Sales Tips for Beginners

Every broker needs a few insurance sales tips when starting his or her sales career. There are three time-tested approaches to selling insurance. Any one of them can be effective based on the circumstances and needs of your particular customer. Become familiar with all three, and you will have the resources you need to appeal to virtually every insurance buyer.

The logical appeal

Use the logical appeal to persuade a customer that life insurance is an expense that’s a part of their cost of living. For example, show the logic behind life insurance when the customer has a young family, a mortgage, and/or other debts. Explain that the customer may not need life insurance in his or her senior years, after his children have launched their own careers or once a customer is debt free, but that at this time it’s logical to have it. Explain that at this point in time leaving your family underinsured or uninsured exposes the customer and his or her family to unnecessary risk.

The responsible appeal

Another insurance sales tip that veteran brokers use is an appeal to the customer’s sense of responsibility. The basis of this appeal is simple. Speak with the customer about how much his or her family’s income would be reduced if he or she passed now or in the future. Walk your customer through the choices his or her survivors would have to make if they weren’t covered by life insurance. For example, would they have to sell the family home or could they afford college? Relay the message that life insurance can save their family from these and similar financial concerns.

The investment appeal

The third insurance sales tip appeals is to the investment minded customer who wants to watch his or her money grow over time. Insurance annuity sales can provide a customer with a tax-deferral resource now and a secure source of retirement income in the future. Diversification is key when it comes to investing. Talk to customers who have already invested in mutual funds, employment-based retirement savings plans, and IRAs about using life insurance and variable annuities to diversify their investments even further.

As you become more experienced you will better understand which appeals work best with different types of customers. For now, familiarize yourself with these three approaches and the talking points for each so that you move fluidly from one approach to the next and meet your customers’ needs.