10 Questions - Please review prior to our meeting

I will be meeting with each Field Representative over the next two weeks to review our agency goals. We will discuss the process to establish your individual 2012 goals and timeline.



Here are 10 questions designed to help you get on track.

1. What goals did you accomplish in the first quarter of 2012?
2. Why are these goals significant?
3. How do they make you feel?
4. What goals did you not achieve that you had intended to?
5. What changes do you need to make to achieve them?
6. In what area(s) do you need coaching or training?
7. For the next 90 days, what further progress can you make toward your 90-day goals?
8. What are your new 90-day goals?
9. What are you resisting doing?
10. How can you use your personal strengths to accomplish three needed actions each week to achieve your 90-day goals?

The ‘Perfect’ Insurance Sales Pro

Every new or seasoned insurance professional has the image of a "perfect salesperson" in mind. The image is of someone who consistently achieves high sales and has a large base of loyal clients who liberally refer business.

The most important trait of the perfect sales professional is the ability to form genuine, close relationships with clients, relationships that result in repeat business and referrals. These sales professionals prove to be an invaluable addition to any insurance sales team.

Those who are especially good at forging client relationships tend to appear to their clients not so much as a “salesperson” but rather a sales consultant. They make it their business to learn as much as they can about a client’s business. And what they cannot learn from their research, they learn at an initial meeting by asking all the right questions about a prospect’s financial needs. They go the extra mile by spending time getting to know their clients and prospects, and it makes all the difference. The extra 30 minutes spent learning about a client or prospect carries a tremendous ROI.

One way insurance sales professionals build relationships with clients is by presenting their insurance products as a solution to a client’s problem. By presenting the insurance product that is the best available solution to a client’s individual needs, a sales professional can show his attentiveness to the client’s problem. The insurance sales professional answers all of the client’s questions and offers useful information, even if it is not directly related to the sale.

After the sale, this sales professional maintains contact with the client, offering the same kind of consulting help they did during the sale. Clients are generally loyal to such a sales professional—not because the insurance products are superior or the financial solutions are cheaper relative to the competition but because they possess excellent client-relations skills, problem-solving abilities and the willingness to spend time on a client, even if it doesn’t directly result in a sale.

Good client relationships turn into loyalty. Loyalty turns into repeat business and referrals.

Free Online Home Inventory for Homeowner Insurance

HomeZada announces a new FREE subscription for homeowners to create a home inventory securely online. Insurance companies recommend that homeowners document their possessions and keep these records current and safely stored away from the home in case of disaster. HomeZada provides a FREE integrated online and a mobile solution for a home inventory.

“HomeZada is quick and simple in creating a home inventory through a predictive process that eliminates data entry and focusing on a photo based approach with either a digital camera or iPhone or Android apps. A few key tags to the photos that are securely stored in the cloud and people have a well-documented home inventory in no time at all,” said Elizabeth Dodson, co-founder.

With the recent rise in natural disasters and extreme weather causing billions in property damage, various government agencies are educating the public on the need to have family emergency preparedness plans in place. These family plans, documents, and contacts are securely saved in HomeZada’s cloud solution where they are accessible by multiple family members anywhere via computer or mobile phone.

Most homeowners don’t know the value of their possessions; therefore they may be significantly under-insured. HomeZada provides multiple dashboards to quickly see the value of possessions by key categories or by room. People can instantly print a home inventory PDF and have a deeper discussion with their insurance company about the right amount of coverage for their contents.

The new FREE Essentials package includes many other features to manage a home including over 150 maintenance and landscaping best practice checklists. These home maintenance alerts are automatically presented by month or season in HomeZada’s news and alerts page which keeps people well informed on key maintenance tasks around the home.

In addition, the Essentials package includes the ability to save important property documents online such as insurance policies, mortgage documents, property taxes, appraisals, remodeling plans and permits. There is also a contacts directory to keep track of emergency contacts and other regular home services providers where everyone in the family can access the central online directory.

Why people buy life insurance

As you meet with new prospects and conduct client reviews over the next month, try using this basic approach to life insurance coverage. You may be surprised at what you uncover.

I am often asked how to decide on what to sell a prospective client. Believe it or not this comes from even the veteran agents. There are so many companies with so many products, we'd have to hire additional support staff just to keep up with the changes.

But who I am kidding, additional support staff would take away from our commission, right? We’ll save that argument for another blog article.

So when that person sitting in front of you, worried if you are going to force them to buy something like the last guy, asks you what you think they need, the basic question you need to ask the prospect is this: “Well, are you in protection mode or are you in giving mode?”

When they look at you funny and ask what you mean, explain that people buy life insurance for one of two reasons.

Reason one: People buy life insurance because they are looking for a way to protect the people and the things that they love. Hopefully, they love their spouse, their children and anyone else using the household income. They love them enough to provide money in case of an untimely death.

Perhaps they love their home so much that they want it paid off and protected from having to be sold. Business owners may love their shop so dearly that they want to protect it from having to be liquidated. They may also want to protect some of the key people in that business, so if they die, it won’t be disastrous to the company.

Those wealthy folks challenged with the estate tax want to protect their assets from going to Uncle Sam.

Address your prospect again. “You may be in protection mode.”

Reason two: People buy life insurance to give to the things and the people that they love. But now the kids are grown, the house is close to being paid off, the business debt is very little — the need to find fulfillment through giving sets in.

People may want to leave a legacy to their church or favorite charity. Perhaps they want to set up a trust fund for their children or grandchildren. You see, we exist in a time of abundance. People have money, but are happier if they can do something for the ones they love.

Money magazine’s survey on money and happiness found that if people make charitable contributions on a regular basis, they are happier, exude confidence and are more content than those that do not. They are in giving mode.

As you meet with new prospects and conduct client reviews over the next month, try using this basic approach to life insurance coverage. You may be surprised at what you uncover. Protection mode or giving mode: Why people buy life insurance.