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.

[Hat tip: WSJ Health Blog]

Posted by Jeb Foster at 12:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
 

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.

American Association of Managing General Agents AAMGA
5/7-5/9 Scottsdale, AZ

ACORD / LOMA Insurance Systems Forum
5/13 - 5/15 Las Vegas, NV

AAMGA University: MGA and Brokers Beginner's School
5/7-5/9 Scottsdale, AZ

Institute 2008
6/18-6/20 Moscone Center WestSan Francisco, CA

NAHU 2008 Convention and Exhibition
6/29 – 7/2, San Diego, CA

American Council of Life Insurers ACLI Annual Conference 2008
10/19-10/21 The Westin Boston, MA

Property Casualty Ins. Ass. Of America
10/26 – 10/28 Scottsdale, AZ

Before you hit the conference circuit, brush up on your networking skills.

Posted by maribeth neelis at 02:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
 

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.

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/ten-ways-to-cut-your-carbon-footprint-at-work-459967.html
http://www.thegreenoffice.com/carbon/result.php
http://www.energysavingsecrets.co.uk/ReduceYourCarbonFootprintAtWork.html
http://green.msn.com/Articles/article.aspx?aid=3

Posted by Jeb Foster at 03:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
 

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:

1. Everyone gets genetically tested.
2. Every sick (or soon to be sick) person buys insurance, and subsequently racks up gi-normous medical bills.
3. Insurers pay through the nose and are forced to raise premiums for everyone.
4. Healthy people, feeling the sting of higher premiums, drop their coverage. (Their genetic crystal ball says they don’t need health insurance, anyway.)
5. Insurers are left with a bunch of sick (read: expensive) policyholders (and are forced to keep enrolling them).
6. Private health insurance goes belly-up.

Anyone have a more sanguine scenario to share?

Posted by Jeb Foster at 12:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
 

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.

Posted by maribeth neelis at 03:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
 

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.

Posted by Jeb Foster at 10:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
 

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.

Read the entire article here.

Posted by maribeth neelis at 03:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
 

“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.

Pay-as-you-go would give the tab back to Mad Max.

Posted by Jeb Foster at 02:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
 

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.

Check it out.

http://www.standtallforamerica.com/page/s/careyoukeep

Posted by Jeb Foster at 01:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
 

“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.

Posted by maribeth neelis at 11:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
 

I hesitate to join the Seth Godin echo chamber. Not because I disagree with him—he’s insightful and articulate and pretty much right on the money 90 percent, no, 95 percent of the time. Rather, I worry that this blog will end up being just another Seth Godin affiliate (there are many out there), existing only to redirect traffic to his already highly trafficked site. My guess is that most blogs that have a sales and/or marketing focus have, at some point, reckoned with this issue.

But. I have to link to one of his recent posts because it makes an important distinction between two things—selling and serving.

Yesterday Maribeth made a similar distinction in her post , in which she suggests that you think of yourself not as someone looking to sell a policy, but rather as someone looking sell a solution—a solution that benefits the consumer. (After all, why should a prospect want to help you sell a policy?)

Back selling vs. serving. The change in thinking is internal, but the external consequences—and the effects on the way you market yourself—are profound. Godin makes his point by looking at Zappos.com, the online shoe store, whose motto reads, “We are a service company that happens to sell."

Godin: “Zappos wants you to call their 800 number. They want you to order too many shoes. They want you to return (at their expense) the shoes that don't fit.

As a service company, the more they service you, the better they do.”

The similarity between Maribeth’s and Seth’s approach is that they both would have you take the focus away from selling—or more specifically, the selling mentality. This mentality, through its very nature, conveys your own self-interest, and there's nothing that's further from the prospect's mind (and less relevant) than your own self-interest.

Posted by Jeb Foster at 02:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
 

Maybe you got into this business to sell insurance. But according to Michael Beck, you have a better chance of success if you rethink your strategy. You should not be selling, he says. But rather your aim should be to help people find solutions to their insurance problems.

As an agent you already create solutions for your clients and insurance policies are the tools you use to create these solutions. So if you shift your focus from selling to helping, your message will change and you will inevitably be more successful.

Read the entire article.

Read more of Michael Beck’s articles here.

Posted by maribeth neelis at 03:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
 

This month’s InsuranceNewsNet magazine has a great article entitled “18 Ways to Lose the Sale.” One losing strategy stood out above the rest: “Never take time to ask questions.”

”When in front of a customer, talk as much as you can,” says John Graham. “Asking questions or trying to get the prospect involved in the conversation is counterproductive.”

Even better, by not asking questions and giving a long-winded sales pitch, you can then make the prospect really uncomfortable when you suddenly ask, “What do you think?” at the end of your spiel. Consider tapping your fingers while you wait for a response.

Ridiculous? Yes, but a lot of bozos employ such tactics all the time, unaware of the ill effects. (A lot of people get into sales for the unfortunate reason of loving to hear themselves talk...)

Why is asking questions one of the most important things you can do?

For one thing, it’s almost impossible to know what a prospect wants until you’ve asked her a few questions. What are his priorities? It’s hard to know unless you, um, ask him what his priorities are. Why is she looking for a new policy? What didn’t she like about the old one? What does he hope to achieve with his purchase?

Asking questions conveys one crucial thing to the prospect, and that’s that you actually care about his or her unique situation and seek to provide a product and service to match it. (It also lets you calibrate your pitch on the fly.)

So, with your next lead, try to ask as many questions as possible. Make a list, even. And then let me know how it works out.

[Photo source]

Posted by Jeb Foster at 03:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
 

We are introducing ourselves to some of our sister companies and I just thought you all might like the same introduction.

Check us out at YouTube.

Posted by Lori Reed at 01:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
 

My mom lives in Sweden and got some books shipped to my house so that I can bring them to her when I visit next month. She’s a psychologist, so orders more interesting reading material than my usual fare. I started flipping through one last night called Predictably Irrational.

The first chapter discusses the presence of decoys in marketing and why even MIT grad students’ answers are affected when decoys are thrown in the mix.

Consider these offers from The Economist:

1) One year online edition $59.00
2) One year print edition $125.00
3) One year online and print edition $125.00

I didn’t mistype that. They are offering the print and online editions for the same price as the print only edition. Who would buy the print only? The answer: No one.

When 200 MIT students were asked, none chose the second option. The majority picked option number three—an obviously better deal than option two. And a handful chose the online only edition. When the print edition for $125.00, otherwise known as the decoy, was removed, the majority chose the online only edition for $59.00.

So what happened?

The author hypothesizes that a decoy offers people an easy comparison that will lead them to choose the better of the two similar options. In the aforementioned case, it is easy to see that a one year print and online subscription for $125.00 is far better than the one year print only for $125.00. Even though the online only option is cheaper than both, it doesn’t offer as simple a comparison, and so is overlooked by many.

In another example, he uses PhotoShop to prove his point. He takes pictures of good-looking men on campus and then uggs them up—distorting a nose here, making one eye too big there.

Then, he puts three photographs together to present to his audience.

1) A picture of an attractive guy (Hot Jack)
2) A picture of Hot Jack made ugly (Ugly Jack)
3) And a photo of another attractive guy (Hot Frank)

He showed the photos to women on campus asking them which guy they’d like to date. It seemed everyone wanted to date Hot Jack.

Again the presence of a decoy, in this case Ugly Jack, he surmises, causes the women to choose Hot Jack because they have something to compare him with. Hot Frank’s looks are nothing to shake a stick at (I saw the picture), but the easy comparison between Hot Jack and his ugly twin make him the obvious choice for most.

The takeaway:

If there is one product you really want to sell, create three options. Product A, product A for more money and less coverage (or ugged up) and product B. Chances are the presence of a decoy will convince your prospect that product A is the best of the three options. And it very well may be. This isn’t so much about tricking your customers, but leading them to the decision you want them to have. In other words: sales.

P.S. Jeb's post that should have gone up yesterday is below this one, so make sure to check it out.

Posted by maribeth neelis at 04:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
 

Back in September, Bloomberg Markets magazine ran a cover story entitled "The Insurance Hoax: Property insurers use secret tactics to cheat customers out of payments--as profits break records."

Needless to say, the insurance industry slammed the piece, calling it simplistic, reckless and inaccurate. And reckless. And inaccurate. They also expressed shock the that a business magazine would take such a critical, one-sided position.

As it happens, the people at the Deadline Club, a branch of the Society of Professional Journalists, have a different opinion. They think the article was pretty good—better than good, even. They’ve nominated the Bloomberg article for an award—the “Daniel Pearl Award for Investigative Reporting.”

Once again, the chorus from the industry is that the story is reckless, inaccurate and reckless, and that giving it an award—an award named after a truly heroic journalist—is a sham and an insult.

If you haven’t read it, here’s the offending Bloomberg article. Here’s the Insurance Information Institute’s rebuttal. Here’s the Deadline Club’s web site.

The InsureMe Agent Blog: We link, you decide.

Posted by Jeb Foster at 03:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
 

How to improve your sales technique is a frequent topic on this blog. And among other things we encourage you to reach out to your customers, remember birthdays, make random phone calls and attempt to develop a relationship with them so that you are something more than their insurance agent—you are a friend, confidant, trusted financial counselor.

Then this afternoon I realized this advice is not entirely valid. I was thinking about my last insurance shopping experience. I requested to be emailed, to which most obliged. Those who did not I ignored.

After reviewing several emails, some of which contained quotes (something I found very helpful), I went with one that promised the most bang for my buck. I had one mandatory conversation with the agent who sold me a Progressive policy. Now I pay all bills and make changes to the policy online. I don’t even remember the name of the person who sold me the policy or her company. She was the fastest, most efficient and offered me the best deal. Those factors were important to me.

In stark contrast, I was just chatting with my boss, Lori, who has had the same insurance agent for years and has insured a handful of cars and two homes with him. She loves talking to him on the phone, they have a genuine friendship and her eyes have never wandered in search of a better deal. She pays whatever he quotes her and has no problem with that because she values their relationship.

So maybe it’s a generational thing. Gen Xers like to complete transactions online with little human interaction. And baby boomers like to develop a rapport with the people with whom they do business.

Or it is quite possibly that I am insuring one noisy, red Ford Focus with no air conditioning because I can’t (legally) drive without doing so while she is paying for the peace of mind and simplicity that having sufficient home and car insurance provides.

We are different buyer types. And as such want to be treated differently. When you first get the prospect, you don’t know much about the person you are selling to or their current station in life. But there are clues such as age, income, marital status and whether they have children that indicate how a person might respond to your sales advances. Another indication is the information you receive with the lead that specifies, for example, how a person prefers to be contacted. Following those recommendations is vital to your sales success.

It’s a challenge for you as a sales person to take the evidence you gather about a person’s personality and determine how you are going to sell to them and decide how you will maintain your relationship with them.

Lori might feel snubbed should her agent not say hello when she passes him on the street. I wouldn’t know if I was talking to mine face to face. Just tell me when the money is due and if my rates drop.

Disclaimer: You may prefer someone with more money and stability looking for more than a bargain and feel that online leads are lower quality and consist of people shopping solely on price. However, in an increasingly internet savvy society, more people tend to shop online and compare prices. And not being present online will be detrimental to your business.

A waitress who works at an upscale restaurant takes time to explain the specials, up sell desserts and wow the patrons with her knowledge of fine wines because she knows her tips will reflect her attentiveness. Alternately, a waitress a greasy spoon makes her money turning tables over fast. Get them seated, get them their food and get them to leave. The more people she seats, the more money she makes because no one is leaving more than a few bucks on a $20 tab. It's important to realize you can make money both ways. And the same goes for selling insurance policies.

(Photo Source)

Posted by maribeth neelis at 02:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
 

[The following post was inspired by Seth Godin, who recently used his bloggy pulpit to teach people "how to sound smart when talking about the Internet."]

It's tough to keep abreast of tech jargon—after all, everything in the digital realm changes so quickly. Everyone deserves some slack now and then. But after a point, certain mistakes—particularly renaming something by giving it a definite article—will make you look dumb.

For example, you should know that you nevereverever search the web with "the Google," watch a video on "the YouTube," or set up a page on "the Facebook." You also don't congratulate a friend on writing a nice blog, unless you intend to offer a general compliment. If her last entry was a good one, you could say, "I read your blog the other day; nice post on annuities," but never, "Nice blog on annuities."

Also, while not technically an error, "the net," used occasionally as a synonym for the internet, is sort of irksome, mainly because it reminds me of the bad Sandra Bullock movie from 1995.

Related: Google Launches 'The Google' For Older Adults

Posted by Jeb Foster at 09:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
 

Get them to say yes…about other things. Getting the word yes to be spoken as soon as possible in the conversation helps build momentum toward a positive outcome. Emphasize the things you already agree on.

Be dramatic. Dramatize your ideas and what you are selling by using images in combination with words.

Give credit. Allow people to feel that they are coming up with the solutions and ideas. Make suggestions that drive them toward the conclusion you want them to have. And then give them credit for it. People are more committed to their own ideas.

Appeal to a nobler ideal. Delusions of grandeur, maybe. But if you can convince the prospect you are selling them something more profound then an insurance product, you will have an easier time selling them. What do you sell? Safety, security, peace of mind, hope?

Posted by maribeth neelis at 11:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
 

Often it’s the minutia that bogs us down, causing us to put innovative and profound ideas on the back burner so we can deal with day-to-day life maintenance. It’s depressing to think about how many hours we spend doing banal things like bathing, preparing and eating food, or doing laundry.

This week the things on my plate that I’ve been putting off include a large basket of laundry, a trip to the grocery store and filing my taxes. And I can't tell you how much easier the internet has made it to get things done.

Here are a few online resources to help you check some items off your list, so you can focus on the important things, spending time with friends and family, exercising and losing yourself in a good book or your favorite hobby.

Individuals and small businesses alike are encouraged to file their taxes online.

Use an online organizer to do it all from making a grocery list to remembering to send your aunt a thank you note. Check out Vitalist or Remember the Milk.

Send out the invite to your fancy dinner party without leaving your computer. It's so fun to use, you may find yourself making up excuses to send these to people. Mom and sister coming over to have coffee...send an invite!

Get organized at work in a low-budge sort of way with this plethora of resources, completely relevant for any small business owner.

Posted by maribeth neelis at 03:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
 

Our goal with the Agent Blog has always been this: Provide useful sales and marketing tips that can (a) be applied immediately and (b) yield immediate results.

Well, we've recently come across some amazing—and rare—video footage that fits those criteria. Perfectly. The video, which is only a few minutes in length, contains more than just a simple tip or trade secret. Its paradigm-busting, game-changing, totally revolutionary message will change the way you look at insurance sales—and the world. It will help you sell more policies. Heck, it will help you live a more fulfilling life. We're reluctant to show this video since it will likely render this blog moot. (After you watch it, you won't need anymore sales or marketing tips.) But if our goal is truly to help you become a better agent, we cannot in good conscience keep it from you any longer.

Without further ado, here it is.

Posted by Jeb Foster at 02:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)