How to CLOSE Almost Every Prospect

[LGilmore]

Agent: “Well, if I could show you how to get the insurance you need to protect your family without taking any additional money out of your pocket and sacrificing your lifestyle, would you like to know how?”

I honestly find this to be a killer, because it's a false promise. We are taking additional money out of somebody's pocket or we are altering their lifestyle by cutting something somewhere else.

I think this actually makes the close more difficult as we've made a statement we can't back up.

We are changing lifestyles and we are asking for money. I just don't think it's honest to imply differently. It would make more sense to lay out the reasons to make these changes and find the money than to imply that we are going to cover them without any cost or changes to them.

The problem with sales tracks is they are sales tracks and they sound like sales tracks.

Not to offend anybody, but we can't do what we do, without costing the consumer money and possibly changing their lifestyle in some way.

 

[Crabcake Johnny]

Others might disagree but personally I don't see the goal of telemarketing to turn no's into yes's. My goal is just to make sure that I don't lose the interested people with a bad script.

It's already been touched on here before, but there's a difference between a script and something that's actually sustainable. If you really treat every person who answers as potential sale then you'll be mentally exhausted quickly and far less likely to put in the hours necessary to produce results.

The false belief that if you don't close everyone who answers means you're doing something wrong is a really fast way give up on telemarketing.

 

[VolAgent]

Others might disagree but personally I don't see the goal of telemarketing to turn no's into yes's. My goal is just to make sure that I don't lose the interested people with a bad script.

It's already been touched on here before, but there's a difference between a script and something that's actually sustainable. If you really treat every person who answers as potential sale then you'll be mentally exhausted quickly and far less likely to put in the hours necessary to produce results.

The false belief that if you didn't close everyone who answers means you didn't something wrong is a really fast way give up on telemarketing.

This is spot on. It is a myth that you can close everyone. Anyone who says they are is either lying or massaging the numbers. Sure, I close everyone, that I write business on.

Telemarketing is little more than looking for the needle in the haystack. Look through enough hay and you'll find some needles, but there no need to wear yourself or the hay out by trying to turn every stalk into a needle.

 

[pcbinsurance]

"The problem with sales tracks is they are sales tracks and they sound like sales tracks."
**************************************
Sales tricks are more like it.
Implying they will get insurance with no additional money out of pocket is a deceptive and deceitful practice.

 

[midwestbroker]

Best advice I received about selling...

The sales presentation should be a natural flowing conversation.

Sure, you should have some direction and answers in the back of your mind, but keep it natural and flowing. People like conversations, not sales pitches.

One big challenge (IMHO) is the availability of insurance agents. In the distant past, if you had a bad agent (non P&C) a person may have felt stuck with them. However, agents are a fed up Facebook post away from being replaced.

 

[rousemark]

OK, here is the chronicle...and yes, I will move this as well as the other posts to the fight club into that other thread, after you all get a chance to read it.

Someone posted a link to an article on Prospecting. They were immediately jumped on with the fact that they should come back when they have sold a policy etc... there were a few other nasty and snide remarks made, that were deleted. There was then a discussion of why they were deleted, and some opined that they thought there was some context around which it made the nasty and snide comments acceptable.

I moved all the off-topic posts into fight club, because I thought that would be a better place to have that discussion. I didn't think that either LG or LT's posts were fighting words by any means, but I did hope to restore the thread to be just about the article, which included some legitimate posts that were criticisms of the ideas in the actual article.

My opinion is that if someone posts a link to an article that they like, and you don't think that they have the right to post something if they haven't lived up to the articles ambition, then you are in the wrong. Context is not relevant to that.

If someone posts something playing it off as if they have done it and that's why others should try it, then I could see context being relevant. However, just posting an article, with appropriate citation, should not be cause to jump on someone because of issues you have with their past posts, no matter how cringe-worthy some of them may be.

I think the problem was that with the change of font in the last two paragraphs it made it appear that those were Mah's personal comments about what "we" (meaning her) had accomplished instead of being a part of the article.

 

[hokepoke]

"I would like to show you how you would be able to protect your home, burdening your loved ones if you should suddenly not be here tomorrow, and even do this so that it may not make an impact on your current lifestyle. How does 2 pm tomorrow sound?"

 

[WinoBlues]

"I would like to show you how you would be able to protect your home, burdening your loved ones if you should suddenly not be here tomorrow, and even do this so that it may not make an impact on your current lifestyle. How does 2 pm tomorrow sound?"

Click!


.. ...... .... .. .......

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Sorry man, to canned.

 

[ChrisN19]

Best advice I received about selling...

The sales presentation should be a natural flowing conversation.

Sure, you should have some direction and answers in the back of your mind, but keep it natural and flowing. People like conversations, not sales pitches.

One big challenge (IMHO) is the availability of insurance agents. In the distant past, if you had a bad agent (non P&C) a person may have felt stuck with them. However, agents are a fed up Facebook post away from being replaced.

This is an undeniable fact these days. I have worked a number of leads recently sourced from disgruntled customers posting on Facebook.

 

[yogooglethis]

This is an amazing article on prospecting and I wanted to share it with fellow agents/producers. The full link for the article is: ProducersWeb - Life - 2 insider secrets top advisors use to close more cash value life insurance sales

A simple example

Agent: “If I may ask, do you currently have a mortgage on your home?”

Prospect: “Yes, I do.”

Agent: “And, if I may ask, do you have insurance to pay off your home for your family, if something were to happen to you?”

Prospect: “No, I don’t.”

Agent: “How do you feel about that?”

Prospect: “I never thought about it.”

Agent: “Well, if something were to happen to you, and your family lost your income, what would happen? What would they do?”

Prospect: “I guess they would have to sell the house and move in with our parents.”

Agent: “Is that what you want them to have to do?”

Prospect: “No, but unfortunately I can’t do anything right now. I just can’t afford it.”

Agent: “I understand. But do you feel it’s important to have the home paid off for your family, if you weren’t there tomorrow?”

Prospect: “Yes, I do.”

Agent: “Well, if I could show you how to get the insurance you need to protect your family without taking any additional money out of your pocket and sacrificing your lifestyle, would you like to know how?”

Prospect: “Yes, I would.”

Can you see the difference? We’ve helped the prospect to identify and understand his problem and become emotionally involved. Now that the prospect understands and agrees he wants to solve the problem, we can work with him to come up with his own solutions.

Remember, no one likes to be sold. If you learn to ask questions and have a real conversation, to help the prospects to identify and understand their own problems, and then help them find their own solutions, you’ll close more sales. And, in many cases, it’ll be a much larger sale.

Good luck,
Mah

Now if you could identify those prospects you know will follow along with your script ahead of time and only use it on them you would be golden.

Selling the need is always a good strategy when you make your pitch but I know personally I cringe when I get cold called or deal in person with a salesmans who is trying to drive me down a path of questioning so that if I answer no trial close or final close I either have to lie or answer yes and contradict myself when I still say at end " sorry i am not interested "

If you just so happen to reach a red hot prospect at the perfect time in their buying cycle this script will work great but then again just about any decent pitch would probably work in this case.