In a sales interview, the interview goes through a process and in life insurance selling, the process is usually stretched over to more than one meeting. The stages in an interview can be classified as

Stages in a Sales Interview

• The hand-shake
• Building professional trust
• Building emotional trust
• Conduct of a needs analysis
• Financial Planning
• Presenting a Solution
• Close

Distinction between the Selling Stage and the Negotiating Stage

Of the 7 stages of the sales interview, the first 4 belong to the category “Selling”, while the last 3 belong to the category “Negotiating”. This distinction should be kept in mind while conducting a sales interview. While “selling” one should not negotiate. And while negotiating one should not go back to selling.

Not being able to maintain this distinction and confusing the two leads to a lot of objections – mostly Insincere Objections. For example during the stage of selling you are trying to sell yourself and your company, not your products. If you attempt to sell products at this stage, the customer’s mind is not fully in a position to appreciate why he should buy the product you are offering. The result is a confusion in the prospect’s mind and many objections that you may have to face.

Let us say that you have a retirement plan that in your opinion is suitable to the prospect. During the selling stage you should not introduce the retirement plan to the prospect, before selling yourself and your company. The prospect has not had the time to realize that he needs a retirement plan, and the thought first occurred to him or her when you introduced the plan. An unprepared mind will only resist.

Get the Customer’s Mind Inside the Shop First

Many years ago, the large departmental stores had a practice of having a sales person at the store entrance to welcome all customers with a smile, (today they have stern looking security persons). The sales person was trained to ask the question: May I help you?, while welcoming the customer into the store. Almost all customers who entered the store would refuse to take the sales person’s help. Why? The sales person was polite, may be cheerful, and was offering free assistance. Going by logic and reasoning, many customers should have taken the sales person’s help at least to know where a particular item is kept in a large store. But none of them did. Why?

The reason is that the customer’s mind was not focused on the task of buying from the store. The customer’s mind was on something else, may the problem of finding parking space, may be a TV show he or she was watching before coming to the store. Or may be the customer’s mind was just blank. Suddenly the customer is confronted with a seemingly trial close question he was least expecting: May I help you? In the resulting confusion the customer just said: No.

Now suppose, after say 15 or 20 minutes, the same customer having put all his or her purchases in a trolley and heads towards the cash counter for payment. On the way the customer suddenly remembers that he needed toothpaste. Now the customer is looking for the rack which has the toothpastes. A sales person approaches the customer and asks the customer: Sir, May I help you? What would the response of the customer be?

You got it right. The customer would want to know where the toothpastes are stacked. The sales person would help the customer reach the correct rack and the sales is closed.

What was the difference between the situation when the May I help you question was asked at the entrance and when it was asked after the customer spent 15 or 20 minutes in the store?

Prepare the Customer’s Mind to Focus on Long Term Planning

In the first case the customer’s mind was not prepared to receive a trial close question and in the second instance, the customer’s mind was prepared to receive a trial close question. In the second instance the customer’s mind was prepared to receive the question, negotiate a variety of toothpaste offers, make up his or her mind on which to buy and finally buy the desired toothpaste. The customer’s mind was prepared because he or she spent 15 to 20 minutes only thinking about what to buy. The customer’s mind was so to say, INSIDE THE SHOP.

When we sell life insurance we too should get our customer’s mind inside the shop first, before attempting to sell a product. On such an important decision as planning for the protection of family members and saving for long term financial needs, we should not assume that the customer is focused enough from the very beginning of the interview. It takes time.

In the selling stage we should therefore work to get the customer’s mind inside the shop. This is done by building a relationship, by discussing the likely long term needs, show casing your past experience as well as that of the company that you represent, and highlighting the importance of life insurance. When discussions on these lines are conducted for at least 30 minutes your customer’s mind comes into the shop. Your selling activity gets over once you judge that the customer’s mind is inside the shop. This is a matter of judgement – you have to judge that the customer’s mind is inside the shop. It may take 15 minutes or 30 minutes or even more. It may require a few visits.

The Negotiating Stage of a Sales Interview

Now you have to negotiate a financial plan and a possible solution. As a good negotiating technique, you should involve the customer. Since you have by now identified the customer’s financial needs, help the customer to conclude on long term and short term needs. Help the customer to come to a decision on which financial product (not necessarily life insurance) is most suitable for each of the needs identified. Help the customer to identify long term financial needs. Ask the customer to do asset-liability matching. That is for a need that is likely to arise after 15 years, he or she needs a product that will mature in 15 years, not earlier or later. In the negotiating stage you are more of an assistant to the customer, helping him or her with all the necessary information required for the customer to come to a knowledgeable and informed decision.

In the negotiating stage, do not try to sell. You have already sold. Now you should be focused on completing the sale as agreed upon earlier. Importantly do not bring up any new point during the negotiating stage. The customer will get confused and raise many objections.

Distinguish between Selling and Negotiating Stages in your Process

Clearly distinguishing between the “Selling” stage and the “Negotiating” stage and strictly keeping within the boundaries in both stages will go a long way in reducing the number and intensity of objections. Your prospect will develop professional and emotional trust in you and you will proceed to close without too many resistances. The added advantage of the process identified in this article is that your ticket size will be much more than you would have got, had you not followed this process.

Selling life insurance is a process. Standardize it and master it.