Brokers now have the ability to reach out to thousands with a click of a mouse. But is it effective? An expert in how your customer thinks explains where and how you should be making that initial contact.  

“The scarcest resource we all possess is attention,” says Dr. Nick Bontis, the chair of strategic management at McMaster University and the director of the Institute for Intellectual Capital Research.

“As insurance professionals, you are selling intellectual content, expertise – the knowledge that you possess between your ears. Can you develop that rapport with a client by sending an email through a smartphone? No! You still need that initial face-to-face meeting.”

Although email may be a fast and easy method of contacting existing and potential clients, you are only a single voice among a sea of voices flooding customers’ inboxes.

“How many of you receive emails during a 24-hour period?” Bontis asked a room full of delegates at the Canadian Association of Independent Life Brokerage Agencies conference in Toronto this week. “The average is 84 in a day – and of that 84, perhaps eight are critical. And that will only get worse as we move into the future.”

The value your client places on you and your product bears a direct relationship to the investment in time you make with them, says Bontis.

“How much does it cost to send an email? A flick of the wrist,” he says. “If you invest that face-to-face time for an hour or so, then follow up with an email, that email carries more value.

“We are all suffering from information bombardment.”