If It Takes 7, Why Do You Quit After 3?

Studies show that people buy after 7 touches, yet most sales reps stop following up after 3 touches. When you stop before 7, all you're doing is prepping your prospects to buy from your competitor! Think about it, if someone contacts you, interested in an insurance quote, then they are probably going to buy insurance at some point in the near future. However, people buy on their own terms and time frames. The secret in closing more sales is to stay positioned in front of your prospects until they are ready to buy, and that usually takes place after 7 touches.

The typical transaction: A new prospect is referred to your office for auto, home and life insurance. You have a nice conversation with them, put together a proposal and review it with them. When you follow up a few days later to answer any questions, "I've been extra busy at work and didn't have a chance to think about it" is the response you get. No problem, you'll just get a hold of them after the weekend. Your call on Monday gets you the same response, too busy to look. One more try a few days later and after they're still too busy, so you give up and write them off as a waste of time.

Sound familiar? When you stop following up, you're quickly forgotten by the prospect and you're pretty much guaranteed to NOT make a sale. The prospect really did get too busy dealing with things to stop and think about their insurance program (that's real life). A month later when things slow down and they're ready to make a move, they've already forgotten about you because you gave up too soon.

You need a 7 step system to stay in front of prospects until they make a decision! There is no SIMPLER way of increasing sales than by positioning yourself to be in 1st position when your prospect thinks about insurance. You position yourself through a 7 step process that consistently reminds your prospect that you are there, ready to help, when they are ready to buy. Positioning yourself simplifies your sales, but simple does not necessarily mean the same thing as easy!

You can't just call your prospect twice a week until you've contacted them 7 times. Although it would probable work better than doing nothing, you don't want to annoy your prospect into buying. Even if you do, the referrals and and cross-selling opportunities will be pretty limited. You need a well thought out, multi-media, multi-step process of staying in front of your prospects that communicates in different ways and provides information the prospect wants. You need to show your value through:

1. Calls
2. Letters
3. Reports
4. Testimonials
5. Videos
6. Emails
7. CD's

You need to delight and surprise your prospects by reaching out to them in new and unexpected ways so that when the time is right, you're the first agent that comes to mind. If you put together a 7 step process, you'll not only be the first, you'll probably be the only agent that comes to mind because no other agents out there will be communicating like you.

The bottom line is that people buy when they're ready to buy, not when you're ready to sell. And, people prefer the familiar over the unfamiliar, so make sure you put a plan in place to become familiar to your prospects. It's all about the positioning!

$8000 Sale As Easy As "Did You Know?"

Do you ever walk out of a P.I.R. ticked off at yourself for not bringing up life insurance, investments or some other service that you know you should have talked to your client about? Most P&C agents I know (myself included) find that opening up a life insurance or retirement conversation with their P&C clients isn't always easy. The next time you find yourself talking with someone about their auto or home insurance, try this simple transition that just helped me open an $8000 life insurance sale:

"Did you know..."

Yep, sometimes it's really that simple! The other day I sat down for a first time visit with David, a client who's agent had recently left the company. His policies were transferred into my agency and this was our first meeting so I could introduce myself and do a quick review of his policies. David's prior agent had done a good job on the auto and home side of things, but there was no life insurance in place. I had no idea if David (who is 71) had already been approached about life insurance or not, or if he already had a retirement plan put in place, so I threw out the "did you know" question.

"Did you know we also take care of life insurance and retirement planning?" The answer was no, he did not. Over the last 5 years, David had met with his prior agent 4 times, referred a few new clients every year and added more P&C policies to his account on multiple occasions, but he had no idea that his agent could help him with life insurance. And he needed some help! It turns out David had recently received a letter from a prior insurance company explaining that the policy he had purchased 19 years ago was about to expire. He knew he needed to protect his family, but wasn't sure who to talk to since the agent who sold him the original policy 19 years ago had retired.

David ended up choosing a $250,000 permanent policy to make sure he could take care of his wife and leave a legacy with his children and grandchildren. The premium is $8000 per year, but David knows it will be the last life insurance policy he ever has to buy. David thanked me for helping him and for letting him know we took care of more than just auto and home insurance.

It's amazing how 3 little words can start so many wonderful conversations. The worst thing you can find out by asking someone a "did you know" question is, yes, they already know. You might also find out that not only didn't they know, they're also glad you asked!

You've Done A Great Job, But...

One of the best things about being an insurance advisor is knowing that you are really, truly helping your clients protect the things that matter most to them. Their cars, their homes, their boats, motorcycles and other toys will all be repaired or replaced if something happens because you've done a great job of helping them protect those things.

But what about their retirement plans? Are your clients protected from losing something just as important as their cars and house - the money they plan on using for retirement? Our job as advisor is to protect our clients assets - including their retirement accounts! Most advisors don't ever think about insuring their clients retirement, and most clients never think about it either. If you change your mindset from helping your clients INVEST for retirement and instead start helping them INSURE and PROTECT their retirement account, a whole new world of opportunities will open up for you!

In-sur-ance: The act or system of protecting against loss or harm arising from specified contingencies, in consideration of a payment proportionate to the risk involved.

Here's a new conversation starter you can try with your clients this afternoon, whether in person or over the phone. The result (if done right) will amaze you:

YOU: Mr. Client, you've really done a great job with your insurance program. Your cars, your house and your motorcycle are very well protected from loss in case something happens to them. May I ask you a question? What are you doing to insure your your retirement account to keep your money protected from loss in case something happens with the economy?
CLIENT: What do you mean insure my retirement plan, is that possible?
YOU: Well let me ask you, is that important to you - to protect your retirement plan if something happens in the economy?

There are a lot of different ways you can respond with this opener, and the bottom line is that you CAN protect your clients retirement plan and insure that it never loses money. We have the products and the strategies to available to give our clients safety and guarantees and, as Van Mueller always says, our company and our industry were made for times like these!

Stop worrying about investing your clients money, and start concentrating on protecting it. Your clients will thank you and your production will skyrocket!

Catch Up Or Give Up - Part 2

Now that I've made the decision that giving up won't work and taking it easy is unrealistic, it's time to start catch up on my annual goals. Fortunately, I've already accomplished 25% of my goals, unfortunately that was in 50% of the year! Now it's time to put a plan in place and get back in the game. Here's how I'm going to do it:

1. Get my mind right: All the excuses I've been telling myself for the past few months are just that, excuses. The end result is that I've allowed things to get in my way, slow me down and trip me up. Although it didn't feel like it at the time, I made the conscious decision to let the excuses throw me off track, and now I'm making the decision NOT to let them get in my way. Yes, there will always be something going on that can keep me from accomplishing my goals, but truthfully there always has been and there always will be something ready to get in my way. As Donald Trump once said, "problems and setbacks are a part of the game. If you're not running into challenges, you're doing something easy and probably not that valuable - and it's probably not going to make you much money."
2. Focus and discipline: The things you work on every day are the things that are successful. I've realized that what I've been lacking is focused activity. I've been skipping out on my marketing, phone calls and sales appointments. When you break it down it's really simple, if you see enough people you always hit your numbers. I've NOT been seeing the people because I've been too busy putting out fires. I've been doing a $12 an hour job and expecting $1000 an hour results. I've been re-active instead of pro-active. From here on out I'll set aside the 2-3 hours per day needed to market FIRST and then put out fires second and I'll be disciplined to stick to it every day. 2 sales appointments a day will solve a lot of problems in a hurry!
3. Go big: I know a lot of people who do amazing amounts of production in relatively small amounts of time. People like Van Mueller and Tom Hegna do more production in two weeks than the normal folks do in a year because they go big! All of the big producers do it in different ways, but they've all found ways to go big. Here's how I'm going big for the rest of the year:
1. Marketing alternative RMD strategies to 70+ year olds.
2. Marketing safe investments for the 10 most important years of your retirement account to 60-70 year olds.
3. Marketing a mortgage payoff plan to every client who owns a home
4. Marketing a rent replacement plan to every client that does not own a home
5. Marketing a guaranteed paycheck for life to every client that is retired
6. Marketing the ultimate birthday gift to every client one month prior to their next birthday
7. Marketing the ultimate Christmas gift to every client that is married
8. Marketing my referral program
9. Marketing to my past clients with a re-acquisition program
10. Marketing a tax reduction plan to all clients over the age of 59 1/2
4. Measure what matters:  When you measure what matters, what matters always improves. If plans aren't measured, results aren't tracked and activity isn't monitored then how do you know what it and isn't working? How would you know if you were being productive or just keeping yourself busy? You wouldn't, and I wouldn't. That's why I'll be logging my activity every day and making sure that every night when I leave I know I've done my best and I've won for that day. I've always believed that activity leads to productivity, but I know that it must be FOCUSED activity in order to accomplish my goals.

I know catching up and accomplishing my goals won't be easy, but nothing worth achieving is. After all, if it were easy, everyone would do it. Successful people form the habits of doing the things that the mediocre either cannot or will not do. Personally, I think most of the time they simply will not do it because it is far easier to be mediocre than successful. It takes a lot less work to just get by than it does to get ahead and it is much simpler to give than it is to catch up. However, I have no intention of being mediocre and hopefully anyone reading this feels the same way. If you've read this far, I'm sure you do. Kick ass in the second half of the year, I know I'm going to!