Samuel Hoover asked two questions after earning his insurance agent license.
“What do I do? Where do I even begin?”
Fast forward three months, and it’s not an exaggeration to say Hoover’s success as an independent agent is directly connected to using Data Axle Genie to find prospects.
“The biggest time you waste is getting information on what to go after,” Hoover said. “This saves me so much time on research I can go into prospecting right away. It’s a huge time saver.”
At Leilaert Insurance Agency in Osceola, Indiana, Hoover had access to few tools to meet his sales goals. He would log in to his computer and do a quick web search, but that often yielded “years old” data that “wasn’t reliable.” Erie Insurance co-opted the cost of Data Axle Genie for Hoover, who is permitted to also sell the agency’s policies as an independent agent.
“With this, I blew those numbers out of the water,” said Hoover, who used Data Axle Genie to double the number of commercial accounts he sold each month.
Hoover added Data Axle Genie alleviated one of the major hiccups in the sales process—spending hours looking for accurate business owners, addresses, phone numbers, and other details.
He also said Data Axle Genie’s mobile app provides additional sales opportunities while out in the field. For example, Hoover visited a cake shop and dropped off a business card. He then saw a nearby hair salon, pulled out his smartphone, and loaded up the Data Axle Genie mobile app.
“I looked at my phone, pulled up the owner’s name, went in, met the owner, and gave them my business card,” he said. “I use the mobile app just about as much as I use the computer.”
Most importantly, Hoover said Data Axle Genie allowed him to reach people outside of their comfort zones because having prior information, such as decision maker name or number of employees, better equipped him to initiate cold calls.
“That’s the biggest hurdle you have to get over—the first wall when you meet someone,” he said.
“I can talk to more people in a short amount of time (with Data Axle Genie).”
For Jill Myers, using Data Axle Genie meant an end to her days prospecting door-to-door.
As co-owner of Myers and Haden Insurance, Inc., Myers started using Data Axle Genie to streamline prospecting practices at the family business she took over after her father retired in 2015.
Myers said Data Axle Genie’s lead generation and marketing tools have allowed her to sell more policies to area businesses and be within a realistic reach of her sales goal.
“I wouldn’t be close without this,” Myers said of Data Axle Genie. “It’d be a lot harder without the contacts.”
Myers, an independent agent at the Fort Wayne, Indiana-based business, sells commercial policies for Erie Insurance. She was introduced to Data Axle Genie by a corporate sales manager at Erie, who co-opted her Data Axle Genie costs. Myers quickly extended her Data Axle Genie subscription by six months.
Myers said renewing her subscription was an easy decision because the sales tool allowed her to narrow her search to a list of just over 600 potential prospects, who are most likely to purchase a commercial policy. This translates to about 40 leads per week—nearly double what she’s used to calling.
“I can talk to more people in a short amount of time as opposed to driving around,” she said.
Myers added cold calls never truly feel cold when using Data Axle Genie because of access to information such as years in business, number of employees, location, and other data.
She also doesn’t spend time “spinning her wheels” to find her best prospects. In the future, Myers said she plans to explore targeting other business types and Data Axle Genie’s multi-channel marketing services to expand her overall reach and continue to grow her book of business.
“I’m looking forward to learning more about the other services like display ads and email and how I can utilize those features,” said Myers, citing a need to put herself on the radar for prospects. “Every time I can put myself out there, it makes people much more open to speaking with me.”
