“Selling is 98 percent understanding human beings and 2 percent product knowledge.” -Joe Gandolfo
As an industry, we have reversed Gandolfo’s statement. We have focused 98 percent on product knowledge and 2 percent on understanding human beings.
Vince Lombardi was considered by many to be the greatest football coach of all time. The Super Bowl trophy bears his name. When he became coach of the Green Bay Packers, he told his team, “We are going to focus on basics, starting with this.” He held up a football, and told them, “This is a football.” Lombardi succeeded as a football coach because he focused on the fundamentals and the basics. He was constantly looking to improve and problem solve. So, whether you use the pdsa cycle or change the way you operate, you need to make sure you’re doing the same.
As an industry, we need to get back to fundamentals and sales principles. If an idea is a principle, it will work 100 percent of the time. Principles are like laws of nature. The law of gravity shows that if you throw an object from the roof of a building it will drop to the ground every time. It will never go up. The same is true with sales principles; they work 100 percent of the time.
Today, the problem is that everyone seems to be looking for fast answers. We have become blind to long-standing sales principles that have worked, still do work and always will work. For example, one principle goes like this: Don’t sell insurance–solve problems. Who really wants to buy life, disability, critical illness or long-term care insurance? We help the client see that they have a problem. The insurance product happens to be the way they can solve that problem. By understanding this principle, your whole perspective will change.
Years ago, a friend of mine had a client who was an auditor. This auditor mentioned that he needed to earn some additional income. The auditor was such an introvert that he couldn’t lead a group in silent prayer. My friend asked for the auditor’s thoughts about mutual funds. The auditor asked my friend, “Do you mean buy or sell?” “Both,” my friend answered. The auditor said, “Well, after life insurance needs are met and a person has an emergency fund, mutual funds are all right. You are gambling on our economy, which is a good bet.”
My friend said to the auditor, “My company is putting on some part-time people. Would you have any interest in joining us?” The auditor said, “I couldn’t sell.” My friend said, “Forget about selling. Could you show people how to balance their budgets? If they need life insurance, could you suggest they buy more life insurance? And if there is anything left after they’ve done that, could you suggest they put it into a mutual fund?” The auditor said, “Yes!” The idea of selling was unacceptable to him, but he could certainly help people solve their financial problems.
I’ve since lost track of what happened with that auditor, but the last I heard he was making as much money part time solving problems with life insurance and mutual funds as he was full time as an auditor.
Recently, as I was listening to an audio recording of one of Ben Feldman’s presentations, An Afternoon with Ben from the 1981 Million Dollar Round Table (MDRT) annual meeting, it struck me that many advisors missed one of the most important components of Ben’s success.
Ben Feldman was probably the greatest life insurance salesperson of all time. I found it very interesting, because as I listened to the questions audience members asked him, most agents were focused on who he was selling to and what products he was selling. They completely missed one of the critical factors in Ben’s success – his packages! Ben’s packages were bundles of whole life insurance designed to solve specific problems.
For example, he had a “see-saw” package for business partners. If one partner gets off the see-saw, the other partner crashes to the ground. So that package was whole life used to fund a buy-sell agreement. Another of Ben’s packages was his “guaranteed retirement income” package, which was a package of whole life to provide retirement income.
Problem solving is just one example of a sales principle. Another example of a principle is the value of enthusiasm. Every great salesperson recognizes the importance of enthusiasm in selling.
W. Clement Stone believed that the most important factor in the success of a salesperson is enthusiasm. In How I Raised Myself from Failure to Success Selling, Frank Bettger shared how enthusiasm saved his career selling life insurance. Bettger was struggling in the business. His manager told him that he wasn’t cut out to be a salesperson and the manager was cutting off his draw.
Bettger knew he had issues to deal with. He signed up for a course that Dale Carnegie was holding. The session focused on enthusiasm. After leaving the session, Bettger decided he would put enthusiasm to work. He went to see his manager and convinced him to give him one month to prove himself. Using enthusiasm, he wrote as much business in that next month as he had written in the previous ten months.
Harvard professor William James came to an important conclusion about human beings-feelings follow action. If you want to become a certain way, all you have to do is act a certain way. Bettger learned from Dale Carnegie that if you want to be enthusiastic you just have to act enthusiastic. Enthusiasm overcomes fear and nervousness. More important, human emotions are transferrable. When you are enthusiastic, what happens? You transfer your enthusiasm to your prospect!
Jack Wardlaw, another great life insurance salesperson, stated in his book, Top Secrets of Successful Selling (in the 1980 printing), “I have come to the conclusion that basic sales principles will remain unblemished from the time Grant Taggart sold his first policy until long after Ben Feldman sells his last.” Wardlaw went on to say, “You can take a good salesman from any time period, if they are vested with principles of good salesmanship and knowledge of current products, and they would be successful today.”
In addition to “knowledge of current products,” as Wardlaw states, I would also add “competent with tools of technology.”
Grant Taggart started selling life insurance in 1914, making his calls on horseback in Wyoming. The only change I would make to Taggart’s approach would be to add current technology along with current product knowledge.
Isn’t it time for us as an industry to get back to basic fundamentals and focus on sales principles?
