I believe that selling life insurance is a specialised skill which embraces all of the functions of every type of sale but with particular emphasis upon the emotional content of your presentation.
You need to overcome not only the normal resistance that the prospect has to any attempt to part him from his money when being offered any product or service but there are two additional factors which the life insurance representative has to take into account and overcome.
1) You are selling an intangible product.
Owning an Insurance policy is not like owning a car or some other visible asset that you can see and use on a daily basis. All the client receives is a paper document which is stored away for safety until a tragedy occurs which gives rise to a claim on the policy or remains in storage for a long period until it matures.
2) The prospects do not want to face their own mortality.
It is a fact of life that 99% of people do not voluntarily purchase Life Insurance, it has to be sold even though the logistics of the everyday risks to life and limb and general health hazards indicate that protection is a sensible and affordable option. It is strange that people will insure their assets such as their cars, their homes and their jewellery but never even consider protecting the one asset that helps create and maintain all the others, which are their most important assets their life and their health.
This is why the life insurance salesperson has to magnify the emotional content in their presentation. A phrase that conjures up a mental picture of this point is one I learned many years ago when I was going through my own insurance sales training, "When you are selling life insurance you have to drag up the hearse and make them smell the flowers."
How do you do this, not by relying upon statistics and other product features but by painting similar word pictures that confront the prospect with the pain caused by his death or injury. The best way I have found to create such a situation is to ask the prospect a question that assumes the worst has already happened and then ask the prospect to visualize the results of his death or incapacity, upon himself, his business and his family. In fact I would go even further if I were talking to a business person or entrepreneur who may never have imagined the consequences to a business of the death of the owner. I would paint the picture for him. For example:
"Mr Prospect, just imagine you had died last night. What do you think would happen to your business today? Sadly I have witnessed this scene too many times. As soon as your bank gets news of your death they will close your trading account, no more money is to go out. If you have a loan account or mortgage on the business they will want their money back. Most businesses do not have that kind of capital to hand, but the bank want their cash, they do not want your stock,machinery or buildings they want cash, so they will have a sale, - a forced sale. I have seen a number of these and they are not a pretty sight. This is why contrary to public opinion, the more value you have in your business the more protection you need. Since it is the business that needs cash in such an event it is sensible to let the business pay for the protection you need rather than pay for it from your own pocket.
People are naturally motivated to move away from pain, so the more pain you can cause; the more the prospect will want relief from it and highly charged emotional word pictures are the life insurance representative's way to disturb the prospect into taking action.
You need to overcome not only the normal resistance that the prospect has to any attempt to part him from his money when being offered any product or service but there are two additional factors which the life insurance representative has to take into account and overcome.
1) You are selling an intangible product.
Owning an Insurance policy is not like owning a car or some other visible asset that you can see and use on a daily basis. All the client receives is a paper document which is stored away for safety until a tragedy occurs which gives rise to a claim on the policy or remains in storage for a long period until it matures.
2) The prospects do not want to face their own mortality.
It is a fact of life that 99% of people do not voluntarily purchase Life Insurance, it has to be sold even though the logistics of the everyday risks to life and limb and general health hazards indicate that protection is a sensible and affordable option. It is strange that people will insure their assets such as their cars, their homes and their jewellery but never even consider protecting the one asset that helps create and maintain all the others, which are their most important assets their life and their health.
This is why the life insurance salesperson has to magnify the emotional content in their presentation. A phrase that conjures up a mental picture of this point is one I learned many years ago when I was going through my own insurance sales training, "When you are selling life insurance you have to drag up the hearse and make them smell the flowers."
How do you do this, not by relying upon statistics and other product features but by painting similar word pictures that confront the prospect with the pain caused by his death or injury. The best way I have found to create such a situation is to ask the prospect a question that assumes the worst has already happened and then ask the prospect to visualize the results of his death or incapacity, upon himself, his business and his family. In fact I would go even further if I were talking to a business person or entrepreneur who may never have imagined the consequences to a business of the death of the owner. I would paint the picture for him. For example:
"Mr Prospect, just imagine you had died last night. What do you think would happen to your business today? Sadly I have witnessed this scene too many times. As soon as your bank gets news of your death they will close your trading account, no more money is to go out. If you have a loan account or mortgage on the business they will want their money back. Most businesses do not have that kind of capital to hand, but the bank want their cash, they do not want your stock,machinery or buildings they want cash, so they will have a sale, - a forced sale. I have seen a number of these and they are not a pretty sight. This is why contrary to public opinion, the more value you have in your business the more protection you need. Since it is the business that needs cash in such an event it is sensible to let the business pay for the protection you need rather than pay for it from your own pocket.
People are naturally motivated to move away from pain, so the more pain you can cause; the more the prospect will want relief from it and highly charged emotional word pictures are the life insurance representative's way to disturb the prospect into taking action.
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