John McCain, presumptive GOP nominee for president, laid out his health care policy yesterday, and insurers are likely to embrace its hands-off approach.
In general terms, McCain wants to spur competition among insurers, increase consumer choice and reduce government intervention and regulation. He would do this, in large part, by allowing insurers to sell policies across state lines and by severing the employer-health insurance link (which earns him points in my book). He would redirect the tax break that employers currently receive to individuals, who would then be able to buy individual coverage on their own (which they could take from job to job).
McCain would also create a “guaranteed access plan” for those can’t find coverage through traditional methods, but there is some early skepticism about this ill-defined element of his proposal.
“The plan isn’t expected to make a major dent in the number of uninsured Americans, and questions remain about how the plan would help older, sicker people who can’t find insurance on the open market,” says the Wall Street Journal.
If you are just now determining which conferences you’d like to attend this year, you are a little behind the eight ball, but most are still open for attendees, so check out our list and see if any strike your fancy. Conferences are great way to network, get new business ideas and have fun. So pack you bags and pick at least one great conference to attend in 2008.
Earth Day has come and gone, and I somehow forgot to find a home for a few tasty hyperlinks, which give tips on how to be green at the office.
I was about to send them to the bin when it occurred to me: In these times of climatic peril, it’s really not enough that Earth Day is only 1/365 of the calendar year. In fact, I propose we ditch Monday and replace it with Earthday. No one likes Mondays anyway, and they make up a whopping 15 percent of the entire year. So let’s agree to replace that soul-sapping day with the more inspiring Earthday.
Anyway, without further ado, here are those links I was telling you about. If you’re pressed for time but want to do something green that’s next to effortless, just turn off your computer before you leave the office tonight.
As you may have heard, the U.S. Senate passed the Genetic Information Non-Discrimination Act yesterday. Once through the house, President Bush is expected to sign it. The law will have a huge effect on private health insurance–and may even hasten its demise.
The Genetic Information Non-Discrimination Act, 10 years in the making, is meant to encourage people to use genetic screening in order to detect latent medical problems, before they become more difficult to treat. The new law says that employers and insurers cannot deny employment or insurance to anyone who has opted to take a test, regardless of what the results show.
What does this mean for private insurance?
The adverse selection problem becomes huge. In the context of insurance, adverse selection describes a situation where, as a result of exclusive information, one party (either the insured or the insurer) has an advantage, and uses that advantage to the detriment of the other party.
Here’s an example of adverse selection will work under the new law:
If you, Joe Sixpack, get genetically tested and the results reveal that you’re predisposed to a bunch of different medical conditions, you’re likely going to run out at buy as much insurance as you can, and this new law will enable you to omit mention of your test results.
Insurance is something that people buy because they can’t predict the future. But in the case of genetic testing, a consumer can, to a certain degree, predict his future.
So, this is the nightmare scenario for private insurers:
Everyone gets genetically tested.
Every sick (or soon to be sick) person buys insurance, and subsequently racks up gi-normous medical bills.
Insurers pay through the nose and are forced to raise premiums for everyone.
Healthy people, feeling the sting of higher premiums, drop their coverage. (Their genetic crystal ball says they don’t need health insurance, anyway.)
Insurers are left with a bunch of sick (read: expensive) policyholders (and are forced to keep enrolling them).
A Singapore beverage company Out of the Box launched two complementary brands: Anything and Whatever. Anything is carbonated and comes in six flavors (Cola with Lemon, Apple, Fizz Up, Cloudy Lemon and Root Beer). Whatever is non-carbonated (Ice Lemon Tea, Peach Tea, Jasmine Green Tea, White Grape Tea, Apple Tea, Chrysanthemum Tea). Consumers don’t know which flavor they’re getting until they take a sip. According to forums, teens immediately got the concept and love it.
The lesson: Use age demographics to your advantage. If your plan is to stay in the insurance game for 10 or 20 more years, you will have to sell to a generation you may not particularly understand.
Regardless, the next group of viable customers are the soda swilling, gum popping kids loitering outside your grocery store. Stay in the game by tweaking your product lines to better fit a twenty-something, thirty-something and so on.
Although generational marketing is no longer the rage, it still makes sense to modify your product lines to target specific age groups and to market to those individuals through different mediums. Diversifying your marketing methods will help you acquire a broader clientèle and make your business more recession proof.
Yet more wisdom from Seth Godin–this time on how to treat angry customers. In particular, angry customers who take the time to write you a letter.
His advice? Tell them they’re right to be upset.
When clients criticize you or your service in writing, they’re usually pretty miffed, and trying to argue with them–which amounts to telling them they’re wrong–is simply going to make them more irate, more critical of you and your service.
Tell them they’re right to be upset, and you’ll almost always diffuse the situation. The problem won’t go away, but you will have positioned yourself as empathetic problem-solver, not a defensive responsibility-dodger.
Godin: “Arguing with a customer who takes the time to write to you does two things: it keeps them from ever writing again and it costs you (at least) one customer. Perhaps that’s your goal. Just take a moment before you launch an unhappy former customer into the world.”
What Godin’s post amounts to is a restatement of this timeless business adage: The customer is always right. It’s now a cliché, but it’s no less true.
Looking at objections in a new way may help you to overcome them. And according to Dan Tudor, author of Landing the Deal, objections actually aren’t as bad as you may think.
When a prospect objects to your spiel, what does it actually mean?
-Objections are the customer’s way of getting a different view of the situation.
-Objections are the customer’s way of collecting more information to evaluate the product.
-Objections will reveal the customer’s primary needs or areas of interest.
-Objections can move the sales process forward.
-Objections are expressions of the customer’s interest and involvement.
“U.S. auto insurance is generally an all-you-can-eat affair.” That’s according to rogue economists Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, authors of the popular book and blog “Freakonomics.”
In a recent article in New York Times Magazine, Dubner and Levitt make a compelling case for pay-as-you-go insurance pricing.
According to Levitt and Dubner, our current driving system (if you can call it that) has over $300 billion in unpaid costs (well, actually, they’re not unpaid. They’re simply not being paid by the people who are running up the tab). Here are the price tags associated with our current system:
~ Carbon emissions: $20 billion a year
~ Wasted fuel and lost productivity due to congestion: $78 billion a year
~ Auto crashes: $220 billion a year
Dubner and Levitt believe that the “externalities” (fancy word for negative results) linked with driving — CO2 emissions, crashes and congestion — could be curtailed with insurance coverage that rewards people who drive less and punishes (that’s a harsh word–penalizes) people who drive more.
To a certain extent, we already have pay-as-you-go pricing, but it’s predicated on people self-reporting their annual mileage, “which has an obvious shortcoming,” say Levitt and Dubner. (In general, economists don’t trust anyone to do the right thing unless it’s in their economic interest to do so; maybe that’s why they call it the ‘dismal science.’) In the case of self-reporting of mileage, it’s pretty clear that the financial incentive is to under-report–and let’s call that practice by it’s true name: insurance fraud!
As things stand now, a person who drives only to the corner store on weekends pays about as much (give or take) in insurance premiums as the guy who burns up the highway every day. What’s unfair is that the latter driver contributes far more in terms of the evil Cs — carbon, congestion and crashes. Mad Max doesn’t care, though. Currently he doesn’t have to pay for his extravagant driving habits; he gives the tab (in the form of pollution and hospital bills and unlivable cities) to all of us.
A year or so ago, I wrote about Sen. Ron Wyden’s, D-Ore., health care plan–a proposal alarming in its simplicity, feasibility and overall evenhandedness.
Despite these liabilities, Wyden’s campaign is getting some traction and is even airing the following ad, which calls attention to the most irritating part of our current health care system: the fact that, for most Americans with insurance, coverage is tied to the workplace. This tie–a leftover from WWII wage controls–has the effect of stifling not only personal freedom, but also the entire American economy.
“Customers’ buying processes have evolved in our world of ubiquitous global communication, but companies’ selling processes have for the most part stayed the same.” –Thomas Stewert, editor of Harvard Business Review
In a marketplace where companies are increasingly losing their product advantage, how you sell is as important as what you sell. Traditional sales training focuses on skills and what sales people should do to make a sale–talk to the decision maker, differentiate, sell value. Sales messaging focuses on how to sell–say the right thing, to the right prospect, at the right stage in the sales process, to motivate the right behavior, at the right value point, do it right now.
The answer to every sales challenge already exists. One of your sales people already has a great value statement, an effective way to position you against your competition and a unique way to overcome and objection.
Develop a message
• Mine those answers
• Debug–determine if it is true and meaningful
• Synthesize the message–put your English on it
If you have separate sales and marketing department, the tasks should be split between them. If you do not, delegate one person in your organization to collect information. Create surveys for your customers and conduct customer interviews. A second person should mine the sales force for tactics that work best for them.
Create a cohesive message that combines your sales force’s answers and information gathered from your customers. Then you must disseminate the message. If you have a small agency, you can do this at a weekly meeting. A larger agency can create tutorials and scripts for their sales force.
The key factor is that this is not a project wit ha beginning and end. The audience’s needs will constantly change, and so should your message.
