PRODUCER-RELATED ISSUES
By Michael J. Weinberg
Successful salespeople must be ready to
step outside their standard sales pitch
I believe in both philosophies: 1) know your basic presentation cold and 2) be prepared to innovate as you go.
It often has been said that age is a state of mind and I must admit that typically I still think of myself as a "young agent" even though chronologically I am a middle-aged man well into my 50s. If there is any advantage to getting older it is the ability to reflect back over a span of 30 years to some of your more enjoyable sales moments. For me, those times in my career that I most enjoy remembering revolve around sales calls when I was able to innovate "on the spot" and make a sale.
As a side note, before I go any further, I often find an interesting dichotomy in the message that we who function as sales managers and trainers often deliver to our new agents. On one hand, we tell them to memorize and learn their standard sales pitch backwards and forwards--and to believe every word they say. We explain that a salesperson who has to make up a sales story on the spot often appears to be inept and unprepared while a salesperson who knows the message cold will appear to be both prepared and sincere.
At the same time, we tell all new salespeople to be flexible and innovative. We encourage them to listen to what their prospect is saying and to be flexible in their presentation so that they pick up "hot points" from their prospect. They then can include those bullets in their sales presentation in a proactive manner and not just respond to them when they appear as "objections" that must be overcome.
I believe in both philosophies: 1) know your basic presentation cold and 2) be prepared to innovate as you go. Let me share with you two of my favorite sales call stories that I love to remember and repeat as often as possible.
Let me take you back to the year 1970 (yeah, I know, some of you weren't even born then!). I was a senior in college and after a successful year of selling college market life insurance was given my own agency by Life of Virginia. In my first month, I hired 10 new agents and did a million dollars worth of business. The way I succeeded was by hiring other college seniors, taking them on a sales call and showing them how to make several hundred dollars in a one-hour sales call. For this plan to work, I had to make the sale and impress the new prospective agent.
On one such call, we entered the prospect's dorm room. While Playboy centerfolds were common wall decoration in those days, this fellow surprised us. Absent from his walls were any pictures of scantily clad women; rather, his walls were covered with magazine photos of airplanes. There were hundreds of these airplane photos on all available wall space!
As we talked with the prospect, we learned that he was in the Air Force ROTC program and headed for flight school and Viet Nam as soon as he graduated. He had no dependents and not even a girl friend "back home" that he might one day marry.
I went through my normal sales pitch and could quickly see that I was getting nowhere fast. He had little interest in life insurance and felt quite secure that as career Air Force he would be well taken of, including his life insurance needs, by the service.
Suddenly a blinding flash of the obvious struck me and I asked the prospect if he envisioned continuing to fly after his 20 years in active service. "Of course", he replied, "and when I get out I'll buy my own private plane." And that's when I knew that I could make the sale.
"And how will you pay for this plane when you retire in 20 years?" I asked him.
And his reply was, "I have no idea."
"Think of this policy", I suggested to him, "as your Airplane Endowment Policy." I quickly showed him what the cash value and dividend accumulations would be in 20 years and suggested that he might use this policy as a forced savings account, in addition to the death benefit and waiver of premium, so that the cash values when he retired from the Air Force could serve as the down payment on his own private plane. He bought the policy, kept it in effect for more than 20 years, and I quickly became known throughout the company as the innovator of the Airplane Endowment Policy!
Another favorite story about thinking quickly landed me on the cover of this magazine along with the prospect I am going to tell you about.
We had just signed a contract with National Insurance Advisory Service's (NIAS) AcuComp program and I was anxious to use it to make a "first sale." AcuComp is a workers compensation program that does, among many things, independent audits of large workers comp claims. Our goal was to give it away to prospects as an incentive to get their workers comp business.
The first appointment I had was with the CFO of a large, nationally known yacht manufacturer. I knew that he had some giant outstanding claims with highly inflated reserves--a perfect prospect! Wanting to cover all of our bases, and since I was new to the program, I asked Jay Conant, president of NIAS, to come to Fort Lauderdale to accompany me on the sales call.
We went through the presentation of all that AcuComp could do for the prospect and by the time we finished, his tongue was hanging out and I was sure that we were going to make a sale and earn a very large commission. When he asked the price, I told him that the service was free--all he had to do was to give us an Agent of Record letter for his workers comp.
He closed the proposal book and declared that he had to end the meeting. His boss had just signed a three-year agreement with a national house to handle their workers comp on a fee basis and he had no ability to give us his business. We were crestfallen.
"Wait a minute!" I said. "Who handles the group insurance for your 500 employees?"
"Nobody we care about," he declared.
"Tell you what," I said. "Give us an Agent of Record letter on your group insurance and I'll still give you the AcuComp program for your workers compensation claims. We struck the deal then and there and picked up the letter on the spot along with a strong, high five-figure annual commission. Later that year, when we were named Marketing Agency of the Month (September 1997) we were asked to pick a client to be photographed with us for the cover of Rough Notes. We didn't hesitate for even a moment in picking this client.
There are two lessons to this story. The first is never, never, never give up easily. The second is, listen to your client and be innovative!
Good luck with your sales! *
The author
Michael J. Weinberg, nationally known columnist, speaker and seminar leader, is the managing director of Gateway Insurance Agency where he spearheads the agency's marketing/sales and automation efforts. He invites reader participation and feedback through his e-mail address (mweinberg@gatewayins.com).