Q. I want to improve my face-to-face presentation skills. Can you provide some tips on how to accomplish that?
A. Your skill at providing an effective face-to-face presentation during the first sales meeting is an essential ingredient to selling this product. To provide some practical sales tips, I turned to two very successful people, Marc Jacobson, an agent with Prudential's Chicagoland office and Mark Grempler, a Des Moines financial planner. Here are some of Marc
Jacobson's suggestions:
- During the first meeting, I always promise my client three things: (1) If you call, I'll call you back the same day; (2) If something is not in your best interest, I'll tell you; and (3) As good as I am in educating you, I'm ten times better when you need to file a claim.
- Identify the few core ideas you want to communicate and stick with them. Your presentation must be short, simple and to the point.
- I always run three illustrations and have apps and testimonials with me. Paper is cheaper than gas and time.
- Be concrete. Give an idea that they can visualize.
- Use stories. If a story is well told, we visualize it in our heads and better remember the information.
- There are only two reasons to buy LTC. First, the person doesn't want to lose his or her independence; or second, they don't want their hard-earned estate to go to LTC bills.
- If you make the process simple and look through the client's eyes to see what's important, you'll close three times as much as you do now.
- The single most important issue is affordability. I always provide a monthly premium amount instead of annual because it makes it sound like less money.
- Stress that the benefit of $200 a day equals almost $75,000 a year.
More helpful suggestions come from Mark Grempler. Here is what he tells his wealthy clients who are considering self-insuring. "Do you really think Bill Gates owns LTC insurance and that he is concerned about $60,000 to $100,000 per year if he were to become ill? They say, ?Of course not.' I say, Well, by definition he is self-insured.
However, says Grempler, most people don't have enough money to be self-insured, and that's why we as financial planners are obligated to at least talk to our clients about protecting their portfolio by having the proper insurance in the event of a prolonged illness or LTC need.
