16 tips for newcomers to the insurance business
March 23, 2016 by Cormac Reynolds
The insurance business can seem like a pretty big place when you first enter it as a newcomer. There’s a lot to learn about how to espouse the benefits of insurance and it can often be hard to understand where to start. We compiled a list of tips for newcomers entering the business for the first time.
Always Find the Common Ground
One part of being able to sell to anyone is the ability to figure out what you and your potential client have in common. Do you watch the same sports? Attend the same church? Did you go to the same school? Get to know your prospect and build a rapport is very important.
Tailor Your Language to Your Audience
As a salesperson, you need to reach out to a broad range of different people. That means you need to cultivate a voice that sounds professional to all ears. Avoid slang whenever possible. While you shouldn’t suppress your personality, try to take speech cues from the people you’re talking to. If you can speak to a potential client in his or her own words, you’ll be more likely to make a deal! This is a terrific technique for building trust and rapport with your clients — and it works on your bosses, too!
Be Interested In Family
As a newcomer to the insurance game, it’s likely that you’ll engage with a lot of prospective clients who are older than you. Ask plenty of questions about their family, and see if they have children or other relatives close to your own age range. If you can get your client to think about their relatives, you’ll find them more open to doing business with you. By drawing a subtle comparison between yourself and their family members, you can cultivate clients’ trust and compassion.
Dress for Success
If you want clients to take you seriously, you should of course dress like a professional. Dressing professionally helps you in plenty of arenas besides meeting with a client, though! Look sharp whenever you’re at work. You’ll project an air of professionalism to both superiors and co-workers. Dressing professionally will even help you take your own performance more seriously.
Don’t Assume Valuable Mentors Share Your Skill Set
You may feel isolated in your office because the salesperson on the next desk is far older than you are. You might watch him or her spend fifteen minutes pecking out an email using just two fingers. It’s tempting for younger salespeople to discount their elders’ skills because of the very different levels of technological savvy they have. Resist that temptation! The person sitting next to you might not know how to send text messages, but they might have mastered the art of closing million-dollar sales while you were still in school!
If You Need Experience, Borrow It
When you’re first starting out, it can be tough to stand on your experience or your track record. Don’t be afraid to paint yourself as part of a highly experienced team! Reassure doubtful clients by emphasizing the strong support network you have backing you up. If your office has an impressive amount of sales experience when judged as a group (say, 50 years’ worth), make sure your clients know it!
Enthusiasm Is Power
Enthusiasm is a huge part of being an effective salesperson. Try to think of a memorable advertisement that didn’t feature actors who looked thrilled to be associated with their product. You don’t need to transform yourself into a glassy-eyed cultist, but make sure the people you speak to can tell you’re happy about the products you have to offer. Youthful energy can be a powerful sales asset if you can project it properly!
Study Up on Finances
When you sell insurance, you’re most often pitching to clients who have a pretty good grasp on their long-term finances. That usually includes a fair amount of knowledge regarding investments and the stock market. Even if you aren’t investing yourself, you should cultivate a basic understanding of the market and what it’s currently doing. You should be able to answer basic stock-related questions (e.g. which sectors you think are going to grow over the next quarter with a fair degree of confidence). Don’t try and pitch your clients hot stock tips; just develop a solid grounding allowing you to converse on the topic intelligently.
Practice Your Phone Technique
Take the opportunity to record your end of a few calls with clients so you can find out how you sound on the phone. You want a voice that projects confidence, maturity and intelligence. You definitely DON’T want to sound like the intern who grabbed the phone on the way back from the coffee shop.
Play to Your (Youthful) Strengths
Despite the perception that insurance is a game for older men and women, you should keep in mind that people of all ages need insurance. Young people buy homes and cars, start businesses and get married — they make all the major life decisions that demand good insurance coverage. Not all of them get the coverage they need; they might not even know they need it. Who better to educate and assist them than someone in their own age bracket?
Master the Basics
While you might be excited to apply your intimate knowledge of social media to your sales job, you must not neglect the fundamental skills of salesmanship. Strong people skills never go obsolete. If you don’t already have your own copy of Dale Carnegie’s “How To Win Friends and Influence People,” go get one right away. Carnegie’s book is a simple, no-frills masterclass in good people skills, and its lessons are just as applicable today as they were when he first wrote it.
Don’t Let Age Be the Elephant in the Room
As soon as you get the sense that you’re talking to a client who might be uncomfortable buying from a young salesperson, bring the issue out in the open. You can make a lighthearted joke about your youth and follow it up with some solid reassurance that you have the skills necessary to do the job. It’s better to face this issue head on and upfront than to let it fester.
Use Your Ears Along With Your Mouth When you’re starting to find your legs in a new profession, it’s very common to be uncertain about your body of knowledge. One unfortunate negative way this uncertainty manifests itself is by spewing up a little too much information when you’re trying to talk to potential clients. Let your client guide the focus of conversation and wait for them to ask questions before you show off your knowledge!
Be Your Own Marketer
If you’re working for a large firm, you probably have a marketing team out there somewhere to assist you. While it never hurts to have a big advertising budget on your side and you can always rely on marketers to give you snazzy presentation materials, you shouldn’t expect to be handed leads on a platter. Be prepared to promote yourself and your product on your own initiative. Potential leads are all around you, and the only person who suffers if you don’t pitch to them is you.
Preparation Is Always Key
The only permanent way to solve the inexperience problem is to do a lot of selling, but you can get there faster by working harder. Learn everything you can about the insurance you’re selling. Spend a little free time boning up on basic salesmanship. Practice your pitching skills over and over. Pitch to a mirror, pitch to a friend, pitch to a blank wall if you have to. Practice openings, your responses to common questions and you’re closing. Every little bit of practice helps!
Be Prepared To Work Hard
Hopefully nobody told you that selling insurance is an easy way to make a living. It takes very hard work, and not everyone is cut out for it. As a fresh salesperson just starting out, you’re going to have to cover more ground and work that much harder to close sales. Don’t complain about it; it’s the nature of the business. Put in the hours you need to succeed.
