Excuse Me, Were You Listening?

One of the most important skills of an insurance agent is to listen and pay attention to what the client wants and needs, not selling them your favorite product. After over 25 years of training agents with product knowledge, sales techniques, networking, properly using listening skills, focus on listening is by far the toughest for most to learn. The average insurance agent says they listen but do they really listen. My experience is they don’t listen thoroughly.

Here is a great exercise I have used with GEICO and Assurant agents in the past. Watch this short video of young people passing a basketball.  Count how many times the team in white shirts passes the basketball.  Go ahead, watch the video. Did you get it right? Or did you miss an important component? Listening takes a lot of practice, focus and most of all not following the daily distractions. In our high tech world of cell phones, emails, text messages, computers, flat screen TVs, music blasting and digital images, it has become more difficult than ever to sit in a public place and really listen to a client’s wants and needs, but it has to happen.

Here is a little exercise I have used to train call center insurance agents and improve their listening skills. I would have them go to a crowded coffee shop or restaurant. Make sure there are plenty of distractions. Loud conversations, background music, TVs playing, cell phone conversations, the works. Then have the insurance agent to sit and focus on some one’s conversation. Not staring, don’t be a stalker or a creeper, but really listening to their conversation that is not directed at them personally. The more they can pick up, the better listener the agent will become. If you can focus on a single conversation in the middle of numerous distractions, then next time the insurance agent is on the phone or has an opportunity to sit down with a client with hardly any distractions the agent will pay closer attention to detail.

Any insurance agent that masters the skill of listening will always be a top producer. The agent makes more sales, gets more referrals and has better persistency than an average or below average insurance agent. Don’t spend all of your time working on sales skills and closing techniques, work on your listening skills to improve your insurance sales.