Last year Americans bought 20 million drills. No one set out to sell them a drill. The buyers had a problem: They needed a hole. They bought the drill to solve the problem.
I believe the time has come to stop selling insurance—critical illness, income protection, life and long term care insurance. The insurance industry has to change its focus. We need to stop talking about product and start talking about what the product does.
Joe Gandolfo, one of the most successful insurance salesmen in history, said selling is 98 percent understanding human nature and 2 percent product knowledge. As an industry, we have turned that around. We place 98 percent of our conversations on product and 2 percent on understanding human nature.
Prospects do not care about all the technical details of an insurance product. Too many details confuse them and take the focus away from the problem you are solving. Customers don’t care how an air conditioner works. All they want to know is that it will keep them cool on hot days.
No one wants to buy insurance, but they have problems that only insurance can solve. Therefore, we need to stop talking about the product and emphasize what it does—it solves problems.
For example, when someone is diagnosed with cancer, they face emotional and financial stress. That’s the problem we can address. Critical illness protection solves that problem. By providing a cash benefit upon diagnosis of a covered condition, critical illness protection reduces the financial stress and, as a result, reduces emotional stress.
Here’s another example: Your clients want to have enough money to provide an adequate income when they retire. That’s a problem. The solution is systematic accumulation of funds through cash value life insurance.
My friend Keith Leech is the leading critical illness and income protection sales trainer in Canada. We were discussing our frustration when brokers only focus on the product rather than on what it does.
Keith told me about a recent training session he had conducted. After the training session, he was answering questions from four brokers. Three of the four were focused on the product and had a lot of product-related questions.
The fourth knew about one-third of what the others knew about the product. His questions related to presenting the need. Guess what—the three brokers focused on the product haven’t sold any policies. The fourth, who was focused on need, is hitting it out of the park with CI sales.
We need to help our prospects understand they have a problem and that insurance is the solution.
Years ago, a friend in the industry had been trying to sell life insurance to two partners to fund a buy/sell agreement. They kept putting him off, until he asked one partner these two questions:
First: How would you like to be in business with your partner’s widow?
Second: If your partner died, how would you talk with his widow to determine the price for her share of the business?
After hearing those questions, both partners completed applications the next day. Until he asked those questions, he was selling life insurance. Those questions identified a problem that was solved with life insurance.
The legendary insurance salesman Ben Feldman said you don’t need prospects. All you need is to find someone who has a problem that insurance solves. Stop and think about that statement—it can totally change your perspective on our business.
Ben Feldman had a powerful technique to help prospects understand they had a problem. It’s called “disturbing questions.” These are questions designed to make the prospect uncomfortable. Here are some of Feldman’s examples:
“How much is your life worth? How much did you insure it for?”
“Doing nothing doesn’t solve your problem—it only postpones it. You have a right to postpone it. But if you postpone solving your problem, you know who will have to solve it? Your spouse or your partner.”
Here’s an example I suggest using when talking with a business owner:
“Suppose you decide tomorrow that you are going to take a three-month vacation to Costa Rica. You’re not telling anyone you’re leaving or what you’re working on. You just leave. What would your business look like when you returned after three months?”
Most owners will laugh and say the business would be a disaster, if it still existed. Your follow-up question: “What if it was not a vacation but a three-month leave-of-absence because of cancer, a heart attack or a stroke? Would the result be any different?” That’s a disturbing question for a business owner. But you can provide the solution with income protection and critical illness insurance.
Remember, you don’t need prospects, you just need to find someone with a problem that only insurance can solve.
There are lots of people with problems that only you can solve with critical illness, disability income protection, life and long term care insurance. Now is the time for you to solve their problems.
