There’s a hard way and much easier way to sell life insurance
February 3, 2016 by Lew Nason RFC, LUTCF
There is a hard way to get started in life insurance sales and achieve long-term success. But there’s also a much easier way. You will notice that I said much easier and not easy. If life insurance sales were easy, we wouldn’t have an 85 percent agent failure rate in the first year, with the remaining agents struggling to survive five years and earning mediocre income.
The hard way, which most agents choose, or are taught, is working with people who have never heard of them. Most agents think it’s easier to either buy or take a cut in commissions to get hundreds of life insurance leads each month. Or, that they can use a direct mail (or a newspaper product ad) program to contact 100,000 or more people each month, to find the few people who need and want to buy life insurance right now.
Unfortunately, in most cases, the people who want to buy life insuranceright now are the people with health problems, or they are shoppers looking for the cheapest life insurance products.
These agents will spend $25,000, $35,000 or more every year hoping to set 10-20 new appointments each week, and close 3-5 quick life insurance sales per week. The very best of these agents will end up working 60 or more hours per week, calling hundreds of life insurance leads to set 10-20 appointments. They will then drive all over their county and state to earn a net income of $40,000 to $60,000 in their first year. While, almost everyone else (85 percent) just struggles along and eventually, gives up.
The vast majority of these agents don’t have the time, and/or won’t take the time to learn there is a better and much easier way. So, they continue to follow the crowd, doing the same things over and over again, getting the same results, and earning the same net income.
The much easier way to get started in life insurance sales and achieve long-term success is by working with people you already know, while learning how to get the people in your local community to know you and the services you provide, so you become the trusted advisor they want to see. It’s about you contacting the people who need your products and/or services, and then helping them to understand the problems they are facing now and in the future.
These agents will spend $10,000 to $20,000 per year on monthly client newsletters, direct mail and educational workshops to connect with the people they already know. And because they are working with people they know, and actually helping people, they will only need to set five new appointments each week, to close three to five life insurance sales per week. Most of these agents will initially work 60 or more hours per week, studying their profession, contacting 10-25 people they know, to set five new appointments, and they will work with the people in their local community, to earn a net income of $70,000 to $100,000 in their first year.
Then, as they learn more, and are helping people more, they will start closing more and much larger life insurance sales, be getting morereferrals and working only 40 hours or less a week; All while earning $150,000-$350,000 per year!
Now, which way makes more sense to you?
It is up to you. You can follow the crowd and do it the hard way, trying to find the few people who need life insurance and want to buy life insurance right now. And, you will spend more money on life insurance leads, call more people for an appointment, spend more time driving to and from appointments, and be closing smaller life insurance sales. And, only have a 15 percent chance of making it past the first year.
Or, you can do it the easier way.
An easier solution is working with the people you already know. By doing this, you will have an 80 percent chance of making it past the first year! Plus, have the opportunity to earn a significantly higher income.
Remember, Ben Feldman one of the most prolific life insurance salesmen of all time, made millions of dollars working in the small town of East Liverpool, Ohio.
Albert Gray, in “The Common Denominator of Success” put it this way: “Any successful life insurance salesman will tell you that it is easier to sell life insurance to people who don’t want it, than it is to find people who do want it, but if you have not deliberately formed the habit of prospecting for needs, regardless of wants, then unconsciously you have formed the habit of limiting your prospecting to people who want life insurance and therein lies the one and only real reason for lack of prospects.”