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