Surviving the ‘perfect storm’

The advisor's role

Prospects have many avenues available to them to purchase insurance, from telemarketers who sell insurance over the phone to carriers who provide insurance products over the Internet.

One reason carriers have contracted agents is that it is easy for people to procrastinate when purchasing insurance. Advisors help in bringing action on the part of the prospect.

The primary function of an advisor, as it relates to selling, is to:

• Uncover sources of dissatisfaction.
• Disturb the prospect.
• Remove complacency.
• Instill a desire for changing the status quo.
• Offer an intelligent and acceptable solution.
• Effect a decision to buy – TODAY!

Learning what your prospect expects helps you create a buying experience that motivates your prospect to purchase from you.

Prospects tune in to "WIIFM" radio. Thinking from the "What's in it for me?" perspective of your prospect allows you to uncover the information that triggers your prospect's buying motivation.

Understanding prospects and the way they buy enables advisors to succeed in their chosen profession. However, simply understanding the prospect's motives doesn't accomplish anything. Successful advisors not only figure out the buying motives, but they also use these motives to make a sale.

Human relations in sales

Selling includes both objective facts and subjective impressions.

• Prospects will do business with someone they like.
• Be yourself. If you try to be someone you are not, you will be regarded as insincere.
• Know your products. This is a sales strength. It promotes confidence.
• Expect the best from your prospects.

You can't succeed on what your "about" to do. The signs are in the marketplace: The baby boomer market is growing, as is the "echo" generation, those born after 1976, and these individuals will be better educated, have more financial resources and be more informed consumers than generations before them. We know, based on current research, that individuals who are reaching Social Security-qualified retirement age will do three things, almost without exception:

1. Sign up for Social Security.
2. Automatically be enrolled in Medicare.
3. 80 percent will purchase some type of medical supplement plan, such as Medicare Supplement/Medicare Advantage.

They will reposition money they already have allocated in their monthly disposable income to pay for these insurance/financial products, often at a cost less than what they are currently paying. They then will reposition these excess funds into lifestyle spending. For the balance of their lives they will engage in "predictable" buying behaviors, at predictable "spending" cycles in their lives based on predictable "solutions" to their quality-of-life events. And as they engage in these "predictable" behaviors they will look to professionals for counsel, advice and direction.

So we have to look at how we self-manage our business and ensure we are prepared to offer the counsel, advice and direction that best fits our clients' needs. Self-management begins with self-knowledge. It means examining and questioning your talents, assumptions, beliefs and values to:

• Make assessments of your strengths and weaknesses.
• Develop your positive qualities.
• Control your weak areas.

Success comes from setting and achieving personal goals on a consistent basis. Good things do not just happen. Here's wishing you all the success your willing to work for.

For more from Lloyd Lofton, see:

• 3 strategies to help clients manage assets
• Financing long-term care needs with an annuity
• Invest in stocks? Yes. But don't forget about annuities