How to More Effectively Sell Insurance in Today’s Economy

In the current economy, the pressure is really on. It’s not enough to just sell the product – you want your sales people to be best equipped to build the relationships that will differentiate themselves, and therefore the brand. To drive consistent sales results, especially now, requires knowing your individual sales people’s selling strengths and weaknesses: who will be good at the initial contact of a new client, asking the investigative questions to build the relationship, presenting the product, or dealing with objections.

The Clark-Mortenson Agency is one of the largest independently owned insurance agencies in northern New England. Since 1877, our company has worked hard to develop its strong reputation and brand recognition. However, with increasing economic pressures, we realized that we needed to maximize the effectiveness of the sales team.

We had established a number of new services, including compliance and HR assistance, online resources for our top clients, and a seminar series, just to name a few. Still, we needed a better way to get in front of prospects and elevate our closing ratio.

The sales team includes 10 outside producers and four inside salespeople who approach each sale as a collaborative effort. We take a holistic approach to solving a client’s needs rather than focusing on just one aspect of insurance or benefits.

Clark-Mortenson Agency now incorporates customer focused selling into its sales training across the company. In so doing, we have discovered a way to improve individual performance, increase sales team productivity, and create predictable, sustainable sales results and help our people grow professionally.

I have been in this industry for 30 years and I have seen almost every “new way” to sell. This time, we turned to data-based assessment tools paired with individualized sales training from PI Worldwide. Every one of us completed an assessment, which gave each producer’s current strengths and areas of growth, which were then addressed with a training course. Most important for me as the sales manager, I learned the areas where my producers need help.

We now have objective data on our sales people’s skills, affirming what management already suspected: our sales style was more focused on the products than the customer.

I won’t kid you, changing long established patterns did not happen overnight. However, as we began to hone the skills we had learned, we began to see improvement in our sales process and in actual sales.

Bottom line, we learned a better way to sell. The reaction from our prospects has been noticeable in the questions they ask and in the increase in our close ratio. An unintended, but welcome, consequence has been better retention.

We realize that building relationships and approaching selling from the customer’s perspective is the best way to stay competitive right now. We started focusing on the client’s world, not our own. In our first interaction with a prospect we stopped spewing all the wonderful things we could do for the client. We started listening better to what the client needed first and then tailoring a solution, as opposed to starting the conversation with why we were the best choice for the client. This sounds pretty rudimentary, but when we began to truly examine how we sold, we found that we needed to change basic behaviors.

Our teams also learned to ask the investigative questions – what features were the customers most interested in? What did they really want from the products? Did the salespeople provide those things? Knowing why we make a sale has become just as important as making the sale because that is how we will be able to repeat success.

Individual needs and personal style are the most underestimated dimensions of the selling process. Clark-Mortenson Agency has increased each salesperson’s self-awareness of their behaviors with clients. This in turn has allowed our managers to better manage and place people in positions to drive sales success.

Clark-Mortenson Agency used PI Worldwide, a Massachusetts-based global consulting company specializing in leadership development and sales performance development. It offers behavioral assessment, sales assessment and sales training to help organizations of all sizes. The Predictive Index, SSAT (Selling Skills Assessment Tool) and Customer-Focused Selling (CFS) are copyright protected by Praendex Incorporated, the parent company of PI Worldwide. Visit www.piworldwide.com.