Before she became an insurance agent, Kira Schnell-Harrison was a competitive synchronized figure skater.
Kira grew up ice skating in Wisconsin and, at one point, qualified for Team USA. After her skating career, she worked in various roles in the consumer goods industry before opening her Chicago-area insurance agency in 2019.
Although she doesn’t compete anymore, she still coaches ice skating and applies the same experience to managing her insurance agency.
We caught up with Kira to learn more about her insurance marketing strategy, how Melon Local has helped her along the way and how she uses her ice skating experience in the insurance industry.
Melon Local: What was your initial approach to marketing your insurance agency?
Kira: I always make sure that I am utilizing several different marketing tactics because you never know what touchpoints are going to trigger a customer to call you. I participate in all of the different realms, whether it’s social media, Google Ads, direct mail, sponsoring teams – all that kind of stuff!
We make sure we’re playing in all the different fields so that way we can have the greatest amount of exposure possible. I had partnered with a company prior to working with Melon Local, as they were one of the preferred vendors for my agency, and then eventually moved over completely to Melon Local.
ML: It sounds like you have a pretty well-rounded approach! Were there any challenges at first when it came to marketing your agency?
Kira The biggest thing was time. It’s very time-consuming to own a business, and in order to be good at all areas of it, you have to delegate things. So being able to take part of the marketing off my plate and delegate it to someone else was a huge help because in your first year, you really have to focus on skills and growing your business, and there are only so many hours in the day.
Being able to delegate that is a huge thing for me. I tried to do it myself, because why not? I just couldn’t keep pace, so that’s where the vendor relationship became very important to me.
ML: What really hooked you in with Melon?
Kira: The energy! You can tell that even over Zoom and the internet that they genuinely have a vested interest in our success, and they understand the value of a partnership and being a true partner to somebody.
ML: Have you noticed any increase in leads since working with us?
Kira: We’ve definitely seen an increase in leads. We’ve also seen a really nice increase in call-ins of people who found us off of Google, so that’s been really great! Obviously, with advertising, it can be really hard to quantify the data to fully pinpoint it came from here, but it makes sense when you look at the timeline of when things increased.
ML: How has your experience been working with your Client Success Manager?
Kira: I’m very fortunate to have someone like my Client Success Manager Anette in my corner because she’s my CSM. She’s a really great thinking partner. She’ll give me her honest feedback on something if she thinks it’s a good investment or not, and I appreciate that. She makes it very easy to do business with Melon Local and easy to delegate and remove things off my plate so that way I can free up time to be productive in a different way. You can tell she cares about Melon and the agents she works with.
ML: It’s interesting that you have a background in competitive ice skating. Have you noticed any similarities between skating and working in insurance?
Kira: The biggest thing from my skating background that now comes into play with my career as being an insurance agent is discipline, just from a learning and time management standpoint because, in order to be a high-level athlete, you have to have a very disciplined mindset.
Being a coach has also helped when it comes to training and developing my team. While I’m not teaching them how to do figure skating moves, teaching is still teaching – so I’m helping educate the team and helping them level up on a consistent basis.
ML: Do you have any advice for aspiring insurance agents?
Kira: You won’t be able to do it all in one day, and you’re not going to be perfect at it all right away. It’s taking little steps every day to be a better version of what you were yesterday. Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Ask your neighboring agents, agents in your territory, or agents you don’t know questions – you never know what you’ll learn!
Thank you, Kira, for sharing your insight! We’re so glad that you’ve enjoyed your experience working with us.
If you’re interested in seeing real results like Kira, consider having Melon Local handle all of your insurance marketing needs. Contact our team to learn more about our marketing packages!