WHY IS SELLING SO HARD?
by Michael Lovas
Actually, it’s not. The problem is that because many financial advisors and producers don’t understand the process, they make it hard to get results.
The financial sales model. The common selling model in the insurance and financial industry has five steps:
Step 1 - Find someone to talk to (pitch)
Step 2 - Ask a rapport-building question
Step 3 - Ask to conduct a “fact find”
Step 4 - Present your solution (product)
Step 5 - Try to close the sale
The industry is still using this model, even though it falls apart more often than it works. Here’s why:
- The model assumes that the prospect has your exact personality type. However, the chances are that only one in four prospect has anything close to your personality
- It relies on the prospect having a real need for your product.
- Research continues to show that advisors rely on industry lingo, thus confusing their prospects So, unless you’re selling to someone who’s an expert in your product category, you’re probably baffling them.
If these problems apply to your sales approach, you’re making it hard on yourself to get results.
The general sales model. This is the sales model used by in every other industry. As you can see, it’s simple and gives sales people a better chance of success:
Step 1 - Build rapport
Step 2 - Ask situationally relevant (short-answer) questions
Step 3 - Capture the psychology/values of the prospect
Step 4 - Discuss the viable solutions citing the prospect’s values
Step 5 - Determine next steps
However, this approach breaks down at the same place as the Financial Model. Can you see where? The skill that makes any sales model work or fail is listening.
Where is this going? This article focuses on two goals: 1) improving your sales model, and 2) improving your ability to listen. The two are directly connected. When you can improve both, you should see your success improve.
Many people in business believe that the keys to success are so natural as to be invisible, and thus overlooked. Listening is one of them. A few years ago, my partner and I conducted some research into listening. Since then, we’ve watched many people’s ability to listen improve with basic assumption shifts. We’ve conducted numerous listening exercises, and, in nearly every case, the person charged with listening can’t do it.
The exercise works like this: Two people face each other. Person A tells a short story to person B. The story has to contain three facts. Person B’s job is to listen, and then parrot back the facts verbatim. Although this sounds simple, rarely does the listener ever get even one fact right.
Now, move that conversation into a real business situation. Person A is your prospect. You ask a business-related question, and she gives you personal business information. Odds are overwhelming that you can’t restate this information – which means that all you can do is break out the hammer and sell your product. When your listening fails, you’re forced to use generic logic that might not be relevant to the prospect.
No sales model will work well until you can truly listen to your prospect.
Proactive Listening. The solution lies in a process we call “Proactive Listening.” To understand and use this, you have to “see” it. Visualize the face of a clock. It’s a circle with numbers. Now, replace the numbers with categories of values. For example, in a personal situation, the categories include Money & Financial Security, Career, or Family. The tool we use for this is called the “Wheel of Life.” The first step is to list values under each category. The second step is to rank each set of values in order of importance.
In a business situation, say with a 401k, the categories might include Tax advantages, Rates of return, Flexibility, and Portability.
Proactive Listening comes in when you listen for those values to plug into the categories, rather than for links to a sales pitch. Although the pitch focuses on you, the values focus on your prospect. That’s 180-degrees different.
After you collect some of the values, you can place them in order of importance. This becomes a powerful tool called the “Hierarchy of Criteria.” (the criteria for making a decision in this category). If you don’t listen, you can’t hear the prospect name those values. If you don’t know what those values are, you’ll have a hard time proving your relevance to the prospect. You’ll also be reduced to logic that’s probably off-target for him or her.
Now, imagine a new category called “Professional Advisors.” Where would you fall in that list? If you can’t listen effectively, you’ll find yourself far down - thus, unimportant. However, if you listen carefully and recite the exact values back to your prospect, you’ll find yourself high up - irreplaceable.
In Conclusion
Why is this important? Your business doesn’t rely on selling. It relies on turning buyers into advocates for you – proactive referral sources. Because so many advisors are so bad at listening, if you can develop this one skill, you’ll find yourself writing more business, gaining more “share of wallet,” and getting more referrals. How can I say this with confidence? Who else would those people recommend? By listening proactively and focusing on the prospect’s values, you immediately show that you’re different, better and referable!
Michael Lovas is president of AboutPeople (Colbert, WA), a firm that uses Psychological Language Patterns to develop marketing programs. A Master Practitioner of Neuro-Linguistic Programming, he teaches financial advisors how to use common-sense psychology to help build trust with A-level target markets. Michael has written twelve books, mainly on professional communication in the financial industry He also holds the distinction of creating “Credibility Marketing” in 1991. For more information, call (509) 465-5599, e-mail [email protected], or visit www.aboutpeople.com.