An interview with...
We make sure to sell all of the features and benefits of the policy and then close the sale. Our B&C quotes are not always the cheapest so you have to sell on cover, know the USPs of your own policies, and learn the loopholes of the competition.
Find.co.uk is useful for comparing policies from other providers with the cover we can offer. Sometimes we run a dummy quote from a provider like Direct Line if we think the price of mine may be an issue. That way we can show the client what an alternative, which they know they can only get direct from the insurer, looks like in terms of cover and cost.
Q: You are firm believers in fee waivers; why are they so important to your businesses and how do you position them with the client?
A: Fee waivers on their own don’t increase protection sales but they help focus the client’s mind about the need for protection and, from a commercial point of view, effectively insure the business we write.
Rather than positioning the fee waiver as an alternative to paying a larger amount, we instead get the clients to want to buy protection by gently pointing out their needs and offering the benefits of being protected against those risks.
We use the MAB Sales Presenter right at the beginning of the first appointment to explain our sales process, highlight the benefits of protection, and to signpost that we’re going to talk about it as part of the process.
Once we’ve explained all of the features and benefits of dealing with MAB, we then explain the fee waiver in a style that shows that we’re giving them a great service and the best advice - and by waiving the fee you’re reducing a bit of the cost for them as well.
The client feels that they’re getting a fantastic service and they know that deep down they need to have some cover, so are more than happy with the fee structure.
Q: Are there any areas you feel you need to focus on to improve? If so, what, and how will you go about doing this?
A: There are quite a few areas we can build on; we’re not perfect by a long stretch! We need to be doing more with protection for our BTL clients, and although we have made improvements in our income protection sales, there is still room for improvement.
The same with family protection, we do more lump sum cover for this rather than FPIP, but there is still room for us to increase these numbers.
We’d also like to be selling more protection to our existing clients when we revisit them for remortgages, particularly where we are saving them a lot of money with the current low mortgage rates.
Perhaps this is an area in which we can look to generate the improvement in FPIP, and IP sales that we’re aiming for, in the future.
Q: I see that you have quickly embraced the MAB Twitter campaign - can you see this increasing leads and sales?
A: The best business for any adviser is referral business, and a lot of word-of-mouth recommendations are done online via social media rather than the more traditional ways.
It’s not an instant lead generator, so having automatic feeds to make your posts for you makes it so easy and ensures high quality content is issued daily. Much of social media is about having a profile, people being aware that you exist, and enabling clients to contact you.
We’ve had a business Facebook page for a few years that has been linked to Twitter and it has generated business.
We ask all our clients at our first appointment to follow us, as well as asking our own estate agency staff, as it keeps us at the forefront of everybody’s mind.
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