What is the biggest problem when running a protection distributor?

Is it staff? Is it leads? Is it product knowledge? Is it Insurers?

No… it’s the PAST!!

However much you focus on today, the past can bite you in the arse so easily.

Clawback is the most horrible trap

You’ve got to find the cash to keep going, so the only way to do that is to keep selling.

“It just feels like we’re making sales to pay for clawback, it’s horrible”

It’s a stressful, unrelenting nightmare.

There are some rare cases where the business manage to make it work, usually the biggest ones such as LifeSearch and Reassured.

But that’s only through economy of scale – their ability to buy leads in particular – that they achieve this.

What do the numbers look like?

Many businesses are typically losing 50% of the business they put on risk at first, only to try and save enough to end up on a “safe” level of between 20 and 30%.

IT IS RIDICULOUS!

Is your clawback over 20%?

If you’re in this place yourself now, you have two choices:

  1. Keep your head in the sand, and keep putting off the problem. HOPING it will get better.

  2. Face up to bare facts, accept that’s just plain silly – and look for another way!

What if you could sell MORE business, but with lower clawback?

Selling protection is one of the hardest things to sell well – it’s intangible, I don’t need it immediately and I can cancel it  at any time.

There are MANY things that go into making a great protection sale. But some key questions to ask your team are:

1. Would you really buy life insurance in one call?

I’m taking out a contract from you for 20 years and on average will be spending £25 per month. Am I really likely to make a considered decision on it in less than 30 minutes? And I probably started looking online for it 10 minutes ago…

Most people would NEVER buy life insurance in one call, and yet so often I hear of companies trying to do this!

In fact it’s often only IMPULSE customers who are happy buying in this way, and what do people who buy on impulse do? Cancel more easily!

To me this is simply yet another sign of desperate selling. When you learn how to build trust with your customers properly, you can make the sale in two calls. You’ll still get the same amount of business, but much more of it will stick!

2. What are your team thinking about at the start of a call?

When you think of the customer as a potential target, you sound like a salesman. Think about how you feel when a “salesperson” tries to sell to you!

Are your sales team interested in the customer at first, or in the sale? If all you do is come across as a sales person desperately trying to find a solution, rather than trying to build a genuine relationship with a customer.

When you learn how to be genuinely interested in the customer at first, and not head straight into the sale, the customer trusts you more. The result is higher average commission, higher conversion – and lower clawback!

3. Do customers REALLY  understand what you’re talking about?

Life insurance is complicated. It’s often cited as one of the top 5 reasons that people don’t buy life insurance. And yet I hear so many sales calls that are rushed, and where very complicated concepts such as “level versus decreasing term”, “split versus joint” and “critical illness cover” are so unclear in their explanations. Because it’s a lot hard to explain it than you think!

If you didn’t understand something would you happily buy something? If you did buy something would you then likely question it afterwards?

Learn to SLOW DOWN at key points, and learn how to explain things in a simple way that customers understand. If you do this everyone wins!

… OR MAYBE I COULD HELP?

I’ve been working at the coalface of sales and marketing in the protection industry since 2004, and having seen this issue too many times decided to come up with a plan to fix it!

I’ve been working on a brand new protection sales training workshop for some of my existing consultancy clients. Their feedback has been fantastic – so I thought why not see if other businesses would find it useful?

Don’t just take my word for it…

Take one of my clients Cavendish Online. Their clawback is trending at under 10% after 4 years. They’ve already won awards for their KPI’s, and I’m pretty sure they have more waiting around the corner!

And check out this review from another of my clients Joe D’Cunha, General Manager of Albany Park:

“I would highly recommend this workshop to anyone working in sales, whether at the start of your sales career or an established salesperson. I’ve worked in sales for 10 years now and I learned an incredible amount, most importantly, about the psychology of sales which can be applied to any industry. Luke is very passionate and interactive and is able to keep you fully engaged. It has now formed part of our induction for every new sales person we hire – his training is worth every penny!”

New Protection Sales Training Workshops

Let me teach you and your team the unique combination of psychology, sales technique and process required to make GREAT protection sales with lower clawback.

My sales training workshops are available from only £1800 per session, no matter how many in your team.

I’m chocker for October, but have some space now in November and early December. Maybe it could be just the thing your team needs to start off 2020 with a bang!

 

Call me today on 020 8050 2537 or visit https://lukea1.sg-host.com/sales-training-workshops/ for more info.