Insurance agents can sometimes have a hard time building their network. Due to a handful of agents who were probably too “excited”, most people tend to avoid starting conversations with insurance advisors, for fear of being “hard-sold”.

The competitive landscape was not favourable as well. With the high number of agents actively pursuing this career operating within a limited market, new insurance advisors are finding it hard to generate more sales.

Michael was one of the agency leaders who, despite being a 20 year veteran in the industry, adopted a progressive attitude and realised that for his younger agents to survive and thrive in this industry, he has to think out of the box.

Curiously, he started asking around other parents within his social network, and he realised that many of them share the same concerns too.

With his quick thinking and also leveraging on a generation of parents who are webinar consumers, he struck up a partnership with a confidence coach, Zack, who specialises in working with teenagers.

Within a few days, they put up a simple landing page for a 60-minute webinar designed to help parents boost their child’s confidence. Zack would be sharing some of his content for free to benefit the participants, while Michael and his team of 13 agents reached out within and outside their connections, and invited them to the webinar.

For Zack, he managed to reach out to new parents who had not heard of him before, and generate lots of enquiries for his 1-on-1 coaching services and public workshops.

For Michael and his team, they had an easier way to jumpstart conversations with parents, who were their target markets. Because the webinar topics were timely and relevant, the parents were grateful for the session, and that helped speed up the trust-building process needed to approach them for sales further down the road.

The younger agents were also more comfortable using the webinar invites as a conversation starter, instead of their usual insurance pitch. This, in turn, helped them build their confidence as they expand their warm connections.

Michael did not stop there.

Realising that he has a good system in place, he started to look out for other “topics” to attract different target markets. In the next series of webinars, he decided to take the hosting role and interviewed several side-hustle entrepreneurs, from night market vendors to ride-share drivers, freelancers to home-bakers.

If this sparks an idea that you, too, can replicate Michael’s successful joint ventures (JV) for your own business, that’s great! However, there are a few foundational elements that you will first need to have, to ensure the success of the partnership. You wouldn’t want to walk into a win-lose deal, pay for expensive mistakes and burn bridges unnecessarily.