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A quick look at your existing book will tell you which group you belong to. How many of your clients have flood and umbrella coverage?
Enter the chicken. She knows she can produce only one egg at time and therefore doesn't try for an entire year of production in one sitting. The same is true of you. Assume for a moment that clients forget everything you teach them. It would stand to reason that one discussion at time of sale or at time of renewal, one single attempt to inform and educate, would not be of lasting value. Since we already know that most clients learn about their insurance program only after a claim ("what does 'deductible' mean?"), let's proceed down the path of forgetfulness.
Our strategy for combating this condition is a logical one: If clients are forgetful, let's keep reminding them. Not by pestering them for more business but by chickening them with creative, visible, and effective mailings, newsletters, e-mails, seminars, and the like that inform and educate. Our goal here is not to tell clients what to buy, but to tell them why to buy. Set up a program that "lays one out there" on a monthly basis, and your clients will be thinking about their insurance program and their needs once a month.
"The client is ignorant or apathetic." Want to be a hero, save the world, and sleep well? Find these clients and work with them. These poor folks are the way they are for one reason only: No one has ever taken the time to assess their needs and teach them how an insurance program should be designed to work. They know they have insurance, but they don't know what they have or why they have it. Worse yet, they are completely unaware of what they don't have and why they might need it.
Wait, it can get even worse-many clients do not even know who their agent or company is. You know them when you meet them-they are the people who squint when they speak with you. They are guarded and skeptical. They view insurance as a necessary evil and believe everything bad that is written about us. You are insurance salesman Ned in "Groundhog Day," and they cross the figurative street when they see you coming. They trust the fact that you can do the insurance thing . it's you they don't trust.
They also represent the vast majority of insurance buyers in the market today. That's bad news for those who want to quote policies and sell price. But it's great news for chickens. These clients can and will learn to trust you and your recommendations; however, they will do so only after multiple demonstrations of your trustworthiness over time. After being educated by you, they will prefer to make a value buy rather than a price buy because this group inherently knows that you get what you pay for. They have been conditioned to believe that all agents are the same, all policies are the same, and that spot pricing is the only variable. They are this way because selling habits and buying practices have taught them to be this way.
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