Selling any ancillary employee benefit in todays climate is a challenge, given the huge burden employers face with rapidly escalating medical premiums.
With disability, however, the facts are on your side. Disability insurance not only provides vitally important income protection for employees, but it also protects the employers interests in ways many employers–particularly those running small but growing companies–often dont fully understand.
Most people understand both the importance and the value of life insurance. Most dont realize that people are far more likely to suffer disability than death before age 65. And many of the entrepreneurs building successful, growing enterprises have not given a great deal of thought to how they would deal with the disability of a key employee–or how the decisions they would make in such a case would set precedents they would have to live with for years to come.
That knowledge is power–selling power. Knowledge makes it possible to be successful selling disability, even in todays economy. Lay the facts out on the table. Those who are smart enough to be successful entrepreneurs in this economy will be smart enough to see the need, understand the value and buy the product.
The prime new customer for disability is a successful startup or a small company experiencing a surge of growth. One way to open that customers mind to new possibilities is by asking a question: How would you handle the situation if your most valuable employeeyour right-hand personsuffered a disability that would keep the employee from working for an extended period of time?
As the question is pondered, remind the employer that whatever assistance offered in that situation would set a precedent that could complicate personnel issues at the company for years to come.
At this point, you have created what educators like to call a teachable moment. Now, you can start laying out your facts, because your potential customer is open to them. Those facts include:
Disability insurance coverage takes that difficult decision about the key employee off the employers hands. The employer will never have to make that hard choice.
Disability is a benchmark benefitone that an employer of highly educated, highly skilled workers needs to offer in order to compete for talent.
