The Insurance Selling Process

​Selling is part of life, it is a process that occurs around us both in our personal and professional environments.
The selling process is simple in nature but can appear to be complex.
There is a salesperson in each and everyone of us, while we might not reflect on it, we have been pitching and selling for a long time and it dates back to our childhood.
The truth, kids are the best at it, they always close.
Selling is both a science and an art.
Science: There is a specific process that is thorough and methodical, there are multiple steps that take place and when carefully executed the results just happen.
Art: Not everyone can sell and pitch a product and service, there is a certain personality, finesse and touch that is required to make it happen.
Some people can simply evolve to this level others just don't at least that is true in professional sales, in personal lives we continue to excel.
Selling is a profession, not a talent or a gift.
Selling requires certain innate attributes, such as the ability to emphasize and drive to success.
Professional sales techniques must be used effectively in the earlier phases of the sale, in order to set up the close.
What one is selling has a real value for the customer.
Even though someone understands the sales process, they can always gain a lot by studying and working with other successful sales professionals to deepen and advance their understanding.
There is a constant structure to selling and a professional salesperson must dedicate himself or herself to mastering it.
Their self confidence can be an asset or drawback as it can either attract customers in and makes them want to buy or create doubt and prevent deals.
Now, let's take a close look at the sales process and define the various steps regardless of product of services.
Today, we will address step 1:
Finding the customers or clients: AKA, marketing, prospecting and canvasing
This step is vital: no customers, no sales period.
Marketing is complex in its own, but in simple words, it is the understanding of the market, defining the geographical target areas, demographic trends, behaviors and how to make in pact through branding and various media tactics and strategies.
Prospecting and canvasing:
The process of which a marketer, salesperson or producer develops the customer base through grass root efforts.
A sales professional must set attainable goals,written, specific, thoroughly planned and most importantly time bound.
They must be prepared as my best friend says" Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance" territory and time management are the core of it all.
Scheduling outreach properly and maximizing time is a priority, a knowledgeable seasoned sales professional will take the time to strategically pre-schedule various visits around a particular zip code or region in a cluster in order to minimize time travel time and maximize pitch opportunities.
Always going to the source, a key technique is to find a way to pitch to decision makers and not intermediary 3 rd parties.
I sometimes find it interesting e.g. someone trying to pitch a claims program yet they reach out to the head of sales.
They might thing that by doing so, the latter will relay the message to the proper party but in fact, the latter may not see a priority to the pitch and may delay or even prevent the connection from happening.
A better way would be to immediately seek audience with the head of operations.
An insurance producer must always ask for all decision makers to attend the pitch, caregivers, family members etc...
Time is of the essence in sales, all organizations set daily, weekly and monthly goals and planning properly both time and territory will ensure that those targets and goals are met.