Interview: Training Opportunities for Agents at Ritter Insurance Marketing

We do host a lot of webinars, which always can be found on our events page, RitterIM.com/Events … We have a monthly [webinar] schedule that we think is great for any new agents, whether they’re new to working with Ritter or new to Medicare … Our “New Agent Orientation” is a two-part series that goes over working with Ritter and answers some of those general FAQs … That leads into “Medicare 101,” which is all about learning the basics … We build on that a little bit with “Steps to a Sale,” going over how to work with clients, figuring out what the best plan might be for each individual client.

Then [that] leads to “Building Your Book of Business,” which is all about marketing strategies … how to get in front of more clients.

Agents will often ask the question, “What’s really the value of working with you as my partner in my insurance business?” We want to help answer that by telling you a little bit about who we are as a company and some of the support that we offer, both on the sales and the operational side.

We also want to make sure that you understand how to utilize our tools. So, everything from pulling that first contract and using our quote engine to finding competitive products in your market. Then from there, we want to talk about how you can manage your business … how you can keep track of your contract progress, and when you might have things on your to-do list.

Now, if you really want to make the most of it [a partnership with Ritter], my best tip here would be to connect with our staff. Whether that be our sales staff, which would always be a great first point of contact, or any of our operational teams would also be a great resource for those getting started with Ritter. And then from there, just start working with the tools.

Our “Medicare 101” [webinar] just gives folks a good foundation of what to expect from the Medicare market. There’s only so much that you can fill in one hour when it comes to Medicare information, so our goal is just to provide a high-level overview of all parts.

You can certainly take advantage of some of our other educational content, like our eBooks or even our Knight school training platform.

Everyone’s next question after we teach them Medicare products is, “How do I talk to my clients?” “How do I present this information to them?”

I highly recommend attending our “Steps to a Sale” webinar, especially if you found that “Medicare 101” was helpful for you … We really hit that in a step-by-step process of how to handle the client appointment. At the very beginning, you’re talking to your client. How do you go from that to the next level of reviewing plans and making sure you’re checking all the boxes that you need to.

Every carrier’s selling process is a little bit different, even among their products that they offer. It is really important to read those materials the carriers are sending out, utilize our carrier pages on RitterIM.com (and Docs.RitterIM.com). We always talk about getting connected with your Ritter staff, but they’re your sales support here.

The last webinar of our monthly series [“Building Your Book of Business”] does a great job of helping set up agents in that process.

Very commonly we get asked the best method for getting new clients or marketing … and there’s never one answer that’s going to be the best for every agent … We present some questions to help get that thinking going and figuring out what’s going to work best for you in your market. And then we offer some different options for marketing.

We talk very honestly about the pros and cons for those [marketing options]. There are none that are going to be the perfect way to go. Of course, we talk a lot about Shop & Enroll and how great that can be for marketing your business and using that as a tool for a lot of the different marketing methods that we discuss.

While you’re watching the webinars and taking notes, think about how you can apply it to your specific situation. If we’re talking about opportunities that you might have through knowing local businesses and how that could help you get thinking, take notes of what immediately comes to mind of who you can reach out to, how you can get involved in your local market…

“Medicare 101” is going to give you a good understanding of the Medicare products and certainly give a good base understanding as you go through the AHIP training. But AHIP is training itself … It’s meant to prepare you for your job of working with clients and understanding these products.

I would urge our agents to really go through the study materials and take notes. You’ll actually find a lot of valuable information that you might not have found otherwise, but really, there’s no better preparation for AHIP than AHIP itself.

What we want to do here is emphasize the point that these webinars are really helpful in providing some foundational knowledge for your Medicare business. If you want to take it to the next level, you’ll want to invest a little bit more time into your own study and building your own knowledge base.

Maybe after you’ve attended these webinars the first thing is just to be in touch with your sales rep, because the better that they know your business, the better it’s going to allow that relationship to flourish and allow them to make some specific recommendations, not just based on your market, but based on you and what you’re looking to do in the Medicare market…

The next thing is just to take that next step. Throughout [these webinars], we talk about applicable next steps that allow you to apply these things. Whether it is following up by starting that contract or building that test client, those are things that allow you to get used to using these tools from a practical standpoint.

And the last thing, just to put it into practice … Don’t just sit in on the webinar, and then, walk away and think, “Alright, now I’m ready.” Actually practice your selling approach and try a new marketing approach … Maybe you’re involved in the community and that just allows you to springboard into some new marketing ventures. You’d really be doing yourself a disservice if all you do is listen to these webinars and then walk away.