Practical Tips for Using LinkedIn to Grow Your Independent Adjuster Business
As an independent adjuster, networking is vital to your business. Since you can work for different insurance and independent appraisal companies, you must be able to build strong relationships with your clients, and I stress that in the plural form, to ensure that you’re thriving and will continue to succeed.
However, what’s the best way to network? With social media dominating our modern landscape, it makes sense to utilize online platforms to grow your business. While sites like Facebook and Twitter can be useful, the one to pay attention to the most is LinkedIn.
Because your work is business to business (B2B), it’s best to go where all of the professionals are. Today we’re going to discuss how you can build your network as an independent adjuster and how LinkedIn can propel you to success.
LinkedIn is how I went from being unknown (except in a small network of friends and family) in the adjusting world to running IA Path, having a podcast, and helping IA’s just like you. LinkedIn can help you too! Let’s look at some key things you may want to consider doing.
Create a Company Page
When you first join the site, you will be creating a personal profile. While this can help you make connections with other people, it won’t necessarily show off your business and LinkedIn is all about business.. If you want to maximize your ability to promote yourself, you need to create a company page. This will allow users to find out more about what you have to offer so that they are more willing to work with you.
One side note here, for some reason sharing posts through a business doesn’t seem to get as much traction as your personal profile so share updates, blog posts, and other content mostly through your personal and do big company updates on your company page. It’s like having an office, it makes you “official” but few ever visit it.
Increase Your Circle of Contacts
One thing about LinkedIn (and most social media), is that you can’t communicate with people unless you are connected to their profile. When you’re first getting started, you will likely add individuals you know, such as work contacts and friends. However, with millions of profiles out there, you must put in the work to get a bigger network.
Look at your contact list and see who they are connected to. One profile can lead to another, and before you know it, you can have a substantial collection of names that you can promote to directly.
Find Key People
It used to be that one of the hardest aspects to getting new work was knowing who to talk to. Looking through phone books, cold calling companies, and hearing of a lead from a colleague was how it worked. It was hard.
Now utilizing LinkedIn, you can find relevant companies and adjusting firms you’d like to talk to and find key people you can contact in seconds. Go to LinkedIn’s search function, it is so easy.
- Search for the company or company type you are looking for
- Select the company
- Select see “employees” of the company
- Send a private personalized message to key people who work for the company
We no longer can hide behind the excuse of, “I don’t know who to talk to…” because now you can talk to EVERYONE!.
Create or Join Groups
Since there are so many different industries on LinkedIn, it can be challenging to stand out, particularly if there is a lot of competition. However, one way to break through the fluff is to join a group related to insurance adjustments. This will put you in touch with people who are already interested in the process, and you can build your contact list from the group.
To take things a step further, you can create your own group and choose who you invite. This way, you can make sure that only prospective clients or leads have access to your materials, not direct competitors. When creating a group, it’s imperative to offer something that will resonate with those you are reaching out to and insight that may drive them back to your for more business.
Full disclosure here. When I was first starting IA Path I created a group (which I should probably stop or change names…. WHOOPS) and introduced myself to people as the leader of this group and asked them to join. My acceptance rate more than doubled and I was viewed as an authority and a leader simply because I started a group.
You may be able to utilize and leverage these types of concepts in your claims business even if it isn’t the same strategy as mine.
Join the IA Path Training and Help Room
Networking on LinkedIn is a viable way to grow your company, but when it comes to networking as an independent adjuster, nothing beats IA Path. When you join the League of IAs, you can get access to lots of peers and training that would otherwise be hard to come by.
While you should invest time and energy into building your network on LinkedIn, joining IA Path can jumpstart your business and move things along even faster. You can try it out free for 7 days.
