My startup needs help

[Liz Be]

Hi there.

I recently started a business with a friend where we help negotiate a total loss settlements for cars with insurance companies. Thus far we have our website, and we are auto favoriting tweets that contain the terms totaled car. The proposition is very attractive for those that are willing to sign up. They don't pay us a dime unless we make them considerably more than our fee. They literally have nothing to lose.


Yet not one person has asked for our help yet. I mean we have favorited and written to hundreds and hundreds of people on Twitter.

I would think that we would've gotten at least one by now. I'm extremely frustrated as we've put a lot of money and time into this.

Any thoughts?

Liz

 

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[Arima]

Hi Liz,

I think nobody wants to be the ''first guy''. That is probably one of the main reasons that your company hasn't been successful. My advice would be to bring your business first in your social/family circle. Look for people that are close and try to sell your service to them.

 

[Liz Be]

We've actually helped two people who have testimonials on the site.

 

[jason91]

Hi there.

I recently started a business with a friend where we help negotiate a total loss settlements for cars with insurance companies. Thus far we have our website, and we are auto favoriting tweets that contain the terms totaled car. The proposition is very attractive for those that are willing to sign up. They don't pay us a dime unless we make them considerably more than our fee. They literally have nothing to lose.


Yet not one person has asked for our help yet. I mean we have favorited and written to hundreds and hundreds of people on Twitter.

I would think that we would've gotten at least one by now. I'm extremely frustrated as we've put a lot of money and time into this.

Any thoughts?

Liz

Hi Liz,

How are you communicating everything you just said? How does the customer know?

A few reasons I think they might not be initiating contact:
1. They don't clearly understand how much more money / benefits they will gain by talking to you.
2. They are not familiar with total loss settlements and fear the risk of being scammed, or other (How educated is the customer on this aspect of insurance?)
3. Your favoriting tweets of people who use twitter to tweet interesting stories "Look, it's a totaled car!", and are not the ones who tweet "my car was totaled, how do I deal with insurance"

Usually lack of conversion is due to:

- Unclear Message / Communication of your offer
- Boring Selling proposition (Not provoking the customer's interest / needs)
- Wrong customer (Not the right type of person to buy your service)
- Competition (better and more compelling offers)
- Lack of trust for your company (because it's new)

 

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[Liz Be]

Jason.. AMAZING post. The third point is incredibly valuable.

Can I PM you for more help?

 

[Ubermensch]

Hi there.

I recently started a business with a friend where we help negotiate a total loss settlements for cars with insurance companies. Thus far we have our website, and we are auto favoriting tweets that contain the terms totaled car. The proposition is very attractive for those that are willing to sign up. They don't pay us a dime unless we make them considerably more than our fee. They literally have nothing to lose.


Yet not one person has asked for our help yet. I mean we have favorited and written to hundreds and hundreds of people on Twitter.

I would think that we would've gotten at least one by now. I'm extremely frustrated as we've put a lot of money and time into this.

Any thoughts?

Liz

I wouldn't rely solely on Twitter.

If only success were as easy as "favoriting."

Your sales pitch is great, though. Coming from the energy world, I get it.

You eliminate the cost objection. Immediate ROI. It sounds as though you should be able to very specifically target the decision makers for your offering.

Are you scared to really find out what people think of your opportunity? You can set up a telemarketing campaign to call on your leads. You can choose the macro or the micro approach. In other words, you can have a call center call 80,000 leads for you, and see the results from that. Or, you can have a call center call a much smaller number of leads - 100 to 200 - to test. In both cases, it shouldn't cost you more than $500 to set that up.

Numbers won't lie. In your game, math tells the entire story. If you have $500, spend it on a telemarketing campaign, after you're happy with the leads that they'll be calling on.

Social media helps with social proof. This is true with Linkedin, as with the other less professional forms. It's pretty easy to get 500 connections on Linkedin, even if you knew absolutely no one on the Planet right now, and started one up today.

To blow up your Linkedin real quick, just go to TopLinked.

It might make sense to use Linkedin to start reaching out to some of your prospects directly. People in your field definitely have active Linkedin accounts.

Things like that will serve as empirical evidence as to who and what you are. Twitter isn't a hunting animal. It's not going to go down and hunt prospects, and eat them for you.

Your game is a killing sport. Just ask anyone in the insurance industry. I interviewed a guy last week. 41-year old, lots of car sales and insurance sales experience. Dude is a beast, because of how you have to be to win in that world. For you to succeed in that world, you have to basically act like a hungry insurance rep.

Pick up the phone, and start dialing.

I think this entire post could be summarized with a point Jason made. He said... "A few reasons I think they might not be initiating contact"

That's the whole point. You need to initiate contact with them. Be proactive, not reactive. Squeaky wheel gets the grease, etc.

 

[DrkSide]

Get offline and get IN FRONT of your customer. Call local body shops and get them to refer you customers who's vehicle was brought in but was declared totaled. Pick up the phone and start calling. You are just throwing things at the wall hoping that the customer is in need of your service and instead you need to go find customers that you are sure need your service.

 

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[Liz Be]

I wouldn't rely solely on Twitter.

If only success were as easy as "favoriting."

Your sales pitch is great, though. Coming from the energy world, I get it.

You eliminate the cost objection. Immediate ROI. It sounds as though you should be able to very specifically target the decision makers for your offering.

Are you scared to really find out what people think of your opportunity? You can set up a telemarketing campaign to call on your leads. You can choose the macro or the micro approach. In other words, you can have a call center call 80,000 leads for you, and see the results from that. Or, you can have a call center call a much smaller number of leads - 100 to 200 - to test. In both cases, it shouldn't cost you more than $500 to set that up.

Numbers won't lie. In your game, math tells the entire story. If you have $500, spend it on a telemarketing campaign, after you're happy with the leads that they'll be calling on.

Social media helps with social proof. This is true with Linkedin, as with the other less professional forms. It's pretty easy to get 500 connections on Linkedin, even if you knew absolutely no one on the Planet right now, and started one up today.

Things like that will serve as empirical evidence as to who and what you are. Twitter isn't a hunting animal. It's not going to go down and hunt prospects, and eat them for you.

Your game is a killing sport. Just ask anyone in the insurance industry. I interviewed a guy last week. 41-year old, lots of car sales and insurance sales experience. Dude is a beast, because of how you have to be to win in that world. For you to succeed in that world, you have to basically act like a hungry insurance rep.

Pick up the phone, and start dialing.

Uber but who am I calling? I'm not selling insurance. I'm targeting people who have just totaled their cars.

 

[Liz Be]

Get offline and get IN FRONT of your customer. Call local body shops and get them to refer you customers who's vehicle was brought in but was declared totaled. Pick up the phone and start calling. You are just throwing things at the wall hoping that the customer is in need of your service and instead you need to go find customers that you are sure need your service.

Yes this is definitely what needs to be done too. That is one of our next steps.

 

[Ubermensch]

Uber but who am I calling? I'm not selling insurance. I'm targeting people who have just totaled their cars.

Shouldn't be too hard to get a list of such people.

Define "just." Within the last week, month?

I know a guy who sells proprietary lists to car dealers. A guy like him - a specialized data expert - should hook you up with enough data to test. They'll make the data on the test really good, because they want you to return and buy more.

 

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[Liz Be]

Just = within last week

Not sure who would have a list of totaled cars. The only people with that info are the drivers and the insurance companies

 

[DrkSide]

Not sure who would have a list of totaled cars. The only people with that info are the drivers and the insurance companies

Bodyshops maybe? Just throwing that out there.

 

[Liz Be]

Yes the body shop thing is next on the list. That I know. We're going to do a mass mailing

 

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[theag]

Towing companies? Give them flyers to hand out and a commission for closed deals. Problem solved. Feel free to paypal me 10% of your profits for this marketing plan

 

[DrkSide]

Yes the body shop thing is next on the list. That I know. We're going to do a mass mailing

Why not go introduce yourself, your company, and what you do? Ask to put a information flyer in their waiting room.

You will get a much better response rate and feedback doing that.

 

[Liz Be]

I prob should introduce myself to them. Hopefully that's a competitive advantage for a gal in a male dominated business.

 

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[Liz Be]

I'm also thinking that Google ads will be more effective than twitter (which hasn't been effective at all, so it's a low bar!). The people that actually search for info on totaled cars, as opposed to just tweeting about it, are more likely to be interested.

 

[crockbar]

I'm also thinking that Google ads will be more effective than twitter (which hasn't been effective at all, so it's a low bar!). The people that actually search for info on totaled cars, as opposed to just tweeting about it, are more likely to be interested.

If you are looking to advertise a lot online go through some of Sandi Krakowski's tutorials. She knows a lot about online marketing and advertising with FB and Twitter.

 

[Andy Black]

Towing companies? Give them flyers to hand out and a commission for closed deals. Problem solved. Feel free to paypal me 10% of your profits for this marketing plan

This

I'm also thinking that Google ads will be more effective than twitter (which hasn't been effective at all, so it's a low bar!). The people that actually search for info on totaled cars, as opposed to just tweeting about it, are more likely to be interested.

And this.

 

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[Equilibrium]

I would be scared out of my brains to go through any kind of settlement with some one from Twitter.. this being the same website that tries to get me to click on half created links. I agree about getting offline and upfront. Get a advertisement in the local newspaper. Also for growing followers there's a startup I ran into that's very effective for targeted following on twitter, you might want to check it out
http://narrow.io

 

[csalvato]

Twitter is such a bad place to do this imho.

Lots of other good suggestions here...

At a higher level, think like this:

"Who has already acquired my customer, but is not in direct competition with me? What incentive can I give them to refer the customer to me?"

For a business like yours, this mindset shift should open up many doors, imho.

 

[Kevin Peter]

You are the Claims adjuster?
You get an attorney to work on your behalf to handle the insurance company.
You present a price for your wrecked car that is based on comparable vehicles in your area.

Do you have a software that provide vehicle valuations, blue book averages and what cars are selling for in your area through dealer networks?

My suggestion:
Get in-touch with the taxi industry associations.
Am pretty sure, you get atleast 1 deal each day

 

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[MitchC]

Car rental companies as well if it hasn't been mentioned yet

 

[ZCP]

Billboard / wrap on major roadway with lots of accidents.

Radio promo with local body shop chain.

Think big!

 

[Ubermensch]

Since the conclusion of this thread seems to unanimously be that the OP should focus on outreach to the market, I think I'd say the following:

This is a phone game. It is a numbers game. A classic situation where intelligent use of the phone leads to success.

The beauty of this situation is that, once you get "plugged in," the nature of the game prevents distractions and wasted time.

I would undoubtedly say that your two biggest factors to success will be your use of a top quality voice broadcasting system and a predictive dialer.

This post assumes that you have acquired a get set of data. You should be able to get strong data - to build a list of 10,000 - 1,000,000+ - for no more than $.05 a record. Many times a lost less than that. So, you get your list of 10,000 - 100,000,000 (depending on how large and scalable your market is), and you fire off the voice broadcast and the predictive dialer.

Voice Broadcast

The voice broad cast bypasses the phone ringing. It will simply leave a pre-recorded voice mail in the voice mail box of a consumer or a business.

If you can generalize your message to emphasize a solution to a need (in 5 - 15 seconds), then you will generate plenty of momentum. Just imagine what would happen if you hired a bunch of your own clones to spend their time leaving voicemails in prospects inboxes. That's what this is. As many as you want. As many as you need.

Predictive Dialer

While voice broadcasting is a more passive way at generating interest and leads (you simply send out the voice mails and wait for people to call you back, or "press 1" for a live transfer), predictive dialing is the most efficient way to conduct an outbound campaign.

It eliminates voice mails, busy signals, disconnected lines... for anyone who has ever made 100 - 400+ cold calls in a day, or who has spent 12+ hours on the phone selling nonstop, then you know that the biggest obstacle is time. Time wasted getting frustrated, listening to voice mails, leaving voice mails, listening to the phone ring, getting a disconnected number, getting a busy signal, etc.

Predictive dialing eliminates all of that. All of your time is literally spent only speaking to live answers. If you have a hot offer - whether offering a strategic partnership or seeking to acquire the person an actual client (if they're the DM) - then your closing ratio should be strong.

That's how to really turn the phone into an M-16. Fire 10,000 - 1,000,000+ shots simultaneously. Fire as many shots as your budget permits. Over and over. Until you get what you want.

I've made six-figures by selling over the phone more than once. Only recently did I discover the best of this type of technology. Now, my results are going through the roof.

Lol. Remember, it's just a numbers game. If your closing ratio is X%, where you close X% of Y Leads, the key to enhancing that formula to the max is to... increase the amount of leads. Increase Y. You increase Y, by increasing the amount of of conversations.

Leads are created not by phone calls, but by conversations. You can make 500 phone calls in a day, and not reach anybody. There is no heroism in that.

You need to be closing all the time.

Closing = deals = commissions = money in the bank.

And the only way to do that is to be on the phone, talking to people... all the time.

Then, once you've nailed the PROCE$$ yourself, just Fastlane it and hire some virtual closers.

Using these two features is, arguably, the most efficient way to attack the market.

If I were in your shoes, I would find a good data guy who would get you every body shop (and any other dream prospect/client/biz development partner), and then fire off a voice broadcasting and predictive dialing campaign yourself. You and your partners handle it first. Then scale it by hiring phone closers. They're all over the internet. A good job board post will unearth them.

Good luck.

 

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[SmoothOperator]

I'd look into Chet Holmes' core story model. basically, you'd be framing yourself as the expert on an industry and acting as an educator to prospective clients. If I were to go about it, I'd do something like this:

1) Find leads (lots of great suggestions above, and keep thinking outside the box)

2) Teach leads something about your market. People will pay more attention to you if they feel they can get value out of the interaction. Teach about them the dangers of getting ripped off on claims (frame yourself as a trusted expert). Since you have a website, I'd probably make a short video presentation about it and post on landing page. Also, make it compelling. So not "5 ways to have a better settlement" but "The 5 ways ppl aren't getting their fair share in claims disputes." Obviously not those exactly, but you catch my drift

3) At the end, of the presentation, say something like "now just 2 minutes to say something about our company..." and give some background, testimonial, and offer them your deal or at least a consultation (which seems to be pretty much zero risk: all upside, no downside)

Since the deal you're offering is basically zero risk, I think the problem is that you're not getting the word out to enough prospects, and/or you're coming in with no appearance of authority. Again, Chet Holmes' book, Ultimate Sales Machine, has a more thorough explanation.

I've been working with the core story model for some time, so I can go deeper if you're interested. Good luck!

 

[Liz Be]

Oh my goodness! I didn't realize how much input I was getting here! I missed those alerts!

Thank you all so much! The business itself has already worked locally, just not on a broader level.

 

[Ubermensch]

That was dismissive.

 

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[Liz Be]

That was dismissive.

I didnt mean to dismiss any of it yet. It's all great information. I'm reading it over and over again right now, and taking down notes. Anything BUT dismissive.

 

[Liz Be]

Anyone think I can get towing companies/bodyshops to buy in without having to offer them commission?