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