The first meeting may just be your barometer of your overall success
by John McCarthy
Mr. McCarthy is Managing Editor of Leads4Insurance.comImagine you could travel back in time and watch your first few prospect meetings. There you are, thinking you’re as prepared as possible. Then you trip on a few words. Oops, you just forgot the prospect’s name! You are too pushy during one meeting. The next, you are too demur in your sales approach. Our first prospect meetings are easy to dissect because our mistakes are glaring. And back then, we were more inclined to make adjustments because we wanted to be successful.
Making adjustments now, after a handful of years in the business, is more difficult because you’ve established your routine. Before you even brace for a lecture, I’m not telling you to change your entire approach. However, like our dissections of our first prospect meetings, it helps to continue analyzing the profitability of what we say to prospects and how we say it.
The reason: How an advisor performs during an initial prospect meeting is a good barometer for their overall success. The better connection you establish, the more sales you close. The more sales you close, the more profitable you are.
Prepare talking points on your products’ benefits, not their features.
People don’t buy life insurance because they want life insurance. They want financial coverage for their family and loved ones and a reliable asset-building investment vehicle. So if you spend more time leafing through the pages of policies than you do talking about the benefits of those policies, you’re making your job more difficult.
Instead, focus on the outcome of these benefits. Make them tangible. Put them in dollar figures, and show what those dollar figures can afford.
Take this tactic a step further that show how these benefits solve their stated problem, fulfill their stated desires and coincide with their fiscal beliefs.
Prepare talking points that differentiate your product.
Picture yourself in the prospect’s shoes. Why should they buy this policy? And why should they buy it from you? You need unequivocally state how your products differ from your competitors.
Just like anything else we buy, people shop around prices and offers before making a purchase. By telling them what they won’t get from other insurance agents, they will start placing a value as they shop around. And that puts your competition of saying “no” if a prospect asks them if they offer something that only you do.
Prepare to make adjustments.
Not every prospect is cut from the same mold. Each has different reasons for wanting the same thing. Have a blank notepad and two wide open ears to capture and record what they need in an insurance policy. Make sure to also jot down information that could help you make more sales down the road. For example, a family with two middle school children will have two additional drivers in the family in just a few years. Wait until the time is right to discuss that, though.
Prepare to walk prospects through how to get started.
You closed the sale? Good job! Now what? That’s the question on mind of this new client. Prepare to walk them through the next things you have to do together to keep this professional relationship rolling. After all, you are the expert here, right? Make sure any question they have is answered before they leave. Plan a follow up correspondence to answer questions they thought of since the initial meeting.
