Other People's Wheels - The Best P&C To Life Cross-Selling Conversation

When I was growing up, my dad used to tell me that there was no need to reinvent the wheel if I could tweak someone else's wheel and make it my own. In other words, you don't have to start from scratch if someone else has already crafted something great that you could adjust for yourself. Save yourself the time, effort and energy of creating, testing and tweaking and use what others have already tried and perfected. That's exactly what Best Agent Ideas is all about, and I had a perfect chance to put into practice when I was reading this month's issue of Advisor Today.

I came across two articles that highlighted two different strategies for increasing life insurance sales from two different agent's. One, written by Ray Vendetti (who I had the pleasure of spending a little time with earlier this year) went over a great way to make the transition form auto insurance to life insurance. The other was the feature article for the month that shared great sales ideas from successful agents. Bruce Udell shared an easy 5 minute conversation that focused on asking clients and prospects the right questions in order to get better results.

While both articles shared great strategies to improve your life insurance sales, I found that for me and my style of selling, combining the two would give me the best results. We all have our own communication style when working with clients. While Brian and Ray's life conversations work great for their style, they weren't quite right for me. You need your conversations with clients to sound like your words, in your voice. Memorizing someone else's script or questioning sequence doesn't guarantee the same success for you as the person who developed it if it sounds like you're just reciting something you memorized. You're far better off doing a little tweaking and making the technique your own. Here's what my new Vendetti/Udell auto to life cross-selling conversation looks like:

Cross-Selling Life From Liability Conversation - Vendetti:

• How did you choose those liability limits for your car insurance?
• They may or may not be the right limits for you. Liability coverage protects you in the event that someone sues you. It’s designed to protect the assets that you’ve worked so hard to accumulate over the years. So, if you have $300,000 in assets and $100,000 of protection, how will those limits work for you if you are sued?
• If we were to take a few minutes to come up with the amount of assets you have, we could then set your liability limits at the right amount to protect you and make also make sure you’re not buying more than you need. How would that work for you?
• Let’s run through your assets real quick and see what we come up with.
• Do asset worksheet
•          You have a total of about $xx in assets. If you want to protect them all, you should have at least $xx amount of liability coverage, does that make sense?
•          How much of your assets would you like to protect? Your liability coverage options are…
•          It looks like you may also need an umbrella policy if you want all of your assets to be protected.

The Pivot - Udell:

• By the way, do you mind if I ask, do you have a will?
• What does it say about who gets your assets if you die?
• What would your wife do with the assets, would she need to get a monthly income from them?
• How much income would she need?
• How important is it to you that she has that $xx of income?
• How much money would she need to have to produce $xx of income per year? What amount of money would you need to generate that income? (help them find the answer)
• If you had all of those assets invested, what kind of safe interest rate do you think you could get?
• If you could get 5% each year, it would take $xx to generate the $xx of income that you want your spouse to have.
•          Right now, you have $xx of assets, which will produce $xx of income. That’s quite a bit less than the amount you said your family needs, maybe we should set up a time to look at ways to fill that gap if it really is important to you, what do you think?

By combining the best of what works for me from both the Vendetti and Udell ideas, I was able to create a 5-10 minute conversation that I can have with every new and existing client that has auto insurance (which should be just about everyone!). The Vendetti idea helps me start the conversation and the Udell idea helps me end it. It's a great example of the power of other people's wheel's and how using the best agent ideas can work for you. Don't be afraid to tweak a conversation or presentation to fit your style or even combine presentations to make it work for you. We're all in this industry together, and by sharing great ideas we can all succeed and help our clients succeed!

Make The Rest Of The Year The Best Of The Year - Starting In Just 2 Weeks!

I was recently at an industry event when I bumped into an agent that I've known for quite some time, but hadn't spoken to recently. After about 10 minutes of catching up and checking on the family, I asked him how his year was going. He immediately became deflated and told me there was no way he was going to hit his goals for this year. I was shocked! It was only the first part of July and a very good, seasoned agent had already given up on the year.

He went on to tell me that the first half of the year had been filled with so many challenges and disappointments that there was just no way to catch up. Family illnesses and emergencies, big cases that fell through, staffing issues...he really did have a rough 6 months. Maybe you have too, but a bad first half doesn't have to break your entire year! Truth be told, every one of us has the ability to reach our annual goals in 6 months. It's not that we set our goals too low, but rather underestimate what we are truly capable of. Well, not this year!

There is still plenty of time to reach your goals and achieve greatness with a little bit of concentrated effort (and I really do mean a little bit). I'm not talking about doubling your work load or time at the office, pounding the phones or the streets for hours on end or giving up time with your family. You don't have to get radical in order to achieve radical results. 

Besides, even if you had an extreme business building plan that asked you to drastically change your life and business, chances are that you wouldn't stick with it for more than a few days. Fortunately, you can make the rest of the year the best of the year and get back on track with your goals starting in just 2 weeks, doing just 2 things. Here's how it works in 3 easy steps:

First, take out a piece of paper and write down the top 2 things you want or need to accomplish during the
rest of the year. I'm not talking about your income goals or other big picture items. These need to be 2 very specific, very focused goals that would help you call this year a success. I realize you probably have a whole list of things you were hoping to accomplish this year, but for this exercise, you need to narrow it down to your top 2. Remember, you only get 2, so choose wisely! Your list might include things like:

• Submit 48 more life insurance applications
• Submit $5,000,000 in new annuity money
• Bring 24 new clients into my agency
• Sell 60 home insurance policies

Next, on that same sheet of paper, under each of your two goals, write down the top 3 action items that

could be done easily, in less than an 10 minutes, and repeated every day that would move you closer to achieving that goal. These need to be very specific, very doable and repeatable steps that you can accomplish in under 10 minutes. I repeat, under 10 minutes (we'll get to why in a moment). Your list must also be ACTION items, things that are proactive. Things like "asking 3 people who call in if we can review their life insurance" do NOT count. Your list must be 3 things that you can do, regardless of others. No reactive items allowed. Your list should look something like this:

• Sell 48 more life insurance policies
• Call 1 term life policy owner to discuss conversion
• Call 1 auto and home client who does not have life insurance to set review
• Call 1 existing life insurance client with no review in the last 4 years to schedule a policy review
• Submit $5,000,000 in new annuity money
• Mail retirement review letter to one client over the age of 60
• Call one client over the age of 50 for ROTH IRA check up
• Call one client over the age of 70 for legacy plan review

You'll notice that each one of my action items listed involves calling an existing client. This is for three very important reasons. First, if you've had a bad start to the year or are in the middle of a slump, your confidence may be a little low. Calling on clients who already know you and are willing to at least take your call gives you a better chance of success and helps boost your confidence. Second, while most of us like to fool ourselves into thinking that every one of our clients does all of their business with us, this just isn't true in most cases. It is always easier to sell to someone you have previously sold to. Third, all of my action items listed above are focused on the low-hanging fruit, the meeting and sales that should be the easiest to make.

The third and final step is where the rubber meets the road, and how you make sure you achieve this year's

goals. Pick one of your two goals (preferably the more important one) and make a commitment to doing all 3 action items every single day that you go to work for the next 3 weeks. Do NOT try to tackle both goals at the same time. This needs to be easy so that you'll stick to it and you need to form a habit of doing those 3 action items every day.

At most, it should take you 30 minutes per day to do all 3 action items. Regardless of your results each day, do every action item every day that you go to work for the next 3 weeks. Good days, bad days...do them anyway. Increased production or bad results...do them anyway. Too many other things to do, tough...do them anyway. At the end of 3 weeks, these 3 action items will be a part of your workday and start to come naturally. They'll be a new habit, and they'll move you incrementally closer to a successful year one day at a time. Now it is time to add in your second goal! Keep doing the 3 action items for goal number one, but add in the 3 action items for goal number two for the next 3 weeks.

At most, you'll be spending 60 minutes per day doing proactive action items that move you closer to your annual goals every single day. And let's be honest, you should be spending at least 60 minutes a day working on the most important goals in your business anyway! Before you know it, action items will start to become production results. The increased activity and communication with clients will lead to more referrals and other sales that you weren't even looking for, and you'll be back on track to achieving your annual goals. Keep doing the 6 action items throughout the rest of the year and you'll find that you need to set your goals even higher for next year!