Respect, Trust and the Growing Senior Market

Any organization — regardless of the type of business you’re running or even the industry you’re operating in — ultimately exists to fulfill a single purpose: to make the lives better of the people who make up your target audience.

Everything else is merely window dressing. Your company made a promise to consumers and every step you take, decision you make or action you execute is one with this simple-yet-noble goal in mind.

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But without a rock-solid foundation of communication, this is a goal that becomes worse than awkward. It becomes impossible.

Success in every aspect of your organization ultimately lives and dies by your ability to communicate. Marketing, for example, is all about getting the right message to the right person at the right time — how are you supposed to do that if you aren’t an efficient communicator? But more than that, people don’t just need to know what your product or service does — they need to understand why you’re doing it and why that matters in the first place. Because at the end of the day, you’re not simply trying to sell to people.

The Challenges

You’re trying to empower them. This, of course, requires you to keep a few key things in mind.

1. The Baby Boom generation is big.

At my firm, LifeGuide Partners, LLC, we have a unique challenge concerning communication because we have a large, specific audience. Namely, seniors who might be interested in selling their life insurance policies. At our core, our goal is simple: we want to help seniors, and Baby Boomers who are not yet seniors, make the best possible decisions about their life insurance coverage, no exceptions.

Baby Boomers are members of the largest generation to ever venture into senior citizenship in the history of the United States. Their population peaked in 1999, when 78.8 million people made up this new Greatest Generation. Though many have already started retiring, we’re about to get hit by a massive wave, and people on both sides of this equation need to be ready.

2. Life insurance is inherently complicated.

Most life insurance policies must be converted into a universal policy before the holder reaches their 70th birthday. Only then can the policy be carried forward as a sellable asset in a life settlement. You cannot just sell a term policy to a settlement company, since the term has an end date — but most seniors don’t qualify for this process just yet. For most, 75 is the target age, though this will obviously vary depending on health and other issues.

3. Technology can help.

Technology is a huge asset for seniors in the modern era, particularly to help bring housebound clients and their families the information they need directly into their home. Likewise, there are a great deal of remotely monitored devices and services available to keep a senior safe in their home even if they live alone.

4. Good health can sometimes be an obstacle.

The healthier someone is, the less likely it is that they can sell a life insurance policy for cash — something that itself is an inherently complicated process, riddled with essential decisions that need to be made on the foundation of accurate, actionable information.

This is where a firm like mine can help.