When it comes to selling insurance, you must aim for an emotional connection. How do you connect with the prospect emotionally without hurting their feelings? How do you sell to the heart & soul, while creating curiosity in the mind of the buyer? By the end of this post, you will know how to do so.
As we discussed in the previous issue 1, vol. 1, always tell personal stories. Once you have many stories, tell them. This involves investing time, energy and imagination.
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Guerrilla insurance sales insights
Before you meet any prospect, research about them and attempt to reach them.
Instead of selling features, focus on highlighting the benefits of the products or services. People don’t buy water. They buy the cure for thirst.
Product knowledge is by far your #1 guerrilla marketing weapon. Invest time to read and understand your products/ services before you meet any prospect
The best insurance sales professional talks 20% of the time. During any meeting, the client talks 80%. Why? Great sales people listen more so as to understand the prospect unique needs. Are you great at asking questions that stir interest?
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In this issue, we focus on insight #1: before you meet any prospect, research about them.
Invest time to conduct market research about your prospects and current customers– get their small details – # of children and birth days, marital status, level of education, their current communities (are they Church/ Mosque members or SACCO members?), hobbies, and place of work, among others. The good news is that the nature of insurance necessitates obtaining such information. So, don’t just keep it. Use it for more repeat sales.
Energy is needed for action. Don’t just sit. Act. Do something to get you closer to the prospect. Ensure your prospect can easily obtain your contact details in case they need you. Make sure when someone thinks of a risk advisor, your name comes up. To achieve this, you must invest in getting closer to your prospects. Find out what are your prospect’s major worries, pain or challenges. What are they worried most about? And how are they addressing their worries.
You need imagination to think of creative ideas to wow them. Provide newspaper cuttings relevant to the prospect’s business/ career, article reprints, etc freebies to create an obligation to the prospect to want to return the favor.
Hint: After researching about my prospect’s unending love for Golf, I had a professional photographer take a picture of him during a Golf tournament at Entebbe Golf Club. The instructions were clear: take a photo of him in his element. When he has hit an ace i.e. a hole-in-one. And he did. As a Guerrilla marketer, with these photos, I had the best two framed and delivered to my prospect on a Monday morning via a premium shipping company.
I put a personal note: “keep doing the things that make you happy.” And signed off as Mustapha B Mugisa, CEO Summit Consulting Ltd.
With that guerrilla marketing intervention, I invested Ugx. 350,000. It gave me a deal of Ugx. 10m and I still have this client. I continue to get more business from referrals thanks to him.
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Activity 2 for next week:
Identify a specific industry to focus on for the coming week – say schools, NGOs, small businesses or professional associations.
For any one of the above sectors, make a list of top 100 prospects to approach in the month of February 2015. If possible, try to share your list so that no other Guerrilla approaches them, at least in the coming month. And once you make progress, update the list on the company CRM (customer relationship management) system to ensure there is not confusion created by having same Risk Advisors visiting the same client.
Try to do Google search about your prospects – the name of CEO, HR, Manager Finance and other critical information. You could write or make a cold call to the CEO or HR or Finance manager, for an appointment to conduct free presentation on “Effective retirement planning – five tips to enjoy your retirement.” The tell them: “Your company has been selected for [put your company’ name here] free personal financial management training on how to plan for your retirement. The 45 minutes presentation costs about US $1,000. However, if you reply before the close of February 2015, you will have one of [put your company’s name here] top risk advisor make the presentation free of charge to your team. Your prompt response is expected to enable us commit the resources. Thank you. Then deliver the letter in person.
Send the letter, email or cold call to all your prospects. Try to visit all those who respond. Your target response rate for the presentation is 20%. This means that Guerrilla marketers are patient. The secrete lies in consistent action. Your stories will be used once they call you for the presentation. Remember, guerrillas market to many, and sell to one!
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Please don’t forget to send to me a list of your prospects. I would be glad to help you refine it to ensure the contact details you have indicated are correct. You have 5 days from this post to email to me mugisa/at/mustaphamugisa/dot/com.
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Mentorship opportunity with Mustapha B Mugisa.
Life a worry free life! Would you like to start moving closer to your dream? Contact me today for private mentorship. Let me be your accountability partner. We can do it via Skype; mmugisa; or phone. It will change your life. Having a mentor changed me for the better. Contact me today.
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To be continued.
Copyright Mustapha B Mugisa, 2015. All rights reserved. You are free to share with appropriate attribution. Whenever you reproduce this article, include a link to this site. Thanks.
One Comment
Kittengo Edward Innocent
Quite an interesting reading!
I first got to know you when i used your book to pass MDC on first attempt at ICPAU. I have now stalled with paper 13 but when God finally hears my prayer to become a full professional accountant, i really want you as my mentor!