Life Insurance

Six Questions for Six Life Insurance Sales to Seniors…

Presented by Brian Leising Do you have senior clients?  Did they purchase only one product from you?  Was it a Medicare supplement, annuity, long term care or final expense policy?  If you were able to uncover the need for one insurance product, could you uncover another?  What if you had six simple questions to ask your clients that would uncover additional sales? Once you have determined your client has the proper life insurance coverage, you should be asking them: “Have you protected yourself from the high costs of extended care should you become ill or frail as you age?”  The high cost of long term care is the greatest threat to a client’s retirement funds by far.  After a fall, the stock market bounces back, the elderly do not.  Long term care insurance has traditionally been used in this situation but is not a good fit for everyone.  Linked benefit/life insurance based long term care policies offer protection with guarantees not found in traditional policies.  The life insurance based solutions guarantee the client’s premiums will never change.  They also guarantee a benefit will be paid out.  If the long term care benefit is never used, the death benefit will pass to the insured’s heirs.  Your clients are not really protected until they have some form of extended care coverage in place. In part four, I will review a question to ask seniors who have their protection in place and have extra funds to leave to following generations.
Life Insurance

Six Questions for Six Life Insurance Sales to Seniors…

Presented by Brian Leising Do you have senior clients?  Did they purchase only one product from you?  Was it a Medicare supplement, annuity, long term care or final expense policy?  If you were able to uncover the need for one insurance product, could you uncover another?  What if you had six simple questions to ask your clients that would uncover additional sales? “When did you last review your life insurance policies?”  You should ask this question of everyone, whether you think they have a life insurance policy or not.  Many people have never reviewed their old life insurance policies.  They may be paying too much or not enough.  Their coverage could be too low or missing key features.  I often see older universal life policies that have not been funded properly to keep them in force for the client’s full life expectancy.  I have also seen cash rich whole life policies that do not offer enough leverage for the client’s dollars.  Newer universal life plans with a no-lapse guarantee can help in both cases.  Find an annual review fact finder you like and start filling it out at every appointment.  You will help your clients and uncover more new business than you have in the past. In part three, I will review an added feature that can give your clients more than just death benefit protection.
Annuities

Positioning for Sales Success

Presented by Richard Mangiameli Today we hear that, as an advisor, we need to become a resource for our clients.  We need to build a relationship so strong that clients will call us seeking advice for a good attorney, accountant, other insurance lines we may not offer – even to the point of asking for a good contractor to remodel or a roofer. It is important for each advisor to leverage relationships with attorneys, CPAs, bankers and other advisors or agents, using everyone’s expertise to provide quality service and products to each client. We don’t want to forget about the sale and the importance of positioning the sale.  I read the article below in the NAIFA Annuity Outlook magazine that provides some really good insight.  As an advisor we need to seek first to understand our clients’ concerns and needs.  No product will fit every need.  We can’t force a square peg into a round hole.  We need to understand the client’s goal and then develop the right strategy and supply the right products to achieve those goals. Remember that no sale will be complete unless you can build a good relationship with your prospect.  The trust factor is very important and you need to be sure to listen to what your client is saying throughout every step of the sales process. Click on the link below to read the full article about positioning for sales success. http://annuityoutlookmagazine.com/2014/07/positioning-for-sales-success/  
Life Insurance

Born to Sell

Presented by Jim Linn Were you Born to be Wild, Born to Live or Born to Sell?  I’m sure all of you are the first two, but I happened to come across an article titled “Born to Sell.”  The article discusses whether sales professionals are born with innate sales ability or if it’s a learned/coached behavior.  It goes on to discuss how we can increase our sales characteristics with some helpful easy to implement concepts.  Click the link below for the full article and some helpful tips. Click here
Life Insurance

Asking for the Order: 13 Tips for Sales Closers

Presented by Jim Linn   In the tips below, Jeff Beals provides some helpful tips to close the deal or to know when to wrap it up. A few essentials to keep in mind when it comes time to call the question, wrap it up, ask for the order or close the deal:
  1. If you react angrily or defensively when a prospect says no, you could be slamming the door on future opportunities.
  2. “No” sometimes means “not yet.”  Sometimes it actually means “no.”  You have to feel it out.
  3. Don’t panic or overreact when you hear an objection.
  4. Bad objections are barriers or roadblocks used to get away from a salesperson or to stop the process.
  5. Good objections are actually so important to successful selling that you might want to be concerned if you don’t receive any.
  6. Good objections are usually questions dressed up like problem statements.
  7. Have answers and rationales ready to go for your ten most anticipated objections.
  8. Even when they are really interested, many clients will wait for you to initiate the close.
  9. If you truly believe you are peddling value, then there’s no need to be a reluctant closer.
  10. To close a highly competitive sale, it might help to bring in a dedicated closer, an experienced person of authority who has not worked with the prospect up to that point.
  11. Be wary of false closing signals. Clients can be very misleading.
  12. It is better to pounce on a false closing signal than to allow a true signal to go by unaddressed.
  13. In order to minimize buyer’s remorse, make sure you hit every step of the selling process and every position on the relationship-building ladder.