Here is the reality…without our intervention, many of our potential clients will leave their families with extraordinary financial burdens.
They personally don’t have the money to pay for a funeral in full. Their family usually doesn’t have the money on hand to pay for their funeral either, and even if they did, those resources are usually designated for something else.
Clearly, life insurance is the best way to protect their family. And yet, many will pass away before ever putting any coverage in place and they pass on a burden as an inheritance.
As life insurance agents, we need to get to know our clients, discuss with them their need for life products, and then show them an affordable plan that will protect their family.
The challenge agents face is helping potential clients to feel comfortable enough for them to communicate what their needs really are.
Sometimes people are embarrassed. Sometimes they don’t know how to articulate their own needs. Sometimes they just don’t trust you enough to tell you. Sometimes they clearly know they have a need, but because they think it will be unaffordable, they don’t want to open up.
Getting them to the point of truly discussing what they need and why it’s really important to them and their family is oftentimes the biggest challenge we face in life insurance sales.
So how do we do it?
With a simple strategy of beginning to establish trust, called C.O.R.E.
In the sales process and for training purposes, we like to use acronyms to help us remember things.
Some of you with a diverse sales background may be familiar with an acronym known as F.O.R.M. – Family, Occupation, Recreation and Message. This is a word that helps you remember to discuss things that are important to your client.
In life insurance sales, there is a similar acronym known as C.O.R.E. to help us uncover key information, talk about what (and who) is important to our clients, and really discover our client’s needs.
The acronym C.O.R.E. stands for:
- C – Children
- O – Occupation
- R – Recreation
- E – Emotion (or the heart of the matter)
As a life insurance agent, your job is to build trust with your clients. You want to become their trusted advisor. By using C.O.R.E. as a guideline to asking questions, you’ll be doing just that. You’ll build trust and uncover your client’s needs in a relatively short amount of time.
Let’s try this out. Imagine you’re on an appointment and sitting with a client in their home.
Here are two REALLY IMPORTANT QUESTIONS that you need to ask to uncover their “want to” or “real desire”.
“Who is this benefit for?”
“Why is it important to you to take care of this?”
THE PURPOSE OF C.O.R.E.
The entire purpose of doing this is to develop trust, build a relationship, and strike an emotional chord with them. All of this moves them into action. They begin to hear themselves tell you why these things are important.
When that happens, they see you differently in this process. They begin to see you as an advisor, as opposed to an insurance salesperson. They begin to see you as someone who is simply helping them get what they want.
IT ALL COMES DOWN TO TRUST
When you listen to people, it makes them want to like you. When you let other people talk and you actively listen, and you engage in the story of their life, you make them feel important. When people feel like they are heard and they are important when they are around you, they instantly like you. They will begin to trust you, and as a result, they’ll be real with you. When people feel comfortable and are real with you, they will tell you what’s important to them.
You will discover together the need and desire they have to buy final expense insurance…and because of your time spent and invested in getting to KNOW them, they will want to buy it from you.
So, before your next appointment, familiarize yourself with C.O.R.E. and do your best to use it with all of your clients. Regardless of what type of sales you are in- you will start uncovering your clients needs more easily, AND you will become more likable, confident and effective during the sales process.
It’s amazing how many more people that you will get to help just by actively listening and making people feel important.
If you have any questions about your sales or your business we would love to hear from you! To us, there is simply no such thing as a dumb question. We may have the answer for you but if we do not, we will find it with you.
