Daily sales & marketing tips for insurance professionals

But before we get to the Don, let’s talk about a lesser-known guy named Nassim Taleb.

Nassim Taleb is an economist and the author of Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable.

Black Swan’s thesis statement is thus: improbable events are actually more probable than we think, and their effects are often devastating.

“What you don’t know can really hurt you,” was the lesson Motley Fool book reviewer Jack Uldrich took from the book.

The “black swan” of the title refers to the discovery of the Australian black swan. Until the discovery, most of the world was operating under the belief that all swans were white. The presence of a black swan came as a shock.

Now, the term “black swan” refers to any event that comes as a surprise and debunks long-held beliefs.

Some might say that the current financial meltdown was a black swan: with a couple of decades of incredible economic growth and globalization, people started to believe that the market was invulnerable, that the invisible hand would always guide us to greater wealth and stability …

“Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholders’ equity, myself included, are in a state of shocked disbelief,” said Alan Greenspan last October as the U.S. economy unraveled.

“This modern risk-management paradigm held sway for decades,” Greenspan said. “The whole intellectual edifice, however, collapsed in the summer of last year.”

To continue with Taleb’s metaphor, Greenspan thought all swans were white until the summer of 2007. He thought the free market system was perfectly calibrated by rational self-interest. He never thought that it could spin wildly out of control. Boy was he wrong!

Unknown unknowns
Remember when former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld talked about “known knowns” and “known unknowns”? Here’s the full quote, which got him a lot of jeers at the time:

There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don’t know we don’t know.

The thing is, despite being a terrible military planner—perhaps the worst ever—Rumsfeld was right on the money with this quote. (The tragedy is that he didn’t heed this known known: invading and occupying a country, particularly if it’s a Muslim country,  is never, ever a cake walk.)

It’s the “unknown unknowns” that Taleb focuses on in Black Swan. They are the things that seemingly come out of nowhere and in seconds demolish our bedrock beliefs.

Anyway, all of this is preamble to this list of Nassim Taleb’s life tips, which he shared with the Times (UK) recently. I figured that if I posted them without any context, you might just brush them off. But, truly, everyone should be listening to this guy:

Taleb’s top life tips

1. Scepticism is effortful and costly. It is better to be sceptical about matters of large consequences, and be imperfect, foolish and human in the small and the aesthetic.

2. Go to parties. You can’t even start to know what you may find on the envelope of serendipity. If you suffer from agoraphobia, send colleagues.

3. It’s not a good idea to take a forecast from someone wearing a tie. If possible, tease people who take themselves and their knowledge too seriously.

4. Wear your best for your execution and stand dignified. Your last recourse against randomness is how you act — if you can’t control outcomes, you can control the elegance of your behaviour. You will always have the last word.

5. Don’t disturb complicated systems that have been around for a very long time. We don’t understand their logic. Don’t pollute the planet. Leave it the way we found it, regardless of scientific ‘evidence’.

6. Learn to fail with pride — and do so fast and cleanly. Maximise trial and error — by mastering the error part.

7. Avoid losers. If you hear someone use the words ‘impossible’, ‘never’, ‘too difficult’ too often, drop him or her from your social network. Never take ‘no’ for an answer (conversely, take most ‘yeses’ as ‘most probably’).

8. Don’t read newspapers for the news (just for the gossip and, of course, profiles of authors). The best filter to know if the news matters is if you hear it in cafes, restaurants… or (again) parties.

9. Hard work will get you a professorship or a BMW. You need both work and luck for a Booker, a Nobel or a private jet.

10. Answer e-mails from junior people before more senior ones. Junior people have further to go and tend to remember who slighted them.

Go to parties? Skip the news? Tease people who take themselves too seriously? Brilliant.

Here’s the New Yorker’s Atul Gawande on why health care reform should be an organic, iterative process that improves upon existing structures and not a  radical, idealogy-driven razing of the current system.

He looks abroad and at the history books  to bolster his case.

“Every industrialized nation in the world except the United States has a national system that guarantees affordable health care for all its citizens,” says Gawande, who is also a practicing surgeon. “Nearly all have been popular and successful. But each has taken a drastically different form, and the reason has rarely been ideology. Rather, each country has built on its own history, however imperfect, unusual, and untidy.”

For example, Britain’s national health care system came not from mini socialist coup, but as an accident from a that country’s preparation for the Luftwaffe:

As tensions between [England and Germany] mounted, Britain’s ministers realized that they would have to prepare not only for land and sea combat but also for air attacks on cities on an unprecedented scale. And so, in the days before war was declared, the British government oversaw an immense evacuation; three and a half million people moved out of the cities and into the countryside. The government had to arrange transport and lodging for those in need, along with supervision, food, and schooling for hundreds of thousands of children whose parents had stayed behind to join in the war effort. It also had to insure that medical services were in place—both in the receiving regions, whose populations had exploded, and in the cities, where up to two million war-injured civilians and returning servicemen were anticipated.

After the war, they essentially said, “Hey, we’ve got this sweet health care system  in place, let’s keep it.” When the National Health Service came into effect, in 1948, it wasn’t even the biggest news story of the day. “Instead, there was only a four-paragraph notice between an item on the King and Queen’s return from a holiday in Scotland and one on currency problems in Germany.”

There’s another reason why health care reform in the U.S.  will have to come slowly:

American health care is an appallingly patched-together ship, with rotting timbers, water leaking in, mercenaries on board, and fifteen per cent of the passengers thrown over the rails just to keep it afloat. But hundreds of millions of people depend on it. The system provides more than thirty-five million hospital stays a year, sixty-four million surgical procedures, nine hundred million office visits, three and a half billion prescriptions. It represents a sixth of our economy. There is no dry-docking health care for a few months, or even for an afternoon, while we rebuild it. Grand plans admit no possibility of mistakes or failures, or the chance to learn from them. If we get things wrong, people will die. This doesn’t mean that ambitious reform is beyond us. But we have to start with what we have.

Interesting read if you’re into long, windy, Gladwell-esque  articles (I am). (Link)

Seth Godin is usually spot on, and pithily so, but this time he has really hit it.

The short post comes under the headline “Easiest cheap way to dramatically increase sales.” A pretty bold, eye-catching headline, isn’t it? A pretty big promise.

He delivers on that promise in less than 50 words.

Here it is, “the easiest cheap way to dramatically increase your sales” according to Seth Godin:

Call your customers. Or write to them.

“I know that times might be tough for you. Is there anything I can do to pitch in and help?”

You’ll end up doing a lot for your customers. Which is a wonderful privilege. Even for those that don’t reciprocate.

I suspect that about 1 percent of the agent world, given this tip, would actually follow through and try it. It takes a lot of effort to call up prospects—and to just offer help? Most will think that’s just a huge time sink.

But that 1 percent—they’ll be the ones who come up at the dinner table or by the water cooler. They’ll be the ones who become remarkable, successful beyond their potential.

“If I had ankle insurance, maybe my ankles would finally be able to sleep at night.”

Are we still using the same old high-pressure sales tactics?

Sadly, the answer is yes. I don’t mean to impugn you personally, dear reader, but it seems that a few of your colleagues still resort to bullying.

Since Jan. 1 we’ve received five (5) survey comments from consumers who felt pressured by our agents. It’s clear these thugs don’t read this blog, because if they did they’d realize that high-pressure tactics are one of 10 best ways to lose a prospect.

received a phonecall before I got the online quotes from what appears to have been a high pressured used car salesman

I had two phone calls from salesmen. One was high pressure, take-it-or-leave-it. I understand that these people are paying for your service, but this was a little much. The second phone call was a nice gentleman who would not get off the phone and who was offering a schlock deal. I would not trust anybody contacted from your service because of this and did not even bother to look at the emails.

agents should try being a little less aggressive and a lot more honest.

well, i received only one call/email…the sales guy used very high pressure tactic

when some one calls and there told that now is not a good time and they won`t take call me later then there just too damm pushy and all there looking for is the fast buck then my needs do not come first Please remove me from your list

I realize that not all agents can be great, but this was rather dispiriting.  Clearly, these agents (who knows, maybe it’s just one or two) are out of ideas. Or perhaps they’re simply in the wrong industry. But let’s not go out on a sour note, because there are certainly great agents out there who don’t bully prospects.  Here is some evidence: [Last names have been abbreviated]

I have been working with agent, James G., and his service and follow-up was very professional. I intend on contacting him with future insurance needs.

eve f.

Brian was amazing! Very helpful and informative. Thank you!!

No improvement needed. The agents were prompt, professional and informative. Mr. Gray with Farmers, got my business, and was very kind. I would highly recommend him and your service to all my family and friends.

Kenya was excellent and pleasant, knowledgeable, and very helpful. She was very fast to supply information to me.

Thanks,

Bill

Service is great, all the agents that contacted me were quite gracious and honest. However, you might note that AARP member discounts such as the ones I enjoy cannot be beaten on the open market. At least here in Kentucky. Sad how high the cost of insurance is in this state compared to how it was in CT where there seem to be 10 times the crazy drivers, but the key is, I’m told, the high number of uninsured motorists here.

Thanks for your quick turnaround.

On one side we’ve got aggressive, pushy, high-pressure, used-car salesmen. On the other, agents who are gracious, honest, helpful, informative, pleasant, knowledgeable, kind, prompt and professional, and the agent who was praised as “kind” is going to get recommended to “all my family and friends.” Think about that.

What kind of agent are you? Are you pushy or are you pleasant, like Kenya?

The NY Times’ Paul Brown offers up some excellent “sales tips for a tough economy.”

Here are a couple that stood out:

CUSTOMERS AS SALESPEOPLE Word of mouth is a great way to goose sales. But you don’t have to sit back and wait for people to spread the word about how wonderful you are, argues James Yuille, a marketer.

“Make your customers get excited about your business and they will tell their friends,” he said. “Send them ‘thank you’ letters or cards after they buy. Give them a free vacation certificate, a coupon, etc. when they refer others to you.”

We’ve posted ad naseum about writing notes. It may seem like a small gesture—and it is, for you—but it goes a long way toward building a relationship with the client. And this tip echoes a recent Agent Blog post:

ASK FOR THE ORDER Many entrepreneurs have a hard time asking for the order — saying to the customer words to the effect of, “Should I write up the sale now?”

Duane Marx, writing on Relationship Marketing.com, recommends that you a) not have that reluctance and, b) certainly don’t build it into your Web site, if you are selling products there.

“Have a few places where your prospects can order your products,” Mr. Marx said. “You always want to make it easy for them to buy. By having more order links on your sales page. they’ll be able to buy whenever the urge strikes them.”

Sometimes the obvious is not so obvious. Ask and you shall receive.

Good ideas from around the web:

» BizBox on why you should be like Denny’s and keep spending on marketing: “[The] reality is that it is exactly the tough economic times when you must be marketing yourself, as potential customers are going to be more picky about where they spend their money; these are also the times when you can most efficiently and easily cut in on your competitors and improve your market share.”

» Branding Strategy Insider on why you should think harder about your marketing to women: “Studies show that women buy or influence the purchase of 80% of all consumer goods in the U.S. Women today are, and likely have been for many years, buying riding lawnmowers, consumer electronics and boats, for example. They make 80% of the home buying decisions in the $180 – $500K price range according to a recent David Power Homes study, and they are likely to play a significant role in a lot of other big ticket purchases (like autos), in addition to the usual purchases of apparel, groceries and so on.”

» Tim O’Reilly on why you should work on stuff that matters: “The most successful companies treat success as a byproduct of achieving their real goal, which is always something bigger and more important than they are.”

At some point or other, we all find ourselves standing next to a screen in front of an audience. Usually—unfortunately—there are bullets involved. And templates. Really ugly templates.

PowerPoint, despite its flaws, is the standard presentation medium. We all moan about it, but we also wouldn’t stand in front of more than six people without its protective cover.

Problem is, every time we advance a slide, we’re actually putting people’s lives in danger. It’s known as death by PowerPoint.

The next time you’re tasked with presenting something—a company report, a sales pitch, a new product, or seminar (see yesterday’s post)—take the time to read Garr Reynolds’ presentation tips. Reynolds—who also authors the blog Presentation Zen—has dedicated his life to reducing PowerPoint-related deaths.

For all his efforts, however, he has yet to make an impact on 90 percent of the presenting public. People are dodging bulleted lists every second: most PowerPoint presentations—and that includes the delivery as well as the actual slides—are, in a word, bloody awful. (Ok, that’s two words.)

But that’s not because people aren’t capable. They are. They’re intelligent. They’re passionate about their material. It’s just that the bar is so low. For most people, it doesn’t even occur to them to put the time into standing in front of the mirror and nailing the delivery, finding awesome images, choosing cool fonts, winnowing slide text from 30 words to six.

We expect PowerPoint to be bad. So we let it be bad.

Don’t let it be bad. Go to Garr’s site. Or watch this presentation:

All of a sudden, after years of spending like inebriated seamen, Americans have decided to become thrifty.

Which means opportunity for you.

Seminar Marketing
Seminar marketing is essentially a form of lead generation that involves offering something of value (your expertise) in exchange for the opportunity to market your services. It’s a great approach for agents new to the business, as well as for seasoned producers looking to maintain a high profile and continue to generate new business.

Seminar Marketing Benefits

• Gain visibility
• Establish credibility
• Educate prospects
• Improve your speaking skills
• Generate leads (and referrals)
• Gain permission (to market to your seminar recipients)

There are three pillars of seminar marketing: the marketing of your event; the presenting; and the following up. Each one is equally important. Be prepared to spend the time and effort required to gather a list of attendees and contact them, pick a venue and create a compelling presentation. And once you’ve done that, the real work begins: following up and ensuring a healthy return on your effort. It’s not easy, to be sure, but done well, seminar marketing can be an incredibly effective lead generation method.

If you’re not able to put together an invite list, try to find a captive audience, perhaps at a church or neighborhood organization meeting. (If you go this route, is essential to keep things short and free of gratuitous self-promotion.)

Presentation Tips
Don’t be a shill. Be helpful. That’s the best marketing you can do. Make your pitch 5 percent of the overall presentation. And put it at the very end, after you take questions. Keep things lively, short and informative. If you’re going to use PowerPoint, follow the pecha-kucha model: no more than 20 slides, no longer than 20 seconds on each one.

Worthwhile reads from this week, freshly plucked from my Google Reader:

• Seth Godin on The Thing About Goals
• Ryan Healy on How Laziness Sneaks In
• Jeff Bezos on entrepreneurialism
• Penelope Trunk on why Tim Ferriss’ “4-Hour Workweek” is a scam
• The Kaiser Family Foundation on why health care is still on the agenda despite the dismal economy