When I was
working for New York Life Insurance Company I had a client who gave me a whole
new perspective in one case. The
perspective he gave me has changed the way I sold things from that day forward. Its also changed the way I purchase things on
my own behalf.
I’ll spare
you the details but I lucked into having a client who needed a long term care
insurance policy. Long term care, for
those who don’t know, is a policy that pays for your nursing care in your later
years. Its cheaper to have you stay in
your home than a skilled nursing center so these policies and companies fight
to keep you at home as long as you can.
There are even tax incentives to make purchasing one of these policies
more appealing.
This
particular client was someone who knew me from when I was a kid. Honestly, I think he took the meeting because
he wanted to help my career out and I was the rookie. Regardless of the outcome I knew the
experience would help me grow as an agent.
I’ve always
been a fan of being an expert in what your good at. If you’re not an expert, know someone who is
and get them involved when you’re out of your depth. Nobody will ever complain you brought a specialist
in to work on something important to get right.
Our office had a long term care (LTC) specialist and I brought her in to
help me work the case.
When we sat
down with the client and his wife she instantly started to go through her
somewhat scripted process. She normally
worked with clients who could afford the policies but were more focused on the
daily aspects of living. This particular
client had been a CEO for years and was the President of a company at the time.
When she
started asking questions designed to illustrate a gap in your current plan her
presentation fell apart. “If you were
sick where would you go?” Most people
respond with “a doctor” but this guy responded with a specific doctors
name. “If your house had mold what would
you do?” Most people would call a mold
specialist, however, this client had a general handyman he had worked with for
years and used his name. “If your car
was broken where would you take it?”
Again, the obvious answer is “a mechanic” but he not only said the specific
dealership name but the salesman who handled things like this for him.
After some
laughing at how “squared away” he was she was afraid to read her final
question. I knew there was one more
question because I could see it on her printed notes in front of her. I stepped in at this point, “Lets assume you
didn’t have these contacts or knew exactly where to go to solve a
problem…wouldn’t it be worth while to have someone you trust give you
direction?” He got where she was going
and we got back on track.
After
laying out how the policies work and what was covered we came to the dreaded
“money” question. “Now, we agree these
are valuable features in the policy, right?”
You could hear how uneasy she was after being thrown off her script. “How much would you be willing to invest in a
policy like this?” And with that she sat
quiet.
For those
of you who don’t know this rule its an amazing technique. When you’re negotiating and you lay out your
solution, whatever it is, stop talking.
“The first person to talk looses.” Was what an old sales manager once
told me. He and I stared at a piece of
paper, with a customer, in total silence, for 45 minutes once. The customer ended up buying the car and I
learned a huge lesson on the “hard sale”.
However,
this wasn’t your easily closed client.
He thought about it, I think he recognized the technique, and then after
a few seconds said. “If its worth it,
I’ll pay it.” I was surprised to hear
that come out of his mouth but I began to understand it. Meanwhile my “specialist” restated the
question and fumbled through trying to get a number commitment. “Look, I don’t want my children to have to
take care of me and my wife when we’re older.
This policy does that and more.
If you can show me enough value in the policy, I don’t care what it
costs…because its worth it.”
After I
picked up the ball from where my slack jawed “specialist” left things we
concluded our meeting and agreed to meet up again in a week with our
solution. We went back into our cubicle
bullpen for new agents and began to recap the meeting.
A few days
go by and we meet to go over the plan.
She had 3 plans laid out that were a few hundred dollars a month and
fairly modest benefit periods. I had
played around with the software and knew there was an “Unlimited/Unlimited”
option for the policy. Basically, the
policy paid out unlimited funds for an unlimited benefit period. If you triggered the policy you were taken
care of in the very best way possible.
“Lets show
them that…its what he wants” We argued
for a half an hour and she was afraid to scare him out of the room with the
premiums. The premiums were more than
some mortgage payments, but the value was there.
I knew my
cohort would chicken out so I printed out the unlimited/unlimited policy
information. We went in and sure enough,
she presented the smaller policies. The
client had a look of disappointment on his face and it felt like he was
choosing the lesser of the three evils put in front of him. “There is one more option I want to show
you. In my opinion this is the highest
bang for your buck in a policy like this.”
I explained how the unlimited/unlimited policy worked while my
“specialist” shook in her boots. I
finished up going over the policy and said, “Was I correct in thinking that the
kind of value you were looking for in a policy?”
Immediately
after I finished my sentence he looked at his wife and smiled. “This means we’re taken care of until we die
and the kids don’t have to take care of us unless they want to. That’s what we talked about right?” She had tears in her eyes and held his hand
and nodded. He looked back at me and
said “Yup…lets write it up”.
With my
first long term care sale I was the salesman of the month in our region. It was my ONLY long term care sale in my time
there, but still. It was a huge victory
for a rookie agent.
The lesson
I learned was to sell based on the value of a product, not the price. The more value you build in something the
harder it is to say “no” to. Admittedly,
I got lucky with this instance by having someone who could afford the policy,
but the premise is the same.
As I went
on from the insurance world I found myself doing everything I could to add
value to what I was selling.
Occasionally I would lose a customer or client in a price battle. But they were typically difficult people who
weren’t worth the extra time and effort to appease for no money. The people who bought from me bought the
value I showed them and subsequently brought me more business. That’s right, I charged them more than my
competitors and they brought me more people to sell to. The experience and the value they found in me
was worth the price they had to pay.
I’ve found
myself buying things with the same mentality.
If its worth it, I’m going to pay more for it. Ironically when I buy a cheap(er) version of
the big ticket item I’m looking at I’m always disappointed. But knowing I’m buying a lower value
proposition makes it easier to accept the negative aspects and move on.
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