10 Insurance Sales Tips To Remember
Based on our experiences and those of our agents, we’ve compiled a list of ten important insurance sales tips for Medicare agents to remember. Comment below with any other sales tips you think we forgot!
- Sell Yourself – When you’re selling insurance, you’re selling both goods and services. The services include you, because you’ll be the one checking in to make sure your client’s plan is working for them and to potentially sell them additional products. This means that going over the products and then leaving is not nearly effective as having a conversation will be. Get to know your clients. Ask them questions about not just their medical history, but also their families and their careers. Getting to know them personally will also give you a better chance of helping them pick the best plan.
- First Impressions – Think of your first meeting with a client as a networking event. You want to dress professionally, carry your materials in an appropriate, neat way, bring plenty of business cards, and speak professionally. Shake hands, make eye contact, and smile! That first meeting is the potential beginning of a long relationship.
- Conversate- If you’re meeting a client in their living room, it shouldn’t feel like a business meeting. Ask them about their families – Medicare eligibles and seniors love talking about their grandkids! Small talk doesn’t have to be about the weather. Get to know simple things about your clients. Let them realize that you aren’t there to rip them off, you’re there to find the plan that works best for them and to help them get the care that they need.
- Be Transparent – Don’t be a dirty salesman! You’re in the health care industry. More importantly, the Medicare industry. The clients you’re dealing with often don’t know much about the product you’re selling them, and it can be easy to fall into manipulation tactics. Not only is that illegal, but it won’t help you in developing yourself and making sales. Clients want you to be transparent. They want to know that they can trust you with their health and their wallets.
- Be excited about the products – Your genius sales tactics won’t work if you use a monotone voice and a lack of enthusiasm. People respond better to the way you phrase the facts than to the facts themselves. Two people can say the exact same words in the exact same order, and the person with more enthusiasm is more likely to close the sale.
- Listen more than you talk – If a client feels like you’re “talking at” them, they’ll feel like you’re trying to sell them something. The goal is to get clients the care they need at an affordable price. While compensation is important, your job is to help people. Listen to what the client wants and needs from their plan instead of throwing ideas at them.
- Avoid jargon – or at least, make sure you’re explaining yourself. Don’t assume that your clients know what all the terms associated with Medicare and the insurance industry mean. Chances are, they haven’t thought about Medicare because they weren’t eligible.
- Sell on the coverage first, then the price – According to our agents who have spent years out in the field speaking with clients, people are much more concerned with how much coverage is included in their plan than how much it’s going to cost. Spend more time talking about coverage. When you’ve figured out the bare minimum that they need, you can go ahead and look at their budget.
- Be persistent, not obnoxious – It’s ok to send appointment reminders (with your client’s permission) but one is usually enough. Follow-up phone calls and emails are also a great idea, just be careful. Too many will turn people away!
- Find a support team (FMO) – Field marketing organizations like Senior Market Advisors can give you the tools you need to find as many leads as possible and convert most, if not all of those leads into sales. We’ll teach you how to keep your clients and sell them ancillary products when OEP is over. Learn how to get started with us today.
