By
Scottsdale, Ariz.
One of the keys to selling investment products to senior citizens is recognizing that most of them live to some extent in a state of financial fear, said a sales training consultant at the Financial Institutions Insurance Association meeting here last month.
Larry Klein, president of NF Communications, Inc., Walnut Creek, Calif., pointed out that this is the reason that seniors are the best prospects for bank insurance agents.
For one thing, he said, “They want your advice.” And unlike many younger people, they generally trust the advice of professionals.
But above all, seniors are the hottest prospects for the simple reason that they have most of the money, Klein observed.
Not only have they had a longer period of time to accumulate their money than most people, but more importantly, they also control that money.
“The beauty about seniors is that their money is not locked up in a 401k,” Klein argued. “They can say yes and write you a check today.”
Yet with all of this going for seniors, those advisors and producers who dont take the time to understand them can chase them away.
“If you sell them the same way you sell younger people, theyll tell you theyll think about it,” he said. “But theyll never call you again.”
The first thing to remember about seniors, Klein insisted, is that they dont buy features or benefits. “They buy you,” he said.
They tend to pick an advisor or agent who seems to know what he or she is doing yet who doesnt make them feel foolish by talking about technical details that they dont understand.
Klein also pointed out a number of pitfalls to working with seniors, starting with their strong belief that their own experience trumps the facts.
“After youve been alive for seven decades, you begin to believe that what youve experienced is the absolute truth,” he said.
Advisors who are uninitiated in that aspect of dealing with seniors may present a financial solution that, while technically correct, runs into resistance because it is outside the seniors experience.