Simplify Your Marketing With Your Online Admin Assistant - BrokerOffice

Many agents eventually reach a point where they have to think about hiring an admin or sales assistant to help them with their workload. Before you dive into the expense and burden of hiring extra help, first consider what today's tech tools can do for you at a fraction of the cost and ramp-up time.

A December 2007 report by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reiterated what top producers already know about technology's effect on the insurance industry: "it has greatly affected the insurance business, making it much more efficient and giving the agent the ability to take on more clients."

It's true that a knowledgeable assistant can free up an agent to focus on selling. But as most agents know, it's tough to find, train, keep and afford the right one. Cutting-edge CRM tools like BrokerOffice, however, have allowed agents to streamline back-office tasks and write more apps - much like having an online admin assistant.

Easy Access To Data and Documents

Whether you need to find a lead's phone number or send a brochure to a prospect, this solution provides an easy-to-use dashboard to quickly access the information or files you need.

You'll no longer have to fumble around looking for the right forms and flyers. All the carrier-provided brochures and applications are already there for immediate print out or delivery to your prospect.

You can also upload your own brochures, flyers and documents into the tool's document library. This digital filing cabinet lets you email documents directly to a lead, so you can lower your printing and mailing cost, while providing immediate delivery.

And because it's a web-based tool, you can retrieve that data or document 24 hours a day - from anywhere in the world with an Internet connection.

Using Metrics To Improve Sales

BrokerOffice is the customer relationship management (CRM) tool specifically designed to help agents close more health insurance leads and prospects. Whether you're dealing with dozens or thousands of leads, it allows you to keep track and manage all of them in one convenient dashboard.

But more than just tracking a database of prospects, this tool lets you manage and energize your sales campaign by getting quick status reports on your sales progress:

• How many of your leads are you or your sales team closing?
• What's your conversion ratio?
• What's your cost per sale?

Using the program's Reports tab allows you to see your strong points and weak links, so you can make necessary adjustments to your sales strategy. For example, if one lead source or agent in your team generates a higher conversion ratio, you should consider buying more leads from that source or giving more leads to that agent.

Communications and Appointments

In 2006, SiriusDecisions published a study that found nearly 4 out of 5 prospects never received a follow-up call!

Of the 1 out of 5 who did receive a follow-up call, 70% of them were disqualified by the salesperson - but they went on to buy the same product from a competing vendor!

That's a lot of prospects to needlessly lose to a rival. With BrokerOffice, you'll be able to minimize or eliminate those losses. It allows agents to track the status of each lead, including how many times and when they were contacted.

It also helps agents set and stay on top of appointments with a handy appointment minder in the main dashboard. Schedule your appointments as you review a lead; and it will give you a reminder so you don't forget.

And when integrated with the LeadMiner email autoresponder, it automatically sends out marketing and follow-up emails to thousands of prospects at a time.

Finally, don't forget to schedule one of the most important appointments you'll have with your new clients: their renewal. They'll probably want to shop around again when they have to renew - especially if they've received a notice of increased premiums. This online assistant can remind you to be there to help them shop and keep their business.

Account and Lead Flow Management

Top producers and sales teams need a steady supply of leads to hit their goals. If you have to manage a sales staff, how you distribute those leads will have an effect on your bottom line and available time.

BrokerOffice allows you to automatically distribute your incoming leads to the right agents. Just indicate how you want new leads distributed, and it does the rest.

From its central dashboard, this powerful tool also displays a current status of your account and allows you to increase or decrease your lead flow with a few clicks. Increase lead flow when you need more; and quickly turn off your lead flow when you're on vacation or home for the night.so you won't have leads sitting in your inbox for hours or days.

Quoting and Proposal Generation

The biggest time demand for many agents is the process of running quotes and preparing proposals for new prospects. Doing this manually can take up to an hour for many agents - which is why many often feel they have to hire an assistant.

But with this CRM system integrated with the Norvax Quote Engine, agents will suddenly have more hours available each day to focus on just selling. You can slash your quoting time to mere seconds. You can then quickly generate a detailed proposal that can be emailed to clients (postage-free) or printed out and mailed.

This integration also let agents market to potential leads 24/7. Imbed the quote engine into your website and your leads immediately funneled into your lead management system.

Added Peace of Mind

What would happen to your operations if a fire, flood or other disaster struck down your office? How quickly can your sales team be up and running?

With this powerful lead management system, disasters can be turned into minor bumps in the road for top producers. That's because it doesn't just give you a convenient access to your lead data and files. It also protects them in a secure, password-protected online database.

It runs daily back-ups to multiple storage locations. So even if a disaster ruins your in-office lead records, your business doesn't have to stop. Just find a working Internet connection, and your online assistant will have your team making sales call right away.

An assistant can relieve you of a lot of smaller tasks. But with BrokerOffice and the full Norvax suite, you get more than a 24/7 assistant to handle many of those small tasks that take you away from sales. This low-cost, low-hassle solution also helps you generate more sales.