“ABC. Always be closing.” That line and “Coffee is for closers,” from Glengarry Glen Ross captured the focus, as well as what can be the intensity, salespeople have on closing a deal. We get it. It’s important. Closed deals are where the revenue comes from and, in some businesses, it’s enough to keep focused on that bottom line. Sales is, in those industries, about pushing and moving products. While life insurance agents are also concerned with closing deals, the nature of life insurance and annuities means the sales process is a little bit different.
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Obviously, as the first part of the sales process, prospecting is important. However, it’s equally important to not just see prospecting as getting in the door. Prospecting is about sales qualified leads. In other words, you may be able to get a lot of people to talk about life insurance, but how many of them are really interested in buying?
As a life insurance agent, you understand the value and importance of the product you’re selling and, given its nature, it’s easy to see why you might view everyone of a certain age as a potential or valuable prospect. However, prospecting is, in part, about figuring out which people are not only most interested in life insurance or most in need, but also those who are most likely to buy.
As a life insurance agent, getting yourself in front of people is great, but learning how to identify or find that latter group is one of the most important parts of the sales process. Simply put, sales qualified leads means it’s easier to close.
As your clients have a lot of options when it comes to selecting a plan or policy, as an independent life insurance agent, you have similar options. As an agent, you also know that not all plans and policies are not created equal, and similarly, neither are all insurance companies.
The process your clients go through when selecting a plan is likely fairly rigorous and involves a lot of different factors. In fact, those factors are also pretty variable depending on the client. As an insurance agent your selection of an insurance company should also be fairly rigorous. Not only are you looking for an agency that supports your clients, but you also want one that supports you.
First and foremost, you want an insurance agency partner who is reliable and consistent. Stable plans with stable pricing are essential, and predictable. You also want a partner who is a true partner, providing tangible support, such as marketing support, but also making themselves available when you need them. For example, ELCO Mutual prides itself on providing superior customer service. There are no phone trees, no automated services, no chatbots, just real people ready to help you help your clients.
That means you can offer the same level of service and products to your clients. That kind of consistency, and your confidence in that, can help you close.
As a life insurance agent, we’ve now got you choosing your prospects more carefully and your partner insurance agencies as well. But does that really help you close more sales? Partially, but there’s more you can do.
We recently discussed soft skills in our blog, and one of the reasons we stressed those skills is to really drive home the fact that one of your primary roles is to listen. Your prospective clients will often tell you everything you need to know to close the sale. Further, they’ll also telegraph, through verbal and body language, how receptive they are to your strategies as well as your approach.
More specifically, some clients will want you to act as an educator. They want you to provide information about all of their options and let them make their own informed decisions. In contrast, other clients will want you to act as an advisor, not just educating them but steering them in the direction of the best product for their needs. Being able to understand your prospect and the role they’d like you to play can help you close.
Life insurance sales and life insurance policies are about peace of mind. They’re about knowing there’s something in place that your clients and their families can count on. Throughout, and even after, the sales process, you represent that product. That means you need to be as reliable and consistent as the products you’re selling.
Sales experts suggest that most individuals need 5-7 touches to close a sale. If you’re working a good number of prospects, as you should be, that becomes a lot of tracking and monitoring. That’s our way of saying get yourself a reliable and versatile CRM that can help you automate emails and manage your calendar.
Prospects will, undoubtedly, have questions. Be prepared to answer them. Have the necessary marketing collateral at hand, or easily accessible, and if you don’t have an answer, know where to get the information quickly and follow-up in a timely manner. Again, this comes down to selling yourself as a representative of the quality of products and services your prospects will get when they sign with you. For life insurance agents, selling yourself and relationship building, are a key part of building the kind of confidence that lets you close.
As we suggested above, sometimes the sales process goes awry when the focus is the close. This is especially true for life insurance agents who are selling, hopefully, a product for life. Instead, don’t focus on the close and, in some ways, it’s best not to focus on the product. One of the best sales techniques is remarkably applicable to life insurance agents and that’s focusing on the need, not the product. Consider why your prospect might want life insurance and focus your conversations on those concerns, not the policy. Focus on the person and the challenge. This, again, takes active listening skills.
In the same way that we suggest you represent the plan to your clients, that means you want to find a partner who embodies the characteristics you’d most like to work with. You want a partner who values you as well as your business, who supports you as well as your clients. You also want a partner with whom you can build a long lasting relationship, so you want stable products and a stable agency.
If you’re an independent life insurance agent looking for that kind of partner, one who can support you when you need it most and support your clients with a variety of stable and consistent plans, reach out to the ELCO Mutual Team today. Your clients invest in a plan and you invest in a partner. Time and again our agents report that working with us is working with a true partner, some come to experience the ELCO difference.