Greetings! We hope 2010 has been a bountiful year for your insurance business.
As we move toward this holiday season, we want to say thank you to our customers and for your continued input for how we can better serve you.

Please note that our offices will be closed on Thursday, November 25 & Friday, November 26 in observance of the Thanksgiving holidays.

“Being Thankful” – author unknown

Be thankful that you don’t already have everything you desire. If you did, what would there be to look forward to?

Be thankful when you don’t know something, for it gives you the opportunity to learn.

Be thankful for the difficult times. During those times you grow.

Be thankful for your limitations, because they give you opportunities for improvement.

Be thankful for each new challenge, because it will build your strength and character.

Be thankful for your mistakes. They will teach you valuable lessons.

Be thankful when you’re tired and weary, because it means you’ve made an effort.

It’s easy to be thankful for the good things. A life of rich fulfillment comes to those who are also thankful for the setbacks.

Gratitude can turn a negative into a positive.

Find a way to be thankful for your troubles, and they will become your blessings.

Your friends at HometownQuotes

If you’re in Michigan and you’re looking for a career in insurance, Allstate wants you.

According to Insurance Journal, Allstate intends to open 40 new Allstate offices in Michigan and expects to hire around 200 insurance sales professionals by the end of 2011.

We’re always looking for insurance pros to connect with our consumer network in all 50 states, so this is great news! Whether you’re a captive insurance agent or independent, we can create a custom Internet lead strategy just for you and your area.

This photo (which is actually a poster that can be purchased here to help flood victims) pretty much sums up the flood our community experienced a few weeks ago. There were a number of areas throughout Tennessee affected by the flood.

We are grateful our business operations were not affected and none of our staff was personally affected.

If you are one of our customers and you were affected by the flood, please get in touch with us to let us know the best way we can help you: 1-800-820-2981 ext. 292.

With an estimated $1.5 billion in flood damages, our city has a long way to rebuild…but we will. And we will bounce back, stronger than ever.

Claire Wilkinson with the Insurance Information Institute gave her insight about how the floods have impacted Tennessee from a home insurance perspective. Click here to read her article.

Steve Anderson, a fellow Tennessee resident, insurance industry authority and Executive Editor of The Anderson Agency Report (TAAR), shares his view on the flood and the power of social media in this post.

To learn how you can help victims of the 2010 Flood, contact The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee, the American Red Cross or the United Way.

Insurance professionals across the U.S. are raving about our insurance lead webinars. Click here to read what they’re saying.

If your insurance sales need a boost, don’t miss our next webinar titled “Closing the deal: Succeeding with Internet Insurance Leads”. This presentation is for all insurance professionals, new and seasoned, regardless of line specialty.

We will cover best-practices for marketing your insurance business online – from what to do when the lead comes in to wrapping up the sale and retaining life-long customers. There will be a live Q&A session following the presentation, so come armed with your best questions about using the Web to market your insurance business.

To register for next week’s free insurance webinar, click here.

We’re collecting shoes. LOTS of shoes. Thanks to generous donations by our employees and their friends and family members, we’ve collected nearly 200 pairs of shoes to send with a local group who is heading out to Haiti. Any shoes they’re unable to take will be given to Soles4Souls, the Nashville-based non-profit that presently serves more than 45 states and 125 countries. Thank you to all of our employees who, in less than one week, contributed oodles of shoes so we can help others.

Next Tuesday, January 19 at 2pm CST, our CEO Hunter Ingram will share his experience using Internet leads as an insurance agent and agency owner. He’ll tell you what worked, what didn’t work and why insurance pros who aren’t leveraging technology in some way are missing the boat. After the presentation, all attendees will have the opportunity to submit questions and hear Hunter’s responses in real-time.

Don’t miss the presentation insurance agents are raving about! Click here to register.

“You guys lead the pack when it comes to my business partners.” – agent in Oklahoma

“I was only able to attend the Q & A session at the end, but I enjoyed and benefited from it very much.”
- agent in Florida

“I really enjoyed the webinar! The follow up form was especially effective!” – agent in New York

In the season of Thanksgiving, we’d like to send many warm wishes to all the insurance professionals who choose to work with us. Without your business, we wouldn’t be able to help the millions of people we connect with every year.

Not only are we helping millions of individuals in communities across the country, we believe in supporting our local community here in Middle Tennessee as well. In early November we started a canned food drive, pitting departments against each other to see who could bring the most items. We set our goal at 500 cans/non-perishable items. At the time we thought that was a fairly lofty goal. Little did we know that number would be DOUBLED with our final item count. In just a few weeks, our company generated 1,159 food items!

Yesterday a group of us loaded up a few vehicles with the food donation and delivered it all to a food pantry in Spring Hill, TN called The Well. We learned that the food we donated will help more than 300 local families this holiday season.

That was certainly a great way to start off our Thanksgiving week. We hope you and yours a wonderful holiday!

That’s right. According to the latest printing of BusinessTN magazine, HometownQuotes is HOT – meaning we’re one of the 100 fastest growing businesses in Tennessee. What an honor! This is our third year on their Hot 100 list. We attribute all of our success to our hard-working, dedicated staff and to the amazing insurance professionals who work with us every day. Thank you for choosing HometownQuotes to be a part of your lives!

Today concluded Spirit Week 2009 at HometownQuotes. On Monday we donned our favorite sports team attire. Tuesday we dressed up a few notches for Extreme Corporate America Day. Wednesday was Pajama Day. Thursday was Punks vs. Preps Day. Today we went out with a bang for Costume Day.

Thanks to Hunter and Bob (our co-founders) for giving us all the opportunity to show our team spirit! It’s a pleasure to be a part of a company that truly values its employees.

Here’s a quick photo recap of some of the week’s festivities:

Everyone have a safe and Happy Halloween!