Life Insurance Marketing Techniques – Use a Sales Marketing Advisor Or Sales Coach?

There is no argument that acquiring life insurance marketing techniques that improve your sales growth is a strategy of attaining success. At first it is hard to determine if the advice of an insurance sales marketing advisor or sales coach would be more beneficial. Looking at this report clarifies the advantages or disadvantages of each ones’ skilled techniques.

Both a sales marketing advisor and sales coach are experts at providing advice, tip, tricks, hints, and demonstrations to advancing quicker to achieving your goals. They are both honest about providing constructive criticism over methods insurance marketers, brokerage sales directors, and recruiters may currently be using. After having a ten to fifteen minute conversation with any marketer, I never encountered a conqueror implementing all the correct techniques. Extra wisdom with outside insight would be beneficial virtually every life insurance marketing firm.

The marketing strategies refer to a mastery of prospecting of a wide spectrum of talents. These include prospecting methods for acquiring new insurance brokers, increasing quality of lead response, converting interested brokers to signing a contract, and the prized result of ending up with producers consistent in writing valuable premium cases. Oh, add in improving performance procedures of providing unique broker service. This would not only include new brokers but also maximizing and improving sales from the existing broker force.

Start with the values of an insurance sales coach. Like a pro sports player often has a personal trainer, so will a marketing firm, insurance agency, or even an independent broker or general agent. The sales coach is very flexible as training can be one on one or to a group. Here we are not talking about a rah-rah motivational speaker who only has home office experience or no insurance knowledge whatsoever. The coach is a not only a guide, but a trainer, teacher, instructor, and tutor all in one. Expect to pay an hourly rate for individual services rendered. However if the coach is training your entire marketing staff, or group of brokers, a flat more economical fee can be determined. Do not forget one of the coach’s strongest abilities. That is as a speaker when you are giving a sales seminar. This is an excellent method of upping attendance, and strengthening recruiting.

Contacting an insurance sales marketing advisor, provides a different set of values. The advisor is viewed more as a mentor providing expert advice and suggestions. This is strictly one on one with clients that include the insurance company recruiting director, a brokerage managing general agent or independent marketing organization. There is usually not a face to face consultation, as it a big cost advantage to use the telephone or a conference call. The number of marketing advisors, especially those specializing in the facets of insurance brokerage, is very slim. Like a lawyer their fee could be an hourly rate, however a short introductory to answering briefly a few questions are on the house. Unlike a coach, there is improved willingness to give out some free advice. However, they are not going to instruct your staff, your brokers, or speak at your next recruiting seminar.

You may be surprised by how much knowledge insurance sales marketing advisors have locked up somewhere in their tiny crammed brains. This is not simply attained by reading well-written business sales books and inspirational materials. It is all acquired by talking many years with thousands of insurance marketers, and secondly by implementing a method few sales coaches have at their disposal. This is a personal analysis of hundreds of thousands of agent and broker data records spotting unique trends and characteristics that are constantly changing. An insurance advisor of authority status can rattle off personally researched facts and figures you will never see printed in any insurance magazine publication. You will often find out not just the pros of proceeding on your present path but also all the possible pitfalls of any directions taken.

Evaluate your needs and review the benefits a coach and advisor both provide. Before making a decision, remember that placing a phone call is free.

Well published author, Don Yerke likes to concentrate on what you don’t know or what no one else dares to print. Tell it like it is.

Watch for his new paperback book debuting on Amazon early this summer. It is loaded with great insurance marketing and recruiting information.

Come and get your FREE “Think and Grow Rich” Ebook by Napoleon Hill instantly. The website address is [http://www.agentsinsurancemarketing.com]

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/2074720

Citigroup Share Falls Below $1 – becomes penny stock

Shares of Citigroup Inc have fallen below $1 per share today touching 98 cents per share! From being the largest bank in the world to being a penny stock has been difficult for the employees (those who survive) and surely the investors.

Even a few months back, nobody could have thought of such low valuations, but today, it looks like the Citigroup stock could go further down. As the recession deepens, the problems facing Citigroup — souring loans and the impact of the recession — are only getting worse.

Now, the share price of an NYSE-listed company cannot remain below $1 for more than 30 consecutive days. If that happens, the company gets about 180 days to prove that it can boost its stock price.

One of the main questions we got is whether this price is makes the stock “cheap enough” to buy, and the answer is: we don’t know that!

We know how much money the US govt is pumping in the bank, and we know what assets Citigroup has worldwide, BUT we don’t know how big their liabilities are! And that’s taking the stock down.

Maybe some investors know more than others, and are selling while they can. But there is not much you can salvage with a penny stock.

Never could we imagine that one could not even buy a coffee with Citigroup share price. Today should serve us a warning of things to come ahead. We are in difficult times. Got to conserve cash.

Effective One on One Sales Coaching Sessions

Recently I have read posts on this subject on a several popular blogs. My most recent “snooping around” session revealed on one of those blogs that an “effective One-On-One coaching session should be planned six months ahead of time”. My curiosity ended, as did my snooping session. If you are holding your coaching session every six months you should be fired as a sales manager! You sales people are customers of your leadership, and they need service from you more often than every six months.

There are four types of coaching sessions:

Behavioral – something has come to your attention that must/should be shared. Though we think of these sessions as addressing negative behaviors you should use them to recognize positive behaviors also.

Discovery – As a manager you have uncovered a developmental issues that should be addressed. This is the first session of a field training program that should end with a bi-lateral contract between you and the sales person.

Follow Up – These are frequent mini-sessions to check up, and exchange feedback.

Bottoms Up – If you are a great leader this should happen often. Instead of you discovering a developmental issue one of your team members seeks out your help. Why? Because you are trustworthy and they know you are there to serve them.

First a note about tone. Attitude is everything. If this is a behavior coaching session do not send mixed messages. If a negative behavior issue is serious enough to warrant exploration and coaching, don’t mince in other topics. The outcome of behavioral coaching sessions are usually uni-lateral next step contracts. If you have discovered a specific sales skill that needs improvement you do want to recognize those other skill areas that are best in class. If this session is a follow up you should summarize previous discussions, recognize progress and discuss next steps. The key to follow up coaching sessions is that this is a bi-lateral agreement to next steps.

Coaching sessions should be orderly. You should control some parts of the discussion and you should let your team member control others. However, this is not a free flowing, never ending conversation. You may end up being friends with some of you sales people but remember, friendship is the outcome of effective leadership, leadership is never the outcome of friendship.

The coaching session outline;

Warm Up – I guess you could just hit them over the head, but why? This is a team member. The only reason to minimize this part of the discussion is if you have uncovered a negative behavioral issue that if not addressed could result in the termination of this team member. Initiating a serious conversation with frivolous small talk is disingenuous.

Orientation – If this is the first coaching session to reveal something you have discovered, particularly if the team members overall contributions are satisfactory, this part of the discussion is crucial. For instance, if you are concerned with this team members prospecting skills you should discuss what lead to this discovery. “Jim, thanks for your first quarter results. It helped show the others that the goals are achievable even with this difficult economy. But I was exploring our CRM system and think I discovered something. I noticed that you not only made your goals, but had the highest proposal to contract closing ratio! In fact, you also had one of the highest closing ratios in moving prospects from the needs analysis to the proposal, congratulations! But that led me to think, are you motivated to dramatically increase your earnings? Because if you are I think I discovered something that is holding you back…” Now the stage is nearly set for you to focus the conversation.

Focus – This is the meat of the conversation and two-thirds of your time should be spent here. But step back a little. Dust off those sales skills from your past life. If you sold like I did, you’re best sales pitches were not about what you told a prospect right? First you need to sell the need. Continuing our conversation with Jim…”Since you have world class skills at the end of the sales cycle, I did a little arithmetic. You may already know this but if you were able to put 3 more prospects into your pipeline every quarter your earnings would increase by 10%!” My best sales presentations came about because of the questions I asked! You need to use your open ended probes, your directional probes and confirming probes. You need to find out if the lack of prospecting is a skill gap, or a will gap (see separate articles on each subject on blog). If Jim agrees he has a need to increase the number of prospects in his pipeline, you’re halfway home! You now have to come to agreement on how to satisfy that need.

Contract – Every coaching session should end with a contract. Simply put this is the agreement going forward, which defines each person’s action plan and roles. In my Sales Excellence Process there is a form which defines each person’s commitment. The contract (unilateral or bilateral) should be driven by what you determined to be the cause of the problem. If the issue is skill then you as the leader will have an obligation to the sales person to deliver the training. If the issue is one of will to do the task then the sales person will have more obligations to the contract while your role will be inspecting what you expect.

Coaching sessions are the most important duty of a sales manager. How you go about delivering a coaching session will define your leadership. Get your mind right! Are you there to help, or are you there to catch someone doing something wrong? Remember “Cool Hand Luke”?

Boss: Sorry, Luke. I’m just doing my job. You gotta appreciate that.

Luke: Nah – calling it your job don’t make it right, Boss.

Sales Performance Advisors delivers field ready tools to help sales people, sales managers, directors and executive management optimize their sales results.

You can contact Gregory Deming @ (925)216-5081
gregorydeming@gmail.com

You can view our blog @ http://www.peaksalesperformance.wordpress.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/2063716

Be Careful with “Double Your Sales” Guarantees

We came across a “double your sales, guarantee” today through an email newsletter and the presentation vs details of their offer demanded this quick post to show you why its really necessary to read the terms for any offer, especially when the offer comes with an attractive wording of guarantee.

Here’s the offer page  and here are the Terms and Conditions for their Money Back Guarantee.

We feel the offer page should have mentioned/clarified a couple of essential terms before asking a prospect to spend time in filling the form.  For example:

#4 of Terms: …Your refund request must be accompanied by a CPA-approved record of revenue for the prior 18 months, showing that you have not doubled your gross sales revenue for any comparable month from the prior year.

[Which means, the doubling of sales will not be assessed over the year or quarter (which is the accepted business growth comparison timeframe),  but any month of the year. This is not evident at all from the way the advertising is presented, and could face difficulty

#6 of Terms:  Only the set up and consulting fees previously paid by you to Infusionsoft are eligible for refund under this program. Your monthly subscription charges to the Infusionsoft service are not refundable.

[What the above term says is that that the various services you need to buy to qualify for money back guarantee are not part of the money back the guarantee! Not sure if this clause has been reviewed by their lawyers because it can’t stand in a court of law]

Therefore, always read the terms of a money back guarantee because its very rare in any services business, irrespective of how the offer is being shown. But if you do find a business partner who is willing to give a written money back guarantee on services, then that’s a thing, and worth going for. Hope you found this useful.

Sinovac Biotech

http://www.sinovac.com/images/logo.jpg

Sinovac Biotech is a biopharmaceutical company from China, which through its subsidiaries, engages in the research, development, production, and sale of vaccines that protect against human infectious diseases primarily in China.

Sinovac offers:

  • Healive, a vaccine for hepatitis A
  • Bilive, a combined hepatitis A and B vaccine, and
  • Anflu, a split virus influenza vaccine.

Sinovac also develops:

  • vaccines for the H5N1 strain of pandemic influenza virus that are in Phase I and Phase II clinical trials;
  • a vaccine for the Japanese encephalitis virus, which is in pre-clinical development stage; and
  • a vaccine for the SARS virus that has completed a Phase I clinical trial.

Sinovac Biotech markets and sells its vaccine products primarily through various provincial and municipal centers for disease control. The company was founded in 1999 and is headquartered in Beijing.

http://www.sinovac.com/pic/pipeline.jpg

Latest News:

Sinovac Enters Veterinary Vaccine Market with Inactivated Rabies Vaccine

Sinovac Announces that Government Investigation Rules Out Healive

Website: www.sinovac.com