The power of claims stories

Sales people are not all the same.

By that PCE means that not all sales people representing life risk providers and sales people within advice practices have the same skill sets.

Not all of them have as a dominant intelligence or capability : people skills.

Shocking!

But breathtakingly refreshing. Because as a consequence the fact that some intelligences are more dominant in some sales people than others means that these sales people bring different conversations to the table.

Do we as an industry want to have one dimensional expectations and profiles of our life risk representatives and our advice practitioners?

In a recent exercise observed by PCE, the intelligences of a sales team were measured and what we learnt highlighted the necessity to align the right sales person with the right panel of advisers or indeed for advice practitioners aligning the right adviser with the right subset of clients.

As an example, the salesy, buddy buddy, wheel and deal slick conversations were not the forte or in fact the skill set that was a dominant intelligence with one of the participants.

What proved to be more important was clear statements of facts delivered with selective story telling about one specific aspect of the life risk process : that being claims.

In itself that is not the best part of the story. What is, is the dedication and delivery of claims assistance, counsel and advice to the advice business when then were lodging and assisting a client with a claim.

What the individual concerned does in the delivery of the ultimate promised of life insurance ....the claims promise, is provide advocacy and support to advice businesses when they and their clients need it the most.

Telling those stories whilst not sexy, slick, and the modus operandi of your typical stereotypical sales person, is in PCEs opinion highly effective.

So next time you are making a judgement about the life risk representative who makes contact with your office, comes to see you and in fact the next time you assess your own client engagement take a moment to investigate if they and you know how to deliver on the promise of insurance : the claim process. How do they and you fare? And what would you prefer a sales professional who is slick and a closer or a sales person who is a client advocate and had the intelligences, skills and capabilities to deliver when you and your clients need it the most?