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Life Health > Annuities > Fixed Annuities

Wowing your client with some fabulous features

By Kelly Shaw

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Now that we’re through “Trust” and “Need,” it is time to talk about creating “Help.” Right now we are at the lowest sale resistance that we can possibly be at. At this point, you can begin directly addressing your potential clients’ wants, needs, and desires with the level of trust you have built.

You should now be viewed as a counselor, consultant or trusted advisor. We have answered all their questions; we have sat with them and built rapport. You have achieved the goal of being liked and trusted, plus your client has publicly admitted that they have a specific need. All have agreed on the need and they are ready to listen. This is the exact point where your client is willing to listen to your presentation with curiosity and respect for what you have to say. Now it is time to create the urgency of “Help.”

There are basically five steps of “Help.”

1. Product identification – Making sure we have the right product.

2. Company expertise – What is the company expertise in the area? Why are you recommending it?

3. Salesperson expertise.

4. Third-party endorsements.

5. Product features.

Once we get through these, we will turn up the heat on “Buyer Acceptance.”

This is my favorite part. This is what clients are always thinking about when they’re in your office or you are in their home: “What’s in it for me?”

It is now time for wow with “FAB.”

“I have discovered that most of the great salespeople in the world – are the top 1 percent who make close to $1 million a year or more – are all solution-based salespeople.

“A friend of mine from the Carolinas, Richard Berry – who was a 2007 finalist for SMA‘s Advisor of the Year – sells $30 million of fixed annuities a year by selling solutions, not products. When you bring up your solutions, the client always wants to know, “What’s in it for me?”

I like to use what I call “FAB” – Feature, Advantage and Benefit. Products will have unique features; one example would be fixed index annuities. A feature of an FIA may be something like tax deferral. The advantage to the client is to make gains, not showing them as income. The benefit is to pay less taxes, and money compounds faster.

Another example is a variable annuity. You have annual lock-ins for income or monthly lock-ins, in some cases daily lock-ins. So what does that mean to the client? The feature is they get the gains locked in, or they have a guaranteed growth rate at 7.2 percent that they can take income from down the road. The advantage to the client is that the money is guaranteed to grow.

The ultimate purpose (and what annuities were originally designed for) is to have something to take income from. Then at some point, their money is guaranteed to double. The advantage and benefit to them is that they will always have an income stream they will be able to take income from and never outlive. They can now invest and still get a good night’s sleep. Remember this part of the sale is all about the client and what problems they have and what product that you can provide to solve their problem. When you are done with this part of the sale, the client should say, “Wow ? that will do all that for me?” Now you are closer to the completed sale.

*For further information or to contact this author, please use the forum below.

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