In the “good old days,” cross-selling meant asking your clientsfor additional business. Legendary State Farm agent and authorCosmo Conte proved this as an effective means of building anagency's book.

Although this can still work, acknowledging the value ofcross-selling or account rounding, today's consumer needs to betreated differently. Rather than you asking them, they need to bepositioned to ask you.

Even on the producer side, there's an unspoken fear that theclient might think them too pushy. That fear means producers willsettle for what they have rather than going for more—even thoughcross-selling is in the best interests of your client.

How do we cross-sell in today's market? The answer is aconsistent policy of proactive educational nurturing. Through acampaign of education and information, agents position themselvesto enjoy the benefits of “reactive cross-selling.”

This means focusing on content and motivation by institutingcampaigns for email, electronic newsletters, seminars, communityinvolvement and social media. These campaigns must be designed toconstantly provide information in a non-threatening, non-sellingway to our clients—helping them through a support and nurturesystem. You must manage your database of contact points andmaintain a clean database of viable prospects that could alsobenefit from these campaigns.

E-mail: E-mail is great for bulletins—sent when youbecome aware of critical information or deadlines that need to beimmediately brought to the attention of clients and prospects.Don't attach a document to the e-mail; mount it to your website andprovide a link to it in your e-mail. That drives more traffic toyour website where clients and prospects might spend additionaltime.

Use variable, randomized signatures, including your basiccontact points. Have a list of 10 specific signatures withdifferent product or service-focused messages, then set up youremail system to randomly pull signatures for every email sent fromyour office.

Newsletters: Focus on the content, frequency andcontinuity. Don't attempt one every month, unless you have apassionate employee who can drive and manage the content.

Content must be informative and valuable to the recipient. Itmay take a few newsletters, and an analysis of your open andclick-through rates, to find the categories that mean the most toyour audience.

Seminars: Bringing clients and prospects together in acollegial atmosphere to gain information on critically importanttopics is a unique and extremely positive method of engagement. Setup tables around the room like a small tradeshow with informationon the various products and services you offer to this particularaudience.

Community involvement: Participation in charitableactivities in your area lets you engage with your prospects andclients.

Social media: Use it to engage, nurture, inform andeducate. The selling happens and is reactive when people begin totrust you. Own your space and build your connections or friends.When someone replies to anything you post with a comment or aquestion, acknowledge them. Some organizations have dedicatedemployees to manage their cyber space identity and brand.

Best Interests at Heart

Agencies should cross-sell for two reasons. First, theinvestment already has been made in onboarding the client. Thecosts of prospecting, relationship development and first sale havealready incurred. The true profit lies in expanding thatrelationship to include additional lines of coverage. Carriercommissions are the same, so earning the same commission with lessexpense becomes higher profitability.

Secondly, the more policies a client has with your agency, thehigher the rate of retention—unless you really mess up on theservice side of the relationship.