- 14,808
Only closers get the Glen Garry leads....and coffee
- 9,744
"Put me on the board John. Put me on the Cadillac board."
- Shelly "The Machine" Levene
- Shelly "The Machine" Levene
- 9,744
Sorry, nothing could be further from the truth.
Once of the most common mistakes people make is confusing effort with results.
- Thread starter
- #45
G
Guest
Guest
Paul, he's actually right, results yes, but good or great results? Not likely.
Let's say my Brother gets licensed tomorrow and starts calling 100 people a day, he would see 'results' from his efforts, yes, but they probably wouldn't be good results, would they?
teambuilder
Expert
- 27
It's pretty simple really: know your market, know your products, know your client, listen, be ethical, and ask for the business.
Rinse and Repeat
Rinse and Repeat
I can save a ton on my phone bill using your system.
Seems that over the past 20 years in the business, the harder I've worked, the luckier I've gotten. You think luck might be the secret ingredient ?
Lucky that I have learned to avoid the ones who don't make the cut and listen to the ones who do...they usually tell me exactly what they want...the rest is easy
Lucky that I have learned to avoid the ones who don't make the cut and listen to the ones who do...they usually tell me exactly what they want...the rest is easy
Lloydlofton
Expert
- 82
"Where you stand on a topic depends on where you sit."
While I agree that sales skills are important my experience is you gain those skills on the field of battle. Reading a book, taking a "training" class, while helpful, do not build confidence or the experience necessary to have prior situtations to fall back on to improve your skills.
I do think the law of large numbers are the best training ground for a new agent. There are some basic principles, that for me, with agents I have hired and trained over the years, have proven to be true;
1. Agents don't need more "qualified" leads, they need more leads to "qualify". If it was easy to "get" qualified leads everyone one would have them.
2. Agents have to develope their own selling "style", I can't sell like anyone on this board and my guess is if anyone tried to sell like me they may not do well. I can talk to an agent about what they may do differnet on the "next" call however I'm not sure anyone can tell me or anyone else what they "should" do. I have see hundreds of agents sell in a way that would never be successful for me, and that's ok. People who will buy from me buy from me because of the relationship we develop and those who don't buy from me will buy from someone they more closely align with.
3. People buy on emotion but they are moved to action by logic. Consequently learning to ask questions is probally the best skill any agent can learn. Open-ended, closed-ended, tie-down, inverted tie-down, etc.
4. Understand the purpose of questions, if I ask a prospect a question and I answer the question, whose answer is it, mine right? And if I ask a prospect a question and they answer the question then whose answer is it, theirs right?
Now do you believe a prospect is more likely to believe a salespersons answer or their own answer?
And if their answer "is" the solution then who are they more likely to believe?
An example, you are talking to a prospect and they have a limited benefit plan, say "pays up to $800 for a brain scan." (just an example proceedure).
Now you could explain all the pitfalls and fiinancial risk of "up to $800", you could talk about the cost of test and proceedures and do they want that financial risk.
Or you could ask open-ended questions then use tie-down questions so their answer becomes the "solution."
"Now on your plan, when it says up to $800 dollars for a brain scan, what does up to mean to you?"
Then let them answer, no matter how they frame the answer then follow up with another question...
"so when you say it pays up to $800 then if you had a proceedure llke this and the proceedure was say $2,000 then how much would your plan pay?" (I know it seems silly and simple, they will do the math and answer the question, this is how we will build credibility and confidence from the prospect.)
Now let them do the math, you'll be tempted to provide the answer, however let them do the math..
"Ok, then if your plan would pay $800 how much would you have to pay out of your pocket then?"
Again, let them answer.."$1,200 dollars..."
Now the agent responds with a tie-down question that then becomes the solution...
"So then is that what you were expecting to pay?" This has to come across sincere and matter of fact.
Regardless how they answer (the 80% rule, the way 80% of how people buy) when they say no, or they didn't realize, etc, don't explain or sell, like you will "feel" like doing, rather use another tie-down to do the assumptive close...
"Then on any new plan you design today you'd be expecting this to be covered?"
When they say yes..
"So on a new plan your design today you'd want the insurance company to pay all of this, is that correct?" as you write this down on your notepad.
Now while we can explain this, we could even demonstrate this, until a new agent actually does this with a prospect they won't learn this. And they will have to do this until it becomes an integrated part of their sales personality.
The law of large numbers is the best learning ground, there is not a short cut or some "natural" skill salespeople will have that they can short cut the sales process, from prospecting to closing may not be the best advice.
Anyway just my thoughts, I could be wrong, then again I realized I was wrong once.
While I agree that sales skills are important my experience is you gain those skills on the field of battle. Reading a book, taking a "training" class, while helpful, do not build confidence or the experience necessary to have prior situtations to fall back on to improve your skills.
I do think the law of large numbers are the best training ground for a new agent. There are some basic principles, that for me, with agents I have hired and trained over the years, have proven to be true;
1. Agents don't need more "qualified" leads, they need more leads to "qualify". If it was easy to "get" qualified leads everyone one would have them.
2. Agents have to develope their own selling "style", I can't sell like anyone on this board and my guess is if anyone tried to sell like me they may not do well. I can talk to an agent about what they may do differnet on the "next" call however I'm not sure anyone can tell me or anyone else what they "should" do. I have see hundreds of agents sell in a way that would never be successful for me, and that's ok. People who will buy from me buy from me because of the relationship we develop and those who don't buy from me will buy from someone they more closely align with.
3. People buy on emotion but they are moved to action by logic. Consequently learning to ask questions is probally the best skill any agent can learn. Open-ended, closed-ended, tie-down, inverted tie-down, etc.
4. Understand the purpose of questions, if I ask a prospect a question and I answer the question, whose answer is it, mine right? And if I ask a prospect a question and they answer the question then whose answer is it, theirs right?
Now do you believe a prospect is more likely to believe a salespersons answer or their own answer?
And if their answer "is" the solution then who are they more likely to believe?
An example, you are talking to a prospect and they have a limited benefit plan, say "pays up to $800 for a brain scan." (just an example proceedure).
Now you could explain all the pitfalls and fiinancial risk of "up to $800", you could talk about the cost of test and proceedures and do they want that financial risk.
Or you could ask open-ended questions then use tie-down questions so their answer becomes the "solution."
"Now on your plan, when it says up to $800 dollars for a brain scan, what does up to mean to you?"
Then let them answer, no matter how they frame the answer then follow up with another question...
"so when you say it pays up to $800 then if you had a proceedure llke this and the proceedure was say $2,000 then how much would your plan pay?" (I know it seems silly and simple, they will do the math and answer the question, this is how we will build credibility and confidence from the prospect.)
Now let them do the math, you'll be tempted to provide the answer, however let them do the math..
"Ok, then if your plan would pay $800 how much would you have to pay out of your pocket then?"
Again, let them answer.."$1,200 dollars..."
Now the agent responds with a tie-down question that then becomes the solution...
"So then is that what you were expecting to pay?" This has to come across sincere and matter of fact.
Regardless how they answer (the 80% rule, the way 80% of how people buy) when they say no, or they didn't realize, etc, don't explain or sell, like you will "feel" like doing, rather use another tie-down to do the assumptive close...
"Then on any new plan you design today you'd be expecting this to be covered?"
When they say yes..
"So on a new plan your design today you'd want the insurance company to pay all of this, is that correct?" as you write this down on your notepad.
Now while we can explain this, we could even demonstrate this, until a new agent actually does this with a prospect they won't learn this. And they will have to do this until it becomes an integrated part of their sales personality.
The law of large numbers is the best learning ground, there is not a short cut or some "natural" skill salespeople will have that they can short cut the sales process, from prospecting to closing may not be the best advice.
Anyway just my thoughts, I could be wrong, then again I realized I was wrong once.
- Thread starter
- #50
G
Guest
Guest
My grandfather used to say "I thought I was wrong, but I was mistaken."
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