"To Make Them Thirsty, Make the Well Run Dry"

There's an old English proverb that goes like this, “You never know the worth of water until the well is dry”. In other words, something “valued” has everything to do with something “needed.”

If Sales is a Contact Sport and people are emotionally centered and logically dispersed (buying decisions are first governed by our emotions & surrounded by a cloud of logic in support of that emotional decision) in nature, then it behooves us as sales professionals to make emotional contact with customers; to get emotional with them and strike at the core of what moves people to want to buy.

For insurance and financial services professionals, I suggest the following be considered as a means of achieving emotional connection:

WRECK ‘EM (auto insurance)
BURN ‘EM (homeowners insurance)
KILL ‘EM (life insurance)
MAKE ‘EM SICK (health insurance)

At first glance, what I’ve said sounds cold and irresponsible. But what it is that I am suggesting is that sales professionals resist the urge to “tiptoe” around the hard issues of life that face us all. We should have the courage to initiate the difficult conversations of life in order to make sure our customers are fully protected and prepared as much as is possible. It's our professional and our moral obligation.

All too often, the tendency of insurance agents when broaching the subject of life insurance with their customers is to illustrate a scenario about some fictituos third party person; some hypothetical situation, where an unnamed husband or wife dies and the family is left without money. Rather than illustrating the possibilities with a scenario using the customer’s names and their situation as the elements of the story…the agent defers to the oft used, and unemotional, third party scenario. That is a mistake.

Be direct with people who are sitting across the table from you. Make them the ones who have died. Ask them how their family will cope financially as a result. Use their names to paint the picture of what could be, and will be, if they die without adequate protection. That is emotion. That is what I call contact and making connection with a customer on a personal and emotional level.

For example:

Tom if you were to die today, how would Mary and your daughter, Lisa, and son, Mike, be able to maintain the lifestyle you two have built for yourselves? What would happen to this home? Their college education? How will Mary manage to take care of all those things without you?

OR

Tom, if you were to be the at-fault driver in a serious automobile accident while on vacation, and you, Mary, and the kids were hurt . . . for example you had a broken arm, Tom. What would you do about the medical bills that followed…especially if you couldn’t work to pay for them? Rather than hassle with worrying about whether being “in-network” or “out-of-network” with your health care provider from work, wouldn’t it be worth it to have the peace of mind knowing that adequate medical payments coverage was part of your auto policy? That way, your family could avoid the worry and potential of out of pocket expenses that would follow; and instead can focus on the important things, like you getting better.

OR

Tom, what would happen today if you and Mary were to have a house fire that, unfortunately, was a total loss for you both and you were to discover your coverages were inadequate to fully rebuild?Where would you live? How convenient would it be for you to live with your in-laws?

OR

Tom, if you were to require nursing home care, say as a result of a stroke, how would you and Mary cope with the added expense of your care? How would you be able to afford it? What would you do, in the meantime, for grocery money, utilities, all those expenses that we incur just to survive and live?

It’s true. People never know the worth of water until the well has run dry. So do your customers a favor, and yourself, and have the courage to be direct. Make the well run dry when talking to them...before it really does run dry on them and they have nothing to drink to quench their thirst. We owe it to them to:

WRECK ‘EM
BURN ‘EM
KILL ‘EM
MAKE ‘EM SICK