Obviously most sales professionals feel they do this successfully. In reality many don’t. Let’s turn that around. 10 items to think about before telling a storyBelow are 10 items to think about before telling a story: 1.) Sales Storytelling can help you with your remarkable message if done properly. 2.) Storytelling should not be confused with rambling on various subjects not specific to 3.) Storytelling makes the recipient, potential customer, more relaxed. 4.) Sales Storytelling should never include items that you wouldn’t tell your grandma
5.) Make sure you get to the point quickly. 6.) Never one-up the recipient with a “better” story. Very challenging for me personally. 7.) Never start a meeting with a story when you were just told there was a time 8.) Storytellers do close more deals. 9.) Keep age, religion, and politics out of your storytelling process if at all possible. 10.) Do not embellish. Well at least not too much. There are those out there that may Sales Storytelling is more of a practiced art than most understand. It really is something that a sales professional needs to think about and practice prior to usage. Sales storytelling is a key tool in closing dealsTake some time to perfect your craft. If you feel you’re a less than accomplished storyteller don’t fluff this off as unimportant. It can be a powerful tool that most likely will help you get to that next level desired. ![]() |
Medicare Blog | Medicare News | Medicare Information
The Art of Storytelling in Sales
Posted by www.psmbrokerage.com Admin on Thu, Sep 29, 2022 @ 04:10 PM
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Tags: sales advice, Sales Strategies, sales ideas
How to Improve Your Sales Skills
Posted by www.psmbrokerage.com Admin on Thu, Sep 29, 2022 @ 03:49 PM
The skills you need to improve your sales include:
Before we look at each of the primary skills that make great salespeople, it's important to recognize that selling is a craft. The only way you can improve your results is through practice, and studying what works, what doesn't, and when and how to use certain strategies, tactics, and conversations. When working to improve in any endeavor, it’s necessary to develop skills that support the outcomes you need. Selling is a series of conversations. The greater your skills, the better these conversations will be, and the more they help the client improve their outcomes. You have to practice these skills to learn them. Gaining CommitmentsThe first outcome a salesperson needs to create is a first meeting, so the first skill of a great salesperson is the ability to obtain a commitment from a prospective client. Every step forward requires you to gain another commitment from your contacts. In the Lost Art of Closing: Winning the 10 Commitments That Drive Sales, you will find 10 different commitments that allow you to facilitate the client's buyer's journey. This starts with the commitment for time, exploring change, committing to change, collaborating, building consensus, investments, reviewing solutions, resolving concerns, deciding, and executing. In this book, you will find the Trading Value Rule, which helps your clients commit to the next step. You can improve your sales skills by practicing and improving your ability to gain commitments. Scheduling a First MeetingThe goal of prospecting is creating a first meeting, which requires picking up the phone and calling a stranger. Those who do well at booking meetings are not conflict averse and don't worry much about the occasional grouchy person hanging up on them. They have the thick skin that prevents them from believing they were personally rejected. Salespeople who are skilled at scheduling a first meeting trade value for the client's time. When a contact refuses the meeting, the salesperson gently restates the value the client will receive by taking the meeting. They are also skilled at addressing the client's concern that a meeting will be a waste of time. Improving this skill means making many hundreds of calls and becoming immune to any negative outcomes. By practicing each day, you'll improve your sales results. Creating Value in the Sales ConversationThis is a higher hurdle to clear. It's also the most important skill when you are sitting across the table from your contacts. To enable this skill, you must bring business acumen to a conversation with your clients. When we talk about creating value, your primary goal is to educate your clients on a key aspect of their business. While your ultimate goal is helping the client make the best decision for their business, you achieve this through a series of business conversations. This sales skill is the one to rule them all. If you are unable to create value for your clients in a sales conversation, improving your outcomes is close to impossible. This higher-level skill requires that you study the modern sales approach and possess the insights that your contacts find valuable. This skill is one you must practice every day, in every sales call. It is more difficult to acquire, but by studying, you can improve faster. Diagnosing Client ScenariosYour client has problems and challenges. What once worked for them now fails. They are uncertain about what to do or who to work with to turn things around. The person who can explain why the client has the problems that harm their results will grab their attention. Following that explanation, a highly skilled salesperson will diagnose the root cause of the problem and what the client will need to do to improve their results. Having practiced this for years, you will find that, at some point, you can immediately recognize the pattern that allows you to assess the scenario in a blink of an eye. The education you develop over hundreds of meetings with your clients adds up, making you a sort of expert in the different client scenarios you encounter over time. Modern StorytellingThere are a lot of people who believe the stories salespeople tell should be about their company and all the ways they have helped their clients. While these stories are sometimes helpful, modern storytelling is about the external environment and its impact on the client's business. It also tells a story about what works now, what doesn't, and why. These stories depend on business acumen and a perspective that helps clients learn and understand how to turn things around. One way to think about your stories is that you are making sense of your clients’ world and how to best address their challenges. These stories carry more weight than some of the legacy stories about your company and your solutions. NegotiatingIn many deals, improving your sales skills will require you to negotiate with your contacts, even the nice ones who must do right by their company and ask for a discount or concession. When you are new to sales, you might fear that pushing back will cause you to lose deals. By improving your skills over time, you will learn to ask for something valuable in exchange for whatever you give your new client. Like all the skills here, the only way to acquire them is to practice. Selling isn't something that you can learn from books alone. Reading can help you get started, but you need to practice to improve your skills. ![]() |
Tags: sales advice, Sales Strategies, sales ideas
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Tags: Sales Tips, senior market news, Sales Leads, Incentives, sales ideas, YouTube
PSM YouTube: Getting Started in Medicare Sales
Posted by www.psmbrokerage.com Admin on Fri, Jan 14, 2022 @ 01:59 PM
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Tags: Sales Tips, senior market news, Medicare Advantage, Medicare Supplement, Medicare News, Sales Leads, Part D, Incentives, sales ideas, YouTube
10 Commitments You Must Gain to Win Deals
Posted by www.psmbrokerage.com Admin on Tue, Jan 19, 2021 @ 02:51 PM
10 Commitments You Must Gain to Win Deals
Source: https://thesalesblog.com/2014/02/15/10-commitments-you-must-gain-to-win-deals/ ![]() |
Tags: closing sales, Sales Strategies, sales ideas
How to recruit Agents to Your Downline and Grow Your Business
Posted by www.psmbrokerage.com Admin on Mon, Apr 27, 2020 @ 01:39 PM

How to recruit Agents to Your Downline
& Grow Your Business
Are you ready to hire agents to your downline? It’s a big question. If you haven't been down that road yet, in time you will.
An angel on one shoulder says "It's time to grow and start hiring agents to work for you. You can do this."
And the devil on the other shoulder says "Who are you to think anyone would want to work for you? Your doing fine just the way things are, why risk it?"
How do you know when it's the right time? What are some pitfalls you should be aware of?
One things for sure, adding agents to your downline can provide additional income with far less work than if you sold the same policies on your own.
If you are a successful agent, and can teach others the process you’ve used to be successful, then recruiting agents to your downline may be a good way to grow your business.
Section Links
⍟ What do you have to offer agents?
⍟ What is your company culture?
⍟ What to look for when recruiting agents?
⍟ Hire young agents and train them for success
⍟ Where to find new agents
What do you have to offer agents?
Before you make a decision to add agents to your downline, you have to be honest with yourself and your capabilities. Agents have to have a reason to work with you.
If you can’t show that you are successful and provide a framework they can follow to help them be successful, then why would an agent work with you?
You will need to decide what you would provide your agents. How will they be compensated? Would you train them, offer office space to work in?
Will you offer leads and provide bonuses?
You will be managing these agents and must have a clear vision of how they could become successful and a plan on how to help them get there.
When agents that work with you become successful, you become successful, so it is in your best interest to put every effort into helping them get there.
It’s essential that you have the ability to mentor your agents. You will need the relevant product and sales experience as well as the soft skills required to communicate effectively with your agents in order to help them grow.
What is your company culture?
It’s important to clearly communicate the advantages and opportunities they will have when working with you. It’s equally important to share the values, goals and attitude that you represent as a company.
If someone has what it takes to be a successful insurance agent, but has values and goals that are in conflict to yours, then that relationship just won’t last.
Even worse. If an agent working under you upsets a client because they were acting in a way not consistent with your company’s values, then you could find yourself connected to a situation that doesn’t represent who you are.
That type of bad press can wreak havoc on your reputation, and you should do everything in your power to prevent it from happening
Having agents working with you could be a blessing or a curse, depending on the individual.
Searching out agents that share your values and goals will help ensure that the business you grow is a successful and sustainable one.
What to look for when recruiting agents?
For starters, you have to know what you want your agents to be selling. Do you want them to sell Medicare Supplements, Life Insurance, Medicare Advantage, Final Expense?
For instance, if you sell Medicare supplement plans and you know an agent who has been selling final expense, then they likely have customers that are also in the market for Medicare supplement plans.
By teaching them what’s required to sell Medicare supplements, they could then offer those products to their existing clients, making you and your agents additional income.
Do you want someone to be licensed to sell a specific type of insurance, or are you willing to help them get licensed?
You can find someone experienced in a similar market like described above, or a young promising recruit with no experience at all. It all comes back to what you want from that person, and what level of training you can provide.
Remember, only about 10% of new insurance agents make it through their first 5 years. If you can provide support that can improve those odds, then you have a chance to attract agents and benefit from helping them become successful.

Hire young agents and train them for success
Don't just rely on job postings. People are often very different in the workplace than they are in an interview.
Your best employees will likely come as recommendation from an associate or someone you run into in public that just fells like a good candidate.
I've heard many people mention that they've hired people in various sales related jobs that they encounter throughout their day.
If you find yourself in a restaurant having a conversation with a friendly, young, outgoing, waiter or waitress that seems to really care about the service they provide, I'm willing to bet they won't be there for long.
An individual like that will likely be hired fairly quickly because of the potential that is just simmering under of the surface of that youthful smile.
These hires can often be some of the best you could ask for.
Shaping someone with potential into the perfect employee is much more likely, and profitable, than finding one through job postings.
Where to find new agents
The idea is to get the word out on multiple platforms. Don’t just pick one or 2. Make a serious effort to reach as many possible candidates as you can.
Recommendations - The best place to find new employees is by asking friends and associates if they know anyone that fits the template of what you are looking for. This type of recommendation is one of the best source of new hires.
Working Sales People - Another great source of sales employees are those working sales persons that you run into every day. Be ready with a business card and an elevator pitch for potential employees. If you meet a spunky young salesperson with great potential, you want to be able to move quickly before someone else does.
Colleges & Universities - College placement departments are very willing to work with local businesses to get their students real world experience before they graduate. You can give them an idea what you’re looking for and they will find the right students for you.
LinkedIn - Great for finding agents in similar fields. LinkedIn allows you to be very specific in what you’re looking for.
Social Media - Create a Post letting your connections know what you are looking for and ask them to pass it along. This is the easiest and often one of the most successful ways of recruiting. And it’s free. Unless, of course you wish to offer something in return.
Job boards - A little more expensive but still one of the best ways to find recruits who are actively looking.
Events/Conferences - A great way to locate professionals in a specific industry. People at conferences or other similar events are a captive audience. Introduce yourself to some and let them know what you’re trying to achieve. Bring flyers or postcards and get them in front of as many people as possible.
These are just a few options, but I think you get the idea.
If you feel you have a template for successful and you like the idea of building a network of agents you can help become more successful, then you might be ready to give it a try.
Just remember to focus on quality, not quantity, and before long you could be expanding your company to a level you never would’ve imagined just a couple of years ago.
Additional Resources:
7 Ways To Grow Your Insurance Business
How To Sell Medicare Advantage Plans
What Are The Benefits Of Working With An Insurance FMO?
Social Media Strategy For Insurance Agents
Tags: Insurance Agents, sales ideas
While the challenges are great, so are the opportunities
Posted by www.psmbrokerage.com Admin on Tue, Mar 31, 2020 @ 01:53 PM
While the challenges are great, so are the opportunities |