Intro
Selling Life Insurance is already challenging because it's not always a topic that people are excited about and it's often confused with other types of insurance (P&C, Group Benefits, Creditor life insurance etc.).
Advisors should all know or should know the important role they play in protecting families. When an insurance claim is paid nobody ever cared about the premium or type of insurance, they were just happy that there was a plan in place to help them in their time of need. Since selling life insurance is already a challenging job, don't make it any harder on yourself by making any of the following mistakes.
- Assume the client understands the product
- Don't employ a consistent strategy
- Think there is no room for improvement
- Present mountains of paper
- Waste time in Excel and PowerPoint
- Don't invest in their practice.
- Think compliance is a nuisance not a safety net.
- Don't embrace digital solutions.
- Use too much jargon
- Don't leverage tools
Don't make the assumption your clients know the products or the terms you are using (88% of clients don't understand their insurance options). Jargon can kill a sale in a hurry or stall it unessisarily because it makes it seem more complicated to the client. Clients may nod their head even when they don't agree but people tend to want to be agreeable and don't want to seem stupid. Pay attention to body language and try and use visuals concepts and analogies in your report to ensure your client has the best understanding of their options. A glossary of terms or overview of some of the common questions around your conversation or pitch really helps in your leave behind material. Try our "Types of Life Insurance" report concept with someone buying for the first time.
If you don't have a process to establish insurance need, find the best product pricing, present product options or even how you find opportunity in your block it's likely you will have inconsistent sales results too. Remember "Success isn't always about greatness. It's about consistency. Consistent hard work leads to success. Greatness will come." Dwayne Johnson
Remember "Success breeds complacency. complacency breeds failure. Only the paranoid survive." The best in the business are always reinventing themselves and evolving because your customer is too. Take some time to sharpen your axe and evaluate and improve your process. Technology is often the most effective solution, sometimes when you go back to sharpen your axe you discover they have invented a chainsaw!
One common mistake advisors make is to present a mountain of paper when a concise presentation with simple visual could communicate the same information more effectively. If your presentation is messy and unorganized it can make the whole process of life insurance seem arduous and confusing by association. I'm not suggesting you don't use compliance material but have something to support the process establish the product your client wants to buy and then proceede with the due dillagence.
Advisors who waste their valuable time putting together presentations when they could be out prospecting. Now many advisors do this with the best intentions, at least you are preparing material for your clients to understand their options. The problem is you will probably spend more time updating templates, harnessing data, and polishing human error out of the presentation that you would have been better off with an automated service that can organize and manage all this data for you. Find out the tasks that make you the most valuble and distil your hourly rate, if something can free up your time and costs less than your hourly rate you should do it every time, unless you are one of the rare people with loads of free time.
Too many times I see advisors spend a lot of money on a fancy suit or expensive car but totally neglect other important aspects of their business that may not be as visible as they think. A functioning website, a system to manage their contacts and next service touch point, essential network security. These things are sometimes an afterthought to sales but having worked with 1000's of advisors can tell you they make the difference between the good ones and the great ones.
Too many advisors think that compliance is a nuisance and not a safety net. I'm always reminded by a quote from Lawrence Geller that states "you are held to the compliance standards of the time of the claim not when you sold the policy." Good advisors see the value in documenting their process and how they reach their recommendation, Great advisors have a system to automate this process. Don't let compliance keep you up at night find out how we can help you make compliance automatic
Technology gives you exponential advantages. The best advisors use different tools to automate or scale their efforts. Technology like anything takes commitment both in terms of cost and time to learn a new system however the rewards are just as exponential. Technology can help you find prospects and convert them into clients, it can help you follow up with them at the right time, it can even help you present and sell new products to them. Many advisors do fine without implementing technology into their practice, however, the best advisors leverage technology to achieve more in less time.
Jargon in financial services is like water in a pool, it's everywhere. Just tell me about the IRR or the credit to the CDA, adjust that for PV and then show me the reduced dividend. Sometimes we need to check ourselves and make sure the language and our supporting materials keep the consumer in mind. Compliance is often at fault for the pedantic level of disclosure we need to employ in this business, however, our supplemental material can make up for these restrictions. Makes sure your client facing material is easy to understand and reflects the right information to be compliant and communicative(hint visuals help big time).
Tools are essential to any job and tools and technique are an unbatable pair, just having a crm or system like Life Design Analysis does not make you a better advisor using LDA to enhance communication to clients, save time and help with compliance will. Fortunatly for advisors we make our software so easy to use that anyone can use it and for those technologically challenged we have full support!
