The "good start" in 2025 has been advanced again.
I thought that the "good start" in 2024 would start in September and start in October, which had already broken the record, but the "good start" in 2025 started earlier - some companies began manpower preparation in July, fully launched in September, and began to hit the first explosion in October.
Three quarters of the year are off to a good start, which sounds like an exaggeration. Of course, this also reflects the strong vitality of this traditional business rhythm -
A "good start" accounts for 50% or even 70% of the annual business, and the strong ability to "absorb fees" makes insurance companies want to stop. And the previous voice of "good start" seems to have faded away.
Especially at the moment when interest rates and fees are falling, both insurance companies and agents are looking forward to a hot "good start" to drive away the chill.
So, why is the "good start" in 2025 advanced again? What kind of new rhythm and new gameplay are there this time? Recently, "Today's Insurance" connected a number of front-line management, back-office and team leaders to sketch the new trend of the new "good start".
1 "Good start" started again in advance "Wear short sleeves to prepare for a good start" Foreign insurance companies also joined
As early as July, the company began to make preparations for a "good start". The four seasons of the year, the three seasons are making a "good start", and the time span is longer.
Lin Hong, a senior department manager of a provincial branch of a large insurance company, said that as early as July this year, the branch began to make "good start" appointments, nearly two months earlier than last year. At present, the provincial branches of this large insurance company in Central China, West China, South China and other provinces have begun to make "good start" customer appointments.
Tang Ying, head of a branch of a medium-sized insurance company in West China, also said that the company's tasks were completed early this year, and there was plenty of time to prepare for 2025.
"The head office system was the first to explode on October 18, but we will stock up on orders first, and then blast before the rhythm."
A branch of the company in central China has also begun to prepare for a "good start" in July, and Liu Feng, a senior department manager, said that in July, when everyone wore short sleeves, they began to prepare for a "good start". "In July, we held a training to prepare for the 2025 organizational development start-up to reserve manpower for the 'good start', and held the '2025 good start' business launch conference in mid-September."
Of course, there are also companies that are later than the above companies, some start in September, some start in October, and several large insurance companies will start in October.
It is worth noting that:
This year, not only large insurance companies have made a "good start", but also some small and medium-sized insurance companies and foreign-funded insurance companies have also joined the "rapid march" of "good start".
Some of the leading foreign-funded insurance companies have started to make a "good start", and the weekly routine customer activities have also increased the number of employees to reserve manpower for the "good start".
2 What is the "good start" doing in advance? Make appointments with customers, develop products, and train
"Today's Insurance" learned that the "good start" that started in advance did not start selling products, but was only making various preparations, mainly focusing on making customer appointments, product development and training.
Mao Ming, a senior department manager at the provincial branch of a large insurance company, said that the company had started its "good start" in September, but it had only made appointments with customers and had not started selling products.
"The main reason is that the company has completed the annual task ahead of schedule, so the whole 'good start' rhythm is naturally ahead of schedule. While following the company's rhythm to make appointments with customers, we are in full swing to grasp the quarterly rank assessment. ”
Unlike the above-mentioned large insurance companies, which take appointment customers as the "good start" energy storage, another large insurance company focuses on the research and development of "good start" products, and held the "2025 Dividend Product Seminar" in September, organizing relevant departments and institutions and the company's product experts to jointly develop dividend products that meet market and sales needs.
Luo Lin, senior director of a branch of the company in West China, said that the annual "good start" is coming, and dividend insurance is the future product direction.
"We must not only make a good start, but also study how to do it, how to do it, and make results throughout 2025."
Wei Ying, manager of a medium-sized insurance company in South China, said that the central branch had increased its staff for two months, and the results were not bad, and the two open classes in September exceeded 90 people.
"Now we are learning the three main products of 'good start', and training and improving skills in different classes, and then operating product launches and travel programs in the next step to prepare for the first explosion in October."
Xin Long, a senior director of a branch of an insurance company in central China, told "Insurance Today" that it is not clear whether the current regulatory side is allowed to start on December 12 or January 1. Since we can't control these, we can do some actions to "get off to a good start".
"From the perspective of the business team, it will be more fulfilling to let everyone have something to do. Including customer contact, accumulation, screening and the holding of various activities, these actions are done well, not necessarily put in the 'good start, but also throughout the year. ”
3 Why did the "good start" come early? "The annual task was completed early" and "it is expected that the business will be difficult to do next year"
The 2025 "good start" node is greatly advanced, what is the reason? Will the proportion of "good start" in the annual performance still dominate the screen?
Ling Feng, an executive of a medium-sized insurance company, believes that it is normal for the "good start" in 2025 to be ahead of schedule, first, the business in 2024 has been or is close to being achieved, and the second is that the business pressure in 2025 will be very high, and it may face the "good start" with the greatest pressure in history, because the product revenue and expenses have both declined.
"At present, it is garbage time, and after the epoch-making suspension of sales at the industry level, there will be no business, it is better to start a 'good start' and push the attention of the institution and the team forward.
Starting the 'good start' so early this year is equivalent to taking a few months to get a 'good start' for a month, and it is expected to occupy a relatively large business weight next year. But it also depends on the insurance company's product strategy and sales strategy. ”
Ling Feng said that the high weight of the "good start" business in previous years is largely due to the fact that the product strategy focuses on short-term delivery, short-duration and even low-value large-scale businesses. After all, the head company has pressure from investors, and the first installment is a positive growth, and the numbers are good, which helps the stock price performance. Combined with sales strategies such as high costs, the performance of "good start" is obviously high.
"It's a resonance of a variety of factors, not a single factor. But now the supervision is also strict, and various companies are facing various problems and contradictions, so it may not be as single strategy and single direction as before. ”
Tang Ming, a former executive of a large insurance company, also believes that the early start of this year may be related to the expected difficult business next year.
"It may be difficult to speculate and stop selling in the future, and low interest rates are the norm, and it is expected that it will be difficult to do business next year, so we can only start the 'good start' as soon as possible. However, it is estimated that it is also very difficult to get off to a good start, because a good start needs to rely on products that are well sold. ”
A senior in-house officer of an insurance company said that the "good start" accounts for a very high proportion of the annual premium, generally accounting for more than 50% - more than half of the year's business is completed in one month, and the task can basically be completed in the next nearly a year.
"In the early years, the economic development was relatively good, and the 'good start' of various companies was also popular. I remember playing 'Double Twelve' a year, and after eight o'clock to release the insurance system, at that time just started to apply online, when all our salesmen went to the Internet café to grab the order, from eight to twelve o'clock, a few hours on billions, the province is more business. That kind of pomp and circumstance is no longer there, and now the volume of business is not as good as it used to be. ”
4 How to play this "good start"? "Insurance + Health Care Strategy" "Everyone is confident"
On the one hand, there is a strong marketing inertia, and on the other hand, there is a dilemma of falling interest rates and expenses. So what is the new way to play in 2025 "good start"? What do the front-line soldiers think of the "good start"?
Tang Ying, head of a branch of a medium-sized insurance company in West China, said that due to the early completion of the annual business, the head office has made a relatively full "good start" deployment this year, and has implemented the "insurance + health care" strategy to empower front-line marketing.
"From the marketing side, both the excellent performers and the old supervisors have developed their own work habits and work rhythms; From the perspective of the client, after decades of development in the industry, customers have also been educated to develop buying habits; In addition, in the current economic environment, customers also have a demand for fixed income products."
Wei Ying, manager of a central branch of this insurance company in South China, said, "This year's 'good start' was played early, fully prepared, and everyone is quite confident." ”
Liang Hong, senior director of a branch of a large insurance company in South China, told "Insurance Today" that the "good start" in 2024 was a big victory, which made partners full of confidence in the "good start" in 2025.
"In 2024, our team will get off to a good start, and our team will reach more than 1.5 million FYC in more than 20 days, a significant increase compared with 2023. This is closely related to customer needs, product innovation, and our continuous innovation in customer development and services. This year, we have further innovated customer service activities such as tourism, salons, and health care experiences, and we believe that these accumulated customer resources will also become an increase in 2025." ”
5 What do you think of the "good start"? "It's just a morale-boosting gimmick" "There's nothing bad in itself, it's a sales strategy that's bad"
With the deepening of the transformation and transformation of life insurance, the marketing model is also being reshaped. As a "good start" as a traditional business rhythm, it has also been controversial, and the voices of dilution have come and gone. After experiencing the baptism of the epidemic, the "good start" of the comeback seems to be even more powerful - the nodes are constantly advancing and the degree of attention is increasing. What do front-line soldiers think about this situation?
Jiang Feng, senior director of a branch of a large insurance company in North China, believes that the "good start" at the beginning of the year can lay a solid foundation for the annual performance and make a good start, which is not only the expectation of agents but also customers.
"The 'good start' month accounts for about 35% of the year's business. So far this year, I have completed more than 70 million new single premiums, of which 44 million were completed in the first quarter, and the total premiums are about 400 million, of which 10 million policies are paid in 10 years, which is generally good.
Under the current economic situation, large customers expect stable and safe asset allocation, which is the demand of the market and an opportunity for insurance. And this year, our guest economic activities are more rich and diverse, so next year's 'good start' will also be good." ”
Tang Ming, a former executive of a large insurance company, believes that the "good start" is the business rhythm of life insurance companies, and whether it is called a "good start" or not, in fact, life insurance companies must grasp the golden sales season in the first quarter.
An actuary agrees, who sees a "good start" as a morale-boosting strategy to find a gimmick to get everyone active.
"And as this action continues and intensifies, both agents and customers have become accustomed to it, so it is difficult to change this strategy."
Ling Feng, a senior executive of a medium-sized insurance company, believes that there is nothing bad about the "good start" itself, but the bad thing is the sales strategy of some insurance companies during the "good start" period.
"In recent years, sales have relied more and more on 'operation' rather than 'team', which is indeed caused by many factors. Just like the operation of 'Double 11', '618' and so on, there is no good or bad, only realistic choices. If it is useful, it will be used, and if it is useless, it will not be done. ”
Ling Feng said frankly that from the perspective of the underlying logic, it turned out that he was really "selling insurance", and he traded thousands of yuan at a time; Now it is "pulling deposits" and "selling wealth management", and hundreds of thousands of transactions are made at a time. Therefore, it turned out to rely on the sea of people and the team; Now I rely on a few agents and the help of the company to sell together. Therefore, the pressure on the company's operation has been amplified, and there are more activities similar to "good start" every quarter. "And the company itself has so many back-office, so much sales pressure, it has to be on the same page, right?"
For the future of "good start", a senior executive of an insurance company believes that it will be the traditional way in the short term, but it is difficult to say in the future, because the debt risk of the industry is too high now, and insurance companies and regulators are pulling. "If it were a one-size-fits-all approach, many insurance companies would be in a mess and just as troublesome. But compared to before, it will converge a little. ”
Postscript: Feast or Scraps? It's about the rhythm, the system, and the ability to resources, but it's also destined to be a track for a few
As the "integrator" of event-based marketing, "good start" further solidifies the "activity" inertia of marketing rhythm - in the past, there was always a view that "good start" was not good and should be normalized. But now, the "good start" has spanned three quarters of the year.
In fact, not only "good start", "event-style" marketing has become a habit in the industry, there is no difference between off-peak and peak seasons, almost every quarter there are similar "good start" activities, but the name is different.
In the past two years, almost all marketing teams and agents have relied on similar "activities" to sell, including product discontinuation.
Such a reality may show that there is no good or bad "good start", but only whether it matches the company's rhythm, system, and ability, and empowers and supports each other.
As Ling Feng said, if there is a problem with the "good start", then the "good start" of some head companies does have a problem - short-term delivery + short duration + high cost + high customer benefit commitment + high rebate + high surrender - the whole disrupted the normal order of the market.
"And the key is that it's like this every year, but the last heavy blow has hit small and medium-sized companies, where do small and medium-sized companies have any market discourse?"
Perhaps, the "good start" that is getting earlier every year is just a feast for a few people and a few companies.