In this video, we share an example of a cold call for business insurance. This is from an insurance broker who appears to specialize in business insurance with a focus on IT-related risks. The salesperson sounds pretty sharp, but there are still three key takeaways we can discuss and learn from:
- Tighten the value proposition
- Focus on more than just cost savings
- Ask good questions
Tighten the Value Proposition
The salesperson on this cold call for business insurance opened the call with his value proposition by saying:
We are helping founders like yourself solve one of two problems. The first one being the industry we deal with, that’s like watching paint dry its a bit boring, its 12% of the American economy. Very slow and resistant to change. Secondly, we are using modern technology to reduce your investment by 30, sometimes up to 40%.
Not only is it a bit unclear what he is talking about with this value proposition, but he is actually using more words than is needed and almost wasting precious time at the beginning of a cold call. Sometimes less is more, especially when designing your sales script for cold calls and cold emails.
Time and attention at the beginning of a cold call are very precious, and it would likely be an improvement to use a value proposition that is a little shorter and clearer. Staying with his theme of cost savings, a tighter and better value prop might be:
We help businesses reduce their business insurance spend by as much as 40%.
Focus on More than Just Cost Savings
It seems the strategy and sales pitch for the salesperson on this cold call for business insurance focused primarily on delivering cost savings. His value was about reducing costs by as much as 40%, and his questions and closing focused on whether the prospect was motivated to reduce costs.
How would you feel if I told you if you were overpaying by at least 30%?
Talking about reducing insurance costs might be an effective way to get someone’s attention and set appointments. But that does not work for someone who does not currently have insurance. To be more effective, you should adopt a more well-rounded, multipronged approach that addresses cost savings, identifies coverage gaps, and emphasizes the mitigation of potential harm. Here are many of the ways the salesperson on this cold call for business insurance could help and he could have also focused on any of these:
- Reduce risks for IT-related events (cyberattacks, ransomware, data breaches, AI, software or service failures)
- Reduce legal and financial exposure
- Cover operational and legal costs
And with this multipronged sales pitch, it would probably be best to discuss coverage first and then fall back on cost savings if that does not lead to a meeting.
Ask Good Questions
To get this cold call for business insurance going in the right direction, all we have to do is improve the questions he asks. Here are the two main questions he asked, and as you can see, these are tied to his strategy to sell the prospect on cost savings:
Did you guys go through a broker?
How would you feel if I told you if you were overpaying by at least 30%?
To have a more well-rounded approach and one that leads with talking about coverage first, all we need to do is create questions that learn more about what the prospect currently has in place today in terms of coverage and what is going on on their side. Here is a quick pass at questions for that, and we refer to these questions as current state questions, as they help to learn what the prospect is currently doing in the area where our product or service fits.
Do you have business insurance for IT risks?
Do you have coverage for cyberattacks?
Do you have coverage for data breaches?
Do you have coverage for AI-related issues?
Do you have coverage for software or service failures?
Does your business process credit cards?
Do you store and retain customer or employee data?
Have you ever had a cyberattack?
Have you ever had a data breach?
Who are you guys with?
How long have you been with them?
What does your coverage look like?
How much are you paying?
After those, or mixed in with them, you can ask pain questions. These are great to ask, especially for insurance products, to gauge the prospect’s level of concern about the particular area.
How concerned are you about the costs from a cyberattack?
How do you feel about the coverage you have for IT risks?
How much would a cyberattack impact your business?
How concerned are you about legal exposure from software or service failures?
Are you aware of some of the risks that come with AI?
Cold Call Script for Business Insurance
With what we have created so far, we can actually use that to create a cold call script for IT insurance because we can open with our value proposition:
The reason for the call is that we help businesses protect themselves against IT-related risks while reducing their insurance spend.
After that, we can shift to asking some of our current state questions:
Do you have business insurance for IT risks?
We show you what that complete cold call script for IT insurance looks like in the video and show you how to create something similar for your product or service.
We hope this helps provide some new ideas for you and your cold call for business insurance!
