Are your agents consistently getting in front of enough new life insurance prospects? Are they converting those meetings into applications consistently? How many of them are able to regularly get referrals from their clients?
If your sales team is failing to do these things, it might be because they aren’t talking to life insurance prospects and clients in the right way. It could be because rather than working to build trust and work with clients as a partner, they’re just trying to sell as much as they can. They may not be asking the tough, and maybe uncomfortable, questions to qualify their prospects so they become the right kind of customer.
We are judged more by the questions we ask than by what we say. Sometimes our questions, plus our conviction to ask those questions, can be all we need to make more sales and actually help more people.
Insurance Sales Objections
Sales people run into 5 main obstacles when trying to close a deal. Let’s specifically look at how these obstacles apply to life insurance sales, and how to avoid them in specific situations.
No Trust: Why is life insurance available on the Internet? Life insurance agents can be perceived as untrustworthy at worst. At best, they’re seen as only caring about making the sale. No one wants to be sold something. They want help deciding what's the best policy. Find ways to become a trusted advisor to your life insurance prospects, someone who can help them know if they are underinsured, help them to decide what kind of insurance they need, and how much insurance they need and you will bring in plenty of applications – and probably get a lot of referrals.
No Need: Most people are in denial about this. They think they don’t need life insurance at all, or that what they already have is good enough. It is your job to make sure they are right. That means using the correct guidelines and challenging the life insurance prospect (in a nurturing way) when they don’t have enough. Lots have policies through work that expire as soon as they leave or retire. Some buy the cheapest plan, or are underinsured and in denial. Taking this objection without probing deeper doesn’t help anyone, and a trusted advisor would not allow this. Push back until you’re sure your prospect is properly insured.
No Money: Most Americans divide their money into three categories: spending money, savings, and investments. For life insurance, you’re not likely to be getting their fun money, and the other two pools are probably already maxed out. In short, prospects will believe they don’t have the money for more life insurance. Show them the power of tax deferral and the tax-free status of certain payoffs to find ways to lower their tax burden, and you build your status as a trusted advisor.
No Hurry: Life insurance isn’t like wine – coverage doesn’t get better with age, it gets worse. Many people see life insurance as something that can be put off and put off forever. After all, they don’t plan to have to use it any time soon. But the worst can happen unexpectedly, and if your life insurance prospect hasn’t been shown the urgency behind buying insurance, they won’t be ready. A trusted advisor meets this obstacle and prepares clients for whatever may happen.
No Desire: Some potential customers could say that they don’t have anyone they’ll leave behind, anyone who needs the support that comes from having life insurance. They say they have no family or favorite charity. Really? As a salesperson you are doing no favors to anyone by not helping them to visualize what would happen if they were gone tomorrow, and how that affects those closest to them financially? A trusted advisor must challenge this perception by the prospect in a nurturing way.
These challenges will rear their ugly head in most of your agents' planning meetings. Understanding that these sales objections are coming, and knowing what questions to ask the life insurance prospect in response, can greatly change the outcome in a positive way. If salespeople are prepared to help prospects make it past their own obstacles, that puts them in a great position to become a trusted advisor – and to do real good for the prospect and client.
