Face-to-face communication remains the most effective way for advisers to understand clients' protection needs. Phil Calvert explains the benefits of seminar selling
Advances in technology continue to amaze. However, the best route from A to B is not necessarily the quickest and, certainly when selling protection products, it is essential technology-based communication is used with caution, taking care to ensure the client picks up every aspect of the message and that none of it is lost along the way.
There is nothing to beat the spoken word when selling protection ' face-to-face communication is the best method. Comprehensive protection should cover all aspects of a family's or a business' needs. Unless you are highly skilled and experienced at direct mail ' and with a budget to match ' it is probably best not to bother. Your skill lies in the effective analysis of clients' problems and providing tailored solutions.
However, a simple extension of your communication skills can be a move into seminar selling. This is often discounted by IFAs due to what is perceived to be the amount of planning involved and apprehension at public speaking. Yet client and public seminars can yield incredible profits if a few simple rules are followed. Experience tells us protection is a subject area that lends itself well to seminar selling ' old sales ideas benefit from this new approach:
Be prepared
Set clear objectives for the seminars. Decide exactly what you want the audience ' whether existing clients or invited members of the public ' to do afterwards. Your seminar is a sales pitch for your services and you want people to be motivated enough to discuss their protection issues with you at a later meeting.
Be ruthless about what you include. Whatever you say to the audience, they will only remember 10% of it, and most of that will be in the first and last 30 seconds. Decide on three to four main points only. Do not make 100 points in the hope that just 10 will be acted upon.
Use a mixture of facts and stories to make your three points. Mixing facts with supporting stories aids retention by exercising both sides of the brain. Try to make your stories real and personal. The more they are from your own experience of life the better.
Focus your thoughts
Solve the audience's problems. Focus your presentation on their needs not yours. They are not interested in your view of the protection market, but are very interested in your solutions to their protection problems. Of course, they may not realise they have problems, so a good way to aid discovery is by asking clients through a survey ' conducted either in the post, or at regular client meetings. Include the survey on your website and offer an incentive for people to respond.
Make the survey a regular feature of your business ' for example, quarterly or half yearly. The results will give you a detailed understanding of your client's needs and therefore help to make your seminars relevant.
Do not forget to analyse the responses and tell your local press about the results. This does two things. It gets promotion for your seminars and builds your image as the local expert in solving such problems ' problems many other readers will undoubtedly share.
Speak with passion. Focus entirely on the audience's protection needs and problems and this will show sincerity. One of the main reasons why audiences do not remember business messages is because they don't totally believe the speaker is sincere. Clues for this include over-reliance on the computer package Powerpoint and notes.
If you are passionate you will not need notes. Other clues are lack of eye contact, lack of rapport and lack of true life personal stories. Finally, they must see and believe that you are an expert on your subject.
Prepare, practice, polish and perfect. The main reason for fear of public speaking is lack of preparation and practice. Make sure you know your subject inside out. Many presentation courses will tell you about the importance of structuring presentations, how to dress and why not to jangle the change in your pockets. These are important, but pale into insignificance compared with being an expert on your subject, presenting it with passion and in a format that solves the audience's problems.
Protection lends itself well to seminar selling. With practice and hard work, these tips can help you to see big profits.
Phil Calvert is the proprietor of Training Strategies
