So you've written a great plan, an insurance strategy that is relevant, appropriate and desperately needed by your prospect and yet.....the response is...I'm not sure, I need to think about it.
Maslow offers us some great guidance on motivation and drive.
We at PCE would love to accept that positive view of people that analogy that cream rises to the top that people really do try to be the best that they can be.
For us the one of the greatest examples of Maslow's hierarchy working is Chris Gardner;think Will Smith in the Pursuit of Happyness.
Chris's journey and struggle to be the best he could be was Maslow personified.
But Maslow does not fit when you think of a client walking away from a sound financial plan. Maslow does not explain why someone who has it all still wants more. Maslow can't explain why your COI having engaged you does not continue to provide referrals. Maslow does not explain why people make decisions that appear and probably are totally irrational.
How you understand what is going on in someone's mind and why they make the decisions they do is really the key to positive client engagement.
It's what this website/blog is all about. It's about being the best you can be and being self aware enough that you can engage clients with honesty and genuine curiosity and sincerity.
It's about emotional intelligence and it's application.
As Golemon writes in his groundbreaking work, in 1995, it's about knowing yourself, managing yours and your clients emotions, motivation and understanding motivation, recognising emotions and motivations in your clients, building relationships, maintaining relationships.
People's ability to do this differs and PCE is about developing tools to assist.
But heres the big tip. Ready?
If you want a client to go through a process with you.......do it yourself first.
Go through the PDS and full out your own application. Do a fact find on yourself. Mind map your world on a single page. Get underwritten. Walk through your business with your clients eyes. How do you feel about that policy loading, about some of the personal questions on the application....did you answer the honestly ...really?
What about that fact find process.....how'd it feel.....fake, false, like you were a number.
Draw your family tree......
Examine the way you shop. The last holiday you went on ....did you use a travel agent ...or did you go online......do you value advice when it's your business but diminish the value of advice when it's someone's elses business.
Do you walk the talk?
Do you believe in what you sell? Can you state why you do what you do? Do you know who it is that you help, what problems they have and what you do about it and what your clients feel about what it is that you do?
Our brains have evolved from a brain stem that kept us alive and to this day still regulates all that is automatic.
The other systems that evolved have at their core an emotional centre, the limbic system that receives all the information that bombards us each day and attaches emotional markers to it before our pre frontal cortex makes that decision that we hope is rational but that is driven by experience and acquired knowledge.
What is key here is the emotions that we assign to things, that drive us that shut down rationale thought when the feelings are strong enough.
So how well do you engage your clients on an emotional level? Really? A fact find? What are you doing in your business to really connect with clients?
If you can answer and articulate and demonstrate that then you are well ahead of the curve. And on the way to positive client engagement.
No comments:
Post a Comment