Sales have never been an easy field to work in, but in the last year, it’s only gotten more challenging. Before last March 2020, salespeople could visit leads in person, getting a better sense of their situation and needs and connecting with them on a more personal level. But as the world has drastically been sent indoors, you may have had to pivot to a more remote strategy.
Selling over the phone is a very different process and requires a very different set of skills than selling in person. Read on to learn how to sell final expense insurance over the phone and keep your sales goals going strong.
Set Clear Goals
Whenever you get ready to launch into sales of any sort, the first thing you need to do is to set clear goals for yourself. You can’t succeed if you don’t know what success looks like for you. And without goals, you won’t know if your sales strategies are working or if you need to adjust them.
You may want to use the SMART goal structure to set your sales goals. This means that your goals will be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely. This system can help you set goals that are not only realistic for you to achieve but will move you in the direction you want to go.
Adjust Your Strategies
When you start selling final expense insurance over the phone, it may be tempting to fall back on your old tried-and-true sales tactics. After all, when you were making sales in person, these strategies got you fantastic results. Why should it be any different when you’re on the phone rather than standing face-to-face?
But when you sell over the phone, you command much less of your leads’ attention. It’s much easier to blow you off and hang up the call than it is to dismiss you when you’re standing there in front of them. You need to adjust your strategies accordingly and make a plan to grab your leads’ attention from the moment you get them on the line.
Create a Script
Although they may seem hokey, one of the best ways to ensure you’re consistently using effective phone sales strategies is to create a script for you to use as a guideline. There are certain phrases and wordings that will capture your audience’s attention more than others. Rather than trying to invent these on the fly in every call, why not stick to what you know works?
Of course, you can’t script every minute of every call, and you shouldn’t; your calls should be personalized to each lead’s specific needs. But you will hear many of the same questions and responses emerging over and over again. Sit down with your team, establish a list of common questions or concerns, and create an optimized script to handle those.
Use Powerful Language
Any time you’re trying to make a sale, the language you use is incredibly important. Consider the difference between “we sell insurance” and “we provide families with protection and help during one of the most sensitive times in their lives.” Using the right language can help you win far more customers than just delivering direct facts.
When you’re writing your scripts, make sure you pick powerful language that will engage your leads. They need to be able to see the vision of the benefits you can provide. Choose strong verbs, descriptive adjectives, and customer-focused nouns that will paint a picture of security, peace, and dignity.
Be Confident
Aside from using strong language, one of the best things you can do to engage a lead is to be confident. You have to convince your leads that your product is worth them spending their hard-earned money on. How can they do that if they don’t sound sure themselves of the benefits your product offers?
You need to project confidence that your product is the one that your leads have been looking for. They should almost go into the sale assuming it’s a done deal and they’re just providing extra information. Using language that assumes the customer will buy (“will” instead of “might,” etc.) can also help a lead to assume they’ll be buying the product too.
Slow Down
In sales, the more deals you close, the more money you make. It can be very tempting, therefore, to speed through calls, push customers for the hard sell, and get on to the next sale as quickly as possible. But when you’re selling final expense insurance over the phone, that kind of rush won’t fly.
You need to slow down and give your customers all the care and undivided attention a matter this serious deserves. You’re trying to provide them with protection to make the final days of their lives easier for them and their loved ones. Make sure you give that the weight it’s due, or you’ll find yourself with a lot of people hanging up on you.
Provide Explanations
When you work in one industry day in and day out, it can be easy to become numb to the nuances and expertise of the field. Salespeople know a lot about what’s involved with final expense insurance, how underwriting works, and so on. They’ll be well-versed in the jargon and may use it without even realizing it.
But your prospects don’t have that same expertise, and technical jargon can make them feel lost or stupid. You need to be prepared to explain everything they’re saying in great detail. The more the customers understand about your product and process, the more likely they’ll be to trust it enough to spend money on it.
Stay Local
One of the lures of phone sales is you can conduct them anywhere in the world, no matter where you’re based. Why limit yourself to one population of customers when you could get all the sales from a much wider population? But keeping your focus on local business can help you grow your sales more than you might think.
For one thing, if you ever plan to move your sales back to an in-person platform, maintaining a local focus can help make that transition easier. But more importantly, people like to know they’re working with local businesses invested in their area. If you tell your leads you’re locally based; they may be more likely to listen to the rest of your pitch.
Buy Leads
Lead generation is one of the most critical – and challenging – parts of telephone sales. Without leads, you don’t have anyone to call and start the sales process. And while there’s a lot to be said for generating leads organically, sometimes it’s best to work smarter, not harder.
There’s nothing wrong with buying leads when the situation is appropriate. Make sure when you’re buying these leads that they come from a reputable source and that they’re within your designated sales area. You don’t want to spend a ton on a list of leads only to discover they’re all fake phone numbers based in Malaysia.
Use a Power Dialer
Another great way to work smarter, not harder, on your phone sales is to set up a power dialer. These days, with telemarketing being as popular as it is, many people aren’t answering calls from any number they don’t recognize. This means that if you are dialing each number by hand, they’re going to spend a lot of time with dead air on the phone and no responses.
A power dialer can dial two or three different people at the same time, whereas a salesperson can only call one. If one of these calls picks up, an automated message can give them the gist of the sales call and give them a route to you. This helps to funnel only interested leads to you, helping you to spend your time more effectively.
Follow Up
The single most important thing you can do when selling final expense insurance over the phone is to follow up. You can do everything else we’ve discussed here and get thousands of promising leads. But if no one ever calls those leads back to close the deal, at the end of the day, all you’ll have is a bad reputation and a lot of uncovered sales expenses.
Make sure you always follow up with interested leads as quickly as possible. You should never let a lead sit for more than a business day if at all possible. You need to keep the energy, enthusiasm, and willingness to close the deal going, and that means acting fast.
Learn How to Sell Final Expense Insurance Over the Phone
Selling final expense insurance over the phone can be challenging, to say the least. But using the right language and giving customers the time they deserve can help to get your sales numbers up. A power dialer, a focus on your local market, and a strong follow-up can also help you to keep your revenues on the rise.
If you’d like to learn more about how to sell final expense insurance over the phone, check out the rest of our site. We can help you jumpstart your final expense insurance career using a proven sales system. Sign up today and start mastering the art of selling final expense insurance with step-by-step agent training and support.