also done presentation for their residents about why Renter's insurance is important and these have led to managers requiring insurance after finding they can keep their residents happy in the event of a fire with no effort on their part. An anyone who has been in the industry for a day knows that no customer needs only one line of insurance.

Pamela Wilson ( 679 days ago )	Yellowpages did not do much for me. Neither did street fairs or local table events. Most of my clients are coming from organization referrals. I joined Rotary, Sertoma, and local merchants associations. This is working.

William Farmakidis ( 678 days ago )	Whenever we write any new business we always ask for referrals. Word of mouth is by far the best type of advertising available. We also give out gas cards for referrals, which everyone loves as since gas is auite expensive right now. Interenet leads are nice because you get a person that is interested and have some information upfront to put a quote in front of them and have something to talk about. Although interenet lead come with a downside, most are price shoppers/hoppers and you have to weed through the bogus ones. Also being a new agent we make sure we follow up, follow up and folow up on interent leads until we are told "no".

Viviano Traci ( 609 days ago )	The biggest loss I had is the yellow pages ad, there is just way too many insurace agents listed, It's pretty much the luck of the draw. Word of mouth I think is the best.

Ana Menendez ( 549 days ago )	I am pretty new at this, and my suggestion is hitting the schools in the area, teachers can generally get discounts for being teachers, so it is a good place to start.

Tam Faulk ( 419 days ago )	Exhausting all methods keeps your business growing. Personally What everyone else said. I'm not to sure about paying for referrals I havent had any luck with most sites. But Warm market staring with my friends, family members, church members and so on then getting referrals from their warm market helped me out when I first started my business. I still have warm market leads but I also go out to apts and hang up flyers, door to door in residential areas and I call small businesses to see if they offer their employees life insurance most small businesses dont. These are some really good ways to reach people from all walks of life.

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