Part 1 – Opening up the pipeline of communication

It has always astonished me! Every time I work with a new Broker I learn that 70% of their employees have never taken a sales course, nor truly understands that sales are not just instinctive but very strategic. Insurance Brokers are paid commissions; therefore every level of employee must understand that each and every interaction with a customer is an opportunity for revenue.

I appreciate that “the directs” and banks are a strong opponent that cannot be taken lightly, but when I listen to recorded calls I cannot believe the amount of business opportunities that I hear slip away without being noticed. To me, that’s an even bigger threat to your organization! Missed opportunities!

One of the easiest ways to start down the road of getting an organization to look at new strategies can be implemented into conversations is to first look at the language we use when talking to clients. This 3 part blog will examine why what we say and when we say it can have a significant influence on growing your Brokerage’s revenue. With our SCORE (sales and customer experience) training program we have the benefit of listening to hundreds of recorded calls between Brokers and customers. One of the first things I noticed is that, in general, we talk too much! Way too much! Clients become disengaged and the communication channel between us closes.

In our SCORE program we teach our customers how to ask appropriate questions to the clients on a consistent basis to ensure the client is always engaged through the conversation. We call it “Opening up the Pipeline of Communication”. We estimate that in the calls we listen to, your clients do about 30-40% of the talking when it fact the clients should really be doing 60-70% of the talking. So how do we reverse those trends? Stay tuned for the next two blogs to get some simple hints and tricks that you can start applying right away with your staff.