How to Be a Great Life Insurance Producer
- Use criticism to your advantage
- Build on your existing client base
- Convey value
- Share the risks
- Know how valuable your time is
- Be savvy on the close
- Know when to walk away
To be a great life insurance producer, you need a storehouse of satisfied customers who tell their family and friends how wonderful you are.
To build that storehouse, you need a ton of qualified leads.
It’s all a numbers game.
So just how do you build those numbers in your favor?
We’ve been in the trenches for years, figuring out how to prospect with the best of ‘em, so here’s some prospecting advice from our team that you can use to swing the numbers in your favor.
Be a Great Life Insurance Producer
1. Use Criticism to Your Advantage
Have you ever experienced the worst criticism?
Like someone telling you life insurance salespeople are crooks?
Disarm this type of prospect with sympathy, and say something like, “It sounds like you’ve had some really bad experiences over the years. Give me a chance to work with you and provide a different experience.”
2. Build on Your Existing Client Base
Every life insurance producer knows that your existing clients are more valuable (and cost you less) than acquiring new ones. But what are you doing to capitalize on this gold mine?
Perhaps a client stopped working with you a few years back. Now, they might be ready to return. Maybe their needs changed or they now see the value in life insurance.
If you don’t have a plan for reaching out to these clients, you won’t get more value from them.
3. Convey Value
It’s hard to compete on price – especially with the likes of some offbeat carriers, or even a competitor down the street – but you can set yourself apart by providing value.
That’s something low-ball rate carriers can’t offer prospects. If you’re going to provide value, you have to educate prospects on life insurance products and their benefits.
4. Share the Risks
If prospects don’t understand the risks of going without life insurance, you won’t convince them to buy.
They won’t be ready to hear your quote if they don’t first understand what their insurance needs are and what will happen if they go without.
Give real-life examples to drive the point home and help prospects relate the situation to their own life.
5. Know How Valuable Your Time Is
Every year, the average life insurance producer will lose approximately 10% of their business. As a result, you need to focus a portion of your time on getting new business to replace the loss.
Your time is valuable, so don’t waste it on prospects that aren’t likely to buy. Instead, focus your efforts on ones that are highly qualified and you’ll quickly gain back the clients you lose to attrition.
6. Be Savvy on the Close
You have to know when to show your prospect that she is wrong. Even if it means providing a higher quote than the prospect is currently paying.
By showing the prospect what she really needs, you’ll be providing value, and she’ll appreciate the honesty – and more importantly, what you bring to the table.
7. Know When to Walk Away
Sometimes, you’ll lose a client to a competitor who offers a lower price for less coverage.
You need to know when to walk away from the prospect – if he’s intent on choosing an agent based on price – and then later on, when he realizes that you were providing sound life insurance advice, he’ll come back.
You CAN Be a Great Life Insurance Producer
Use this expert prospecting advice to kill it when it comes to prospecting, selling and placing life insurance cases. We’ve been there, and encountered it all. These prospecting tips will help you seal more deals, and turn leads into clients.
Updated 5/21
