Old telephone—macinate (Flickr.com)

Let’s imagine all your Internet marketing for your insurance/financial services business actually WORKS.

You’ve figured out the Google Game.

You’re getting traffic from the search engines.

Even some social marketing traffic from your Facebook Page, Twitter, and LinkedIn find their way to your website.

You actually have a website that DOES NOT SUCK.

Ideal Prospects… lots of them, in fact, more than you can handle… with honest-to-goodness problems, that you solve, people interested in the products /services you offer… interested in working with you are finding you, learning about your business.

Your visitors are excited, they’re engaged, they’re ready and want to do business with you.

Now…

Picture in your head, your Picture Perfect Potential Client, sitting in his home or office, his computer fired up, looking at your website.

He (or she) reaches for the iPhone, punches in your number…

On the other end you hear…

Ring… Ring… RING.

NOW….

Before you grab that call…

Listen Up

This is a key moment in your marketing and sales process.

It’s at this moment that marketing hands the ball off to your sales. All the marketing was practice, critical and important practice.

NOW… it’s game time!

Prior to this, your marketing was on auto-pilot, running without direct human contact. Ads, newsletters, free reports, website visits, maybe even a print mailer.

Now, you’re going to talk one-on-one with your prospect.

Your Picture Perfect Potential Client is gonna size you up in less than 3 seconds.

Malcolm Gladwell, a staff writer for The New Yorker, in his New York Times Number One Bestseller, “blink” offers a fascinating study of what happens in our heads during these crucial initial 3 seconds and writes:

“The instant conclusions that we reach are really powerful and really important, and occasionally, really good.”

It’s here many times, in that first quick impression, HOW you answer… or even fail to answer the call…that determines if you win or lose a client.

This is one of those little things that is a big deal.

You must have a process, a script for exactly how you’ll answer, greet, and handle a new prospect inquiry. Your best phone person must be trained in exactly how to handle these calls.

Understand this: Your local community wants to support your business.

But…

They won’t support you if you don’t get this basic business expectation down. Or, if Flo or The Gecko does it better than you, greets callers consistently better than you, you’re in trouble:

This is Your Insurance Business Wake-Up Call.

Now,  if you’re a small one-man show, tied up all day long meeting with clients, make sure your voice mail works and leaves the right favorable first impression with your prospects. Or, even better, consider investing in a live voice answering service

You only get one chance to make a first impression.

Return all calls promptly. Best thing to do is ask (and include this in your voice message) people the best number and time to reach them. Then call them at that time. It creates that initial impression that you are organized and on top of your business.

Oh, and one final thing…

While it’s important to make a positive first phone impression, it’s best to figure out a way to have someone other than you, the owner, The Expert in your field, answering that initial call. If YOU answer that first call, you lose all the critical positioning with the prospective client.

And… to land profitable long-term, Ideal Clients, on your terms, at your price, you need positioning, you want positioning.

Your phone’s ringing…

What do YOU you say?