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?
Saturday 25 August 2012
Saturday 18 August 2012
Why marketing campaigns don't work and what to do about it
What response rate are you getting from your financial services / life insurance mail out campaigns?
Be it letters, perhaps flyers, brochures, snazzy postcards with eye catching imagery - what is the success rate you get from either your existing client base or from leads from your centre of influence or even better your centre of influences client base that you are strategically attempting to tap into?
30% success?!!! 20%!? Not less than 15%? Less than 10? Don't tell me less than 5?
In PCEs experience businesses who use generic marketing material, perhaps sourced of he shelf from their product providers, experience a response rate of less than 5%. And this response rate is only the response of calls into the business or requests for more information. The actual real response rate and that is the conversion amounts to less than 2.5% of the original marketing sample.
At this response rate is it little wonder that most small business and even large financial planning firm baulk at the offer from product providers to run a marketing campaign. And the BDM with little else in their kit bag finds it difficult to continue the conversation.
What's wrong here is the misalignment of the marketing material and the client base. The generic messages in the content do not match the need of the prospects.
The analysis of the client base has just simply not been done.
The problem with this equation is the lack of knowledge about what to do about it.
The key is in the message and whether the message is framed to connect with the prospect in a certain way. Advocates of 4 drive theory understand that the curiosity of human beings is heightened enough to cause investigation of a new concept when the gap between the current understanding of an issue and the new information is of a medium variance.
That causes the prospect to drive towards finding more.
In other words we are talking about upwards of 30% response rates.
But most marketing material utilised either does one of two things : one : it does not identify the gap to be large enough and consequently there is no impetus for change OR two: the statement of the issue to be considered is so different to the prospects current situation or made to be so complex that it causes a fear reaction or a complete rejection on either theses grounds or on complexity.
What then is the answer?
It's all about:
- better data mining of the client bases
- smaller subsets
- tailored messages
- better information about the clients that enable the messages to be shaped accordingly
- more creativity with then message
- ultimately closing the gap between the clients current situation and the proposed solution to a point where it is large enough to drive curiosity and small enough for it to appear achievable
For now, think about the messages and material you send to your clients and prospects in your marketing campaigns.
Is it generic of the shelf material that you have sent to a broad set of clients and prospects?
If so .......don't expect a return on your postage spend.
If you want great results....contact PCE.
Be it letters, perhaps flyers, brochures, snazzy postcards with eye catching imagery - what is the success rate you get from either your existing client base or from leads from your centre of influence or even better your centre of influences client base that you are strategically attempting to tap into?
30% success?!!! 20%!? Not less than 15%? Less than 10? Don't tell me less than 5?
In PCEs experience businesses who use generic marketing material, perhaps sourced of he shelf from their product providers, experience a response rate of less than 5%. And this response rate is only the response of calls into the business or requests for more information. The actual real response rate and that is the conversion amounts to less than 2.5% of the original marketing sample.
At this response rate is it little wonder that most small business and even large financial planning firm baulk at the offer from product providers to run a marketing campaign. And the BDM with little else in their kit bag finds it difficult to continue the conversation.
What's wrong here is the misalignment of the marketing material and the client base. The generic messages in the content do not match the need of the prospects.
The analysis of the client base has just simply not been done.
The problem with this equation is the lack of knowledge about what to do about it.
The key is in the message and whether the message is framed to connect with the prospect in a certain way. Advocates of 4 drive theory understand that the curiosity of human beings is heightened enough to cause investigation of a new concept when the gap between the current understanding of an issue and the new information is of a medium variance.
That causes the prospect to drive towards finding more.
In other words we are talking about upwards of 30% response rates.
But most marketing material utilised either does one of two things : one : it does not identify the gap to be large enough and consequently there is no impetus for change OR two: the statement of the issue to be considered is so different to the prospects current situation or made to be so complex that it causes a fear reaction or a complete rejection on either theses grounds or on complexity.
What then is the answer?
It's all about:
- better data mining of the client bases
- smaller subsets
- tailored messages
- better information about the clients that enable the messages to be shaped accordingly
- more creativity with then message
- ultimately closing the gap between the clients current situation and the proposed solution to a point where it is large enough to drive curiosity and small enough for it to appear achievable
For now, think about the messages and material you send to your clients and prospects in your marketing campaigns.
Is it generic of the shelf material that you have sent to a broad set of clients and prospects?
If so .......don't expect a return on your postage spend.
If you want great results....contact PCE.
Sunday 5 August 2012
Techniques to get more information to win the sale
So the collected posts from PCE have at their core one objective and that is to have professional advisers in financial services engage more people with better skills and in doing so deliver solutions to more clients.
Those solutions take the form of insurance that provides peace of mind and money to families when it is needed most. Those solutions revolve around maximising the possibility that people live well and look after their families.
The key and the lessons of all of our posts is that in order to do this you need to gather more and better information about your prospects, your referral sources and your existing clients.
We at PCE have talked about and demonstrated how revisiting or discovering the theories of Maslow, Jung, Rogers, Nohria, Dilts, and building the learnings into your business in processes and engagement techniques can take you and your clients on the journey towards meeting the objective of positive client engagement and all the success and rewards that come with that.
How do you build it?
We have described in a lot of our posts methods of implementing techniques into your business and we have received feedback of how well it has worked for many businesses.
But to be truthful, these have just been snippets, ideas and conversations like proverbial paper napkin diagrams over coffee or better still a red or two.
The next step for PCE is packaging this for you. Making available the questions, the pro forma questionnaires that can take your business to another level and of course packaging all of the techniques into one cohesive flowing document.
That's exciting for PCE and we hope for you.
Till then as a teaser, how do you engage someone on their values and beliefs?
It's about great questions, centred around what Lawrence and Nohria’s theory focusses on that explains what humans want, as well as why they want those things.
We know from this that people love to:
Acquire
Bond
Learn
Defend
What questions can you design to find out what people want in these 4 areas and why?
2. If you want to succeed in business, it pays to understand what people want. Markets form around core human drives.
Those solutions take the form of insurance that provides peace of mind and money to families when it is needed most. Those solutions revolve around maximising the possibility that people live well and look after their families.
The key and the lessons of all of our posts is that in order to do this you need to gather more and better information about your prospects, your referral sources and your existing clients.
We at PCE have talked about and demonstrated how revisiting or discovering the theories of Maslow, Jung, Rogers, Nohria, Dilts, and building the learnings into your business in processes and engagement techniques can take you and your clients on the journey towards meeting the objective of positive client engagement and all the success and rewards that come with that.
How do you build it?
We have described in a lot of our posts methods of implementing techniques into your business and we have received feedback of how well it has worked for many businesses.
But to be truthful, these have just been snippets, ideas and conversations like proverbial paper napkin diagrams over coffee or better still a red or two.
The next step for PCE is packaging this for you. Making available the questions, the pro forma questionnaires that can take your business to another level and of course packaging all of the techniques into one cohesive flowing document.
That's exciting for PCE and we hope for you.
Till then as a teaser, how do you engage someone on their values and beliefs?
It's about great questions, centred around what Lawrence and Nohria’s theory focusses on that explains what humans want, as well as why they want those things.
We know from this that people love to:
Acquire
Bond
Learn
Defend
What questions can you design to find out what people want in these 4 areas and why?
2. If you want to succeed in business, it pays to understand what people want. Markets form around core human drives.
Wednesday 1 August 2012
Why people buy from you
PCE has often written about how to enhance the buying process using positive psychology that taps into human motivation.
The ability to do this is reliant on your understanding of what drives human behaviour and in particular why it is that people connect with you and your offering.
PCE and others have written about the work of Paul Lawrence and Nitin Nohria whose theory on human behaviour can be adapted to the sales process in financial planning and especially insurance sales.
As a recap the theory suggests that humans have 4 insatiable drives being the drive ti acquire, to bond, to learn and to defend.
In financial planning and insurance solutions we have at our core a desire to help our clients and in fact meet these needs.
Success therefore should you subscribe to the theory is dependent on having a deep understanding of what it is that your clients truly identify with as needs and wants.
In the new world of financial planning and a future insurance world what people will buy from you is dependent on how deeply they feel that they need your services or your offer or your solutions when balanced against these drivers.
In fact the greater your ability to explore these motivational forces with your clients ergo the greater your success at positioning your solutions.
This then transcends the need for niche marketing or specialisation. Inter generational advice techniques become irrelevant along with the marketing materials to tap into and converse with multi generations.
Rather these needs and drives work across demographics of age, culture, sub culture and social class.
Skilled practitioners using these drives can predict human behaviour and hence anticipate needs into the future making sure that they are always one step ahead of their competitors.
In a new world of financial services such foresight is invaluable.
Most of all utilising and designing your business to tap into these drives does one very important thing. It allows you to connect and engage with your clients on a deeply emotional level. Not only a differentiator this emotional connection is incredibly important in decision making. Despite the temperament of the client the emotional feedback internally provided to the client becomes positive buying signals that drive rational decision making. Whether someone just feels right doing business with you or whether they feel it is a sound rationale decision the truth of the matter is they will buy from you because you have emotionally connected with them.
The way you've done it is by leading them to the path to either acquire, bond, learn or defend or better still......all of the four.
The ability to do this is reliant on your understanding of what drives human behaviour and in particular why it is that people connect with you and your offering.
PCE and others have written about the work of Paul Lawrence and Nitin Nohria whose theory on human behaviour can be adapted to the sales process in financial planning and especially insurance sales.
As a recap the theory suggests that humans have 4 insatiable drives being the drive ti acquire, to bond, to learn and to defend.
In financial planning and insurance solutions we have at our core a desire to help our clients and in fact meet these needs.
Success therefore should you subscribe to the theory is dependent on having a deep understanding of what it is that your clients truly identify with as needs and wants.
In the new world of financial planning and a future insurance world what people will buy from you is dependent on how deeply they feel that they need your services or your offer or your solutions when balanced against these drivers.
In fact the greater your ability to explore these motivational forces with your clients ergo the greater your success at positioning your solutions.
This then transcends the need for niche marketing or specialisation. Inter generational advice techniques become irrelevant along with the marketing materials to tap into and converse with multi generations.
Rather these needs and drives work across demographics of age, culture, sub culture and social class.
Skilled practitioners using these drives can predict human behaviour and hence anticipate needs into the future making sure that they are always one step ahead of their competitors.
In a new world of financial services such foresight is invaluable.
Most of all utilising and designing your business to tap into these drives does one very important thing. It allows you to connect and engage with your clients on a deeply emotional level. Not only a differentiator this emotional connection is incredibly important in decision making. Despite the temperament of the client the emotional feedback internally provided to the client becomes positive buying signals that drive rational decision making. Whether someone just feels right doing business with you or whether they feel it is a sound rationale decision the truth of the matter is they will buy from you because you have emotionally connected with them.
The way you've done it is by leading them to the path to either acquire, bond, learn or defend or better still......all of the four.
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