Business Insurance 101 - The Basics

How do you build trust with people? How do you build trust in your business, given the potential problems that are out there?

That is an awesome question. Ansay Associates and I build relationships to build that trust. First of all, I want to know their passions, which gets them to open up, and then we build that relationship. It could take anywhere between six months to three, sometimes five years. It's all about relationship building.

What are some of the solid tips that you could give on how you build trust? Are there steps that you take or if you are meeting for the first time on a zoom call or in an elevator?

Again, relationships are all about getting into your community and helping others. I love to help others. During this pandemic for the COVID 19, I am out there and trying to share on Facebook about restaurants and bars that are open for curbside service. I am purchasing gift cards, putting it on Facebook, saying, "Hey, I purchased this gift card for so and so from this business to provide." It's the information that you want to provide them. Also, to go even further, after you meet with someone, I continue to keep that relationship going by providing them with different articles. For example, "Hey, I thought about you," or "I just read this article and thought about you, and I thought it would be great for you to read."

You've had pretty extensive involvement in chambers. What is a chamber?

A chamber helps businesses by providing different tools like discounts on advertising. I was an ambassador for the Burlington chamber for 16 years. That involvement was ribbon cuttings. That involvement was going to meetings once a month. That involvement was getting into the community and helping volunteer. What I did is when I met with someone that has a ribbon-cutting for a business, I would go back to the office and write them a note saying congratulations on the opening, and I hope you the biggest success. Then I send it off to them because it means a lot. It really means a lot to these business owners.

What other things do you do from that relationship perspective?

We've been known to send just different gifts, some different types of marketing plans. We'd send dice with a note that says, "Do you want to roll the dice with your insurance and take the chance?"

Where do you get your ideas from?

Networking. You will not believe how much networking I do because when I network, I network with people, other salespeople, and we throw off ideas all the time.

So at least twice a week, I'm on a networking call, at least if not more. Different groups depending on whether they're paid or not. The Waukesha County Business Alliance, I am on different networking opportunities with them. I belong to I believe five, six different networking groups, whether they be monthly, twice a month, or even weekly.

How do you take the people you meet at the networking event and turn it into a sale?

That's relationship building, and I know it can be a very long process, but how do you make that leap? I think most people struggle with that. They go to a networking event, or they jump on a Zoom call, they participate, they see all these people on there, and they're like, "Oh my gosh, what do I do?" How do I take that next step?

You need to give in order to get. That's my huge tip when you're networking. You have to think about how "can I help this person?" Whenever I'm on a zoom call or in a room full of people, I immediately ask, "tell me about yourself, and what are you looking for?" And I'm constantly thinking, okay, I know this person who can definitely be a value. And I connect them. I'll go back to the office, and I'll do an introduction email and have both of them on there and introduce them.

How do you get a testimonial from somebody from your website?

Well, there's a couple of different ways. We'll either ask for testimonials, or we actually have a program that we belong to, Rocket Referrals, that has emails go out, and they will send those any time. As a business, anytime we receive an email from one of our clients saying, "thank you, you did a great job," we put that in our system. We want to recognize those employees who have done a great job, and it's brought to the attention on our monthly meetings.

How do you set yourself apart from all these other companies that provide what you provide?

We have risk management tools that we offer to our clients at no cost to them. We have a success plan that we provide to each and every single one of our clients. So we could meet monthly with the client to go over any type of training, whether it be anti-harassment training, climbing a ladder properly bloodborne pathogens, or any type of risk management training that they would need. I've helped so many of my clients being able to do that. Being able to go on to this risk management tool and finding the information that they need. It's not just the risk management, it's HR. Do they have questions in regard to human resources? We have that for them.

We educate our business owners on what to look for, how to reduce their claims, reduce the risk of claims, and reduce the risk of work-related injuries. We want to make sure that we keep them involved. And I want to be involved with my business owners. I don't want just to say here's your policy and walk away. I want to be able to help them. And that's an awesome feeling when you can go in and help them with anything they have, whether it be, "how do I read a certificate of insurance to an anti-harassment training?" You know, it's big.

Resources: Rocket Referrals

Get In Touch:

corina.kretschmer@ansay.com

https://www.ansay.com/advisors/corina-kretschmer linkedin.com/in/corina-kretschmer