Chris Sendelbach went into the insurance business by complete happenstance. He was successful in the automotive industry for 20-plus years but was working a temporary sales job, waiting to see what he wanted to do next, when a Farmers recruiter reached out to him.
“I said, ‘I have no experience and no idea about insurance,’” Sendelbach remembers. “He told me he was interested because I hold some licenses from when I briefly worked for Aflac. Afterwards, we had about six to eight different conversations, until I was ready to move forward.”
It wasn’t all smooth sailing from there, however. Even though Sendelbach was able to skip the Farmers Protege Program and open his own business as a Career Agent right away, he was starting purely from scratch.
“I signed my contract in June 2023, and by September, I found retail space,” Sendelbach says. “However, by September, Farmers had laid off all personnel that had been in place to help me start up my business. I had no idea what was going on and had to figure it all out.”
Sendelbach reached out to others in the field whom he’d met over the years. He was willing to do everything he had to do to succeed, because he’d signed a three-year lease and invested 100K in the business. That’s when Amber contacted him from SmartFinancial.
“I started small in buying leads and increased the volume as time went on,” Sendelbach remembers. His agency sells about 80% auto and 20% home, with a big emphasis on bundling, so auto and home are the types of leads he buys.
“I didn’t know the first thing about insurance leads,” Sendelbach says.” I knew I had to find a way to bring customers in, so I tried 234 leads. I stayed with SmartFinancial because my rep answered questions, concerns and solved my problems. She's gone above and beyond in helping me succeed. The other companies either weren’t wholly honest or didn’t care about my success.”
Sendelbach currently only buys live-transfer calls. “I find data leads to be super frustrating because you have to keep calling and chasing down people just to get them on the phone. As a new agency owner, I was trying to get licensed in multiple states while sorting out my office, which needed lots of renovation. I couldn’t do all of that with data leads.”
Sendelbach has a higher success rate with live calls, at a 15% close ratio, and less so with data leads, at a 2 to 3% close rate.
“Even if I’m paying $5 a lead, $25 a lead ends up with the same bottom line with a lot less work, so it’s actually more cost-efficient for my agency,” he says. “I buy mostly auto live-transfer calls, with some bundles, and some home leads, which go for a lot more but which bring me a higher commission.”
Farmers’ underwriting has become increasingly strict, and when they decline to underwrite a policy, Sendelbach goes to Foremost. If they decline, he reaches out to Safeco, Travelers and Plymouth Rock.
The future looks bright for Sendelbach’s growing agency. He currently has three agents onboard and is actively hiring a new producer and a customer service representative. He intends to grow the business through a referral network with real estate agents, auto repair shops, loan officers and any other businesses that can help him with referrals.
“I’m going to be offering private Medicare,” he adds. “I have someone here who was a top salesperson in Medicare for six years. I’m also working on getting my Series 6 to offer financial products.”
4 Golden Tips from Chris Sendelbach of Farmers Insurance
- Volume, volume volume! You need to quote 200 to sell 20 policies, so you need to increase quote volume to grow. I have quoted 46 people in the past week, and out of those 46, I have $10,000 worth of sales. Sometimes it is easy, sometimes not. All you have to do is quote every day.
- Do everything to get insurance leads from referral businesses, networking, advertising and buying quality insurance leads. You can’t win if you have no one to quote.
- Have a followup game plan and a good CRM. I bought one my rep at SmartFinancial recommended, and it has been very helpful to me and my business. I now have more opportunities to track all leads that come in and set a schedule. I can also see what my associates are doing and stay on top of everything that’s going on.
- Inspect what you expect. Set your expectations and express them to your staff regularly, along with written job descriptions. Inspect their work to make sure they are doing it, and let them know they are being held accountable, by holding regular meetings. Don’t be surprised if they are not doing what they say they are doing, but the last thing you want to do is pay someone a salary who’s not doing their job, so find a CRM that lets you track their activity.
