10 Commitments You Must Gain to Win Deals
Source: https://thesalesblog.com/2014/02/15/10-commitments-you-must-gain-to-win-deals/ ![]() |
Medicare Blog | Medicare News | Medicare Information
10 Commitments You Must Gain to Win Deals
Posted by www.psmbrokerage.com Admin on Tue, Jan 19, 2021 @ 02:51 PM
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Tags: closing sales, Sales Strategies, sales ideas
Increase Buyer Intent and Close More Sales
Posted by www.psmbrokerage.com Admin on Fri, Jan 15, 2021 @ 11:12 AM
As consumers ourselves we often make buying decisions on impulse. As a matter of fact, our impulse to buy a product can be so easily triggered that retail stores use merchandising displays known as “impulse aisles” to tap into it. Their displays are attractive and inviting; they’re designed to stir our emotion and position the product as something we can’t do without. They frame it with big, bright signs stating “Last Chance Sale” or “While Supplies Last”, all in an effort to engage our emotional state and encourage us to make a buying decision now. FIGS aren't the Low FruitWhile insurance sales isn’t retail sales, we can still engage those same emotions in our prospects to help them justify the need to buy today. And we can do this by incorporating the Four Factors of Impulse or FIGS for short. Now, this isn’t new; many of you have probably seen this before. But these four concepts are fundamental in building effective sales conversations with our prospects, and if we learn to properly use them we can truly increase our closing rate as well as our overall production and profitability. Otherwise we're left just picking up the low fruit. Fear of LossNo one likes to miss out on a good deal or the right opportunity, and that can be a great motivator in inducing someone to buy insurance, today. This is commonly used in life insurance sales where the premium is only going to be higher if you attempt to buy later when you’re older. So to avoid losing out on a good deal, the lower premium, you should in fact buy today. Furthermore there is also the risk of not qualifying at all should you continue procrastinating an important decision as your health declines; and this can be applied in both life and health insurance products where underwriting is a factor in determining the applicant's eligibility. Using fear of loss properly is not to fear monger, but rather to emphatically convey to your prospect why it's important to act now. "Mr. Jones I understand your reluctance but we all know as we get older our health declines, and you're nearing the end of your six-month window to enroll in Plan G without having to qualify medically. Basically, this is your one shot to guarantee you get the coverage you need. Think of how great it's going to feel knowing you're nest egg is secured and not at the mercy of high healthcare costs." IndifferenceI is for Indifference. Indifference by definition means to show a lack of concern or interest. As a salesperson you use indifference to relay to the customer that you’re not concerned with whether he purchases or not. You exude an air of confidence knowing that you’ll be successful with or without this prospect as a client. Let’s face it, no one likes the overly aggressive sales person anyway, and the more you press a customer, the more he will feel that your only concern is making the sale. And if your product truly has value and solves a need for your prospect then you can be confident that ultimately your prospect needs you more than you need to make that sale. However, indifference can be a fine line as you also don’t want your customer to feel you have no sympathy for them. Thus, the key to indifference is to have a balanced sales presentation that properly presents, doesn’t oversell, and empowers your prospect by giving them the authority to make that buying decision. One of the best ways to maintain indifference in your sales conversations is to keep your sales funnel full. You'll find yourself more easily moved to desperation to make the sale when you only have one prospect and not multiple appointments to run. GreedNow greed sounds like such a dirty word, but the truth is people are greedy. Everyone wants what their neighbor has, hence the expression "keeping up with the Jones'". One of the best ways we can make use of this principle as sales people is to provide some type of social proof to our customers. You’ll commonly see this done through testimonials in marketing pieces, or Google reviews for example, but it can also be done during your intimate conversations with your prospects. When I worked door-to-door I would often namedrop any clients I had in the neighborhood. Truthfully it didn't matter if they even knew that person; the statement itself is a powerful claim, and it can be gently slid into your presentation in a variety of ways. “A feature your neighbor Betty Jones liked is…”. “Using this same plan, I was able to save your neighbor Betty $1000.” “You’re not alone; most of my clients including your neighbor Fred prefer Plan G as well.” You get the idea. In probably one of the best examples of greed as a buying signal, a life agent friend of mine recently shared a story about a string of referrals he received where each new referral based their purchase on the friend who had referred them. "How much did Pete buy? $1000? Give me $2000." "How much did Ed buy? $2000? Give me $3000." While this is no time to argue with your prospect's choice, using greed effectively doesn't involve gouging your customer's pocketbook with the biggest premium you can sell them, but rather provides social proof of the value you and your product or service bring to your many clients, and why this prospect should therefore become one of your clients today. Sense of UrgencyFinally, Sense of Urgency is one of the strongest motivators, and similar to Fear of Loss, it again stresses to the customer that time is of the essence. A decision is needed. If they don’t act now, the deal may go bust. I’ve seen this used often with agents who may travel and work small towns from time to time where they have to stress to their prospect that “I’m here today – I cannot come back.” A more obvious use of this within the Medicare space would be based on the various election periods. If its December 7th, the last day of the Annual Election Period, you best be conveying a Sense of Urgency to your MAPD prospect. “Today is the last day Mr. Jones.” Combine that with the other three impulse factors and you might have a statement such as, “Mr. Jones I’m sorry, but today is the last day, and I actually have four more appointments for people needing to turn in their applications. I’d hate to see you lose the opportunity but we need to act now. I’m ready to do the application with you now, but if you’re not ready, I need to get going to my next appointment. Do you have your Medicare card handy?” Practice Makes PerfectNow these four concepts are great, but they will not work if you can’t also properly present the value your product brings to the table. They also won’t work if you fake it - you must be authentic. Start by practicing one concept at a time; slowly bringing it into your pitch. Take some time to outline some key phrases that apply to each of the four factors and think about how and when you can incorporate that into your sales conversations. Pretty quickly you’ll find there are places to uses these concepts in your introduction, your discovery, your presentation, your close and even how you ask for referrals. With practice you’ll be using them regularly and I promise you’ll soon find your sales, and your commissions increasing. Source: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/increase-buyer-intent-close-more-sales-tony-merwin/ ![]() |
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Prospecting: What You Need to Know Now - 2020
Posted by www.psmbrokerage.com Admin on Wed, Nov 11, 2020 @ 08:48 AM
You have to do more of it than you think necessary: If there is a challenge in sales right now, there is none greater than creating enough opportunities. A little prospecting generally doesn’t work. More is better. More than that is what’s required. Consistency is King: Consistent prospecting produces better results than cramming. Daily is better than weekly. Daily is better than three call blocks throughout the week. Daily is better than any other strategy you might believe serves you. Cold calling is a Ferrari: If you want speed to results, you use the phone as your primary medium for prospecting. If you are overwhelmed with opportunities and independently wealthy, you might choose another medium. Email isn’t really prospecting: If no one can hear you ask for a meeting, and if there is no one there for you to whom you make your case for time, then you aren’t really prospecting. Email is for nurturing relationships. Speaking of nurturing: If you aren’t nurturing your dream clients over time, then you cannot expect to be known for the value you create when you finally have the opportunity to ask for meeting. The failure to prospect hurts later, not now: You can go days without prospecting. Weeks, even. You might be able to go months without creating a single opportunity. Then, two quarters from now, you have an empty pipeline, and there is no way to build one fast enough. Your prospecting is not my prospecting: Some people are so effective as to be able to create more than enough opportunities quickly and easily. Others can spend days working targets and produce nothing. What works for you is good if you reach your goals. What is wrong for you might be right for someone else. Social selling is an above the funnel activity, not prospecting: Nurturing relationships is important. So is establishing yourself as someone with ideas and insights. But if you are not asking for a meeting, it isn’t prospecting. No one can do your prospecting for you: Not your SDR. Not your marketing department. Not the content creators that work in marketing. Not the event planner that gives you the attendee list of the conference you are attending. Opening is the new closing: No opportunity is ever closed without first being created. No opportunity is captured before it is created. The top of the funnel is where the action is. The bottom of the funnel is easier. There is no right time to prospect: Mondays are fine. So are Tuesdays. Thursday aren’t magic. Neither is Friday late, or Saturday morning. The best time to prospect is always now. If you want to be a rain maker, make it rain. Order takers are going to quickly find themselves disintermediated. ![]() |
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If You Are Being Out-Hustled
If there is one thing that is 100 percent within your control, it is your effort. You control how hard you work. Not your manager. Not your leader. Not anyone else. No one can or will stop you from working hard. The effort you make here is yours alone. If it isn’t enough, it’s all you. You control how many hours you work, too. The time you invest in work each day has nothing to do with your scheduled hours. It has nothing to do with whether you are paid hourly, salary, or straight commission. You can work as much as you want—or as little. The work that you decide to do is all up to you. This is true even if you have a day job. You can do your life’s work at 5:00 AM in the morning, when there is no one on earth who wants your time. You can work at 10:00 PM when other people are going to sleep. Like effort and time, the work you do is all you. If you are being out-hustled, it’s because you are allowing it. If someone is working harder than you are, they’re likely to produce more and better results. Even if they aren’t as smart, talented, educated, or well-connected as you. That someone who is working more hours doesn’t have one single hour more than you do each day. It’s just that they are investing their hours differently. Everyone has things that they have to do. And they always find time for the things they believe are most important. Right now, how you are spending your time is an indication of what is most important. There are very few things in life that are 100 percent within your control. Your belief system is one of them. Your attitude is another. What kind of effort you make is also one of the few things you can control. Source: https://thesalesblog.com/2016/10/04/if-you-are-being-out-hustled/
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How to Massively Improve Your Ability to Close
Posted by www.psmbrokerage.com Admin on Thu, Sep 12, 2019 @ 01:07 PM
How to Massively Improve Your Ability to Close Closing business is relatively easy and straightforward. You simply say something like, “I believe that we’ve done enough together to move forward. Can we get started or is there something else you need from me first?” Nothing to it. As long as you’ve done a lot of things right before you ask for the business. Here’s the root cause of closing problems: UnqualifiedYou can’t–and shouldn’t try to–close unqualified prospects. But pipelines are full of unqualified opportunities. Mercilessly disqualify. You don’t have time to spend with prospects who can’t buy, won’t buy, or don’t perceive massive value in what you do. Look at your pipeline now. Delete what isn’t a qualified opportunity. Poor ProcessMuch of the reason salespeople struggle to close opportunities is that they don’t follow their sales process. Follow your process. Ensure that you create value for your prospective client at every interaction, and especially focus on where they are in their buying journey. Don’t skip steps or stages, and instead ensure you achieve all of the necessary outcomes at each stage of your process. Build a compelling case for change. Help your client build the case for change and help them build consensus. Spend more time in the process and more time meeting the stakeholders and decision-makers. If you are simply responding to RFPs, you shouldn’t expect a very high close rate. That process doesn’t allow you to create value. That’s why it isn’t your process. Failure to Gain CommitmentsThere is a delicate dance we engage in with our clients. We follow their process, or we sell them on following ours. Your process is a better process, and it helps your client make a better buying decision. To ensure you follow your process, you have to ask for and obtain a series of commitments from your prospective client. These seemingly smaller “asks” are more important than the final “ask,” the close. Without gaining these commitments, you can’t get to the final close. Ask for the information you need. Ask to meet with the people you need to meet with. Here is a list of all of the commitments you need. Dealing with ObstaclesThere are almost always obstacles that must be overcome on the way to a deal. If you can’t overcome these obstacles, you can’t get to a close. Deal with the human obstacles. If someone opposes your solution, go find out why. Ask for help understanding what they might need to support you. Get help from the people who support your efforts. Whatever you have to do, get help resolving their concerns. Deal with the solution obstacles. If you need to make changes to what you do or how you do it, figure out how to make those changes. If you want to massively improve your ability to close, you have to massively improve everything you do on the way to that final ask. Source: https://thesalesblog.com/2014/05/14/how-to-massively-improve-your-ability-to-close/
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How to Get Better Results from Your Prospecting
Posted by www.psmbrokerage.com Admin on Tue, Dec 04, 2018 @ 10:35 AM
How to Get Better Results from Your Prospecting
Every time you reach out to a customer to ask for time, you are making a couple of decisions. The first decision you are making is around the medium you choose. If you are asking for a meeting, there are different choices available to you, and a greater or lesser likelihood of achieving the outcome you want, in this case, a meeting. If you choose email as the medium, you are choosing a medium that isn’t particularly good for acquiring meetings. Email is something that is easy to ignore, and because you aren’t present, there is no way for you to resolve your dream client’s concerns about giving you their time. Sometimes they politely reject your request, and other times (maybe most of the time), they just delete the email and move on with their work. The phone still reigns supreme as the best medium, not least of all because almost anyone you would want to reach is never more than 36 inches away from their phone (it turns out that any distance further than 36 inches away causes headaches, sweating, difficulty in breathing, and in some cases, violent convulsions). A phone call allows for conversation, a synchronous communication and not asynchronous, like email, where there is a long pause between exchanges. If your prospective client has concerns, you are there to address them, massively increasing your odds of securing a meeting, if you’ve got the chops. The second decision is what you are offering of value in trade for your dream client’s time. If you want greater success, you have trade something where your dream client benefits even if they never buy from you. The Trading Value rule is critical (read more here in The Lost Art of Closing). If your client doesn’t recognize the value in meeting with you, you make it easy for them to reject your request and do something else with their time. If you can trade insights, ideas, new thinking, or interesting experiences from which they can benefit, there is value outside of deciding to buy from you. When you pitch the great privilege of listening to you talk about you, your company, your locations, and your solutions, you repel people from you like a skunk at the garden party. If you want to make prospecting easier, get better at it. |
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Tags: closing sales, prospecting, phone sales
How to Develop Empathy with Your Prospects and Close More Sales
Posted by www.psmbrokerage.com Admin on Thu, Nov 15, 2018 @ 09:26 AM
How to Develop Empathy with Your Prospects and Close More Sales (Photo: Pexel) The robots are coming. And they're here to take your sales job. At least, that's what we're afraid of. It might be true that technology can be integrated into many steps of the sales process. But, thankfully, it can't do everything. For now, there are a number of skills computers can't learn, and one of those is our human ability to create empathetic connections with prospects and customers. This is a key ability for the modern seller. Develop empathy and you'll enjoy more effective sales conversations. More importantly, you'll build a skill set that’s in demand and hard to replace with technology. What is Empathy?Quite simply, empathy is the ability to understand the emotional state of another person and respond appropriately. It doesn't mean you have to feel the same thing (that's sympathy). Empathy is your capacity to sense what’s going on in someone's else mind and guess at the best way to engage based on your understanding of that perspective. How Empathy Drives Sales ConversationsAt its heart, sales has always been about the interpersonal engagement between two people. We always hear about sales professionals being "people people." That's simply another way of saying they’re empathetic. When we talk about emotional intelligence, one of the most important things we're referring to is the ability to recognize, understand, and respond to the emotional state of others in an appropriate way. Think about your sales interactions. Key steps include building trust, uncovering needs, and creating confidence. If you can't do those well you're not going to find a lot of success. All of them are driven by sales professionals' ability to create a bridge with their prospects. By picking up on the subtle and not-so-subtle clues that our conversational partners apply, salespeople with high emotional intelligence can create stronger connections and more easily influence others. This is especially important as sales processes get more complex and involve more people. It's critical to be able to understand the motivations and thoughts of everyone involved in the process. In a world where information is a commodity, you need to be more than a source of facts and figures. You need to possess the ability to engage on an emotional level and become a resource for potential customers. If you want to guide them through their buying journey, it's imperative you connect on the human level. Tips for Developing EmpathyLuckily, your emotional intelligence isn't a fixed trait. Much of your empathy is developed as you mature, but it's a muscle that can be exercised and improved. There are actually pathways in our brains called mirror neurons. They have evolved to recognize and respond to the hundreds of small, usually unnoticed, signals people give off when they interact. Taking it a step further, as we grow up, we develop what neuroscientists call the Theory of Mind. It describes our ability to put ourselves in the place of someone else and see things from their perspective. It also allows us to understand others might have thoughts, feelings, and motivations causing them to do what they do. And it's why you can pick up on the unspoken signals of your friend and ask, "What's wrong?" before they even have to tell you they just had a bad day at work. Building your ability to pick up on these signals, and learning how to interpret them, can pay huge dividends. And it's not complicated. You don't have to take special classes or training seminars. In fact, your daily sales activities provide constant opportunities to build your capacity. Here are five exercises you can use to cultivate your empathetic skills.
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How to Make the Perfect Follow-Up Sales Call
Posted by www.psmbrokerage.com Admin on Tue, Sep 18, 2018 @ 02:51 PM
How to Make the Perfect Follow-Up Sales Call
Let’s take a look at some findings from recent studies to help put our finger on the key points. The complete article from HubSpot can be found here: https://blog.hubspot.com/sales/best-times-to-connect-with-leads-infographic) Best Days to Call: Wednesday has shown to be the most successful day for sales calls. Thursday comes in at second place. Of course, this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be calling on other days, however, you may want to be sure you are highly productive on those 2 days to take full advantage of the trend. Best Time to Call: The best time to call has changed over the years. Several studies found the best time to be between 4:00 PM & 5:00 PM. Another study found the best time to be between 10:00 AM & 11:00 AM. Most studies, however, agree that the worst time for successful calls is between 1:00 PM & 2:00 PM. Response Time: The response best time to call new leads. 5 minutes from the trigger of the event. After 5 minutes your odds drop significantly. Waiting longer than 10 minutes to respond means your odds of qualifying have dropped 400%. Once you’ve responded in a timely manner it’s now time to connect with a meaningful dialogue. Studies have shown that successful follow-up sales calls are almost twice as long as unsuccessful calls. Be informative and keep control of the conversation to maintain focus but don’t waste your potential client’s time. Educate, be concise, and prove your value offer. Check out the full article from HubSpot for more takeaways: |
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5 Prospecting Methods That Really Work
Posted by www.psmbrokerage.com Admin on Wed, Jun 28, 2017 @ 12:42 PM
It’s no surprise that prospecting is the No. 1 challenge advisors face, year after year. When, as part of National Underwriter’s recent Independent Producer Study, we asked about the most challenging aspects of selling insurance products, 55 percent of respondents named prospecting as their top trial. It was a landslide winner, in fact, beating such formidable obstacles as clients’ lack of understanding around the need for insurance (34%), negative opinions of insurance products (25%) and product affordability (22%). As you look to overcome this challenge in the year ahead, keep these five techniques in mind. While there’s no silver bullet to make prospecting a breeze, these are the methods your peers know from experience to really work.
A steady stream of qualified referrals is the lifeblood of any agency. Eighty-two percent of survey respondents cited referrals as the most effective way to prospect for new business, and for good reason: No other method will provide greater bang for your buck, so to speak. Having a solid referral-generating process in place will ensure not only that you are constantly introduced to new prospects, but that you are constantly introduced to the right prospects — the ones that meet your Ideal Client profile. Referral expert Bill Cates suggests growing your referral network by being careful to keep referral sources informed about how you are following up on their help. This communicates that you value their insight and advice. Says Cates: “When someone gives you a referral, there are three things you MUST do to keep the referrals coming from that source: a) Follow up on every referral you get as soon as possible; b) Let your source know that you are following up on their help; c) Thank your referral source with a handwritten note and a small gift.”
At 34 percent, community involvement was named the second most effective prospecting technique. It’s Branding 101: The more people who associate your name with a positive message, the more clients you will have. Jim Brogan, president and founder of Brogan Financial in Knoxville, Tenn., makes community involvement a cornerstone of his practice, and has seen a boom in business as a result – not to mention a greater satisfaction and sense of fulfillment in the work he does each day. He encourages financial advisors to ask these questions as they consider how to get involved in their community: How many people in your community know who you are and what you do? If they hear the name of your business, what is the brand they associate with it? Is your brand different than any other financial advisor in town? Do you have a unique message and marketing initiative that helps you stand out from the crowded field of financial advisory firms?
Leading a seminar serves two important purposes: First, it establishes you as a thought leader in your area of specialty; second, it puts you in front of a group of prospects that have already expressed interest in your product line. Twenty percent of our survey respondents cited this as an effective prospecting technique – and while it may be tried-and-true, there are plenty of ways to tailor your seminar approach for today’s buyers. Industry coach Kerry Johnson suggests shunning the somewhat dated dinner seminar and instead holding a Social Security seminar designed purely to educate prospects. The overhead will be lower and, in many cases, the conversion of prospects to clients will be higher. Johnson notes: “Since you have taken away the motivation to get a free meal, the attendees are left with solving retirement problems. This is your retirement planning sweet spot.”
It may sound old-school, but cold calling can still work according to 15 percent of our advisors. In fact, picking up the phone beat out sexier methods such as social media (7%) and advertising on the radio or television (5%). Coach Kelley Robertson acknowledges that cold calling is tough, but asserts emphatically that it is not dead. To see results, you must put in the time you would with any other prospecting technique — and, of course, have thick skin. Robertson’s advice to agents: “You need to make a lot of dials. You need to target the right companies. You need a compelling opening. And you need to speak to the right people.”
Just under 15 percent of respondents cited direct mail as an effective prospecting technique — and J. Ryan Parker, general manager of Element Financial Group thinks the number of agents that prospect this way may actually be much higher, while also noting that it should not be a stand-alone prospecting method. Says Parker: “I think a lot of prospecting still revolves around direct mail — more so than people realize [because] seminars are powered by direct mail. This is obviously not the most cost-effective way of marketing yourself; you can probably spend a lot less money doing this on the Internet. But the clients producers are looking to reach, the seniors and the boomers, just aren’t as prone to go to Google and look something up. This is why more of your successful planners are still using direct mail. That said, online needs to be part of every producer’s prospecting strategy because it streamlines the business process. If I get a lead from the Internet, it automatically enters into my CRM, and we can follow-up from there. Internet is absolutely critical for today’s producers.” Source - http://www.thinkadvisor.com/2013/11/06/5-prospecting-methods-that-really-work?page_all=1 |
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Tags: closing sales, Sales Tips, Sales Leads, Sales Strategies, Prospecting new clients, Lead Generation, prospecting
Psychology of Sales: Use Your Personality Type to Your Advantage
Posted by www.psmbrokerage.com Admin on Wed, May 03, 2017 @ 11:15 AM
Many years ago, Carl Jung researched and proposed the existence of 16 personality types. Using a test called the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, or the MBTI, which has a minimum of 93 questions, people can find out which type they are. Each type is comprised of four pairs of personality factors: introversion (I) and extroversion (E), intuition (N) and sensing (S), thinking (T) and feeling (F), and judging (J) and perceiving (P). These factors are represented by a letter, and the combination of the four letters is your type. Once you’ve taken the test, you can find out how much each personality factor affects your disposition. In the sales profession, some people may think only certain personalities can be successful; for example, it’s a common belief that only extroverts can close deals and relate to customers. According to research, however, introversion is slightly more common than extroversion overall, and it takes both extroverts and introverts to build a successful sales team. Use your personality profile to your advantage. No matter if you’re an INTJ or an ESFP, you can reach and convert customers. Learn more about your personality type, and how to use it to your advantage, in the infographic below. Source: https://www.salesforce.com/ca/blog/2016/01/psychology-of-sales.html |
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Tags: closing sales, Sales Tips, sales advice, Sales Strategies