Orders for seminars continue to be robust. Producers are very excited about new opportunities available going forward. The 7 Ways seminar that is available as a general purpose seminar is an excellent way to be introduced to a large number of prospects. It can be used with any practice and is easily modified if necessary to more accurately represent each unique practice.

​Why is offering a meal better than not offering one?
 
Not for the usual reasons. Of course, there will be more attendees in most cases, but that's not the best reason. When you present without a meal, it's more difficult to make appointments. The usual format is to hand out an evaluation sheet that offers the appointment option. This becomes a yes or no scenario. It's hard to recover from a no. Also, there may be a significant necessity for follow-up that can be left undone when you get too busy. On the other hand, a meal offers the producer an opportunity to visit briefly with each attendee while they eat. This allows some personal interaction time and the possibility of turning some of those potential no answers into yes answers. You can also weed out a few that you can't really help.
 
So, offering a meal may be a good choice to increase attendance and have better opportunities to make appointments and of course the follow-up sales will result.

As a producer, I am offered many different kinds of offers to teach me how to market better. They come to me from a large number of FMO's located across the country. I actually experiment with each one to determine the effectiveness of the offers. I can confidently say that the two most effective ways to reach prospective clients are referrals and seminars. There may be a few techniques for prospecting that I write about in National Underwriter, but they are mostly personal contact. Here's why seminars are so effective. When you are trying to offer your service to the general public, you should try to narrow your marketing efforts to the most refined group possible. Only direct mail has the ability to refine your target market with any real accuracy. When you mail say 5,000 pieces of mail, you are targeting the right group, and there may be only a relative few who might be interested in following up; maybe 1%. Theat means we have effectively eliminated 4,950 people who are not ready to come and see what we have to say. We can spend our time meeting with clients and doing our research and case design without worrying so much about who we are going to see next.