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Life Health > Life Insurance

Sales Tips for Annuity Advisors

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Our 100 Best Sales and Marketing Ideas feature will be out in June. To gather those best ideas, we reached out to successful advisors to get their best tips. Following are highlights from top advisors.

“I had a client that was going to add funds to a non-qualified annuity that was earning about 3 percent. She had no intention of using this money and ultimately would pass it on to her daughter. I explained to her how we could use life insurance to create a tax-free death benefit that would go to her daughter upon her death. We took $50,000 and created in excess of $88,000 of death benefit overnight. My client never thought she could get life insurance at age 84. I helped improve the situation for her and the daughter and also earned a nice return for me. We have to think outside the box and ask questions in order to provide the best service for clients.”

Eric Van Shore

“First, help your prospect fund the premium: What accounts can be used to provide 3 percent to 6 percent of their retirement income to pay the premium without invading their monthly budget? Second, show them the pool of money 25 or 30 years from now compared to the accumulated premium; if they don’t see the value in leveraging their savings, they probably won’t buy. Explaining that 25 years of investment won’t even cover one year of care in the future should convince them to mitigate the risk by transferring the catastrophic portion to a third party.”

Mike Westling

Follow up! Sometimes the client is not always ready to buy or it was not the right time. What I have found is that less successful agents that did not get the sale the first visit do not follow up, and there is low hanging fruit with a follow up call and/or visit even two, three or six months later. I create email blasts and letter mailouts that will prompt an old client to call.”

Kevin Cornell

“I host a monthly ‘Advisor Luncheon.’ Clients are encouraged to bring guests. We provide a wide variety of topics for discussion and bring in special speakers from organizations such as AARP, Social Security and Senior Services to educational speakers, such as the ‘Geek Squad,’ Master Gardeners, Chefs, etc. It is crucial now more than ever to have constant contact with clients, and this is an easy and inexpensive means to introduce their friends to my practice.”

Virginia Wright

“I ask my prospect (client) how much life insurance do you have? If he answers $1 million (for example), I would ask why did you buy it? If he answers income protection, I would ask how did you get to $1 million? That takes me always to a [pitch] that he is under-insured. Same goes for estate tax, which will prove that he does not have the adequate amount. Nothing is more powerful then the person’s own action.”

David Simkowitz


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