Chris Wickers ⋅ Santa Maria, CA Wickers Insurance Agency ⋅ 10 years experience

Hi Nelson,

My personal experience with selling Group Health benefits in California has been to follow the old military acronym of KISS - Keep It Simple...

The reason I say this is because HR managers are deluged by vendors who are trying to get them to switch to this or that product. You may be the 5th call that day trying to tell them about your product...if you even get through.

IMO, there is no secret to selling benefits. Its a numbers game because you have to make X amount of contacts until you find the right person at the right time who has a pain point with their current benefits structure. To find that person, you have to make calls. Lots of calls.

As for your question, what is the best way to reach out to HR decision makers, my experience has been that you cover the most ground for the least amount of money using the telephone and cold calling. You can look up HR managers on websites of companies, or just call the company and ask for the HR manager who makes benefits decisions.

Once you make contact with them, tell them who you are, what you have and ask them if they are interested in learning more. Simple. Its a yes or no proposition. Do yourself and them a favor and don't try to "sell" them over the phone. Either they are are interested or not. If not, then thank them for their time and put them into your future lead/x date file. This helps our profession maintain its position as trusted advisors.

The key is activity. I can't tell you how many times I've called for hours, gotten no leads and then right as I was about to shut down for the day came across a lead that was "...just looking into making some changes with their health plan".

Its slow going building a benefits book, don't expect huge gains fast, but its worth it in the long run if you have good carriers/partners and treat your prospects with respect.

Best of luck Sergeant Major!

Emanuel Carpenter ⋅ Alpharetta, GA SDR Master Class ⋅ 20 years experience

Nelson: I highly recommend you get involved with the Society of Human Resources Management (SHRM). You can become a member (for a fee) and attend their events for networking purposes. There you will meet your potential customers.

I would also encourage you to do some old-fashioned prospecting. Drop in on local businesses to see if you can get a quick meeting with the head of HR. Bring donuts or other inexpensive gifts like your branded pens.

If you cold call, start by asking to speak with the CEO or president. You will most likely get this person's assistant who will then tell you to reach out to the head of HR. Name drop the CEO's name when you reach out to this person. It is much more effective than calling the head of HR first.

Develop a phone script for live conversations and leaving voicemails. Create an email template as well.

For the highly valuable prospects, offer a gift of significant value in exchange for a meeting.

Best of luck.

John Green ⋅ Cary, NC Information Technology ⋅ 40 years experience

It starts with a business plan. In the plan, you articulate your market penetration strategy.

That market segment ("employee benefits packaging") requires big name recognition with proven track record over generations of people. It is a very crowded market segment and the competition is fierce, to the point of being a loss leader for paving the way for other forms of related products and services.

Better to go to work for a company that already owns this market rather than try to break into it as a start-up.