Strike, Revise, Exchange and Prosper

Do you want to be an insurance sales representative that suddenly strikes, revises, and exchanges? It better be. It takes guts and integrity in just the right amounts to consistently produce sales and assist clients.

Name the type of insurance sales representative that would best describe you right now.

Are you a wimp, or content on just staying financially stable, or a dedicated insurance sales representative looking to be the best? If you are one of the first two, stop reading this article now. This article is designed to provide tips for an insurance sales rep to spend more time making sales, with little prospecting. If you think telephone prospecting is the main way to go, you also are not ready for these techniques.

The best insurance prospects

These are people who have already bought a similar product. Why? They know the need for it. If your client is age 65 or older they may have bought a plain vanilla endorsed policy thru a TV ad that no agent every explained to them. For other insurance polices there is a 70% chance that the original insurance sales representative is no longer in the business. Of the remaining 30% of agents, half have not bothered to contact the client since selling the policy. They are virtually insurance sales representative orphans.

What makes you a pro?

Start specializing on selling one or two types of insurance, not 20. Then, refer to yourself as being a professional in consulting on the benefits of owning this type of policy. When you have an appointment with a client that has a policy similar to your specialty, you must never compare. Instead you are going to quietly strike that insurance company of the policy they sold. How? You are a product consultant working with the people to see they are informed. You allow them choose which they feel more secure with. The old policy or the modernized policy custom tailored to their needs provided by a specialist (you).

How much faith do you have in yourself?

For 40 years, I survived and then thrived, by my confidence of my own abilities. I threw away leads, where the prospects looked mediocre. My closing average was over 90%, but I had to pay for it. I worked with the best potential prospects and ignored or walked away from the rest. Does this sound like you, or an arrangement you would like to be in? You should have enough faith in yourself to respond positive.

Strike, rob, and steal setup

You want to work primarily with policy holders in your specialty area. To do this you need to know who to go after and what information you need before attempting a presentation. Let’s say you are a long term care insurance specialist and your primary clients are 65 to 70 years old. You must start with acquiring as good of a prospect list as possible.

A great list

Long term care insurance is designed to protect against the loss of assets. Your list should contain all of the following characteristics. The head of the household is a senior between the ages of 65 to 70. Living with him or her is a spouse, dependent upon the money they have saved up. They also should have children, not living in the house. Few elderly parents want to depart without leaving their children assets or sticking the children with assisting them paying medical bills. Lastly, they should be a homeowner. A homeowner tends to have more assets to lose.

Get the details

Send out an undersized envelope with a small letter and reply card, which any mailing service facility can help you with. The letter should emphasize that you want to explain the changes in Medicare and what insurance benefits they have. And as an insurance consultant you are qualified to do this. Your reply card should be brief, with short lines to fill out for more information. IT MUST STATE: I also have insurance with _____________. AND Type of insurance _________. The reply card is sent back to your printer, and given to you.

Hint: Prospects outside suburban areas are often friendlier to chat with you. City dwellers often live in fear of anyone they do not know coming to their home. Therefore, small town people are more likely to respond.

Talk to the right people

A well-written piece sent back to "Health Care Benefits Region" (hint grab this business name or a similar one and register it) will bring may more returns than one coming back to "John Smith Insurance Agency". If fact you may get as many as 40 or 50. A free gas gift certificate to the first 100 responding - carefully worded in your letter, might get you another 10 or 20. With your reply stack, you set up a priority system. The best, the good, and the possible.

Strike by seeing the best first
With seniors, I would pick anyone with LTC coverage or any kind of coverage endorsed by television ads to the seniors first. (you know who I mean). You should close at least 90% of these prospects. That means get your next mailing started. The GOOD are those who have any other type of insurance besides Medicare benefits. On these your skills should quickly increase to 70% to 90%. Personally, I rarely bothered with the others. If you work the leads where the two critical information lines are blank, do not expect closing more than 50%.

You can not wait to become a pro. You have to make yourself a pro. Declare yourself one and start now.

If you wait too long for your next batch of leads, call a few prospects. Ask first if they have coverage besides Medicare. Only proceed if they do. Then say you have a dozen gas card gift certificates available, and when would be the best time to spend 20 minutes talking with them and giving them your gift.