Make more this Medicare Annual Enrollment Period by doing what rich people do!!

How do we generally make money?  By solving a problem for someone.  How do we make more money?  By solving more problems for more people.  How does one get rich?  By solving problems for a lot of people.

Insurance agents get paid by solving problems for clients.  Think of yourself as a problem solver and not as a person selling insurance plans.  This thinking and approach will maximize your income potential.

Medicare Advantage Illustration:

When covering the benefit for Part B drugs (drugs administered in a facility), ask client if they know anyone that has experienced cancer.  Most everyone has some story to tell on this topic.  (If it is their personal story from within the last 5 years, they will not qualify under this illustration).

Today, many cancers are curable and long term survival rates continue to increase.  But cancer treatment is expensive.  Many chemotherapy treatments (Part B drugs) can cost thousands of dollars per treatment and run 4 to 12 months or longer. Part B drugs is the single largest financial exposure item in Medicare Advantage Plans.

At 20% coinsurance, treatment for an internal cancer diagnosis will most certainly result in one calendar MOOP (Maximum out of Pocket) and most likely two.  Treatment begun in the 2^nd half of the year will likely continue into the next year.

If annual MOOP is $5,000, ask the client if paying $10,000 (2 MOOPs), potentially within a timeframe of less than a year, would be a problem for them.  Most will say YES.

You say, “what if I can solve that problem for you today for about $30 per month?”  Or perhaps you say, “what if I can solve that problem for you today for less than $50 per month and guarantee all your premiums are refunded if you never get cancer?”

Solution:  GTL Precision Care without or with Return of Premium rider.

• ·         Include critical illness insurance on your SOAs

• ·         Know basic underwriting for cancer insurance plans.  Obviously you would not propose this solution to someone who you know would not qualify.

FAQ:  Wouldn’t a hospital indemnity plan with a cancer rider be a better solution?  A:  Perhaps, if the hospital out of pocket exposure would be a problem for them, you might solve that too.  Hospital indemnity plans with cancer riders are more expensive and normally have more underwriting.  Use questions to identify problems and use your product set to solve those problems for the client.

Jeffrey VanCleve

Lighthouse Insurance Marketing

330-354-3901

Simple Tip for Increasing Final Expense Sales

Surprisingly, far too many Medicare Supplement and Medicare Advantage Plan agents sell little or no life insurance.  The simplified issue final expense product is certainly one of the best cross sell opportunities to Medicare beneficiaries in the senior insurance market.  It's simple, affordable, easy to qualify for, and will noticeably improve agent income and overall client persistency.

One top agent who sells final expense policies to over 50% of his Medicare supplement clients simply asks one final question at the end of the Medicare supplement application:  

Would you like to add the death benefit?

It's one of those "Golden Nugget" simple questions that generate interest and powerful results for this agent.

Say the Magic Phrase and watch your sales soar!

Revisiting this golden advice from Chris Lytle who wrote "The Accidental Salesperson":

Your target prospects buy the way you sell before they buy what you sell.

The sooner you sell your prospect on how you are going to work together, the faster they will buy your products.  This is a simple, yet profound concept that is a key to top gun selling.

So, the magic phrase is, "This is the way I work", which communicates to the prospect that you have an organized, planned approach to sales and to solving their problem.  Understanding that sales is a process and being able to articulate the steps in your process separates you from the pack and positions you as a professional. (Very few agents actually do this!)  If you cannot sell the prospect on your sales process, you will not be effective selling your products.  Too many agents try to take shortcuts; if you try to sell your product before selling them on your process, you are going to get a lot more objections.  So, tell your prospects how you are going to sell them before you try to sell them any product.  Tell them exactly what is going to happen and when it is going to happen.  A client who has bought the way you sell will buy more of the things you sell.  When the client knows exactly what is going to happen, they can quit being guarded and participate in the process.

Does your process include learning certain things about the prospect?
Does it include understanding what similar products they may currently own and why?
Does it include educating them and advising them in a certain area and answering all questions?
Does it include one or more face to face meetings?
Does it include presentation of alternative solutions to solve their problems?
Does it include follow up service?

While this is not an all inclusive list, and your sales process may change for different target prospect groups, take the time to define how you will work with the prospect and tell them up front.

"So Mr. Prospect, I want you to know how I work with my clients; first.......then.....etc....
Is that fair enough?  or Does that make sense to you?"

When the prospect says "Yes", you have built professional credibility and already closed a product sale the vast majority of the time.

www.jlsmarketingconceptsltd.com

Failure as Teacher

A book called Art and Fear shows how failure is tied to learning.  A ceramics teacher divided his class into two groups.  One group would be graded solely on quantity of work - fifty pounds of pottery would be an "A", forty would be a "B" and so on.  The other group would be graded on quality.  Students in that group had to produce only one pot - but it had better be good.

Amazingly, all the highest quality pots were turned out by the quantity group.  It seems that while the quantity group kept churning out pots, they were continually learning from their disasters and growing as artists.  The quality group sat around and planned and theorized about perfection - and worrying about it - but they never actually got any better.

It appears that trying and failing, learning from failure, and trying again works a lot better that waiting for perfection.  No pot, no matter how misshapen, is really a failure.  Each is just another step on the road to an "A".

In the field of selling, continual education and training are vital to being among the best, but Top Guns don't obsess about perfect scripts and presentations before they act.  They know that there is no perfection, only progression.  Make the calls, set the appointments - with each call and each appointment, you can learn something of value to make you better and more effective.  Focus more on quantity and learn from your mistakes, and watch your quality continually improve.

Jeffrey VanCleve
www.jlsmarketingconceptsltd.com

The Will to Act: A Lesson from Batman

Much has been written about fear and the paralyzing effects it can have on achieving success.  It is important to accept the fact that every insurance agent has some degree of fear which may affect performance and results, and accept that courage is not the absence of fear, but the ability to take action despite any fear.

A favorite writing of mine on the subject comes from author and speaker Keith Luscher.  I read it often to keep inspired to take action each day, despite any fear I might be feeling:

At one point over the holidays, when I should have been updating my plans for this

coming year, I found myself watching Batman Begins—the 2005 predecessor

to The Dark Knight. As the movie chronicles Bruce Wayne’s ninja-style training

on a remote mountaintop in Asia, I am often moved by the words of Wayne’s

mentor, Henri Ducard, played by Liam Neeson: “Training is nothing! 

Will is everything!” Ducard tells Wayne as they spar across a frozen lake. 

“The will to act!”

It was a pity that a character who played such a strong role in Bruce Wayne’s

transformation into the legendary superhero, turned out to be one his greatest

arch enemies. But the lesson I took from that cold mountaintop (in the comfort

of my couch!) is that training is indeed meaningless if it is not used

—if it is not acted upon.

Why do so many of us fail to act? We invest in programs, in books and

videos, yet we remain stuck in our old routines. Or worse, we go back

to doing nothing. We know what we must do; yet we lack the will to do it.

In reality, we lack the courage.

Greatness cannot exist without courage. Much of the erosion in 

business and our culture today is the result of people lacking the

courage to do what they already know they should do. Consider

that historically, many people who have fallen from grace were those who

had the highest training and ethics, but lacked the courage—the will—to act.

Courage does not come easily. Remember, when we speak of courage, we

are not referring to fearlessness or foolhardiness. Courage cannot exist

without fear. It’s human to be afraid—as is the temptation to take the

“easy” way out of a situation. However, what separates goodness

from greatness is the courage to do what is right each and every day.

Christian author Tim Kimmel, in his book Legacy of Love, describes

courage this way: “Although it takes unusual courage to die for

something; it takes an even greater courage to live for something.

Dying for a right cause takes one right choice; living for a right cause

requires hundreds of choices each day, every day.” Bruce Wayne faced

his fear, which gave him the courage and the will to advance something

he believed in. What about you? Do you truly believe in the value you

can bring to peoples’ lives? Do you know what you must do? If so,

what might be holding you back, today?

Don’t worry about tomorrow or next week. You are here, now. 

For today, identify one action for today, and take it. Summon the will.

www.jlsmarketingconceptsltd.com

This "Secret" is like gold in your hand!

Listening.  Active listening.  Not a sales "secret" in the traditional sense; all agents know how important this is in developing relationships and in effective selling.  Certainly a lot written on this topic, and its a central focus of Dale Carnegie human relations training.

But it might as well be a secret, because so few agents have actually mastered this.  The fact is that if you are skilled at asking the right questions, your prospect or client will do the majority of the talking, and you will do the majority of the listening.  This is what builds great rapport, and makes you memorable in the mind of the customer.

Many agents though mistakenly believe that they need to impress by talking about their own background and experience and educating the client, and thus do most of the talking in every encounter.

Want to really impress your client?  Get them to do most of the talking, and actively listen - not only with your ears, but your body language as well.  Get good at asking questions, deeper questions, follow up questions.....

What is the first step?  Be totally honest with yourself.  Analyze your last prospect/client meeting.  Did you fall into the talking trap?  Easy to do...after all, we all secretly want to talk about ourselves, and let the client know how much we know.  You can fix it, and be consistent with listening more than you talk.

Still waters really do run deep.  Get them talking, revealing themselves.  If they ask you questions, keep your answers brief and to the point, and keep the focus on them.  They will find you strangely credible and brilliant, even though you did not rattle off your resume line by line.  You can take that golden nugget right to the bank.

Being memorable

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Do you have an open mind?

"We cannot learn what is right if we secretly insist that we already know it. Now, this statement seems quite obvious; a man would quickly agree with it. Yet, there is something drastically wrong somewhere. If a man truly sees that he does not know rightness, his very emptiness leaves room for it, which changes the man into a freer state. If a man does not change, it means just one thing: he fearfully clings to the false assumption that he already knows rightness, which blocks entrance of genuine rightness."  - Vernon Howard

An illuminating truth to reflect upon....in fact, we have a tendency to be closed to learn anything at all in an area that we are sure we already know.  I recently spoke with an agent inquiring about various lead programs....he had done "well" trying some lead sources and not so well with others, insisting that he had good products and was very confident in his selling and presentation skills....just needed more quality leads.

"Well" to this agent was selling to 3 out of 10 qualified leads.  We know the master communicators/master closers in our industry sell to 8 out of 10 qualified leads.  But initially, this agent refused to acknowledge the possibility that he could close more leads by both diversifying his solution set and improving his communication skills.  Once he put his ego aside, he created the freedom to accept new possibilities....new ways of doing business.  He ultimately improved his results dramatically, not by acquiring more leads, but by selling more effectively to the leads he already had.

Want to make more money??  Keep your ego in check and an open mind to new possibilities.  Keep a willingness to try something new and at least see how it works out.  Good luck and good selling.

https://www.jlsmarketingconceptsltd.com/