How to Sell to Niche Markets

Selling to Excess and Surplus Insurance Businesses

If your company is struggling to hit sales goals, take a minute and read our tips on selling to excess and surplus insurance businesses. The implementation of these techniques for selling to the excess and surplus insurance business market will dramatically improve sales.

Not surprisingly, excess and surplus insurance businesses are subject to normal business demands; they respond to businesses that offer solid, affordable products.

Businesses that sell to excess and surplus insurance businesses have to be prepared to communicate their product strengths to customers who are savvy about marketplace realities. Here are some of the other things you'll need to sell products to excess and surplus insurance businesses.

Direct Marketing Strategies

Direct marketing has proven to be an effective selling strategy for excess and surplus insurance businesses. The benefit of direct marketing is that it is an efficient method reaching qualified prospects with targeted messaging. From a selling perspective, direct marketing establishes a baseline for relationships with excess and surplus insurance businesses that can benefit from your products or services.

The tricky part about direct marketing is lead generation. Since finding leads is time-consuming and difficult, we recommend using lead lists supplied by established third-party vendors. Over the years we've found that Experian is one of the best in the business with a reputation for supplying consistently reliable lists of excess and surplus insurance businesses that produce high conversion rates.

Sales Management Tips

Sales managers can be a factor in the success of your sales strategy.

In this industry, sales reps tend to be highly motivated performers who are accustomed to working under tight deadlines. However, sales managers need to be careful to strike a balance between encouraging individual performance and maintaining a team atmosphere.

Don't neglect the fact that excess and surplus insurance business owners value teamwork and may not respond to sales reps who seem overly disconnected from their sales unit.

Research the Market

Start with good market research, which is a prerequisite for profitability in this industry. High volume sales teams conduct thorough research on market demand, pricing and niche opportunities.

More importantly, they conduct research on the specific excess and surplus insurance businesses that they want to add to their customer roster.

Since relationships are an important part of the selling process, meetings with excess and surplus insurance businesses leaders and their staff often form the backbone of the sales cycle. These meetings can also provide information that can give your business a competitive edge.

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