Wednesday, 25 February 2009

Insurance Sales Training

Quality insurance sales training is one of the most important aspects of keeping an insurance business profitable and creating a good name for yourself within the community you serve. There are several key components of quality insurance sales training, including needs analysis, features and benefits, objection handling, and closing skills. In addition to these common things, however, a good insurance sales training program will teach the prospective insurance salesperson how to reach out to the customer and build trust.
The first four components of insurance sales training is textbook sort of stuff. A prospective insurance salesperson will need to learn how to evaluate the needs of a potential client. Any insurance sales training class or manual should place this skill right out front. This means imparting to the prospective insurance salesperson the knowledge of how to figure out what a potential client needs. In order to do this, the insurance salesperson needs to figure out things like how much, if any property does the potential client own, and does that client own or rent his or her residence. The family situation must be taken into account as well the insurance salesperson will need to know if anyone depends financially upon the potential client. While each case in particular is pretty standard, being able to look at all the needs of a potential client, as a whole, can take some time and training.
Features and benefits is closely related to needs analysis. Insurance sales training should include as part of the curriculum, how to quickly and accurately identify a policy that will fit best with the potential client. It should be a close fit for your potential client, but perhaps most importantly, the insurance salesperson should be able to identify the right policy without looking through a bunch of manuals or giving the client any reason to doubt the insurance salesperson’s knowledge or ability.
This leads into the next key component of insurance sales training, which is objection handling. If the insurance salesperson has quickly and accurately identified a policy that will fit the potential client, a couple of things will result from that. First of all, the fact that the insurance salesperson is quick and accurate will remove some doubts and objections all on its own. Secondly, having identified the right policy will also remove objections, since it should include everything the potential client is looking for. Of course, there may still be objections, but a quality insurance sales training program will prepare the insurance salesperson to deal with all sorts of objections in from many different types of people in many different situations.
Once all the objections are handled, it is time to close the deal. Learning to close the deal is, obviously, a very important thing, as all types of sales and a quality insurance sales training program will recognize this. If you don’t learn how to close the deal, then learning all the other steps is a waste of time. All good insurance sales training programs will spend a good amount of time teaching potential insurance salespeople how to close a deal effectively.
There is one other element that successful insurance salespeople have that should be included in a high quality insurance training program. That is the skill of building a trust and rapport with the potential client. This is a process that supersedes all the other processes, happening while all the other steps are taking place. If an insurance salesperson builds up a trust and positive rapport with a client, it makes all the other steps just that much easier. For example, needs analysis is easier if the potential client will open up and talk about his or her lifestyle and concerns. Connecting personally with clients is one of the most important things an insurance salesperson can learn in an insurance sales training program

Insurance Selling Forecast

People often buy home insurance or car insurance off the internet. When they started doing so, it was predicted that insurance agents would be put out of business. With the appearance of ads and websites for life and health insurance quotes, many thought doomsday was fast approaching. Insurance companies that thought they could bypass agents, were burned when producers got angry and stopped selling their products. If anything the internet had enhanced insurance sales, by making a higher public awareness of the need for it.
Clients buying the lowest quoted policy, especially with auto insurance, started getting burned. They learned that you get what you pay for. No service or poor service added to wide loopholes at claims time switched them back to using insurance agents. Any good agent worth staying in the business should easily be able to replace cookie cutter coverage where an agent was never involved. In fact, there are quite a number of insurance sales representatives making a high percentage of their income by concentrating of these policyholder.
The Income of Agents
You would think that with more and more life insurance selling agents entering the financial planning arena, income of insurance sales representatives would start increasing at a rapid pace. Unfortunately that is not true. To develop the immense study information required takes years. In addition, you would want to obtain a couple credibility designations behind your work, They are typically obtaining by continuing education. The average life insurance selling rep has an income similar to a typical workplace worker. Only 10% or the reps eventually earn a high middle class or higher income. With the income predicted to increase about 15 % in the next few years, probably lower that the rate of inflation.
The Quantity of Agents
The Bureau of Labor Statistics proposes the work force of insurance sales representatives will increase 13% during the next few years. Since that will remain very close to the predicted population increase, the ratio of agents to population will barely change. Too bad the insurance sales work force does not decrease 30% in the near future. While there is an over abundance of agents, there is no shortage of prospects. The mid to high middle class is being over targeted. Agents must emerge forward by concentrating on writing large quantities of insurance to families currently being ignored.
What the Insurance Selling Forecast Does not Show
The agents that start to target the large quantity of prospects over the age of 60 exclusively will do very well. Seniors of today and tomorrow do not have the luxury or senior age pensions and comprehensive health care coverage compliments of unions. The retirement age population is finding many circumstances require reentering the work force. Upcoming health advances will keep them in better physical and mental condition. Planning must start now, and it must revised every few years. Agents selling to seniors are no longer just sales people but well versed consultants and planners.
Insurance Agents will not get replaced by computers.
A LOT of senior managers will get replaced. Data generated by computer programs will show how ineffective old selling techniques are. Career agents will become independent quicker, wanting a bigger share of the market commissions, and new concept policies to over their prospects

Sales Success

How you track your sales funnel and sales cycle can significantly impact your career sales success. All too often the way you track now is complicated and cumbersome when a simple system would be more efficient and effective. You need to know at a glance exactly who is in your sales funnel, where they are in your sales cycle, their contact information, the result of your last contact, and the next action on your part. And you need all that information in one place.
Sales is a hectic fast paced business. You need to know exactly who your prospects are at any given moment. When you try to track all your prospects in your day planner, a call sheet, or many CRM's you really can't access everything you want and need to know quickly and easily and everywhere you are. Using a single sheet to record all the required information in your sales funnel can make this whole tracking process much easier for you. Plus it provides everything you need in one location.
It would be great if your prospects entered and exited your sales funnel as customers in one step. But that's rarely the case. Most sales cycles are multi-step processes that occur over a period of time, sometimes a very long period of time. Here's where there's a big glitch for many sales professionals. You haven't taken the time to actually identify all the required steps for advancing the sale, and all the possible steps for advancing the sale. You're the professional. If you don't have a feasible next step option for your prospect you can't expect them to come up with one for you. Without clearly defined advancement options you don't have a sales funnel you have a sales sieve. You're unnecessarily losing potentially valuable prospects because you aren't proactively controlling the sales process.
How often do you find that months have passed without you taking the appropriate next action for individuals in your sales funnel? Probably more often than you'd like to admit. When you allow these time lags to occur you almost have to start over from ground zero because the tenuous relationship you once had has almost vanished making it even harder to move the sale to closure. When you track where everyone is in your sales cycle including your next actions you have this happen far less often. Because you're on top of the whole sales process and your sales funnel you increase your sales success.
You need to know exactly how many people you need in your sales funnel at all times to get the sales results you want. A sales tracking system helps you to improve your results because as soon as you close one prospect they drop off your sales funnel and you know you have to enter a new prospect into your funnel. You also learn your capabilities and limits. You begin to develop a feel for the flow of lead generation you can handle and that you need to create, so your sales funnel always has the right number of people entering and leaving to achieve consistent sales success

Could you sell Insurance ?

Don't confuse a positive attitude with a selling attitude if you want career sales success. You can have the most positive attitude of anyone in your field and absolutely stink when it comes to results. Don't try to talk yourself into a positive attitude get a positive attitude. You get a positive attitude from the results you achieve when you have properly developed your selling attitudes. Your selling attitudes are really habits of thought that are demonstrated through your behaviors, that lead to the actions you take and the results you either get or don't get. So, if you aren't getting the results you want it might be time to take a look at your attitudes and habits.
Develop an attitude of persistence and determination. That means that wherever you are on your journey to sales success you will persistently do what you need to do to become a top professional. You will have the determination it takes to try and try again until you discover the approach that works for you, and enables you to connect with your potential customers. A persistent and determined attitude will allow you to look at every experience as an opportunity to discover the skill you have within you to be better than you are today.
Develop an attitude of superior quality. Approach each day with the intention of performing your work to the best of your ability. This requires attention to detail. It requires being fully aware of yourself and your prospects at all times, and focusing in on the needs of those prospects. It requires understanding your prospects on a deeper level than your competition. To be the best sales person you have to focus on developing the attitudes, habits, and skills to be the best.
Your career sales success will depend on your attitude about being willing to do more. You have to be willing to do more than you're paid to do. Through the quality of the work you do, through the service you provide, to the level of understanding you have about the prospect, and to your commitment to your own growth and development. If your attitude only supports doing what's expected you'll never obtain more than average results. It isn't until your attitude supports doing more than your paid to do that you'll get better than expected results.
A selling attitude requires that you're always pleasant even when others aren't. There will be times when you are ill used and abused by prospects and customers. You can't control their attitudes and behaviors, so you have to control your own. Your pleasant selling attitude is one of the quickest ways to diffuse and disarm those with a nasty attitude. Your pleasant selling attitudes are your first opportunity to establish rapport so you get the chance to use your selling skills.

Insurance Sales Training

There are three ways customers exit your insurance sales process. At the close of the transaction the customer can be: dissatisfied, satisfied, or loyal. If you want your insurance sales training to yield the best long-term results your goal should always be to close the transaction gaining a loyal customer.
How can you close a transaction with a dissatisfied customer? Dissatisfied customers can result from:
the way the customer felt they were treated during the sales process that you’ve learned as a result of your insurance sales training,
the customer feeling misunderstood,
and/or from the way you handled the transaction itself.Dissatisfied customers aren’t happy with their experience, they tend to complain about everything, it’s unlikely they will ever do repeat business with you, they won’t ever refer anyone to you no matter how much pressure you try to exert, and they will replace you at their earliest convenience.
Hooray, you have a satisfied customer. Wrong, a satisfied customer is just as happy to do business with anyone else as they are to do business with you. A satisfied customer will do business with the person who is more convenient or has the lowest price. A satisfied customer won’t give you qualified referrals and will be reluctant to refer you to anyone.
The gold ring you are after is the loyal customer. Insurance sales training that helps you to obtain loyal customers provides a system for both current and future success. Here’s why loyal customers are so critical to your future success. A loyal customer will gladly do repeat business with you, they almost never complain and are quick to sing your praises, they will refer highly qualified prospects to you voluntarily and will have them call you, and they will tell others about you. You have to earn loyal customers, but they are definitely worth the effort.
Bottom line there are 3 ways a customer can exit your sales funnel and only one really benefits you. You want every customer to exit your sales funnel as a loyal customer. You may think that’s a really hard thing to do, but it isn’t. You should be learning through your insurance sales training that the best way to gain loyal customers is through understanding and giving the customer exactly what they want exactly the way they want it.

Insurance Sales Success

Your insurance sales manager is on a mission to build champions. Make sure his or her mission is in your best interests. It's not uncommon for insurance agents to be forced into master mind groups. I say forced because your attendance and participation is mandatory. Master minding can be an excellent idea if properly understood and applied, but when misapplied it’s potentially a very destructive experience.
Napoleon Hill may have been the first person to write about the concept of a master mind group. According to Mr. Hill, “a master mind is a mind that is developed through the harmonious cooperation of two or more people who ally themselves for the purpose of accomplishing any given task”. As you read that definition there are a couple things you should notice. First, he talks about harmonious cooperation. Anytime something is a mandatory job requirement it defies the concept of harmonious cooperation. Second, the purpose is to assist each other in the accomplishment of any given task. Your objective is more sales yet your trying to master mind with your direct competition, and it’s only natural that the members of your group will have more vested in their own interests than yours.
Building champions for insurance sales success, or indoctrination? What happens when a good idea is improperly applied? You know exactly what happens, you just aren’t talking about it? What should be a master mind opportunity for a group to help each other to generate more sales becomes almost abusive. Some are held up as super stars because they follow the company rules for achieving success: making tons of cold calls, pressuring people to give referrals they don’t want to give, and holding appointments with anyone who can fog a mirror. When someone doesn’t want to do things the company way they are pegged as a loser, and all “failures” are held up as an example for the rest.
Real insurance sales success is earned through the development of a unique position in the market. Anyone trying to do anything different is frowned upon because everyone has to do the same thing. But those who succeed in spite of the enormous odds against them eventually do so by establishing a unique position in the market, and focusing on specific targets. So, what can you do to protect yourself from the mandatory sales master minding group? Remember you can’t change anyone else, and that your success isn’t determined by their opinions. Do what every disenfranchised employee does, quietly disengage. Above all your objective here is to protect yourself and stay under the radar.
What’s the real key to driving your insurance sales success? Marketing. Marketing is the driver that puts qualified leads in your sales funnel, so you have real prospects to sell to, and you put real money in the bank. As you’ve known since you started in this business, if it is to be it is up to you. Seek outside help from those who really understand how to market you the person. Traditional marketing is a waste of your hard earned time and money because it doesn’t generate an immediate direct response, and you absolutely have to have an immediate direct response to put food on the table. If you want to form a real master mind group, focus on finding others who aren’t your direct competitors, who also want to learn how to effectively market themselves for immediate results.

Adapting to Insurance Sales

Insurance representatives earning a good income possess sales ability skills, and personal ability skills. The professional earning a substantial income has also mastered adaptive selling skills. You could constantly question yourself why you missed getting a sale. Alternatively, see how vital being adaptive is to consistently producing sales. As a sales person your goal is always creating higher insurance production.
Starting out as a career insurance trainee you are instructed to memorize word for word a sales presentation that the company has used for generations. This also includes a jumbo pictorial presentation binder. Now you go through what should be called a show and tell presentation. Prospects are not overly fond of your "one size fits all" show book or your presentation that does not flow like you would naturally talk. They are uncomfortable and your highest level of perspiration activates by starting the presentation..
To end up with presentations that results in a sale you need three skills that you cannot rely on your career office to teach you. In fact, the high majority of your fellow sale people end their career without realizing their importance.
Sales Skills These are the tricks and tips of the trade. Some are discovered only by trial and error. Several you become skilled at through constant repetition. Various others are mastered by trying new techniques other insurance professionals have developed. Once you obtain a sales skill, it allows you to learn another and another. Sales skills are a career long building process.
Personal Skills These are up to you to learn on your own. Confidence, motivation, and inspiration are three of the major ones. Many self-improvement books can significantly improve your personal skills, with little time or money invested. Remember that your clients can see right through you, without conquering these personal skills few sales are made.
Adaptive Skills There are two different types of adaptive skills to you need to triumph over. Each of your clients is unique, and what they want from you differs widely. You must adapt yourself to every prospective client you are proposing selling insurance to. The second adaptive skill is adapting your presentation to capture your prospect's interest. Then you take control so that instead of selling the prospect is buying from you.
Adapting You Personally Let me give this example from personal experience. On my first appointment with a senior couple on looked and felt very uncomfortable. I wore a vested business suit, lugged a suitcase-sized briefcase with tons of product information, plus my crammed presentation book. I entered a house with the temperature blazing at 85%. I was completely over dressed and over packed. In addition, I felt a little easy each time the elderly spit tobacco juice into his handy tin can. Quickly I got into a set presentation and soon after left without a sale.
Either you need to adapt your attire up a notch or more casual depending on whom your clients are. They want to do business with someone they feel closer to their level. Also, you need to adapt your pre-presentation manner. The relationship scene before the presentation must be where you want it. That means that the prospects not only like you, but also feel you are trustworthy. For a senior, you focus on finding about their favorite collection or hobby. Have them show you their favorite piece and talk about it. Even take a phone picture of them showing off their prized possession. You can ask any prospect what they are most proud of.. Few will take this as an annoyance, instead is it personal adapting yourself to them, thereby winning them over.
Adapting Your Presentation Developing an adaptive sales ability is not that hard once you understand the reasoning for it. The first presentation you memorized was suppose to serve all purposes but instead served none. There are two major areas of importance, where you must adapt your presentation to match the situation.
Emotional Need Adapting Every person has six major unique emotions. However, they are only likely to buy if your presentation provides them with the benefits they need to cover the emotion they are concerned about. Too many insurance sales people just keep on talking and talking about every possible benefit their insurance could provide. The prospect get bores and starts to throw out objections just to keep the salesperson from rambling on. The two most common emotions you face in insurance selling are fear and greed.
Right at the start, you MUST find out how your prospect is hurting. Is there a fear or worry that if they die or get sick they will not be able to pay their debt obligations? Alternatively, is it a greed feeling to accumulate wealth and security by seeing their nest egg grow. Never think there is a close correlation between the two. Your prospect certainly does not. Upon finding the problem, you adapt your full presentation. The client only needs three or four good reasons how your insurance product can solve the problem.
Next, you must adapt your presentation to the product you are selling. Choose two or three products, instead of a whole product line. Learn enough about them until you feel and sound like an expert. Concentrate your prospecting to finding people want to find out more about these products only. Strip down your presentation material to a simple yellow pad and folder for each product. Leave the overnight suitcase in your car where it can be used as a storage bin. Now develop a separate presentation of your own just using the materials you are taking in to a prospect's home. You will see how easy this is, and how much more relaxed you and your prospects will feel.
Considering emotions and insurance products, you might have six adaptable on the spot presentations. Many parts will be interchangeable. There are key phrases and selling methods you consistently use. An added advantage is that your presentation time is now 1/2 what it use to be, creating much higher insurance production.

Insurance Sales

The obstacles that one faces when selling life insurance can be daunting and even a little frightening. "No one has endurance like the man who sells insurance." That's an old refrain. Life insurance agents used to memorize it; it was meant to keep them going, because everyone knew that those salesmen had to face rejection and animosity like few other professional people. Usually, they were always finding themselves on someone else's territory--that is, at someone else's kitchen table--and trying to sell them a product that, to the average person, might as well be the air that we breathe.
The obstacles that one faces when selling life insurance mostly have to do with the prospect's ignorance. Like economics itself, life insurance is a product that is simultaneously extremely important and among the most misunderstood, or just flat-out not thought about, subjects on the planet. It's got everything to do with one's money and yet those who we could say are really knowledgeable about the subject are few and far between.
So you come up against your first obstacle as a life insurance salesman: the prospect's ignorance. It could even be the ignorance of a client of your company who was not very well educated by the former agent from whom you inherited them. You enter their home expecting them to welcome whatever advice you tell them...but as soon as you ask them to give you a check for a new, better policy or to place money into an annuity for them things fall apart. People naturally resist ideas that they don't understand--even when those ideas could help them do things a better way. As a life insurance agent, you are faced with the very daunting obstacle of usually needing educated your prospect or your book of business client about the nature of life insurance, financial planning, money management, and how your new proposal (which will cost them some of their hard-earned money) is going to help them.
But this can lead to the second great obstacle that one faces when selling life insurance: the fact that the prospect or client has had experiences with not-so-great, or even incompetent or sinister, life insurance agents before. There is a ridiculously high turnover ratio in the life insurance business. It's 98%! That means that for ever person who gets hired to sell life insurance by a company, 98% of them either quit or get fired within their first year of employment! This indicates that the vast majority of life insurance sales agents simply aren't all that special, let alone competent to do their job. If you last in the life insurance business, you'll soon find that time after time you come across prospects and even clients that you got through your book of business who relate to you just terrible experiences they've had with life insurance salesmen before. If you listen closely, you'll find that the problem they had is usually not with the life insurance company itself, although that does happen. The problem nearly always lies with a sales agent.
Life insurance sales is a high-pressure business. You sell or you fail. It's produce or perish. You are not going to collect a good paycheck every week just because you made good efforts. In a certain sense, you are self-employed. Due to the high pressure, there are lots of agents who buckle under pressure and cut corners, even resorting to illegal practices in extreme cases, to get those commission checks flowing so they can feel like they're taking care of their families. But this results in poisoning the minds of the already somewhat distrustful public against salesmen, and especially about life insurance salesmen who are offering them an intangible product that might not even benefit them at all--and not do anything until they are dead!
And this brings us to yet another one of the great obstacles that one faces when selling life insurance. When you sell this highly important financial product, you are making people think about their own death. Now, most of your best prospects are going to be younger people--let's say people 55 years old and under--but, the younger your prospect is, they less they think about their own death, and the less they desire to do so! On the other hand, your prospects who are older will be more open to considering insurance against their own deaths...and yet, their premiums will be significantly higher.
And that leads us to the stone-solid obstacle of price. People in general really hate paying for insurance, because their thought is they hope they never have to use it in the first place; and the less practical that insurance seems to them, the less they wish to part with their money in order to finance it. Yet the life insurance agent is trained to "never leave money on the table". This creates conflicts of interest and can lead to immense tensions that result in lost sales.
The bottom line is that the life insurance salesman needs to know how to overcome objections, and always remember that as long as he's being honest he is helping people and needs to overcome their resistance to being helped.

The Insurance Salesman

When you start your insurance career, you have faith that the insurance company is going to take you by the hand and guide you along each step of the way. That is the feeling that thousands and thousands of new agents had this year, before realizing their career was doomed. You have your own mind, and in insurance selling, you have to think on you own about your career growth.
There are only two basic ways to sell annuity, health, and life insurance. The first is the time tradition company way. Follow all the techniques the insurance company has set up identically for each new agent. This way is almost certain to benefit the insurance company you represent, and toss aside your dreams and future. The second way is to imitate the styles and traits of a prowling predator. Not only will you will survive, but rise toward leading the pack.
An animal predator who is a prowler has a distinct advantage over you. There are deeply bred endurance instincts running through the bloodlines. These are genetic factors. Insurance sales people have few genetic factors to help them exist. The training program set up by your office is set up in a "One size fits all" fashion. However if you end up like an average health and life insurance sales person you will tend to have a sub-par income. Ask yourself if you are selling insurance as a temporary job, or as a career leading to making the big bucks.
MONEY MAKING PROWLER SKILLS
Set Up A Defined Territory An animal on the loose rarely runs all over the state looking for food. Instead, it has set up boundaries within which the most productive sources lie. So many inexperienced agents are willing to run all over for a chance to make a sale. At first, you may not know how many candidates you have in your preferred driving region. If for example, your initial target will be homeowners with children at home, you can make a sincere call. A list broker can tell you what radius from your home it would take. Find out if 35,000 prospects can be located with 20 miles (or less) of your home. This then becomes your territory. REFUSE to go beyond your territory to avoid losing precious time.
Refine Your Prospect Territory Rarely does a prowling animal search its entire territory as it quickly learns where the hot spots are. Within your territory, eliminate zip codes or characteristics that right now might be out of your league. Are you more comfortable working with people making $100,000 and up a year, or would people making $40,000 to $50,000 with a newborn child make a more comfortable prospect for you. Also, look at certain occupations, maybe plumbers, roofers, and subcontractors that are within your comfort zone. Here is where a list broker can shine if you use the right one.
Knowledge of Competition This is probably one of the easiest skills to obtain, yet one of the most dreaded. When you become a skilled insurance sales person, you rarely encounter any true insurance competition. You just slip quietly around it. Look for competition, and you will be surrounded by a drove of wild stinging. Feel that you are better than any competition, NEVER mention them, and simply ignore or bypass any conversation about them. Forget how much your company may try to compare themselves to them. It is you, the agent that is the competition, period. Your prospect, after feeling you are knowledgeable and trustworthy is going to buy the plan you present by the insurance company that backs it.
Your Prospecting Methods Your company will probably be glad to provide you with a directory containing everyone in the area that is a prospect for some type of insurance product. Within there, but hidden, are the type of prospects with whom you feel most comfortable. Whether talking to, explaining your product with, or selling your plan. This is a blind map with minimal meaning. You want to make big bucks, so you have to invest a little to jump ahead quicker. For $50.00 to $70.00 per thousand, a list broker can come up with a list targeted for your specifications. Let us say homeowners employed as self-contractors earning $40,000 to $60,000 with two adults, and younger children at home. In addition, all living in the zip codes you selected. The key to prospecting is that it must be targeted to certain prospects, and must be performed on a consistent basis.
Gain a Wealth of Product Knowledge One of the greatest powers of persuasion is when your prospect feels immediately your expert knowledge in an area. Like a prowling skilled hunting animal, the prey feels trapped. Only in insurance sales, your prospect likes this, and produces a feeling of wanting to by from you. You get clients not by acting like a stumbling new agent, but by performing like an experience pro. Master two to three products as well as you possible can. Let your prospective client know this is your specialty. The big money making insurance sales people are those that typically have developed an expertise. You can do this today.

Pushy Insurance Sales Staff

Why is it some of the most successful insurance agents are obnoxiously pushy? You know who I'm talking about. These rotten eggs sell more insurance than 10 people. You can't stand them and neither can anyone else yet your sales manager holds them up as the ideal. They are the example thrown in your face when you tell your sales manager you aren't selling anything making all those ridiculous cold calls.
As you know there are always two sides to every story and two versions of reality. The sales manager is as excited as a puppy getting its belly rubbed over this jerk because the jerk sells a lot of policies. Neither the sales manager nor the jerk care about the trail of destruction the jerk leaves in his wake. Plus the jerk actually enjoys mistreating and ill-using people. This bad behavior give the jerk a sense of power.
Now for the other side or version of the jerks approach. The jerk sells a lot of policies because he has to sell a lot of policies to maintain his revenue stream. His repeat business and referrals are virtually non-existent. No one would refer the jerk unless they hated the other person and even then most people can't bring themselves to sick the jerk on anyone they know. Therefore, the only way to sustain a business is to constantly sell new policies to new people.
The jerk is a workaholic and that's a good thing because that's the only way the jerk can keep things going. Because no one likes the jerk when the jerk gets an appointment he has to sell something and that's exactly why he's so obnoxiously pushy.
Okay, so what's a decent human being supposed to do? Well, the good news is you can be more successful than the jerk. You can do it with far less work than the jerk. Plus you can do it without ever feeling ashamed of yourself.
The key to your success is selling without rejection. You simply eliminate those words, actions, and behaviors that trigger resistance, defensiveness, and rejection. Rather than pushing for a "yes" you strive for understanding and then guide the thought process. As Benjamin Franklin once said everyone thinks their own ideas are great ideas. You simply help your future clients discover their own great ideas

Insurance Sales Opportunities

Some occasions impact all aspects of our life such as getting married or having a baby. Occasions as such often trigger changes in insurance needs. Special dates and days such as birthdays, anniversaries etc also represent insurance sales opportunities.
We are emotionally connected to these events as they have special meaning in our heart. We always feel obliged to do something out of love, responsibilities or some unfulfilled promise during the following 6 occasions:
(a) Birthday
Birthday is more than throwing a party. It is also a time to reflect and think what we have done with our life. That is also the time we realize that another year is gone and we feel the need to revisit our life goals or reevaluate our priorities.
Getting older is always associated with an increased consciousness of our health status. Such awareness may give rise to the need to increase insurance coverage. It is also an advantage to take up an insurance coverage at younger age.
(b) Marriage
When we have found our soul mate, we want to build a life together. Marriage is about love, trust and also added responsibilities. Some love lasts a lifetime, true love lasts forever. Insurance can best express our undiminishing love to our spouse.
(c) Child birth
When there is a new addition to our family, we see our life take on a new meaning and we assume a new or expanded role. There are no other roles more important than being a parent where it takes monumental efforts and frequently sacrifices to raise a kid.
It is without question parents will give the best for their children. We want to protect our children from anything that may hurt or harm them. We want to provide our children the foundation for their future success financially and emotionally, and most importantly with or without our presence in their future.
(d) Buying a home
Home is a place we belong. It is where happiness starts. Home connotes safe, warm, joy and compassion. It is difficult to imagine what kind of life our children would have if they were born without shelter.
The last thing we want to see happen is for our children to first lose their parent and then lose their home. When buying a home, parents must make sure their home stay in tact even if they are gone because home is where their children find comfort and love. Insurance can provide such guarantee.
(e) Retirement
Retirement planning is always an overlooked priority. To most people, such planning is not something that they have to take immediate action and therefore can be postponed.
However, when we are at our mid forties, retirement is no longer a remote concern. It becomes real and too close to comfort. We are forced to look at our plan and ask ourselves, "Am I ready for retirement?"
Retirement planning is not about making sure we have enough money during old age. It is about looking into all aspects of retirement needs we may have. It is about making sure you have answers to unforeseen event such as disability during retirement.
(f) Loss of a loved one
Some people buy themselves insurance because they lost their loved one. Death is something we don't like to talk about because it is an unpleasant subject. But when death occurs to someone we are close to, we will start thinking a lot about dying and death.
There is no loss like losing someone you love. Death can be a teacher. There are great lessons to learn from death because death teaches us about life. It tells us a lot of things we should have done but we did not do. One of them is adequate insurance coverage for our family.
To maximize the insurance sales opportunities that the 6 occasions represent, you need to keep track of those important dates that have special menaing to your customers.
Understanding the significance of these special occasions and educating your customers about life events helps them prepare better when dealing with those defining moments in life.

Converting Sales Leads

Some annuity leads are very easy to convert, but for the most part, it is a difficult process. It doesn't matter where you get your leads, whether it be the internet, mailers, seminars, etc. These are some tips to help convert difficult leads.
1. The Initial Contact with the Prospect: If it is a lead that you generated yourself and didn't buy, then contacting the prospect is very simple. They contact YOU! It is important to simply offer them your pitch book in the first conversation and to not contact them until after you know they have received the book. This gives them some time to think about the information that you have provided them and it allows them to develop questions about the material. Make sure the book that you send is not a sales pitch. You want it to be full of information on the client's needs as opposed to the salesperson's needs. Do not show your sales agenda. Make sure you Have a biography within the book with a picture of you and your family.
Next you need to set up an appointment to meet with the prospect to convert them to a client. The reason you didn't call them before they received your book was to let them generate questions about how the annuity can benefit them. When they ask their question, the objective is not to sell the annuity, you are selling the appointment. Focus on giving them the answer but leaving out specific benefits. This will keep them curious and eager to meet with you.
Remember, a lead is not the beginning of a sale. A lead is the beginning of a relationship. If you treat each lead with this mind-set, you will be much more successful in converting leads.
2. Know Leads and Be an Expert: An annuity lead that is recruited by you is not a lead at all. A lead is a prospect who has showed interest and done something to learn more about annuities. The way to get people to indicate interest in an annuity is to be a professional. The best way to look professional in any field is to be an author. Do not call any prospect until the see your book, proving that you are an expert.
Don't call any prospect and tell them exactly what you offer. This will often scare prospects with numbers or eliminate the need for an appointment, and you WANT an appointment. When you call the prospect, show them that you are conscious of their specific needs and let them know that there have been people in the same situation that have been helped before.

Online Insurance Sales

Online life insurance sales may be a new game, still, to long-experienced agents who may be still young and yet still vividly remember the advent of the Internet and the launch of Windows 95. Online life insurance sales add a new dimension to an age-old game that was already familiar with educating the public, one-meeting closing, following up, keeping your name and company in front of people, doing thorough fact finding and analysis, and social networking.
The real significant differences between selling life insurance "the old fashioned way" and making the most of this miraculous new tool we call the Internet are that the Internet allows people to put up a buffer between you and their "personal space", and the Internet makes it possible for life insurance salesmen to do everything agents always did before with greater speed and less expense (both financially and physically).
Nevertheless, these simple differences have profound complications at times for the life insurance agent's way of doing business and making money.
For one thing, it used to be that life insurance agents were far and away more worried about getting their foot in someone's door and then getting to their kitchen table than they were about sitting down to do the selling and closing. Ironically, the Internet has made it far easier for them to get into someone's home and "sit at" their kitchen table "with them"...while making it significantly more difficult to actively engage in the art and science of selling to win that prospect's mind and trust, and close that sale's door in the face of all those ghosts of doubtful fears that prospects invariably come up with.
What does this mean for the life insurance sales agent? It means that if you're going to sell life insurance online, you need to be long on customer service, short (although by no means lacking!) on selling. The Internet world makes exceptionally prompt service and the providing of quality information paramount for those who want to succeed in sales. Life insurance agents now need to do what those who have been selling top-quality products in other industries (and of a different nature) have long been trained to do: allow the prospects to sell themselves on the products, while you more or less sit back and take their order. People love to buy and hate to be sold. The Internet makes it possible for people to feel like they are buying while you are selling without leaving any footprint!
Now, what this means for you as a life insurance sales agent is that you need to be more knowledgeable than the average agent ever was before. Great agents who made buckets of money were always among the most knowledgeable, to be sure. But the bar has been raised. Many of those agents were highly knowledgeable, but only about their company's products. Then their winning personalities kicked in to finish off the deal and close the sale. That's not usually going to be so these days. Whatever you tell a prospect online, be certain that they are going to compare what you say against several other agents. They want the best price on the best product--and they absolutely demand the best service. No, you need to be among the very smartest of all life insurance agents, period. With the advent of the Internet, life insurance sales is more of a technical brain game and less of a personality game than ever before (although, you still need to be extremely personable--personality does still come through; coy computer geeks need not apply). This all applies to you whether you are a captured agent or an insurance broker.
Now, at this point you should already have figured out that you had better have a hot website. Investigate, find, use the best ISPs, the best website templates or designers, the best professional e-mail service providers with the best stationary and fonts and features, the best VoIP or all-in-one broadband cable/telephone service, and by all means invest in an auto-responder and publish articles and record podcasts for free online. If need be, go to a multimedia marketing company to help you design the hottest print materials to send out via snail mail if your prospects demand them through your website--and always have that option for them, too.
And, one final note: keep yourself a "Joe Cool". Know your Internet communications protocols and lingo. The Internet makes possible a world that changes more rapidly than ever before, and life insurance sales are all about communications. Stay on top of things, be prepared, and have fun!

Success in Insurance Sales

Ask anyone in the business and you'll discover one of their biggest challenges is focus. Without focus you get stuck. You get off track. You lose sight of where you're headed and how to get there. You're spinning your wheels working on auto-pilot. You aren't making the progress you know you can and know you should be.
So what do you do and where do you turn? You know what you want to do, you know what you want to accomplish. You just don't know how to do it, or even if you know how you just can't stay motivated enough to follow through and get it done. How do you get the help you need to get over this hump and get the ball rolling again churning out more sales and profits for you?
Can you even imagine stepping onto the field or into the arena for any sporting event without a clear objective for the game...without a plan to make it happen? As a player you never even thought about how to make it happen... you only knew the objective was to win and you counted on your coach to formulate the plan. You relied on your coach to direct the action to turn that plan into a reality. But where's your coach now?
Most of you have tried turning to a sales manager or another person in the industry to get the help you need to gain the focus and direction you need to achieve the success you want. However, it didn't take long to realize each had their own agenda for the relationship. They weren't solely focused on your success. Perhaps, they secretly feared your success would exceed their own and even make them look bad.
Both you and these mentor partners were too close to the field to see the game from an objective perspective. You were too focused on doing things the way they've always been done to even challenge a new idea let alone give it a try. It shouldn't be a surprise when old plays don't produce great outcomes. After all the other team knows it's coming.
To get the success you crave you'll need to make the best use of your time, you'll need clear objectives, and you'll need to develop a plan to get those objectives. An outside perspective can be priceless because an outsider can challenge the status quo and provide proven ways to achieve results that others aren't using. Plus the outsider isn't bound by objectives beyond the one's you want. An outside coach doesn't care which products you sell for what company. An outside coach only cares you achieve the sales and profits you want.
The outside coach doesn't have an axe to grind inside the practice and isn't working for someone else they're working for and with you. The reason a coach works so well in the sports industry is because the coach helps each player achieve their best holding them accountable, noticing the little mistakes that are keeping them from improvement, and showing them a way to success. Coaching works just as well in the insurance and financial industries because the coach shortens your development by getting you focused on the right objectives, getting you achieving your goals, and setting timelines for achievement creating self-accountability. With a coach on your side you make all the sales and keep all the money while the coach is there to guide you on.

The Insurance Presentation

I recently read an advice article to insurance agents attempting to explain how many different types of prospects exist. Included was a line or two of tips when encountering each style of prospect. In my mind, there are only two types of insurance prospects. The first is ready, willing, and able to buy. The other, is merely a suspect, who is willing to waste you valuable time. Would it be of benefit to show you how to determine the buyers from suspects? Here you will see my personal proven method. It is an effective use of around 15 minutes of time before the presentation. At that point, you will know who is not worth a presentation. Because of placing so many factors in your favor, the presentation will be with no objection and an 80% closing rate average.
You will see the bulk of a script, in it revealed exactly what to say and why. This pre-presentation is mastered by following five simple steps. These are what I call the warm up, explanation of your purpose, three emotional choices, taking full control, and lastly nailing it down.
THE WARM UP Relax in the car, and keep picturing yourself walking out with an application. Only after this is successful do you ring the bell, Start by saying, "Hello, My name is ______ _______, and you are _______ and ______ _______ right? (Prospect responds) "Good, I am here to discuss your concerns about _______, and to find out if I have a sensible solution." "Is there a table to sit by where it will be comfortable?". " I could not help but notice your _______ collection." It seems fascinating; could I ask you a favor? (Prospect answers okay) You continue, "Could you show me your favorite piece and bring it over here? (Prospect gets piece). Next, you ask, "Why is this particular piece your favorite, and how long have you had it?" (Encourage prospect to talk) Lastly, you inquire, "Do you mind if a take a picture of you and your ______ on my phone picture so I could show my spouse? (Positive reply}
Of course, you could have used a new car in the driveway, a piece of furniture, or their main hobby. Then you would follow the same pattern. You have achieved three main selling skills here. The initial one is confidence, which you began with by picturing making a sale. The next one is likeability. When you take a genuine interest in your prospects, they will like you. They rarely buy anything from someone they do not like. You second sales skill you committed them to agree to sit by a table. The number of insurance sales people that try to give a presentation across the expanse of a living room is incredible.
EXPLANATION OF PURPOSE The second phase of your pre insurance sales presentation is critical. Here is where you do what others do not do. This throws you prospect off guard, and forces them to listen closely to every word you say. Now you are going to straightforwardly explain to your prospect exactly what you are going to do. Begin by saying, "I don't consider myself to be a sales person, so please look at me as a information provider." "First I will look at your situation and concerns and determine if you even need ____ insurance." "If you do no have a true need, I will leave right then, as I have a lot of other people to see." Stop and flip your finger through a rubber-banded stack of 50 possible prospect cards you have on the table.
Continue with, "Does that sound okay with you?" The common response is a buying signal. It could be "Sounds good to me, fine with us, I appreciate that, or yes." If you ever get "I don't know" or some other stupid response stop for a moment. Reply with, "I guess I made a mistake coming out here." "I'll leave right now, so I have time to talk with someone else." Unless they beg you to stay, leave. A prospective buyer would not say this, but a suspect would. With your true prospects you picked up two additional selling skills. First you act and sound like a true professional. Next you just raised that important trust level they must have in you by 200%.
THREE CHOICES You cannot skip this step and it is so easy to perform. Pull out a legal size yellow pad. Write on the top in big letters, "Your main need." Then say to your prospects, I am going to write down three possible reasons why you have me here, is that all right? (Get response). The first item you write is "security", much better than writing the word fear. Next, you write, "protect what I have." The third item you write down is "accumulate wealth." Turn the pad around, focusing at the wife, ask, "Would you please put a check in front of the item most important to you right now." Wait for them to do so. Reply, "Thanks, for your help."
Examine the selling skills that were superbly executed. A big one is finding out what emotional reason causes your prospect to buy. Only with this knowledge can you achieve a super closing rate. People buy on personal emotional needs being fulfilled. Your presentation later should only focus on the need that they have checked. Secondly, you got your prospects involved in the decision and buying process. They feel you are working as a team. A master selling skill was pre set up to get your prospect to buy from you. (No hard selling)
TAKING CONTROL You have already been in control but now it the time to firm it up. However, you must speak like a confident, firm person in control. Start this section with, "I am not going to waste your time talking about my insurance career history, promoting an insurance company, or negatively discussing other similar products." "You have me here to find out if what I offer can benefit you, isn't that right?" (Prospect gives positive response) Continue with "Good, I feel you must know how what we discuss personally benefits you." "Plus you then have to determine if the cost makes it worth pursuing." "Does this seem sensible to you?" (Affirmative reply given)
With the questions and you have enforced more selling skills. You have achieved integrity. You cannot sell integrity. Your Integrity is a quality that can only be willing perceived and injected into a prospect's mind. Their confidence, produced by your openness, has almost peaked. By themselves, you having them thinking ahead you will help them make the right decision. You have already eliminated almost every possibility of an objection.
NAIL IT DOWN There is little left to overcome, and you have even yet talked about your product. Now pound in the final preliminary nails. Open with, "I want to say you time, and make sure the right decision is made." "Therefore, I am going to present two different options, based on your needs, to solve the gap you might have." "One will be filled with numerous benefits to provide a fairly complete solution." "The other plan will only show minimal benefits, and a lower investment of money." "Provided we get that far, how does that sound?" (Wait for affirmative response).
It is time for you to give an analogy, so they can picture your professionalism. You might say, "It is sort of like hearing a noise in your car and going to a trusted mechanic. The honest mechanic might say to you, I can fix this immediate problem for not that much. However, I also noticed a small somewhat defective part that could cause this problem to worsen. He is not out to take your money but to abide by what you decide. "So is it okay if I give you two choices, and then let you decide which is best?" (Positive reply)
You have accomplished the granddaddy of selling skills. You have committed your prospect to buying before presenting. A very short presentation is sufficient. At the end, you close by looking more at the wife, and saying this. "Now, which of these two plans is most beneficial to you?" Wait indefinitely, the discussion is over, it becomes a matter of which one, and my bet is that the wife will pick the higher benefit plan. (An experienced sales pro tip). When your prospect has the best possible opinion of your professionalism, and has pre committed to buy, it is virtually a no objection victory.
When I developed this approach, my personal closing ratio leaped from a respectable 60% to an outstanding 90%. Along with this come solid cases with often over 25 years of renewals. It becomes almost bulletproof for a competing agent to get your client to drop the policy you let them buy

Successful Insurance Selling

There are three things you can count on in life no matter what. Those three things are death, taxes, and...change. Yep, no matter what you do or don't do things will change. Will you?
Now this is the tricky part because most people would rather do anything than make changes. I know from a logical perspective that doesn't make sense yet it's our reality. Don't believe me?
Well let me give you an example you can relate to. Someone you love goes to the doctor with a cough. They run a few tests. When the results come back the doctor tells your loved one they have some cancerous cells in their lungs. They tell your loved one that they can treat these cells and that if they just quit smoking they can expect a long healthy life.
Yet how many people do you know who've faced a situation like this who stopped smoking for a few days, weeks, even months only to return to smoking and did so with a vengeance? Logically it makes no sense. It drives you crazy because you can't stand to watch the person you love literally destroy themselves before your very eyes because they simply won't CHANGE their behaviors.
Boy, if you were in that situation you'd change and never look back. Or, would you? Would you really be so eager to change? Would you change your behaviors never to return to those old comfortable behaviors? Really?
Hmmm... I'd like to call your bluff on that. It's not your fault. It's just human nature really. You like everyone else don't like change even when you say you do and say you will.
Change requires a commitment, concentrated effort, and above all consistent action. That doesn't even sound easy because it isn't. However, there's one little thing that will help you make the changes you need any changes.
That one little thing is motivation. Yes, you're either motivated to solve a problem or achieve a goal. The challenge is identifying your motivation and using it to your advantage to get the changes you need to increase your insurance sales success.
If solving problems motivates you then identify what isn't working now. Identify what you'll have to learn and do and the behaviors you must change to overcome this problem. Commit to making the investment you need to make to solve this problem.
If achieving a goal motivates you then identify the actions and behaviors required to achieve that goal. Identify when and how you'll take those actions and adopt those behaviors. Commit to investing in yourself to get the help you need to figure out how to take those actions and develop those behaviours.

Fear of the Insurance Salesman

The insurance sales fear factor does not pop up immediately. When a prospective insurance sales person answers the promising newspaper advertisement he is full of enthusiasm. He is thrilled about all the benefits and income potential told to him. The sales manager virtually guarantees him a long and successful career. He is overwhelmed to get the phone call telling him is one of the chosen ones.
The new insurance trainee is required to memorize word for word a sales script not written in his language but that devised by someone in the home office sales headquarters. The sales fear factor of not adjusting to this wording, ruins his faith in getting it right. For example, people in many states do not say "you folks" but instead "people like you." He becomes fearful to ask why he can not adapt the sales presentation to feel more comfortable. The reply is "no, everyone does it this way, no exceptions"
Self confidence sinks when the sales manager at the last minute talks to him. The sales manager has to do a couple interviews. This means the sales person is on his own. At this point he is paralyzed with the sales fear factor. As soon as an objection from the prospect comes up, his thinking process is shutdown, and ruins the whole spontaneity of his presentation.
This fear and worry attracts exactly the reactions the salesperson dreads. When no sale is made, the salesman is transformed into the early stages of anxiety and fearfullness. He dreads reporting back to the sales manager, and why not? His appointed mentor tells him he didn't push hard enough for the sale. After three more no sales, the salesperson encounters a rapidly increasing level of the sales fear factor. With confidence at an all time low, he suspects it is all his own personal fault. This power zap makes him doubt his sales ability and even career choice.
After the first sale, he is barely uplifted with the remark, "it is about time." Not exactly a confidence booster. The sales roller coaster begins. Each sales brings him up, and every unsuccessful attempt rekindles fears. There are countless no sales to every sale. Now the insurance salesperson becomes a chronic worrier, with dangerously low levels of faith. The sales fear factor is robbing him of the efficiency he needs to become happy and confident.
He starts molding himself into the typical mediocre salesperson. On appointments he starts off in fearful dread of not making the sale. This mindset affects his efforts and ambitions. The prospect controls the situation and when this occurs a prospective sale is always lost. His is further embarrassed reporting weekly results at sales meetings. The sales fear factor is almost controlling everything from obtaining leads to making appointments to achieving sales. He is going down fast.
The only chance of saving the career is to change mentors. Trade off the negative comment sales manager for an experienced and established insurance seller for a mentor. Riding along on two sales appointments with a true career salesman may be all it takes. He finds the sales pro telling him that sales fear is not real, but fictionary, In fact the pro tells the agent in advance he is going to walk out with a sale. The professional sales presentation is 90% different from that of the agent. If does not promote the company, but hits hard on the benefits. Benefits obtained by investing in the product offered. The professional salesperson has completely eliminated the sales fear factor.
Fear is not real. It is an artificial mental barrier between those who succeed and those who struggle. You control your own destiny. Do not pray to God to help you. God helps those that help themselves. The stronger you become, the quicker the sales fear factor will start to disappear. Your confidence and sales with begin to soar. Become determined to put yourself in control of all sales activities and your future. No fear.

Considering Insurance Sales Jobs

Considering Insurance Sales Jobs
If you enjoy sales, join the growing insurance industry!
If you want a sales job where everyone you encounter is a potential lead, why not consider Insurance Sales jobs? In today’s litigious society, individuals need to have proper insurance to protect not only themselves, but their assets as well as their livelihood.
Driving is one of the best examples of why a person needs several types of insurance. Automobile accident rates are at all time highs. If you drive and you are involved in an accident, the result could be life-threatening injuries to you and/or others involved in the accident as well as complete and total destruction of your car. The health care and automobile repair bills of such an accident could literally leave you financially devastated. The only way to protect yourself from financial destruction is to have adequate insurance.
Previously, insurance sales agents specialized in selling only one type of insurance. Today, there is a shift in this way of thinking. Many insurance agencies now specialize in all areas of insurance including automobile, homeowners, health, life, and even business insurance. Operating in this manner enhances an insurance agency’s revenue base and it saves those looking for insurance a considerable amount of time. Best of all, when multiple policies are purchased from the same insurance agent, that agents commission checks are significantly higher!
The Internet has made it easy to gather much of the initial information an insurance sales agent needs to put together an insurance quotation. However, insurance sales jobs still require the agent to interact with potential and existing customers so customer service skills are a must.
After working up a quote, an insurance agent sets up a time to meet in person to further discuss the details of the policy being quoted. The agent then completes all the required paperwork, including gathering deposits and signatures, and forwards the package to the insurance underwriting jobs department where the application is either approved or denied.
Once approved, the job doesn’t stop there! With the insurance market being so competitive, a successful agent must work hard to keep customers happy. Agents need to be available to answer customers questions and to help customers through the claims process. And most importantly, they need to stay on top of their competition and the ever-changing insurance market, and they need to keep their state licenses current.
There are two types of insurance sales jobs: independent insurance brokers who work for several different agencies; and captive agents who work for a particular insurance agency. Independent brokers typically work out of their home offices, but advances in technology are making it possible for captive agents to do much of their work from home as well.
If you’ve got a salespersons personality, a college education, a computer with an Internet connection and a car, you’ve got what it takes to be interviewed for insurance sales jobs! And if you’re at all worried about job security, just turn the radio on any time during rush hour and tune into those never-ending traffic reports

Insurance Agent Sales

Insurance agents held about 436,000 jobs in 2006. About half of them worked for insurance agencies and brokerages and about 23 percent worked for insurance carriers. More than a quarter of all insurance agents were self-employed.
Educational Requirements for Insurance Agents: Employers prefer to hire insurance agents who have college degrees, particularly in business or economics. They might consider hiring a high school graduate who has proven sales ability.
Other Requirements for Insurance Agents: Every state requires insurance agents to be licensed. They are required to obtain separate licenses to sell life and health insurance or property and casualty insurance. In most states, sales agents, in order to become licensed, must complete pre-licensing courses and pass state examinations.
Advancement of Insurance Agents: An insurance agent with ability can advance into a management position, becoming, for example, a sales manager in a local office. Later on one can become an agency superintendent or land another executive position.
Job Outlook for Insurance Agents: Employment of insurance agents is expected to grow as fast as the average for all occupations through 2016. Job candidates who are multi-lingual and those who have a strong knowledge of relevant technical and legal terms will have the best chance of getting hired.
How Much Do Insurance Agents Earn?: Wage and salary insurance agents earned median annual earnings of $43,870 in 2006. Independant insurance agents earn only a commission, while insurance agents who work for an agency or carrier receive either a salary only, a salary plus commission or a salary plus bonus. Insurance agents often receive benefits that include continuing education, training to help with licensing requirements, office space and clerical support.

Insurance Sales Jobs

Insurance sales jobs are at the core of any successful insurance agency or company. There are thousands of insurance sales jobs online, in trade magazines and in the newspaper. Before applying for insurance sales opportunities, find out if this career is a good fit:
Background Needed for Insurance Sales Jobs
In order to qualify for an executive sales job in insurance, applicants may need to have some experience with insurance. Translating the insurance policy and understanding company underwriting guidelines is critical to becoming a success at an insurance sales job. However, if people who have held sales training jobs, sales management jobs or online sales jobs still have a shot at a career in insurance sales. Most important of all is having the proven ability to successfully prospect, network and negotiate. A Bachelor’s degree is usually desired, not always required for an executive sales job in insurance.
Types of Insurance Sales Opportunities Available
There are a wide variety of executive sales jobs available online. Sales training jobs, where associates design training materials and provide training seminars to other salespeople, can be a fun and rewarding way to spend a sales career. Sales management jobs, where employees oversee inside account representatives, field sales representatives, or both allows senior team members to impart their experience and wisdom to up and coming sales executives.
Day to Day Duties of Insurance Sales Jobs
The day to day duties of executive sales jobs in insurance require that representatives sell insurance products to consumers or work with agents and sales associates to sell or increase sales of insurance products. Sales people also need to prospect for new customers and clients. Employees will be called upon to give presentations frequently in sales management jobs. They give presentations to new and existing clients, report on sales figures to company heads and provide input during product development meetings. Sales people who work directly with insurance agents will also have to provide sales training to get them up to speed.
Insurance Sales Job Salaries
Insurance sales people will earn a base salary plus commissions in an executive sales or sales management job. The salary varies anywhere from $35,000 to a six-figure income, depending upon the level of responsibility and the number of business successes. Sales management jobs are on the high end of the salary scale. Executive sales and sales training job opportunities are somewhere in the middle of the salary range, depending upon experience. Account reps and in-house sales reps that are just starting out in their jobs are at the low end of the earning curve, with salaries averaging $32,000 to $45,000. In addition, sales people for insurance companies enjoy a full benefits plan, including retirement

Tuesday, 24 February 2009

Insurance Telesales

Telesales operators sell goods or services over the phone. They sell home insurance, media advertising space, gas and electricity and a wide range of other products.
The work involves spending the day on the phone, calling potential customers. They may use a script to ensure they give accurate information, but also need strong customer service skills to recognise potential sales opportunities or obstacles.
Telesales operators may:
describe the product benefits and special offers
take an order and arrange for delivery of goods
enter notes into a computer, including dates for follow-up calls
read out or explain any 'small print', such as a customer's right to return a product or the standards under which the company operates.
The work can be very intensive and operators may have a set number of calls to complete within a given time.
Salaries for telesales operators range from around £11,000 to £24,000 or more a year. Commission on sales can increase basic salaries considerably.
Telesales operators work a variety of hours and shift patterns, depending on the company they work for. Part-time jobs are also widely available.
Telesales operators usually work in an office or open-plan call centre, although some work from home. They spend most of the day sitting at a screen and wear headsets.
A telesales operator needs:
excellent communication and listening skills
to be persuasive and quick to see an opportunity
to be happy working in a competitive, target-driven atmosphere
to enjoy working with customers and building relationships.
There are job opportunities for telesales operators throughout the UK. Vacancies are usually advertised on recruitment agency and company websites and in the press.
There are no set entry requirements and no age limits. An aptitude for sales and a positive, customer-friendly attitude are often more important. Employers may ask for some GCSE/S grades (A*-C/1-3) or equivalent though and ability with computers is an advantage. Apprenticeships may be offered by some of the larger contact centres.
Training is usually provided in-house. It may include an induction period, with role- playing exercises in a simulated environment, before making calls to actual customers.
There is also a range of qualifications to help telesales operators develop their skills and progress.
Successful telesales operators can earn more with higher commission and by moving into better-paid jobs. Larger organisations offer more opportunities for promotion to team leader or sales management roles. The skills involved in telephone selling can be sought after in other areas of work, such as customer service, complaints handling, buying, marketing or training