u/MobileCard8473

I'm currently working as a producer for a newer agency and while my Agency owners is awesome in providing a number of leads I tend to chew through them fast as I work 8-10 hours a day 7 days a week since I am building my foundation. I have been researching ways to prospect my own leads. Right now I don't have the capital yet to invest into increasing my own direct marketing etc. so I am wondering what no cost but high effort lead prospecting techniques I may be missing.

So far I am:
1 Requesting for referrals from anyone have a pleasant conversation with. I tend to get complemented as being very helpful and easy to work with so I try to leverage that into referrals on top of my happy customers.
2. Direct referral partnerships. This is not working quite as well as I was hoping as I am dealing more with lenders then realtors who are more and more going to automated systems for EOI, but I am reaching out to realtors, plumbers, and roofers to establish a referral partnership. This has not yielded anything yet but I know this takes time.
3. Social media. I try to answer questions and be helpful online, and then if appropriate reach out offering my services on home owner and other related social media sites. This has been pretty good so far as I tend to be a bit more on the technical knowledge side of being a producer so I often get customers who already spoke with an agent and they were told the wrong thing, so I get the "knows what they are doing" bonus points.
4. Friends and family, this is a pretty limited group as I am selling in a State where most of Family and Friends do not live, the few who are though do try to send people my way.

I am very happy with my agent even with the growing pains of a new agency, but as a 1099 if something does not pick up I will have to look elsewhere and I would honestly greatly prefer to grow with this agency if possible.

Any tips on other ways to prospect and use my free time to increase my own opportunities? Anyone know of a lead service that takes a percent of wins instead of flat rate or a similar model?

Also please do not contact me attempting to sell me leads or AI solutions, I have that covered.

As a bonus, questions, has anyone seen a remote based servicing or account manager positions that is salary with a fair commission package? I got my start in tech support turning angry customers into cross sales and that is a strength I would love to be able to lean in to, just seems like all servicing and even account management positions are not remote at the moment.

For those of us working in CA, and finally getting Alta and the new auto changes, we can now quote far enough ahead to see the changes and GOD DAMN. Farmers auto used to be the number one reason I lost my home quotes. Now we are getting competitive, and not even including the Mercury and Progressive alternatives. I already have customers setting up checkins for switching at the end of June.

July 1 on will be good in CA with our increased appetite into FAIR plan areas, marked decrease in auto policies, and the Farmers choice program opening up to Progressive and other options. I was always pissed at BW not being considered new business in CA after working the midwest but god damn. I am looking at savings of thousands per year with existing interested customers. End of 2026 might be really good for us in CA with Farmers.

The more I speak with customers, the more time I spend in this industry, I am realizing I am a problem solver. I can sometimes sell based on value, I can sometimes sell based on me. The problem is the leads I get are either price shoppers. denial/cancelation shoppers, etc. I want ANGRY customers so I can calm them down, and explain why insurance is the way it is, etc. Right now when I do that, sometimes it makes a sale but more it makes the customer more flexible with their current carrier.

I can can advertise my self as an expert, but it is hard. Should I just give up captive in CA or can I make this sustainable?

I have a number of posts discussing leads and lead quality, and my tribulations with them. Right now as expected we are in a price focused economy, every one is tightening their belts and insurance is one of the first things to go.

That said, today I had the nicest lady who was severely under insured for both her condo and her car. She had an "upgrade only" policy for a condo who's CCR written in the 1960s included an FF&E clause. Any of the old heads will probably remember those types of policies but in the modern day all I have ever seen is interior unit and upgrades only. That said by the agreement she needed at least the fixtures covered and her paltry 7k policy would not cover that. After digging into her CCR, some calls with the HOA and property manager, and some consulting with our legal I finally got it figured out she was under covered for her condo, and after a a lengthy discussion about uninsured motorists, we were able to get her a policy for both that reflected her risk and budget. It was a bit more then she was paying but the difference in coverage vs the difference in premium was blatantly worth it.

I wish this was my entire job, not calling questionable leads, not trying to prospect when not dialing, just helping and educating people.

I see this as a common refrain on posts about what people should do when looking for a job. Part of me is just thinking this is just a phrase that got uttered once and the sub ran with it. Does anyone have a link to a source that shows the top 100? When you say top 100 independents, are you only referring to brokers/independents who sell from multiple carriers or are you including top captive Indy agents? This does seem like good advice, especially for those looking for WFH, however in my googling I have not been able to turn this into career options.

My agency, an indy captive(not indy as in broker but indy as indy owner), has been buying leads through a "partnership" with the captive and while they have been more productive than most standard leads, there has been one unique quality they seem to have above all the others.

They literally send me dead people, it might be like one in 20, but is an awkward conversation when someone picks up.

Also there is this website called menstoppingviolence and I realized that if you get a lead where this information comes up on a google search with their name in it, it is likely just a scrapped lead. Double check the lead quality and the vendor, they may be scrapping fake leads.