Insurance Company Increases Conversion Rates, Builds Scalable Sales System

Sales and service teams master the skills that power long-term business growth

Executive Summary

Auto Insurance Specialists (AIS) first began working with OutSell Consulting to solve a specific problem: lead volume had declined, making it that much more important to achieve and maintain high closing ratios. The year was 2005, and search engine marketing was quickly taking market share from radio and direct mail, the two biggest sources of leads for AIS. 

While the AIS marketing team adjusted its strategy to revitalize lead flow, the sales team engaged OutSell to maximize conversion rates and meet sales goals. We built a customized sales program that:

• Trained everyone on the most successful tactics of top performers.
• Empowered mid-level performers to meet, and in some cases, beat the top performers. 
• Became a key ingredient in AIS’s long-term business growth. 

The initial results were better than the leadership team’s original vision of “wild success.” AIS then had OutSell deliver the training to the AIS service team to increase customer retention and maximize cross-selling and upselling opportunities. 

In the years since, OutSell has continued to work alongside AIS to refine and scale its sales program, helping AIS navigate major company and industry changes, earn more revenue, win more customers, and produce more profits. In fact, the AIS CEO credits OutSell with laying the groundwork for AIS’s success over the last 15+ years, and he considers OutSell an extension of the AIS team. 

The company 

For years, AIS had a winning formula. Highly effective radio ads, combined with a well-deserved reputation for excellent service and an already strong market share, generated a steady stream of inbound leads. The sales team didn’t follow a systematic sales process but still consistently met their goals.

Then, as they always do in business, things changed. Digital marketing overtook radio as an effective way to generate leads. Insurance aggregators, which provided online quotes from multiple carriers in an instant in exchange for a prospect’s contact info, further ate into AIS’s lead volume.  Meanwhile, other insurance companies started to aggressively pursue AIS’s main market at the time, Southern California.

The OutSell Operating System in Action

Our approach incorporates cutting-edge research on behavior science and training. For this client, we:

• Identified specific actions the sales team needed to take to drive results.
• Trained the sales team and then practiced with them using evidence-backed methods to help make these actions habits.

Learn more about the OutSell Operating System.

Scaling top-performers’ tactics to increase closing ratios

OutSell began by observing AIS’s top salespeople to identify the key actions they took that drove results. We also analyzed those actions and whether they would continue to be successful under the new business reality facing AIS. 

For example, one top salesperson generated a high volume of sales because she worked quickly. However, she performed less effectively when customers had a complex question or needed nuanced advice, and her closing ratio needed to rise to meet AIS’s new goals. 

We then developed a comprehensive sales approach focused on the most effective actions at every stage of the sales process, from pre-call planning to discovery to objection-handling to close. We trained the sales team and created easy-to-use call flows that the sales team could refer to during every call. 

As the sales team implemented these new behaviors, many mid-level performers and some bottom-tier performers improved so significantly that they became top performers. 

That indicated the new OutSell approach could scale across the organization in a sustainable way.  As a result, AIS had its service team also train with OutSell to improve customer retention and expand customer relationships.

The OutSell Operating System

Most sales training focuses on motivation and teaching concepts.

That’s a great start, but it’s not enough to get your sales team to consistently take the right action at the right time, every time.

We use science-backed methods to make sure training translates into consistent action that drives results.

Learn more about the OutSell Operating System.

Adapting to business changes while growing sales and profit

After our initial engagement with AIS, the insurance industry and the competition continued to change, and AIS expanded to Texas. OutSell has continued to work with AIS, training and certifying sales and service teams on core sales skills and new iterations of the program. 

We’ve also served as executive coaches to AIS’s senior leadership team, helping them improve team performance and capitalize on business opportunities. 

When AIS celebrated its 50^th anniversary in 2018, company CEO Mark Ribisi told OutSell, “The year will end as the greatest in our history. We have generated more revenue, more new customers, and more profit than any year in our history. The groundwork for that success started when you developed and launched our sales program.”

Contact us to learn how we can help you achieve similar results.