People do not like to be sold.
Insurance Selling Tip

Every article on this website is like a mini-training school. use the nav bars on either side of this page to locate your area of interest or subject you need help with.

The Psychology of selling.

Summary outline – The Psychology of selling.

"People don’t like to be sold anything."

Understanding how people think is an important strength of any good sales person. learning  and understanding this insurance selling skill and closing technique can increase your chances of getting more  appointments and making more sales. 

Selling insurance, closing the sale and prospecting for leads is a insurance selling skill. These skills are all part of the sales process. it takes time to learn and develop each and every one. that is what is called experience.  

Understanding how people think is another very valuable selling skill and it falls under the category of what we refer to as the psychology of selling. So let’s review this skill.

---

People don’t like to be sold, they like to buy.

This particular insurance selling tip and technique is a skill that relates to understanding why people say what they say when you contact them as a sales person,  and how they think during the sales process.  Most of you already know this one fact, but let’s state it in writing.

Quite simply:

·         People don’t like to be sold.  

·         They like to buy, and will do so using the right process to help them.

Now you saying “ That don’t make sense. I am in the insurance sales business. How am I going to make a living if I don’t sell people insurance?”  Of course you need to makes sales to survive.

But my point is that insurance agents that may be failing sometimes do not have a clear understanding of this one most important aspect of the selling process.  This one misunderstood insurance selling concept and skill is part of the psychology of selling. Learning to deal with it may change your entire outlook on selling insurance or selling anything for that matter.

Let me say this again - “Most salespeople don’t understand that people don't like to be sold anything, they like to buy.” 

In the psychology of selling arena , you need to understand what turns people on and what turns people off. “Selling is 95% people knowledge and only 5% technical expertise.” Take a moment to read this article, it will provide you with a clearer picture.

---

Lets look at how we react to a salesperson.

Think about this for a minute. When you walk into a store and a sales person approach’s you.  what happens?  Your automatic defense mode kicks in and your immediate response is “I’m just looking.” When someone calls you on the phone, your automatic defense mode kicks in and you say “I’m not interested”

I say it again, most people don’t like to be sold. Myself personally, i like to buy stuff, and i buy stuff by asking questions and investigating.  I think I am smart enough to buy stuff,  i just need someone to give me  the facts, and guide me.  Just don’t try sell me anything till i am ready to buy.

In other words, we need to learn to get to know people first.  In my relationship building articles, I constantly talk about making a prospect a friend first, and a client second.  People like to do business with people that make them feel comfortable.

---

Disarming the prospect

What disarming the prospect means is you try and take away their immediate negative thoughts, which are:

• This person is trying to get an appointment with me to sell me something, if your calling,

• This person is trying to sell me something i don't want, if your sitting down in front of them and starting your interview.

You disarm them, by telling them up front what they are probably thinking.  Its a from of reverse psychology. See the following ideas to get an understanding of what I mean.

---

Calling on the phone

Many new agents do not realize that when you are calling people on the phone, it is a selling situation. You are trying to sell them on giving you an interview.  Most of the time you will get the ”I am not interested objection.”

When they say I am not interested, I use to use the cushion approach and say, I can understand you not being interested in anything you have not yet seen, that is why I am calling to ask you for the opportunity to sit down with you and share some financial planning ideas about accumulating money and creating financial security. I have no idea if my services will benefit you. That is the purpose of my wanting to get together with you, to see if I can be of any service to you, and if nothing more, the opportunity to meet you,  Are daytime or evening appointments best for you,?

---

Setting the stage during the interview

When you are calling people or sitting down with them to start an interview, you need to get them ready to buy, no matter what you are selling, whether it is a product or an interview.  

You need to create a comfortable environment. An environment that makes the client feel at ease.  If you going into the selling mode too quick, you create an adversarial situation between you and your prospect and they automatically go into their  the defensive mode.  This results in you having to justify everything you say.  I cannot tell you how many times I have seen new agents start out, getting into a debating situation with prospects about why they should buy insurance or why the client needs to start this plan, or why insurance is better than mutual funds, etc. You might win the argument, but you lost the prospect and the sale.

So to stop this defensive mode during the opening part of your presentation, you need to create a situation that will help the prospect want to buy your product.  And you do this by starting with a low key question and answer session.  Feel out your prospect before you even start making a presentation.

Try to think about people you have bought stuff from over the years. You done business with them because they made you feel important,  feel at ease and most of all. they made you feel comfortable. They let you talk and they listened.

Then think about the sales people who turned you off right away. Usually you won’t even remember those people. Why? Because they did not impress you.

Whenever I started an interview or a phone conversation, I always tried to interject the following statement some where in my conversation.  Mr. Prospect, over the years I have learned that I cannot sell anybody anything.  All I try to do is find out what it is you are wanting to do financially, and see if I can help and guide you, and then present some ideas for you to consider.  That is how I work.  So what I would like to do is start by asking you and you spouse some questions.

---

---

Always start the interview with a low key, fact finding situation

Learning to hear what people are thinking is something you cannot learn in any home office schools, but if you learn this art, (asking questions and listening)  it provides you with the best-selling and closing material you could ever get. It sets the theme for the client to buy.

First and foremost, you need to find out what it is a person wants in life. Then you provide him with facts and information, and then give them a choice and let him buy the product you are selling to fit his wants.

People buy what they want, not what they need.

This is when I moved to my confidential questionnaire.  What I wanted to do is create a sales situation where I let the prospect and his wife buy a product. I did not sell them anything.  (But in the end I did sell them)

The bottom line of this insurance selling tip is that you must learn to diffuse any defensive mechanisms that the prospect or client is feeling when you sit down with them or when calling them for an interview. I hope this insurance selling tip on the psychology of selling and why people do not like to be sold, will help you have a better life insurance selling experience.

Learn and Earn

Have a great day.. Ted

---