Make the annuity sale a part of your New Year’s resolutions

As the year winds down, now is a perfect time to step back and evaluate your annuities sales strategies. Considering the previous 12 months, think about what worked, failed or didn't quite hit the mark. Ask yourself how changing market conditions are affecting the way you connect with clients and how we do business.

The insight gained from your reflection time should lead you toward some resolutions for the New Year. To help bolster those resolutions, here are some additional sales strategies to consider adding to your arsenal as you prepare for a successful year of annuities sales in 2016.

Go old school to connect with clients

Drawing on traditional sales practices can foster fruitful personal connections. Taking the time to make a phone call can help you build real and meaningful relationships with your clients.

You'll also be able to draw cues from your client's tone of voice that may improve your client service. In the coming weeks, challenge yourself to avoid email and text message communication when the opportunity for a personal interaction exists.

Meet face to face

To step up your personal connections, try in-person meetings. Meeting your clients face to face provides better opportunities to learn more about them and allows them to learn more about you as well. Coffee, lunch or hanging at the big game are all good excuses to meet in person.

Don't hesitate to offer an in-home meeting with clients to make it easier on them. Face-to-face interactions are typically more meaningful to both the client, and you, the financial professional.

Nurture the next generation of your client base

When meeting with some of your older clients, don't miss an opportunity to make an impression on other family members in the room. Often, these clients are preparing to transfer their wealth to the next generation — namely, their adult children, or even, potentially, grandchildren.

Making an impression on this captive audience now can help pave the way to adding these family members into your client base. We tend to wait to build these relationships after our clients pass away. This "next" generation needs financial advice now.

Target Generation X

As the oldest members of Generation X approach 50, now is a prime time to position the annuity sale. This demographic is financially conservative and likely looking for ways to protect and grow their assets before

they reach retirement.

Given that Gen X members are likely approaching their last decade of working years, they aren't interested in gambling with the money they've worked so hard to accumulate for retirement. To appeal to their conservative outlook, position fixed annuities — an investment strategy with strong guarantees. Make sure your clients understand that fixed annuities may fit nicely into any retirement portfolio and that flexible payout options offer lifetime income streams.

Before you flip the calendar to 2016, be sure to consider these ideas to give yourself the best shot at early success in the New Year.

End your year with a meaningful thank you