How do I close more prospects ?

This week in insurance town Heath Shearon sits down with Martin Mashalov, co-founder of Gridpull, to unpack why buying more leads is not the same as getting more business. They dig into how appetite matching, renewal timing, and trigger-based prospecting can help agencies spend producer time more efficiently and improve conversion rates. Martin explains how his background in applied math and insurance analytics led him to build tools for finding better prospects, not just more prospects. The conversation stays practical throughout, with examples from restaurants, commercial real estate, and new business triggers. 00:00 - Welcome to the episode and the lead buying problem 05:22 - Why insurance complexity pulled him toward technology 09:55 - Modeling insurer risk and learning the agency and brokerage chain 12:04 - How lead buying became a prospecting problem 14:39 - Why volume alone does not fix lead performance 18:39 - What “appetite” means for agencies and carriers 20:29 - Restaurant examples and carrier appetite edge cases 27:17 - New business triggers as a smarter prospecting strategy 28:21 - Permits, hiring, and licensing as insurance signals 31:38 - Trigger stacking for stronger prospecting profiles 33:20 - Why Gridpull was built around a real workflow problem 34:08 - Where AI fits and where it should stay out of the way 39:30 - How Gridpull organizes renewals, contacts, and follow-up 42:43 - Using existing books of business for cross-sell opportunities 44:10 - Early conversion rate and revenue gains from Gridpool 47:40 - How Gridpull supports agencies beyond just software 48:13 - Contact options and demo availability 49:22 - Free trial, credits, and privacy considerations Sponsors : CANOPY CONNECT 1 Fort VIVA