Storytelling: An underutilized selling skill for insurance agents

"Great stories agree with our world view. The best stories don't teach people anything new. Instead, the best stories agree with what the audience already believes and makes the members of the audience feel smart and secure when reminded how right they were in the first place." – Seth Godin

As an insurance agent, there are hundreds of different products you are licensed to sell. Every product has unique coverages that protect your client.

However, it's not the coverages or limits that your prospects or customers are concerned about. Your prospects and customers want the story that paints the emotional picture of how that coverage benefits them and, more specifically, why it's important that they buy it from you.

Being a great storyteller is one of the greatest skills of any salesperson. However, most insurance agents focus on facts, data, and boring proposals.

I am not telling you to hide facts, data, or price. These will always be a huge factors for any consumer making a buying decision. I am telling you to emotionally connect with your prospects and customers with stories first to help make selling easier later.

What are you discussing with your prospects and clients?

I am sure you have heard the phrase, "Facts tell, but stories sell." This phrase may be cliché, but it's 100 percent accurate.

Facts make you feel smart, informative, and in charge. In reality, most consumers see you as arrogant, confusing, and unlikable.

Stories that incorporate the prospect using data and facts as the basis for the story, engage. For instance:

Facts are relevant.
Facts are important
Facts provide detail

However, facts do not engage emotion, unless your prospect or customer can visualize themselves as part of a story where those facts directly impact them. That's why you must learn to become a master storyteller.

Before you meet with a prospect or customer, you must understand the facts and details of your proposal. You must understand the details and coverage options inside and out.

Most importantly, you must be able to take the facts and details that apply to your prospect or customer and turn then into stories that are understandable and relatable.

People buy emotionally, but justify intellectually. Until you can pull an emotional trigger, you will forever be fighting selling price.

Those that sell only on price, focus on data and facts. Those that sell based on value and relationships, take facts and data and embed them in a great story.

How do you want to sell? If you are tired of always fighting pricing objections, maybe it's time you start understanding the magic of storytelling.

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