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January 26, 2005 at 07:00 PM
Make Medigap Marketing An LTCI Profit Center
By
Years of working with many producers has taught me a lot of thingsthe most important being that sales ability alone is not the primary factor distinguishing those at the top of the income ladder from those on the bottom. It appears that the primary difference between producers is simply the number of qualified prospects to whom they get to make presentations. This brings me to the conclusion that marketing and prospecting are always more important than actual sales skills.
There is an exercise I like to do in sales management training classes that never fails to prove this point. I ask people to list the top-10 producers they have ever known and then to list the 10 best, pure salespeople they know. Interestingly, the names on these lists are never in the same order, and most often they dont even contain the same names. So, if top producers are not necessarily the best salespeople, the reason for their success must lie elsewhere. Evidence suggests it can be found in either the number of presentations they make, a larger average volume per sale, or both. The first is a reflection of the number of prospects they generate, and the second is the quality of those prospects.
Based on this information, one would think that salespeople always would be looking for better prospects through better marketing. Yet when I ask people, whether its a front-line salesperson or a vice president, what they are doing in the marketing and prospect arena, I hear the same time-proven, tried-and-only-moderately-successful prospecting and marketing ideas. Not only do these ideas seem to run in cycles, but almost all salespeople and sales organizations seem to be at the same point in the same cycle at the same time. Its mass mailings, seminars, cold calling, target marketing or using some sort of centers of influence for referrals. Bottom line, they all work (to some extent) and all are time-consuming and expensive.
Being a true believer in the concept that success is most often rooted in the ability to be first, different or better, I cant think of a place where a fresh approach is needed more than in the world of marketing and prospecting. With that in mind, allow me to share a marketing/prospecting idea that will not only provide you with qualified leads, but will, in effect, pay for itself.
The opportunity here can be found in what appears to be a producer/product gap in the senior market. Im not sure why this is, but after doing some homework, heres what I found: The vast majority of producers who sell annuities and long term care insurance dont sell Medigap policies. Inversely, almost all people we surveyed who use Medigap polices as their main product told us they dont sell annuities or LTCI.
Having heard numerous reasons from both sides of this equation, Ive yet to hear one good reason as to why this gap exists; after all, all three are mainstay products within the same market. Our conclusion is simple: Where there is a void, there is an opportunity.
Obviously a good percentage of the people who buy Medigap policies do not qualify as prospects for annuities or LTCI; nevertheless this prospecting method provides annuity and LTCI producers with an extremely advantageous marketing approach.
