Help make a difference in the lives of your clients by following these life insurance sales tips.
It’s no secret: People don’t like to talk about after-life planning. Yet life insurance remains one of the most important protections available for loved ones left behind. Of course, it’s not easy to sell. If this product is something that’s part of your offering, here are some life insurance sales tips to help you provide your clients with the after-life care they and their families deserve.
What not to do
Before we get to the life insurance sales tips, it might be helpful to identify some sales tactics you should not employ when selling life insurance.
Life insurance is a sensitive subject. People don’t like the idea of paying for a thing they can’t see or touch, let alone something that only goes into effect after they die. Pushing a sale will come across as coarse and perhaps even rude.
2. Don’t use guilt to make a sale
Even if it works, the client will probably realize it at some point and feel taken advantage of. There are plenty of other life insurance sales tips that will help you close without leaving someone with negative feelings.
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3. Don’t overwhelm your clients
There are many different types of life insurance, but your client doesn’t need to know about all of them. Focus on a few that might be right or them.
4 Tips every life insurance salesperson needs to know
1. Identify the need
Before you can sell someone life insurance, you have to identify what exactly they need. Perhaps someone has a policy through their employer already and might only need a supplemental plan. Or maybe term life insurance is the best option for your client. Whatever the case, if you don’t know what your client needs, you can’t effectively sell them the right product, which likely means you won’t end up selling them anything at all.
2. Ask questions
How do you identify the need? By asking questions. But you don’t want to ask just any questions; they should speak to your client’s emotions. Instead of asking, “Do you have a life insurance policy in place?” ask, “Have you thought about how your family would pay off your mortgage should something happen to you?” The client immediately thinks of his family and the position they’d be in, which provokes emotion.
Continue your questions by following the client’s answers. If your client says, “No, I haven’t thought about that,” the logical next question is, “Well, what would their options be?” The idea here is to lead them to the conclusion that life insurance is, in fact, in their best interest. If they don’t need life insurance, you’ll find the line of questioning ends quickly enough. However, if they do, you want it to be their decision. No one likes to be sold to, especially when it comes to after-life planning.
Asking empathic questions isn’t the same as inducing guilt. You are simply getting your client to think about people who mean something to them. You’re not telling them what they should or shouldn’t do, or describing traumatic scenarios that might occur if they don’t purchase life insurance.
3. Demonstrate affordability
Showing your clients they can afford your product is one of the most valuable life insurance sales tips you can follow. Whether or not you speak to the emotions of your client, many of them will initially decline a life insurance policy on the basis that it just isn’t affordable right now. This is where your role as an advisor comes in more than your role as a salesperson.
Review the other policies your client has. Perhaps they can increase a deductible somewhere. Or maybe they can transfer, say, their homeowner’s and auto insurance to the company offering the life insurance, resulting in a discount. However, you advise them, make sure that your recommendations are truly in their best interest.
4. Take ‘no’ for an answer; follow up
If you’ve tried all your life insurance sales tips and none of them work, accept “no” as an answer. Again, no one likes to be sold to or told what to do. If a client feels pressured to buy life insurance, they will immediately become skeptical of your motives.
Of course, a declined offer doesn’t mean you shouldn’t follow up. Since life insurance doesn’t provide an immediate benefit to the insured, clients will often want time to think over the financial implications of the purchase. Give them reasonable time to do so, then check in and see if they’ve come to any conclusions. You might be surprised to find out how many decide to make the investment.
Never miss a follow-up! Schedule a free demo and to see how we can help you keep in touch with all your prospects.
Have you sold life insurance before? What advice would you give to new or struggling salespeople? Tell us your thoughts in the comments below.