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Introduction:

Life Insurance Industry in India has faced frequent


changes so far. Each time the Central Government Authority for
Insurance IRDA (Insurance Regulatory and Development
Authority) is doing the changes only for the benefit of the policy
holders. Because of these reviews and changes, the Life
Insurance Business in India is becoming more clear and attractive
to all. We need to fix one thing strongly in our mind that “all is
for good”.

Life Insurance is a basic need of each human who has


someone depending on them. You are earning money by
designing and recommending such most important financial
plans to your customers.

Many joined along with us as Life Insurance Agents. After


few months few of them are vanished from this business. After
few years, most of them are not in this business. But, only few
continue to do this business in a successful way. This is a very sad
situation. Only if we have more Insurance Agents, our country
will have better future.

You may wonder why I have mentioned that our


country’s future will be better by having more insurance agents
and insurance selling professionals.

An Individual’s financial stability is his financial freedom.


He/she or their dependants should not depend on any others or
government for financial subsidiary at any situation. In other
words, having sufficient money for the basic survival

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requirement of self and dependents is called financial stability.
For an example, if a family’s monthly survival expense is
Rs.10000/-, then the primary earning person should have a
provision to ensure this Rs.10000/- is guaranteed even after the
death of him.

We need to have a deposit of Rs.12 lakhs if we want to


receive Rs.10000/- per month as interest. Accumulating this 12
Lakhs will sure take many years for a middle class family. But the
same time, we can not give any guarantee for the survival of that
primary earning member till he accumulates this corpus of 12
lakhs. If he/she wants to by an asset worth 12 lakhs immediately,
the only economical and easy solution is to buy a life insurance
policy for the sum assured of Rs.12 lakhs. From his income, if the
primary earning member is ready to pay Rs.3500/-
approximately, he can get life insurance cover of Rs.10 lakhs on
normal death and 20 lakhs on accidental death.

If each individual takes the financial protection like this


for them and their dependants, the number of people depending
on government’s subsidy will be very less and hence the saved
subsidy money will be strengthening the government to go for
development projects. As present, our country is spending a
huge portion of revenue on subsidies and hence we don’t have
enough funds for development projects like infrastructure
development, industrial development, education, medicine and
research and development.

I hope, now you can buy my point that by developing


more and more insurance agents and insurance selling

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professionals, we can financially protect each family and thus we
can help the nation to have financial stability.

I am writing this book for the past 3 years in between my


official work. The main reason to write this book is to do
something to retain people who eagerly join this industry and we
are helping the nation by retaining more agents and sales
professionals of life insurance industry.

With my experience of 15 years in Sales and Management


and in those 7 years in Life Insurance Management, I have
written this book and submitting in front of you.

Whatever the job we start, initially we need to follow the


successful people. After the adequate experience, we may form
our own strategies and succeed. If we want an assured success,
we just need to copy the successful people. This is the prime
secret of success. Just think how a child is copying its parents and
growing faster.

Instead of treating this profession as an opportunity for


another income, we should believe that we have the power to
change our nation’s future. If we do this profession with fullest
involvement, I am sure we can create a bright future for us and
for our country.

Another important reason for me to write this book is


there. I have seen many Agents and Professionals who had
extraordinary knowledge and profile have failed in Life
Insurance. This is a painful fact. Behind each failure of an agent, a
good amount of effort of the Sales Manger who recruited

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him/her is just wasted. To reduce the number of dropout agents,
I feel we need to educate them to understand clearly about the
nature of this job rather looking only on to the rosy pictures.

The concepts and strategies mentioned in this book are


only the outcome of my little knowledge and experience. If you
find any mistake or misrepresentation in this book, kindly abide.

With regards,

V. Prasanna Venkatesan,

Vertical Progress.

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Index

1. Let us be proud.
2. Income opportunity in Life Insurance business.
3. Important Factors
4. Important of Training Classes
5. Information are the tools
6. Basic requirements
7. Approaching
8. Preparing
9. Fact Finding
10. Presentation
11. Objection Handling
12. Following
13. Sales Completion
14. After the sale

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There are many professions in the world. We can classify
them into 3 categories.

1. Production from natural resources (like agriculture,


poultry and others)

2. Industrial production (manufacturing a pin to ship).

3. Service (providing service to an individual or


organization).

Among these three types of professions, service is


different profession with lesser investment and better profits.
Our Insurance Agent’s profession requires no financial
investment. The actual investment in this profession is our Time,
Contacts (friends, relatives and other known people) and our
Talent. This profession is profitable and attractive for Sales
Managers and other insurance selling professional also. From
this profession one can get enough money, satisfaction and
extraordinary contacts in the society.

Many of the world’s famous personalities had been as


insurance agents during their early days. Many top business
people, political leaders and celebrities have done this profession
in their early days.

The uniqueness of this profession is that we are selling


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something very important to others. Right from a poor to rich,
uneducated to scholars who ever is earning money and have
people depending on them are sure need insurance. This
profession is a Noble Profession because we are helping the
insured and his entire family by providing the right financial
protection. Even if the family leader is dead, we ensure his
income is alive. In case of any accidental disability or critical
illness, we help him with adequate financial subsidy. In a house
where death occurred, friends will be there for a day. Close
relatives will be there for couple of days. After few days, people
to collect money will be there. The only person there to give
money will be a life insurance agent.

In Life Insurance profession, the relationship between us


and our customer will increase day by day depending upon our
service. We have the opportunity to get in touch with the
customer for a long period of time. Many successful agents who
were looked as a disturbance initially have become very close
family friends to customers by their proper service over a span of
time. The special key in this business is Long Term Relationship.

Where ever our customer is going to live, while receiving


a maturity from the plan we offered, he will remember us with
gratitude at least for a moment. While we give the claim amount
to the nominee, we will become another member of their family
and also we will get good references without asking them. A
successful agent of life insurance will sure accept this point.

In Tamilnadu near Tanjore, one gentleman was working


as a supervisor for a factory. He met with an accident and dead

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on the spot. Some one earlier has compelled him to take a policy
and he paid Rs.5000 as premium and availed Rs.2 lakhs as Sum
Assured. This gentleman has only a widow mother in his family.
Though this money 2 lakhs can not compensate the death of the
only son, it could have been a support for that old mother.

Just think now, the agent who insisted him to take policy
could have got a good reputation in that society after giving the
claim. There are thousands of examples like this. I have the
following reasons for me addressing this job as a Noble
Profession.

1. We sell only the most wanted scheme.

2. The insured person will have mental peace while living.

3. On the death of insured person, the money from insurance


will give financial protection to his dependents.

4. We are serving the customer throughout the policy term and


also while maturity or death.

5. More than anything, we give a helping hand while his family is


in trouble.

As we discussed earlier, a country’s financial stability


depends on the citizen’s financial stability. To get the financial
stability and protection, the only affordable and immediate
process is availing life insurance.

A country which has more citizens under the life


insurance protection, will grow strongly on economy. So, we are

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not only helping the individuals we know, but also the nation.
Now you can understand why I addressed this profession as a
Noble Profession.

By selling genuine plans to customers, many agents are


serving their customers for a long period and getting more and
more business from them. By this strong and long relationship,
professional agents are becoming one of the family members of
customers. A genuine insurance agent will always have wealth,
health and prosperity.

But, among us, few people are thinking this profession is


a tough one. Agents and Sales Professionals who tried to sell life
insurance and left this business are the one who spreads wrong
message about life insurance business. This is completely against
the fact.

They could have gone out of this business only because of


their wrong approach towards this business. So, kindly don’t
believe any wrong information about this profession which is
there in the market.

According to me, the life insurance profession is an


honorable profession because we sell only the plans which are
necessary and mandatory.

But, if we want to do this profession in an appreciable


way, we must have business ethics and service mind. For an
example, we should keep our customer’s benefit as first priority
than ours. The information sought by our customer must be
given correctly. We should not miss or reject any telephonic call

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of our customers. We should not do anything that hurts our
customer.

If we are like this only, we can get the credibility and


recommendations from our customers and do this job
successfully. If you want your customers to like you, you must be
honest and gentle.

No one exposes about their income, expenses, liabilities,


assets, details about their family member and their dreams to
every one. Only his important person and life insurance agent
will know all these things.

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In Life Insurance there are some common formulas of
getting business.

If we approach 5 people for appointment, 1 will give


appointment. If we make sales presentation to 5 people, 1 will
give business within 1 month.

In general, premium per policy is Rs.15000/-. Now, after


regulatory changes, the average commission per policy is 8%.
(You should sell Traditional Policies also to maintain a healthy
income) Average commission per policy will be Rs.1200/-. If we
are getting a correct sale, the average premium paying term
would be 10 years. Average renewal commission is 2% per year.
According to these calculations, your income will be as below.
(Assuming you make 3 presentation each day)
30 9yrc
8yrc
25
7yrc
20 6yrc
15 5yrc
4yrc
10
3yrc
5 2yrc
0 1yrc
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 FYC

(2nd year only the renewal commission of 1st year will come. 5th year,
2,3, & 4th year’s commission will come. Like this, if we do a genuine
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service, our income will grow with renewals and also by the reference
of existing satisfied customers.)

As we discussed earlier, if we approach 3 customers


everyday, monthly we will get 15 policies and Rs.18000 as
commission and subsequent renewal commissions will be
Rs.40500/-.

Just look the above diagram carefully, 5th year onwards,


your renewal commission will be more than the first year
commission of that particular year. This situation will be there if
you do the new business as equal to your 1st year business. In
fact, the real situation will be very different. If you do a genuine
business and service, your new business will be increasing each
year. The reasons are,

• Generally in the first time, the customer will give premium


much lesser than his actual capacity. If you continue to be
honest, the customer will not invest anywhere without your
knowledge.
• Initially you may not be an expert in this profession. After few
months, due to your experience, you will take only lesser
time than early days to complete a sale.
• Initially not many people know that you are an insurance agent
or insurance professional. Because of this, well known people
too take insurance with others. After few years, you will
become popular in your society as an Insurance Selling
Professional and the references will also be more.
• After enjoying the maturity or after getting the death claim,
your selling will become much easier with them. Most of the
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customers are buying policy with the same agent after
getting a claim or decent maturity. If you don’t believe, ask
the senior agents. Their premium after one maturity will be
more than the previous premium.
• As you continue to be in Life Insurance business, you will
become expert in this profession and you would be taking
the right decision during the first meet itself. So, you will
understand the prospect clearly and get optimum premium.
• After few years your service will be faster. Because, you know
whom to contact for what kind of service from the company
and the required documents, time frame for processing the
policy request and so on. So, your service will be accurate
and faster. This quality will attract the prospects and you will
get more business in lesser time and more references.

Even with the equal time that you spent in your first year,
you would make more business and money latter on. As a
proverb says, “if you stay longer, the business will become a two
horse race”.

For an example, Mr. Prabhu is a Life Insurance Agent and


he hails from a small village. He is running a small medical shop
also. Like others he started this business without any big
expectation. He is doing this profession for the past 4 years and
during the past 2 years, he got more offer from the same
company to become a Sales Manager. He didn’t accept those
offers because now his customer base is more than 200.

After 1 more year, each year 40 policies that he took will


come under surrender without penalty clause and the fund value
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also will be attractive. He would serve all the surrender or
maturity and get more business each year without meeting any
new customers.

Moreover, his renewal commission is higher than the


salary of a Sales Manager now. There is under no pressure and
reporting mandates as Sales Managers have. Agents who are
above 5 years with decent business each year, never bothered
about a regular income provision because we get salary once in a
month. But, Life Insurance Agent’s commission is twice in a
month.

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Will to learn

Working everyday

Trying Hard

Integrity

Passion

Patience

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LIMRA is a globally known organization which conducts
various study and research on Life Insurance business. They
studied the reason for the people leaving this profession early.
The outcome of the research is, “People failed because they
don’t know what to do”.

Friends, we need to understand one thing here. All of us


have started this profession with the aim of growing further in
life. But, without understanding and practicing our
responsibilities and duties, it is mere waste to blame others or
the industry. Unless we understand the profession and do our
duties, we cannot become successful in any profession.

Start with well known people:

Selling life insurance is fulfilled after discussion with


involvement. I am mentioning this here is because selling life
insurance plans to unknown people is difficult initially. The
reason is there will be initial discouragement if close people are
not approached and that should not spoil our morale. In the
beginning of your career with life insurance, do it with your well
known people only. So, it is very important to have contacts. We
should have good relationship with them. We should keep their
benefits first. We need to speak nicely. We need to introduce
quickly to everyone that we are into this profession. Smiling,
patience, knowledge, way of approaching and hard work are the
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factors need to be there with us.

More Contacts More Benefit:

As we saw in the first topic, this business requires few


investments like time, contact, speaking skill and knowledge.
Among these, contact plays a major role on our success here.
Please take a pen and few papers. Just answer the following
questions. 1. How many people you know? 2. How many of them
are earning more than Rs.5000/- per month? If your answer for
the second question is above 200, you are the right person to do
this job. If it is above 100 and less than 200, you need to get
introduced to minimum 3 new persons each day. If it is less than
100, get introduced to minimum 5 persons per day. To get a
regular and continuous income from this business, you must
have minimum 100 prospects in working platform.

In present mechanical life, we don’t know even about our


neighbors. First, learn to smile. Among us, what fetches success
to someone? It is only due to the friend circle we have. If we
don’t have more known people, doing this job will not be easy.
But, you know well that creating friendship is not a tough task. If
you want a specific group or people to be your friend, be there in
places they gather. Become a member of social clubs like Lions
Club, JCI and Rotary Club and so on.

Now, I will introduce one life insurance agent. Her name


is Mrs. Usha. She was living in a city with a middle class status
during 2003. I will explain the process of making her agent,
efforts taken for that and also the result of that. Her Sales
Manager (Development Officer) approached her to become a life
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insurance agent. She is introduced by another person to the
Sales Manager. After the business opportunity presentation, she
told him that she would convey her decision latter.

The reason for her hesitation is she was not confident of


doing this profession. But, she wanted money because they had
insufficient income. She stayed in a rented house with her family.
Her husband was working in a shop and she had two school
going children. She had many contacts from her neighbors,
relatives and her husband’s buyers and dealers.

She was living a comfortable life. But, she knew that she
requires lot of money for future. She was selling bags to school
going children and office goers by meeting the customers at their
work places.

To make her as an agent, the Sales Manager took lot of


efforts. He visited her house 12 times and discussed with her and
her husband about this profession. Finally on the 12th visit, she
accepted to become an agent.

There was only few days left before the training session
starts. She has to undergo an interview with the branch manager
to get selected. The Sales Manager arranged for the interview
and on the day of the interview she refused to take up this
opportunity.

She was well informed about the interview and required


documents like certificates, resume and prospect list. But, she
just refused to join and the reason was not also told to the sales
manager.

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The sales manager really became upset. After enquiring
few times with her, she told the reason. That was shocking. The
reason was she informed about her new assignment to the milk
vendor and a neighbor. They discouraged her by telling it is very
tough and lot of traveling need to be made. Finally, the sales
manager could manage to make her an agent.

What we can understand from this case study?

• Not everyone will encourage us.

• Before we start, the faith of our Sales Manager or Development


officer is better than other’s opinion.

• The barrier is our hesitation.

As we said, “More Contact More Money.” After joining, she


developed more contacts and became the top insurance agent
soon. She utilized all possible ways of gathering contacts and
became a role model agent.

Work Everyday:

What the top sportsmen are doing? Do they practice


every day or few days before the event?

We can become expert in any job by doing that everyday.


To get a permanent success in life insurance business, the only
way is to work everyday. Once in an interview, the national top
performing agent of a life insurance company told, “I will not
have my breakfast unless I confirm 5 appointments for that day”.
This is the secret of success.

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“Everyday” is a magical word for all life insurance agents
and selling professionals. Even if we are doing this as a part time
job, we should discuss with at least one person everyday. People
not doing this have not achieved anything remarkable here. This
is a highly profitable business without investment. Our
investment is our talent, speaking ability, contacts and presence
of mind. So, everyday practicing in this business is very essential.
Any artist without daily practice might have not become a star.

We don’t need to spend long hours to this business


everyday. But, we must dedicate at least our possible minimal
time to this business everyday.

Recording what we did:

Now you could have understood the importance of


working everyday. But, we should also record what we do every
day. Whom we met? What was his/her interest? Which plan we
suggested? What was the objection? When to meet next time?
What are all the proofs we need to show? All these information
are vital for the next visit.

Only by proper recording of all the information of what


we did, we can continue further successfully. Otherwise, we will
be in a position of a person who saw a movie till the interval and
the second half of yet another movie starred by the same hero
and heroine.

We can see this habit among all our successful senior


agents. End of each day the approaches we made, presentation
we made, submitted proposals and it’s details, premium paid,

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policy term, premium paying term and other important details
are to be recorded on that day itself. If we want to enjoy the
fullest benefit of our efforts, we should not forget anything we
did. So, inculcate the habit of writing diary. It would be better if
we have a separate diary for insurance business. Keep another
quality note book and maintain all the details of your customers
there. If we want to do a better service to our customer, we
must have all the data readily available at any time with us.

What ever the format of keeping the record is convenient


to you, keep like that. By keeping like this, you can calculate and
follow your own benefits like commission, renewal commission
and other contest benefits also.

Hesitation is the barrier:

In this profession, our hesitation is the biggest barrier. No


door opens unless knocked.

Hesitation to start the business due to lack of knowledge


about this profession is the main barrier for us. In India, many
business giants like TATA, Birla, Bajaj, Ambani are all invested
huge money in this business only after seeing an opportunity to
make big money. Then why we need to hesitate?

We are not confident to the extent our Development


Officer is confident on us. All Development Officers are in need
of recruiting new agents. But, they are not recruiting everyone.
They will recruit only people with some stuff and quality. You are
one among them.

Hesitation will not come if we are aware that we are


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selling only the most important and required plans to our
customers. Your customer may be an expert in his business or
profession. But, if you have undergone a proper training, he may
not have better knowledge than you about life insurance and
financial planning. Please strongly believe this.

In my little experience, I have met many doctors,


engineers, government officers and business people and
explained about financial planning. Most of them have accepted
my recommendations about life insurance plans. So, you have
confidence on you, get better knowledge through training
sessions and gain more and more experience by presentations.
Your hesitation will run away.

To get this level of confidence it may take few months.


Till such time, take your higher official along with you. The
practical experience will teach you what you have left to learn in
your classroom.

Normally, we don’t believe that Life Insurance is very


important to all. Because of that, we don’t confidently speak to
even our well known people. Believe that life insurance is very
important to all and they are not aware of that. Our basic
responsibility is to educate them about the importance of Life
Insurance. We are hesitating to speak about this.

In 2004, my agent took me to a Spice Processing Mill


owner to present about life insurance. We were waiting in the
customer’s office for about one and a half an hours. After
becoming free, he permitted us to present. We explained about
our plans in detail. After listening patiently, he asked his staff to
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pick the insurance file. He showed me a bunch of policies worth
30 lakhs of sum assured already having and he was paying Rs.
1.75 lakhs as yearly premium. Here there is virtually no hope of a
new policy because we were not close to him. We went there
with a reference only. I appreciated him for already having life
insurance policies and paying good amount of premium. I
politely requested a permission from him to do a need analysis.
He also accepted since we promised him that we would not force
him to take a policy with us unless there is a need. I did a sincere
study of him and did a need analysis based on human life value
calculation. Finally we agreed that by having a life insurance
cover of 1.5 crores, he could provide a complete financial
protection to his business and family. After our discussion, in few
weeks he took a policy in which the sum assured was 1.25 crores
and the premium was 1.25 lakhs.

I discussed with him that what ever happens to him, his


business and family should not get disturbed. He was doing a
spice processing and reselling business. He was purchasing from
few bulk suppliers and after processing supplying to hundreds of
retailers. His buyers are across the state and he does many
transactions over phone.

In case of any eventuality, his suppliers will stand in line


to collect the money and not all the retailers will pay without
further supply. His employee’s salary must be paid irrespective of
production or profit. Otherwise they would go out and their real
asset is the skilled labors. The next person to takeover the
business is his wife since his children are very young. So I
calculated all these factors and projected such huge sum assured
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to him. You must be able to make your prospect to see things
that may happen to get a good sale.

We need to present in a polite way that our customer is


not getting irritated. Just observe your mind status and
confidence level. I hope that is increased by now. I will be
explaining latter about designing a financial solution for different
type of customers.

Once again, believe that Life Insurance plan is very


important to all.

Be Honest:

Why should we keep the customer’s benefit as prime


focus? The reason is natural. If the agent’s commission is more,
the customer’s Benefit would be less. If you are recommending
a plan which benefits you more, you can not succeed in this
business for a long time. Please stop committing the unavailable
features and giving wrong information about the policy and
features. Only the reputation we create will lead us in this
business for a long time.

If you think that there is no way to the customer to know


about the wrong selling, you are wrong. Sure the fact will come
to his knowledge one day. Just imagine, what will he think about
you if you have done a wrong sale? Whatever the earlier image
we have created over a period of time will be waste by a single
mistake. We should never sell a wrong policy by focusing higher
commission or due to lack of knowledge.

I sold a policy to a doctor. I gave maximum life cover to


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him since he is the only earning person of his family and he has
two school going children. While he was about to pay the third
year’s premium, I was working in a different place after my
transfer. That time yet another agent met him and asked for a
policy.

But, the doctor told him that he is already having a policy


from the same company and the renewal is also due then. The
agent enquired about the policy and checked the fund value also
as it was ULIP plan.

He found that I gave maximum insurance cover and due


to the higher insurance cover, higher mortality charges were
taken. The agent rushed to the doctor and told him that he is
cheated by me and showed him the mortality charges taken each
month. He also added that all the mortality charges taken could
have come to me as commission. In fact I was not an agent and
his statement that mortality charges are given as commission
was also absolutely false. He recommended another policy to the
doctor showing minimal insurance cover of just 5 times of the
premium and explained about the mortality charges for “sum at
risk”.

The doctor got wild against me and he called me over my


mobile. I understood the situation and I explained him about the
conformation made while taking the policy. But the doctor was
not convinced. He asked me while there is a provision to take
sum assured for just 5 times of premium, why did I give him 40
times of premium. The plan I sold was a ULIP regular premium
plan. That had a flexibility of taking sum assured from 5 times of

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annual premium to 40 times depending on the customer’s need
and interest.

Then I promised him to send a detailed mail about the


importance of Life Insurance and a proof stating the mortality
charges would not go as commission. I sent a detailed mail to
him. He took time to read it carefully and completely brought my
point and felt sorry for suspecting me. He rejected the proposal
of that agent. Even today the doctor is my friend.

What we understand from this case study? The agent


instead doing a need analysis, he started abusing the other agent
who sold in order to get good impression. This is a very wrong
way of selling. Particularly, that agent didn’t have proper
knowledge about financial planning through life insurance.
Otherwise, he should have appreciated taking higher sum
assured and gone for a cross selling. Finally, he didn’t get the
benefit and also unnecessarily created a friction between me and
the doctor.

• If we are honest in selling, we don’t need to fear anybody.

• Like this case study, if our prospect is already having a policy,


instead researching the existing one, we can look for more
opportunity to sell. As we discussed earlier with the case
study of a spice merchant, the opportunity will always be
there.

• The customer may call you at anytime. We must replay in a


responsible way.

• If your customer is angry with you. Just handle him with


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patience. Any thing we do out of anger, we should feel sorry.
After you clarify him, he will sure accept you.

• If you create even single unsatisfied customer, that will spoil


credibility with many.

• Bad things spread faster than good.

The following points we discussed in this topic.

1. This profession can be done easily among our well known


people.

2. We need to keep in contact with as many people as possible.

3. We need to allocate time for this profession everyday.

4. We should record what we did everyday.

5. Continuous effort is the only way to success in this profession.

6. We need to have faith on this industry and profession.

7. We need to believe our higher officers and do as per their


guidance.

8. We need to strongly believe Life Insurance is important to all.

9. We need to work with honesty and responsibility.

Exercise:

1. Buy one long size, quality note book.

2. Name it as Prospect Database.

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3. Draw the following table in the notebook and write the details
of the known people from whom you can get policies.
Minimum 200 names should be there while you start.

4. Add minimum 3 new names and details in that notebook


everyday.

5. Draw the following table in two pages starting from the left
page to right page.

6. Whatever the information you get about the prospect, write in


that notebook.

7. Write complete detail of the policy taken there.

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You need to draw this table in a long size quality notebook by
keeping two nearby pages as one page. Draw from the left page
to right page and keep enough space for each prospect.

S. No Prospect’s name How do I His Job or


address, contact know him? business
number and other
details

1st meeting date 2nd meeting date 3rd meeting Recommended


date Plan

Proposal Form Premium Amount Premium Policy Date


submitted date Frequency

Birth Days of
family members

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As we discussed in the earlier topic, we came to know
that to do this job, the knowledge is very important. Moreover
this is not a product selling profession. We sell only the plan. We
should have the ability to clearly explain the plan and features.
To the questions asked by the prospects, we should give proper
answer quickly then only we can win the heart of our customers
and excel in our profession. The success secret of this profession
is to create a strong confidence on our prospect’s mind.

Insurance agents those who are continuously successful


will have a strong knowledge of this business and update of
information. Ask them the importance of training classes, they
will definitely recommend you to attend all the classes.

As I mentioned, Insurance Selling is an art. To perform


any art, we need strong knowledge and practice. If we do things
without proper practice, it will be as good as riding in a stallion
without proper training. We need to learn required things by
allocating time for that.

You may be confident to become expert by reading


books. But, have you ever seen a person swimming with book
knowledge? Have you ever seen a person performing classical
dancing with book knowledge? Few people might have learnt art
without proper practice. But, the time and effort they could have
spent would be huge. With proper teacher, we can learn any art
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without mistakes faster. We can learn the techniques of the art
which he got out of his experience.

Once I made a study on advisors based on their


attendance in training programs. I found an interesting factor.
70% of regular training attendees are successful for more than
one year. On the other hand, only 30% of advisors who didn’t
attend training programs continued after 6 months from the
date of their joining. They also failed in the subsequent years. If
you want to do this profession for a long time, never miss any
training session.

Once, my sales manager brought one busy businessman


for interview. I discussed with him and found he has excellent
contacts in that city. He is a senior member of a reputed club
there too. But I found he was not attending training sessions
regularly. Often he went out of the classes. I feared that he
couldn’t pass the exam. The sales manager told me that he will
be free only in the morning and Sundays and committed me to
teach him on his free time. Somehow he passed the licensing
exam. He logged only one own policy in the date of coding and
after that he didn’t do anything. Due to lack of adequate
knowledge in this business, he never gave importance to this
business.

I met him in a party after few months and asked him why
he didn’t continue insurance business. The replay he gave was
shocking. He told that he was unable to do the business without
the help of his sales manager as he didn’t have any knowledge.
He blamed the sales manager that he promised him to support

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fully and didn’t keep his words. Many of us blame others for our
failure. But the same time, if this agent could have attended the
classes properly, by this time he could have been a top
performing agent of that region itself.

There are many correspondence courses. Now the


information technology has grown to an amazing level. The
world has become very small. Through multimedia we can have a
live video chat with a person anywhere in the globe. But, why
there is no correspondence course for medical practitioners? The
reason is medicine directly impacts a life. Medical practitioner
dose a treatment for disease of that time. But, an insurance
agent gives solution for the future till death. Now you can
understand to what extent our profession is important and what
sort of a role we are playing in our customer’s future. So, for life
insurance profession, the physical training classes are very
important.

An agent I have mentioned before, Mrs. Usha, attended


all the training programs regularly. She didn’t miss even a small
training program. Because of this, after three months she used
to take the help of her higher official only for HNI (High Net-
worth Individuals) calls. She started procuring all small premiums
up to Rs.25000 on her own. Since she got on the job and off the
job training properly, the time was at her disposal and she was
not waiting for the sales manager’s availability. This increased
her productivity. Many months, she was doing as good as a sales
team’s business. She strictly followed all the instructions
(including the above mentioned table) given in the training
programs.
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Another agent, Mr. Karthikkumar, aged only 24. He was
working in Chennai in a private concern. He took 15 days leave to
attend the training sessions for licensing exam. As he learned this
business clearly, from the day one he started maintaining the
data properly in a very attractive format. From the date of
joining, he was continuously becoming a company club member.
Each year, he used to rank one among top 5 in number of
policies done.

In am in life insurance industry for the past 7 years, I used


to undergo training programs frequently and also I used to
update my knowledge through internet. But, even today I feel I
have only 25% of the knowledge I need. One day in a training
program one agent explained about the importance of savings in
a different way. This example I couldn’t have got anywhere else.

The example told was; God keeps the required food


inside each egg till the chick get complete growth. Or in other
words, till the time the chick has capacity to search food. The
only reason for keeping the required food inside the egg is the
chick’s life will not be guaranteed if it goes out for food in a pre-
matured state. Like this, each prime member of a family needs to
adequately insure himself so that the entire family is protected. I
feel this may not look like a best example, but surely a different
scientific example. Unless I had an opportunity to be in that
training session, I might have missed to know this concept.

Only through training programs we can get adequate


information and method of using them for our business.

Just watch what successful medical practitioners are


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doing. At least once in a year, they attend medical conference on
their domain by spending their own money. Even if it happens in
a foreign land, they don’t hesitate to invest their time and
money to update their skill and knowledge. Why they are doing
this? The reason is to excel. They want to know the new
inventions and treatment methods and use them to ensure they
are further successful. The other purpose is to discuss with other
professionals and to update their contacts and knowledge.
Though this is an expensive process, they never bother to spend
on knowledge and updates.

Better knowledge will increase our presence of mind. We


will be able to solve the problems and objections quickly with
our better knowledge. Though there are many medium of
learning is available, knowing from the expert is always better
than self learning.

I hope now you will accept my point on importance of


training sessions.

‘More Training Better Productivity’

Some tips to attend the training sessions:

• Get the information of Training Date, time and duration well


before. Most of the candidates are missing training session
because of lack of intimation.

• Try to complete all your important works before training.

• If you are unable to complete your work before the training


session, try to arrange some alternate.
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• If you are unable to arrange alternate solution, do your work
after the training session. Nothing will happen.

• Believe, you will get at least one new information in every


training session.

• By using Time Management techniques, give priority to your


other works before or after the session.

• To compensate your absence, try to seek the help of your


friends and relatives.

During the year 2004, there were 18 days training


program for agents for licensing exam. To get the agent’s exam
hall ticket, all agents must attend 18 days training program. One
candidate Mrs. Ramya have attended all 18 days program and
passed the exam with good marks. The wonder here is that she
was having a 3 months old baby. She used to bring her baby
along with her grandma to the training center. Her grandma
used to keep the baby in the next room while she was attending
the training classes. Once in two hours, she used to feed her
baby and continued to attend. What others will do in this
situation?

Unless we create the opportunity and lookout for


solution, we will never become free to learn something by
investing time. To undergo any training program, we need only
the interest and attitude. The door will automatically open. After
the college, how many days we spent to learn new things in our
life?

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There are many factors that are influencing the Sales
Process and Sales Completion. In our business, customer’s
current financial position, current need and commitments,
opinion of others and our convincing capacity are some
important factors that are influencing the sales completion. But
for the convincing capacity, others are not in our hand.

Our prospect will recognize us only based on the nature


and truth of the information we shared with him. As many times
I repeated, our product is not tangible. Our customer can not
touch and feel or even see the product. To enjoy the benefit of
our plan, the customer or his nominees need to wait for a long
period. To sell such a plan, our selling ability must be sharpened.

For our profession, the selling ability is very important.


Even if we are a stranger to our customer, he will pay his
attention only to our knowledge and abilities.

The knowledge about our job is the knowledge about our


organization, knowledge about job related current affairs,
knowledge about our products and plans, knowledge about our
competitor’s products, other investment and saving plan’s
knowledge, current stock market situation, knowledge about
future expenses of an individual, safety aspects and
trustworthiness of life insurance companies, other general
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knowledge and updated general information are the important
factors a life insurance agent must know.

Knowing these information by heart and using these on


time would enrich our selling process and it is important also.

Some Important Information:

1. Information about nature of our business


2. Information about our organization
3. Information about our plans
4. Information about our competitor’s plans
5. Information about other saving and investment tools
6. Basic Information of economics
7. Information about the safety aspects of life insurance
industry and companies
8. Day to day update of news.

“The success of an agent depends on the information he


exchanges during the conversation and the uniqueness of
them.”

1. Information about nature of our Business.

Any action done without a purpose and mission will go


waste. Moreover, without clearly knowing our job, we will not
get the involvement in doing that. Any work done without
involvement will not yield optimum result.

Information about nature of our business means the


basic requirement of our business. For an example our contacts
and their wish, sentiments and expectations is very important
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information for our business.

As we know earlier, our job is serving. Serving means


satisfying the need of our customers. We are not selling products
or doing a service for physical products. Since we are selling the
intangible products called plans, we need to develop the ability
of explaining things in an interesting way. For an example, when
we explain about an event happened in the past, we explain
others in such a way that they literally form the scene in their
imagination and understand. Like this, when we explain our
plans, we should explain in such a way that our prospects get the
exact picture of the need and importance.

We can perform carefully if we know the nature of our


business. For an example, if an agent explains a plan without
understanding a particular group of people’s sentiments, there
are chances for him to get adverse results.

Where can we search and get this information about the


nature of our job? It’s near us. Yes, be in touch with the
successful agents of your branch. Discuss with them for
minimum of one hour every week.

When we begin this business, not everybody could have


encouraged you. Very few could have told you that it is a right
choice. Many could have discouraged you. If we give importance
to all these comments, we would miss this great opportunity.
Everyone successful today here, could have faced the troubles
initially. Only people know exactly about this business will
encourage you. Interestingly, they would be already doing this
business. You need to be away from some unwanted people’s
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comments. This business is like taking water from Ocean, you will
get as much as you take. What we need is the ability of making
friendship and ability of performing interesting conversations.

2. Information about our organization:

We need to win the confidence of our customer to win


the competition. To win the confidence of the prospect, we must
present enough information about our organization. Even if you
have recommended the best plan, it is equally important to
promote your company to help the customer to take a favorable
decision.

“Whatever the information you are presenting to customer,


don’t explain by words alone. Carry sufficient proofs to support
them.”

Information about our organization is information about


the history of our organization, performance, shareholder’s
details, recent achievements, number of branches and
geographical spread, the quality of service and the exclusiveness
of our service and so on. We need to explain these with proofs to
our prospect. These information will win the confidence of the
customers though the benefit is enjoyed by him after few years
only.

We can get the information about our organization in our


Branch itself. Each day update the information. 1. When the
organization started? 2. Number of customers we have, 3. The
time taken for settling the claim or maturity, 4. The profile of
each shareholder of the company, 5. The merit certificates and

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the positive news in the press about the company are some
important information we need to carry and show them to our
prospects.

3. Information about the plans we sell:

As we saw before, we sell the plan. In other words, we


sell the promise and collect money. The need of an individual is
different from each person. Policy Term, Premium paying term,
premium and maturity are some factors that are different from
each person. If want the sales process to be completed
successfully, we need to attract our customers. If we want to
attract the customer, we need to recommend a plan that
completely suits the customer’s need. Designing and presenting
plans that are looking as tailor made, is itself an art.

Each life insurance company has different plans. Each


plan is having a unique quality. We can not sell more plans to an
individual. But the same time, we can not sell same plan to all.
We need to focus only on the need of the prospect. Then, we
need to choose plan or plans that can address the need of the
prospect. Our prospect is not an expert in life insurance plans.
But the same time, in future, some other agent may approach
him and explain different plans. If we are recommending plans
focusing on customers benefit. We will be remembered always.

If we want to recommend the best plan, we must clearly


know about all the plans. If we know about the plans and their
features clearly, we can make a better sales presentation with
confidence and also the chance of committing mistake is very
less. Knowing thoroughly about all plans will enable us to create
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combo plans that are very attractive.

Only by reading the product brochures and company


released presentations, we can not learn a plan completely. By
attending product training session only we can get clear idea
about the plans. In training sessions, we can know the benefits,
features, common objections and handling techniques.

Selling after a clear idea about all the products of our


company will increase our confidence while selling and also will
give us confidence to approach the customers after the sales. If
we sold a plan by focusing on our benefits or a plan that is not
benefiting the customers, we will sure loose the confidence of
the customer and people known to him.

“There are few agents selling products with higher


commission only. Doing this, will spoil the entire respect we have
created so far. In other words, if we sell plans that are customer
centric, we will sure get more recommendations and references
from the customer.

In the discussion of a person who has better knowledge


about plans, the confidence and clarity will be there. We need to
explain only the important features of the plan. Few people
having deeper knowledge some time, instead selling they start
taking product training to customers. We need to avoid this also.
Intelligence is informing the required and we should not hide
points that are important too.

The clarity about the plans will be gained only by


learning, discussing and presenting with customers frequently.

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Many a times, the doubts expressed by our customers will make
us to get some unique selling points. The knowledge is getting a
shape only by experience.

For an example, in ULIP policies, the profit depends on


the stock market if the invested fund has equity exposure. It is
profitable to invest when the market is down. Customers having
knowledge about stock market will not prefer to invest in stock
when the market is up if they see a chance that the market may
come down. For the same reason, in the year 2006, a customer
refused to invest. He liked the plan and he was interested to
invest but when the market is down. I didn’t know to handle this
objection till then.

Suddenly, I got an idea. I explained the customer that


normally life insurance plans will take 4 to 5 days to get issued.
Till such time the invested amount will not participate in the
fund growth. But, after the policy is issued a customer can switch
the amount among different funds. This exercise will take just a
day. If the customer is investing when the market is down, within
the next 4 to 5 days, before his money starts performing in the
market, the market may go up and that growth may be missed.
With this fact, I requested the customer to sign the proposal with
debt fund investment and in the future once the market is down,
I requested him to switch the fund to equity market so as to
ensure the growth. He signed the proposal immediately.

Our brain is very powerful than many computers. It can


store innumerous information. If we work with involvement, the
brain will supply the information to us whenever it is required.

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The scientist, who invented Benzene, was trying too hard
to draw the molecular structure. He tried several times and he
didn’t get a clue of making it possible. He saw an image in his
dream and with the help of the image he saw, he drew the
molecular structure of Benzene.

4. Our competitor’s plans:

Knowledge about our competitor’s plans and the top


selling plans in the market is very important. The reason is our
customer prefer only the best available. When our competitor is
also on the race with the same customer, when our customer is
comparing our plan with a competitor’s one, we can perform
well and win if we have knowledge about their plans also.

We should never criticize our competitor’s plan. But,


knowledge about competitor’s plan helps us to recommend a
plan that is better than the competitor. If our customer is already
having a competitor’s plan, we can recommend a plan that is
different from the earlier one and offer him a different benefit.

Even if we are not clear about the entire competitor’s


plan, we must know about the top selling life insurance plans in
the market. We can get the details of competitor’s plans from
our training team, higher officials and even directly from the
agents of the competitor. But, we should never degrade our
competitor or their plans. This will spoil our sales.

Having clear knowledge about our plans and our


competitor’s plans will enrich our conversation. The confidence
will be reflected in our speech. The things we believe strongly,

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that can be done with full involvement. Otherwise, we will keep
quiet and come out if our customer says a competitor’s plan is
much better or we will start begging for a sale. By our submissive
request, we can collect only donations not premiums. The
chance of getting a donation is also very less.

In Chennai, we met one customer. He referred our


competitor’s policy and he told that that policy (ULIP) has 95%
first year allocation and a gift worth 10% will be given. So, the
customer will get 105% of the premium as investment. That
time, I was not aware the complete information about that
particular plan. But, I had a clear knowledge about ULIP plans
and I told him there is no chance for that unless there are hidden
charges.

Fortunately, our agent who accompanied me heard about


this plan few days before and discussed with that company’s
agent. He got the product detailer from him and he was keeping
that detailer. Then I took the detailer and explained our
customer how that policy takes the charges in due courses and
the sum of the charges was breath taking. We explained about
our plan and its transparency.

What we did was wrong. But, in that situation to explain


our stand and get the business, we did so. After listening to us,
immediately the customer rang up the agent who was his
relative and asked for the explanation about the hidden charges
we mentioned. That agent gave him an escaping answer and
finally the customer got frustrated and gave us a much lesser
premium than he can.

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This is a clear loss for both of us and in fact we created a
bad impression about insurance plans. Now, we could have
understood to some extent how an agent should and should not
behave.

Initially we may struggle to understand about policies.


But after a little experience, we can understand any plan easily.
We can get the details any insurance plan in that particular
company’s web site.

5. Knowledge about other savings and investment plans:

Selling pure term policy is very rare today. But, the actual
insurance plans are term plans only (the plans has no maturity
benefits and high sum assured). The main reason for this is
people are not interested in plans that carry no maturity. I felt
many times the interest of customer drops down once we say
there will not be any maturity. In recent days, even after the
market volatility, still people tend to go for ULIPs are the clear
example of people’s interest towards short, flexible and high
return giving plans.

By explaining life insurance plans along with the


comparison of other saving and investment plans will increase
the participation and interest of the customers. While explaining
insurance plans, if we compare the various aspects of bank,
postal savings, mutual funds, share trading and other
investments like land and gold, people tend to pay attention to
what we say. Nowadays, customers have high knowledge and
aware of different schemes. We can get some attention only if
we know a bit more than them.
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For an example, bank regular saving schemes, deposits,
postal saving and deposit plans, bonds, mutual fund schemes,
stock market analysis, real estate value of your area and growth
possibilities, tax effects, liquidity of those schemes, safety
aspects and stability of profits are some important information
we should always keep ready and updated with us.

All savings and investment plans are good and they will
have their own plus points. But the selling technique is
highlighting the strengths of what we sell. To do this, we need to
have clear knowledge about all. Isn’t it?

We should be prepared with the comparative analysis of


our plans with other savings and investment plans and the
exclusiveness of our plans.

Each professional will have their own style of comparing


these plans. Here I have compared these plans with life
insurance to the extent I know.

Bank and Postal savings and investments:

Saving and depositing through banks and post office


schemes are safe. The interest rates are guaranteed in the
inception. But, the interest rates are often lesser or equal to
inflation. Saving through these instruments will attract an
indirect loss only. We will discuss in detail about inflation latter.
Interest rates of banks are changing year by year. If we are
investing in a deposit which gives 8% interest for a 5 year term,
we will get the maturity with interest at the end of 5 years. But,
if we want to keep the money for some more years with the

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same rate of interest, it will not be possible. The investor has to
invest through the new deposit and the interest rate may not be
equal or more than the previous. But we need to remember a
point. When a country’s economy is growing, the bank’s interest
rates are expected to slash down. For an example, just look at
the bank interest rates of the developed countries. India is a
fastest growing economy in the world now.

If we take an analysis that a person saves monthly


Rs.1000/- for an expense of his near future that can happen after
10 years. He wants to save this monthly Rs.1000/- for ten years
and use the maturity for his future need or dream. Mr. X saves
that in bank and Mr. Y saves that through life insurance scheme
that can give him maturity and life cover. If they die on the 3rd
year, for Mr. X, the bank will give the money with interest that is
saved till this death to his nominee. But, for Mr. Y, the life
insurance company will give the sum assured (+ fund value or
bonus depending upon the scheme selected) which is much
higher than the paid (saved) premium. Here in other words, I can
say, Mr. X got what he saved and Mr. Y’s nominee got what he
wanted to save.

Gold:

How buying gold as ornaments can be an investment?


When we buy gold as jewels, we tend to pay 15% to 20% more
than the cost of gold as making charges and wastages. If we want
to invest, we need to buy as gold-cakes only. But, we need to
keep them safe. There are risks involved in keeping them. Buying
gold and keeping them is more profitable to the people who do

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that as business and not for common public.

Residential Plots and Land:

All of us have higher level of interest to buy land and


plots. This increases our social status. To build our dream home,
we can buy land or if we want to do agriculture, we can buy land
and we can invest in one or two plots and land. Buying more and
more land is profitable and healthy only for those who do it as
business. Often, we need to pay more than the registered value
when we buy land. The excess money paid above the registered
value attracts no guarantee and safety. If the government wants
to acquire your land for a project, the government will pay you
only the guideline value on that time. The liquidity on land is very
low. Another threat is changing the value by an establishment.
For an example, there are many commercial properties have lost
value due to a flyover bridge constructed above.

Share Market:

There are lot of differences in investing into stock


markets directly and investing through funds (mutual funds and
ULIP funds). People who are doing stock market investment as
their full time business also have lost huge amount in share
trading. Without proper experience and knowledge, investing
directly onto shares is highly risky. We can buy and keep shares
of good companies as long term investments. But, it is not
advisable to keep our entire money there. Fund managers of life
insurance companies are experts in stock market. Moreover,
IRDA will not permit them to take risky investment strategies.

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To explain and compare genuine information like this, we
need to have a clear idea and knowledge about other
instruments also.

6. Basic information of Economics:

It is important to prove our self as an expert in front of


our esteemed customers. As per the psychology, if we want to
impress someone, we need to be an expert in our profession.
The major part of our business success depends on how we
impress our customers.

We may not be an expert in all. But, it is important to be


an expert in information related to our business.

Some important economics information related to our business.

1. Inflation: The decreasing value of money due to the price


increase year after year is called as inflation. In the recent past,
the inflation rate is nearly 7% year by year. In what way we are
affected by this?

If average inflation rate is 7%, and if we invest in an


instrument that gives 7%, we did not make any profit. To know
this in detail, if we can buy one product with 100 rupees this
year, due to inflation the same product will cost 107 rupees next
year. If we invest in an instrument that gives 7% interest, we can
buy the same product next year with the maturity of this
instrument. As a result of this, his money is not grown here.
Now, guess whether this investment is profitable or not.

So, only by getting an interest or profit above the


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inflation will increase the value of money. If we know this fact
and discuss with this information, our discussion will have truth
and attraction.

Once I was sharing about inflation and its impact with my


NRI client. He was shocked to know that he was keeping around
18 lakhs in platforms that give him return lesser than the
inflation. After calculating the impact of the inflation, the very
next day he took my help in closing all those investments and as
a result of it, I got Rs.5 lakhs of premium. Hope you understand
now that all information is valuable.

2. Tax rates and Tax rebate:

Only for few investments the tax relief is there. There are
two types of tax rebates. One type is while investing and another
is while withdrawing. There are few platforms like PF, PPF, Tax
relief bonds, and tax relief mutual fund and so on. This is under
the section 80(c). But in India, only life insurance has both the
tax relief while investing and also while withdrawing. The tax
exemption on survival benefit, death claim and maturity is there
for life insurance plans under sec10(10D). If a customer can
enjoy the entire maturity or death claim as a non taxable income
means, is it a very attractive plan or not? It is a very strong tool
to counter other investment schemes.

Beyond this, we need to know income tax slabs, plans


having tax reliefs, capital gain tax rate and service tax rate are
the important details we need to know and update. These
information will be helpful to create a confidence with
customers.
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In India, the season for life insurance selling is from
December to March of each year. The salaried people will
complete their tax planning in December itself and other self
employed and business people will take time till March end. If
we are expert in tax planning, we will get great mileage during
this period.

3. Our Country’s economical growth:

The growth of our investment will directly depend on our


country’s economical growth. The economical growth of a
country depends on the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of that
country. Every year the GDP factor will be announced in media.
(Interim calculations are also got published often) Our country’s
GDP is growing at the rate of 8% (average) per year for the past
few years. It means, the total production of our country (income
through production and service) will be doubled in every 9 years.
This will directly reflect on per-capita income of average Indian.
This is sweet news for all of us. Isn’t it?

As we are one among the fastest growing countries in the


world, the same phase of growth is possible for more years in
the future too. In the world, it is identified that four countries
will have a steady and strong economic growth in the future.
These countries are called as BRIC countries. That is Brazil,
Russia, India and China. Since India is one among the four
attractive market, investing in Indian stocks are highly profitable.
Instead telling the customer this may be the return, informing
him with data like this would make him more comfortable to
listen to you.

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These information can be obtained by magazines and
news papers. We need to update regularly and keep ready with
us at any time. It will be more helpful if we keep other growing
and grown country’s details.

What we are discussing are the factors which can affect a


common man. Some more factors like per-capita income,
domestic saving factors, future interest rates of investment
schemes, share market predictions, change in laws and new
amendments are to be watched closely. As we discussed earlier,
the growth of a country will directly reflect in the growth of
individuals.

7. Safety aspects of life insurance companies:

What ever the financial instrument we sell, people tend


to give priority to safety aspects. If we represent a popular brand
customers will not have much hesitation. But, if we represent a
new brand, these information will support us to create a
confidence. Unless we make the prospect comfortable, the sale
will not happen.

There are laws controlling insurance industry in India.


Insurance Act 1938, LIC act 1956 and IRDA act 1999 are the laws
defines all parts of insurance business and controls them. These
laws define even the maximum commission to be offered to
agents.

Insurance Act Sec 27:

Assets and funds of Insurance companies should invest


65% in central government bonds and 35% in approved
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investments.

Insurance act 27C:

Insurance companies should not invest the policy holder’s


money outside India directly or indirectly.

Insurance act sec 29:

Insurance companies, but for loan on policy, should not


give any loan even to its managers and directors.

Insurance act sec 31B:

Insurance companies should not give commissions and


wages above the specified level.

Insurance act sec 34C:

While the performance of an insurance company is not


satisfied, to protect the public and investor’s interest, the
Authority can appoint additional directors for the company.

Insurance act sec 40B:

Insurance companies in India are not allowed to spend


more than the specified amount for management.

Insurance act Sec52H:

To protect the interest of the public and investors, the


Central Government can takeover and run the insurance
company if it not managed properly.

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Insurance Act 54:

Notwithstanding anything contains in Indian Company’s


Act 1913, an insurance company shall not wind up or go for
solvency.

These are few laws that can increase the confidence level
of our customers.

8. Day to day update of News:

We need to update on our job related news regularly. We


should observe these information through media. The important
information discussed above is to be updated on daily basis.

We can differentiate us from others only by our in-depth


knowledge and command we have on subject. This
differentiating factor only creates a desired environment for sale.
Current world is an information era and doing revolution on
information technology. If we want to be a fit professional now,
we need to spend time everyday in collecting and updating
information. Particularly, life insurance advisors and sales
professionals must subscribe for insurance magazines. Without
investing money on this, we can not become the best.

More than the domain based knowledge we should


develop us on other talents. This will help us to create easy
friendships. Ever in the world, the respect will go for the wise.

“The recommendations you are giving should always be the


best and exclusive”

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We will discuss about the basic requirements for doing
this profession under this session. Whatever the profession,
depending on its nature, we need to have some basic
requirements. If we have them already it is appreciable.
Otherwise, we can develop them if we have involvement. But, if
we are ignoring these basic requirements, we can not run the
show for a long time.

Basic requirements for Life Insurance selling profession:

1. The number of contacts we have.


2. The time we allot everyday for this profession.
3. Vehicle and Mobile Phone.
4. Will to learn.
5. Interest on Money, Reward and Growth.
6. Self confidence and perseverance.
7. Nature of loving customers.
8. Being ready to serve always.

We will see the above stated in detail now. The above


mentioned points are only a few important requirements. By
experience, we can develop as it says, ‘practice makes a man
perfect’.

1. The number of contacts we have:

Our strength in this profession is the number of known


people. As we discussed earlier, the investment required for this
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profession is mainly the number of contacts we have. A person
having more contacts can do this profession easily.

Each one of us knows many people. But, we need to


identify the prospects for your business who can take a policy
from us.

Who can take a policy? Anyone earning can take a policy.


But, all earning person may not in a position to pay premium.
Though life insurance is important to all, few people’s income
may not be sufficient for their survival itself. We need not waste
our time with these people. We can approach who lives within
his income and have something in surplus. In other words, we
can approach from middle class to anyone upwards.

Method of listing our contacts:

We need to write down the list of known people as


mentioned below. Take time to prepare this list so as to ensure
no one is missed out.

1. Close Relatives
2. Distant Relatives
3. Friends
4. Neighbors and people in your locality
5. Your classmates and teachers
6. Your colleagues (past and present)
7. Your existing customers of other job or business
8. People for whom you are a customer (milk vendor,
provision store owner, carpenter, electrician, parents of
your children’s friends, tailor, textile owner, vegetable

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vendor, meat vendor, cable TV operator, mechanic,
doctor, barber, your colony association members and
anyone with whom you have access)

We may not have all the details of the listed person at the
time of preparing this list. But, we can write down in a note
book and collect the details one by one latter. The main
reason for us to prepare this list in a note book is not to miss
out anyone. We can not remember everybody and recollect
whenever we want. If we have maintained in a note book,
whenever we want, we can access to the data. This data will
be very useful for us to plan each day.

How can we do this job if we know less number of


people? As we discussed earlier, we should become member
of clubs in your city. We should learn the art of making
friendship. Where ever people are gathering you also be
there. Everyday get introduced to minimum of 20 new
people and share your visiting card. There will be a place
where people go for early morning and evening walking. You
also go there and you can find the wishes are shared within a
week and you will make friendship there. You can attend any
famous Yoga classes where you can get access to rich people.
Like this, you can list down many ways to get introduced and
become popular.

These procedures are not only for people with fewer


contacts, but also for every one who want to succeed for a
long time. Whom so ever you meet, you must look out for an
opportunity to sell a policy or to get references.

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2. The time we give for this profession:

It is important to allot adequate time everyday for this


profession. Candidates who have all the qualities of a successful
agent are failing only because of this reason.

In the year 2006, my sales manager brought to me one


business man for agent’s interview. He has more contacts in his
town and he was also interested to do this profession.

I asked the business man that the hours he can allot to


this business everyday. He told me that he wouldn’t require a
separate time to do this business and he would do along with his
regular activities. Though I tried to explain him the importance of
separate time, he didn’t accept. Finally to give a try out I selected
him to become an agent. He didn’t attend the training session
regularly and even for exam, my sales manager struggled to
make him appear. God’s grace, he passed the exam and became
an agent.

After that, we tried very hard to make him perform and


failed. Without dedicating adequate time we can not become
successful in any business. In this business, time is converted as
currency. Day by day, the money we earn per hour will be
manifold.

“Here, time will become currency”

I would like to remember an interesting personality here.


In Namakkal, Tamil Nadu, there is an agent named Mr.
Karuppannan. He is a national topper for that life insurance
company. I had an opportunity to discuss with him about his
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success secrets. He taught me a new approach to this business.
He used to go for early morning walking everyday by 6 am. He
used to choose different directions from his home and walk for
one hour in that direction. While returning back, he used to meet
the known people in their home and enquire their well being.
While starting from their home, he used to promote insurance
plans and everyday he meets 15 people like this before 8 am.
After returning home, he writes the prospects met. After that, he
used to meet the hot prospects (prospects who agreed to take a
policy) and complete the sale.

It was very interesting and I invited him to deliver a


speech in my agent’s meet. He shared the same point there.
There were many agents attended the meet but one took this
point very seriously. The very next day morning our agent Mr.
Manivannan (he is also a business man) called me by 6 am and
told early morning formula is very successful and he already
collected 25000 rupees premium.

I was very happy that at least one agent can take the
point. In few months, Mr. Manivannan also had become national
topper and even today he is very successful in life insurance
business.

3. Vehicle and Mobile Phone:

To overcome the competition, we must be fast in serving


our customers. In this profession the competition is high due to
higher number of agents in the market. Because of this, the
customers are getting more offers and services at their door
steps. At this juncture, customers expect only a timely service. To
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give a timely service, vehicle and mobile phone is very important.

As we discussed before, here the time will become


currency. To save our time and use it effectively, own vehicle is
important. We don’t need to travel by costly cars. But, minimum
a two wheeler is essential to this profession. Otherwise, we can
work only 1/5th of a person who has vehicle.

Our customer may not be ready when we wish. We


should be at his service. To reach him in time, own vehicle in
good condition is very important.

Like this, Mobile Phone is also essential. When a


technology is used by most of the people, we also would be
compelled to use it. With a Mobile Phone, we can be in touch
with our customers at any time. Now, most of the agents are
having these. But, it is very bad to know that there are very few
sales managers are not having vehicle and proper mobile phone.

“Don’t change your mobile number often”

4. Will to learn:

As we discussed earlier, knowledge is very important for


this business. To learn, we need to have open mind. Person who
thinks, ‘I know everything’, will become good for nothing.

Learning is a never ending process of our life. Whatever


we learn without interest can not be remembered when
required. People not having a will to learn, will have a very short
span of life in this business.

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When the great Socrates was sentenced, he was asked to
take the poison to death. The day came and the soldiers asked
him to do so. On that time, he asked the soldiers to give him
some more time to enjoy a new music that came on air. He
asked them to give an opportunity to learn a new thing before he
dies since that the music was new to him. Just see the thirst of
great people. Learning is the only way to keep us alive and
young.

To get the interest in learning, we must love our


profession. We should have a passion to be a master in our
profession. Always remember this world offers a red-carpet
welcome only to wise. We need to analyze what we learnt new
before going to bed everyday.

Or, imagine a situation when our customer raises doubt


and we are unaware of an answer to that. We will sure get the
urgency to learn.

5. Interest on Money, Reward and Growth:

People say that the heart that says ‘enough’ will make a
peaceful life. In the present competitive world, we can change
and say that the heart that always urges to work more without
saying ‘enough’ will make a peaceful and successful life.

We would have not achieved anything significant without


having a goal and strived to achieve that. This is why I mentioned
that we should work harder without saying ‘enough’. Edison
invented 1093 products and equipments only by working 18
hours everyday.

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There are many life insurance agents who feel achieved
after doing the minimum required business to keep their license
in-force. Is there any benefit to them or the branch or the
company by doing this?

Successful people don’t benefit them alone. They benefit


their team and their people. As we discussed before, many
people are influenced and are becoming successful by following
agents like Mr. Karuppannan and Mr. Manivannan.

If we have higher goal in this profession, we will not rest


and continue to meet more people and do more policies. As we
discussed before, if we insure more people, that benefits our
nation. Obviously, the successful agent’s family will be rich.
Because of successful people, pleasure is for all.

We should have interest to make money. Do we have


interest to make more money? Yes, we must have it because,
this world treats richer as successful people. But the same time,
we shouldn’t make money by doing an unethical selling by using
his ignorance. The only factor that enables us to work without
tired is the passion.

There is no point in working without a goal. We can plan


only when we have a goal. We can act only when we have a plan.
We can reach the top only by acting. So, the goal we have should
be greater.

In my experience, no one achieved anything remarkably


without having an interest in anyone of these money, reward or
growth. Aimless people’s efforts will come to an end after

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achieving the minimum required business each year and after
few years they will vanish from this business.

Only the failed people criticize about this business. As we


discussed earlier, a person who know the glory of this profession
would have joined as agent instead of speaking about it. I
strongly say this is a Noble Profession.

In this profession, the renewal commission is paid only to


the policy procured agent. To earn big money, we don’t need to
take higher premium policies. Instead, we need to go for high
number of policies. Your stay in this business will be concreted
only by higher number of customers. The opportunity to acquire
higher number of customer is high in this profession unlike any
other profession. The top performing agents of all the companies
are visiting foreign countries frequently without spending from
their pocket.

6. Self confidence and Perseverance:

Self confidence and perseverance (trying hard with


firmness) is very basic requirement of success. For this
profession, we need little more than it required for other
business. The reason is we are selling plans and the benefits are
enjoyed by the customers after a long time.

We need to continue to try with confidence till our


customer makes a favorable decision after getting the
confidence on us and our plan. While he transforms to make a
favorable decision, there are many chances that can influence his
decision and we should be always prepared to face them with

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self confidence and perseverance.

Once, my agent took me to a customer. He met the


customer few times before for business discussion. Though it
was a hot call, the sales completion was taking time.

I discussed with the prospect and found that we have a


good opportunity to get big premium from him. Who will leave if
an opportunity is explored? I continued to follow him for
business. But after few discussions, my agent left the hope and
left following him. But, without my agent, I directly followed the
prospect.

From the first discussion, we took 45 days to complete


the sale and I got a good premium and gifted to my agent who
introduced him. The sum assured under that policy was 1.25
crores. By taking this business, I learnt a valuable lesson that is
‘Self Confidence and Perseverance’.

Some occasions, we have got positive replay after 6


months from the prospects. Remember the delay will bring
better favor to you. It is worth to wait long because we are going
to get a long term business and personal relationship with each
customer.

7. Nature of Loving Customers:

By believing us, our customers are giving us the


responsibility of protecting their family’s financial need and his
future financial requirements.

The benefit from a customer will not end with single


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policy. Once he is satisfied, he will recommend us to all his
known people whenever they think about an insurance, savings
or investments. What else you want from a satisfied customer? If
one is becoming two and then multiples? Just think about the
manifold benefit.

All customers are expecting transparency and truth from


us. By being transparent and truthful, we can win the confidence
of them and become a top performer.

Once, my agent got a bigger amount as single premium


from a customer. In the year 2008 the share market was going
down. On that occasion, the customer tried to contact the agent
and get the information on the stock market and fund switching.
To escape from that, the agent informed the customer not to
worry. He told him that the market would improve.

But, the market continued to fall down. The customer


was frustrated and again tried to contact the agent. The agent
failed to pick the call. Finally the customer found my visiting card
and called me once the market actually touched the bottom end.
I was getting updates from the investment experts and I was
little aware of the situation already. With that little knowledge, I
gave confidence to the customer with adequate proofs and
asked him to wait. The customer told me that he was not angry
with the initial wrong suggestion given by the agent but he was
upset really by the negligence of the agent.

I believe it is our basic responsibility to answer the call of


our customer unless if we are indisposition to receive the call.
Even if we are missing the call, we need to call them back once
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we come out of that situation.

We miss the call from only unwanted and irritating


people. Can we consider our customers as unwanted and
irritating? If we behave like this, how blunder it will be? Misusing
a technology will be as good as insulting the invention itself.

We can attract the customer by offering other help and


suggestions. There are many business giants are made by a
simple philosophy of less margin and high turnover. So, give first
priority to your customer’s benefit. We need to take care of our
customers with higher level of responsibility.

Why we need to be so caring? You will understand this


once you continue to read. Once, from an unknown mobile
number, one lady called me with tensed voice. After few
seconds, I understood that she is my customer’s wife. I made her
to relax and discussed with her. When she called me, she was in
Bangalore and I was in Trichy.

She told me that her husband was brutally attacked by


unknown gang and admitted in hospital in a serious condition.
He was in coma and after few hours of treatment, he came to
conscious for few minutes and asked his wife to contact me and
again went unconscious. He is a smart and responsible family
man and it was really shocking news to me.

He was in a very critical condition that time and I was


unable to go there due to my official appointments. I asked his
wife to go to her home and takeout all the policy documents and
call me. I got all the policy numbers and enquired with all

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companies that he had policies and found he took no medical
insurance policy. I felt bad and I became normal after he spoke
to me in his recovered health condition.

But, still I am not convinced about my part played as a


financial advisor that I could have insisted him to go for a
medical insurance policy when I took business from him. Please
understand from this situation to what extend we are important
to each customer.

8. Being ready to serve always.

Do we have any particular time for this profession? Can


we allot any specific time to this business like other profession?
If we have a full fledged office and wait there for the customer to
come, can we get any business? What time is suitable to this
job? Is it morning or evening? Working days? Holidays? In fact
there is no specific time for this business.

Life Insurance plans are very important to all. How many


know this fact? Have you ever heard a customer have walked
into life insurance offices and took policies? Even if it had
happened, that would be rare and would be for a different
purpose.

Once I was discussing with my friend in Life Insurance


Corporation. That time, one gentleman approached my friend
and asked for a life insurance policy. I was shocked and I was
happy that people started realizing the importance of life
insurance. I thought that the forthcoming days would bring glory
to all agents and sales people of life insurance.

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Curiously I asked that gentleman for the reason he
wanted a life insurance policy. His answer demolished my one
minute happiness. To get an address proof to apply for a driving
license he proposed that policy. This happened in the year 2006.
I was very sure that policy would have been discontinued. We
can not run any business by taking the reference of occasional
events.

We need to do this business only when our prospects are


free and in a place that is convenient to them. So, we don’t have
any specific time to do this business. If we observe the great
people, either their body or mind will be working always.

We need to meet some people in some specific time and


there are times when we shouldn’t meet them too. For an
example, we need to meet the office goers in the morning
before 7.30 am or after 7 pm or on holidays. On holidays, after 9
a.m. and before the lunch time and after 6 pm are the right time
to meet them.

We should not meet the medical practitioners (doctors)


during their consulting time. Either before their consulting time
or after they complete their work, we should meet them.

We should not meet the business people and traders


between 9 am and 2 pm. Because, this is the time they are
normally busy with their banking activities and other follow up
activities. Meeting them in this time frame, will be disturbing
them and they may not listen to you.

In general, the successful sales presentation happens

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during prospect’s free time and particularly in their home. We
have observed that the presentations made between 7 am to
8.30 am have given us 1 sale out of 3 presentations within a
month.

Like this, we are supposed to meet different types of


prospects in different time and we should be ready to work at
any time round the clock.

In Trichy, we got an appointment to meet a customer at


10.30 pm. We were there in his home by 10.30 pm. When we
started the discussion, it was 11.30 pm. That was a pleasant
discussion and we were able to convince him. Finally he gave us
a premium of Rs.25,000 at 12 pm. The specialty of that premium
is that was the first policy of a private life insurance company’s
Trichy branch when I was responsible of installing that branch’s
operation.

For back office staffs the work time is between 9 am and


6 pm. But for a sales man, the time is when the opportunity is
there. Luck is nothing but a point where the opportunity meets
the alertness.

What we have seen so far are the characteristics that we


need the most to do this business successfully. Anything is
missing from this will disturb the business to a greater extent.
Small things together make Perfection but Perfection is not a
small thing.

As I am insisting on so many points, please don’t feel that


this profession is a tough one. If we are cautious on small points,

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this profession is like a gold mine.

Nature never likes the delay. Nature throws the


opportunities before us and it is our responsibility to catch them.
If we miss, it will go to someone.

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This is the first step of sales process. What we have seen
before are the pre-sales preparations. Now, we are on the job.
Things we are discussing after this are very important practical
procedures. These are learnt from different occasions. This will
change from person to person depending on the situation and
need. For an example, we don’t need to use the sales techniques
like a professional sales man with our well known people.
Artificial behaviors with our close one may give a negative result.

So, use these techniques depending on the situation and


people. But, the methods discussed here are proved successful.
By following them, you can avoid negative results and mistakes.

Approaching is the primary step of a sales process. The


mistake we make here will spoil or disconnect the further
proceedings. Approaching should create a good impression with
our customers. Before we see the approaching methods, we will
understand the importance of approaching.

By introducing or remembering us with our prospect,


getting the time for business discussion is called approaching. By
approaching, we can get the time to meet the prospect at his
convenient place.

If we meet the prospect without getting a proper


appointment, we may start our discussion without knowing his
comfort and work load. By discussing like this, we may not get
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the attention of the prospect. We will be wasting the time of us
and our prospect and finally we may create a bad impression
about us.

We can save time by approaching. By getting a proper


appointment by approaching, we are assured of meeting the
prospect in a convenient time and place. Sometime, our prospect
may not keep his words and may ask us to come back after some
time. We can be benefited by this because a thin layer of
kindness will be created in his mind if we are patiently accepting
to meet him again.

On the other hand, if we meet a prospect without a


proper appointment. He may not discuss with us if he is busy and
the time and money taken to travel there will be a waste. People
started this business without approaching, have wandered and
ran out of this business with frustration in few months. The
reason here is not the toughness of this profession. It is because
of our mistake of doing this without proper practices. Moreover
we will gain someone’s anger if we meet him without his
permission.

Approaching is the first event. Is it important to create a


good initial impression or not? First impression is always should
be the best impression.

Few agents may say that even the well known people are
not picking the call if we ask time to discuss about life insurance
and the best way is to just meet them at their place. This is also a
true statement. But it will be a costly trial if we meet someone
without proper appointment. The rate of error will be minimized
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if we follow the successful strategies.

“Never believe that all the approached prospects will give


appointment to meet and discuss.”

Approaching is calling the prospect through mobile phone


or landline and asking a right time and place to discuss about our
plans.

Why we need to ask for appointment through mobile or


landline? Can’t we go directly and ask the permission? Going
directly to a prospect’s place will involve cost and time. The
process of approaching is only to reduce them. Often the travel
gives no result, the frustration mounts.

Another benefit of approaching is getting the opportunity


of discussing with the prospect with his acceptance and
involvement. If the discussion happen with participation of
prospect, that will be lively and give a good start to the sales
process.

While approaching our voice should be clear and kind.


Since we are contacting through phone, our voice should be with
modulation and audible.

Things we need to conform while approaching:

1. While approaching, keep yourself in a calm place. Then only


the conversation will be clear and without disturbance and our
mission also will be fulfilled.

2. If you are calling from your mobile phone, call from a place

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where there is a clear signal. Ensure the discussion is not
disturbed for any reason.

3. While calling, if the prospect is busy or not in a mood to speak,


softly tell him that you will call latter. Don’t try to explain
anything then.

4. When there is a favorable situation, ensure that you are


speaking with the right person initially. Introduce yourself and
enquire his well being. Ask his permission to meet and discuss
about the plans. It is better to make the approaching dialogues
as short and sweet. For an example, “good morning sir, I am John
on line, may I speak to Mr. David?” (On the other end, if David is
there, he will say ‘yes’ otherwise you will get the information of
when can you contact Mr. David.) (If Mr. David is on the other
end ask him like) “Sir, I would like to meet you and discuss about
a saving and investment plans we have. Shall I meet you today
evening Sir?” (If he says ‘yes’, ask for the time and place to meet
him) If he says not in the evening, ask for tomorrow morning Or
tomorrow Afternoon and ensure the meeting happens as soon as
possible. Often you may get answers like, ‘I am not interested’,
and ‘I already invested enough and call me after two months’.

Remember once again, if all the approaches are getting


converted as appointments, all life insurance agents and sales
people will be millionaires by this time.

While getting negative replays, you need to be more


confidently continue the conversation and you should ensure
that you are not irritating him. As a final tool you can say him
that you will not force him to buy a policy and you will leave the
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purchase at his decision. Tell him that you need time only to
explain the plans and their benefits.

We can say to the prospect that he can invest if he is


interested or he can call us whenever he likes to take a plan. You
need not exactly follow the words I have given here. Most of the
sales training programs will guide you to follow the script. But, I
would recommend you to be as you are and speak without
slipping from your nature. If your way of speaking is not polite
and pleasant, you must correct that immediately. Don’t let your
conversation to look artificial and never force the prospect to
favor you.

Speaking through phone is an art. While we speak before


a person, both of us can see each other and see the expressions.
But, through phone, both of you are not seeing each other and
your emotions can be conveyed only through the voice
modulations. In how many ways we can express the statement, ‘I
want a cup of water’?

Good orators have gone to top most positions than


people who are expert in action. For example, great leaders have
attracted mass crowd of people only by their speeches and won
their confidence.

Never try to sell while approaching. Your aim of


approaching is to get appointment and not to sell.

While approaching, sit in a place comfortably and keep


your pen and diary ready. After calling don’t search for pen or
paper. That may disturb your prospect. Clearly note the time and

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place with exact address while fixing the appointment. If your
prospect asks to meet him in a place after one week or so, call
him a day before the meeting and conform the time and place
again because in one week many things can change.

Please note:

Our biggest enemy in our life is our hesitation. Don’t


leave anyone without approaching them and never forget that
by giving a life insurance plan, you are helping him and his
dependants.

Hesitation is our greatest weakness. If we are not asking,


someone in this world will ask him. Never miss any opportunity
that is seen.

One of my relative got a good job. He is my close relative


and he likes me very much. Somehow I didn’t discuss with him
about life insurance plans. After few months only he came to
know that I work for a life insurance company. Once I was in his
home and I found a policy document of my company there. I
came to know that he took a policy with the same company I
work through some other agent for a sizable premium.

To become an expert in approaching, you must approach


minimum 15 prospects everyday. This experience will teach
many things that we left to see here.

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Now, we have approached and got appointment to
present our plans to our prospect. Will we directly to and meet
the prospect? While you are going for an exam, will you directly
go and write the exam? Or will you do preparation before the
exam?

Meeting in person is also like an exam. This is the


occasion to score good marks by using your knowledge and skills.
You need to prepare before this most awaited and important
occasion.

How a surgeon is preparing before a surgery? How the


pilots and airport officials are preparing before the takeoff? How
a candidate is preparing before an interview? Like this, we need
to prepare before each presentation.

There are few steps involved in preparing. We will see them one
by one here.

1. Gathering Information: To know all important details about


our prospect in advance is must. To the maximum possible
extent we need to collect the information about the prospect. If
we have required information about our prospect, we can run a
trial presentation in our mind before the actual presentation.
Practice is an important confidence boosting exercise. Prospect’s
age, family member’s details, job or profession, income, likes and

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dislikes and anything that can help us are the information we
need to collect. These information will help us to avoid mistakes
and target his needs and interests. Any small information can
help us to a greater extent.

2. Choosing a correct plan and collecting proofs and documents:


Since we have information about the prospect before the
presentation, we can choose the most suitable plans and study
them once again. We can collect the proof and documents that
can support the sales and keep them ready in our bag before we
start. By doing this, you can optimally use the given time. The
time given is short. We can expect favorable results only by using
the given time effectively. If you are not confident in choosing
the right plans, you can very well take the help of your higher
officials. Present plans that can satisfy your prospect. Many
successful agents often design combo plans with few existing
plans on their own. These plans look like excusive plans that are
designed for prospect. For an example, we can design a combo
plan with ULIP or Money Back along with a medical insurance
plan.

3. Appearance is Important: We need to attract our prospect in


the first second of the meeting. Irrespective of your experience
and knowledge, your appearance will get you the first 10% of
marks. The dress you wear should be in suitable color and it
should not irritate the prospect. Like dress, the things you keep
with you also will reflect you. Keep a good looking bag, pen and
keep your hair well combed. Keep your eyes on things that can
create a good impression. Don’t carry or keep anything that can
irritate your prospect.
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4. Remembering the same type of customers: Right examples
always help the sale. But there must be truth in our statements.
Highlighting the customers alike to the prospects or highlighting
the satisfied existing customers from his place or relative will
help the sale by enhancing the confidence. Sometime, the wrong
examples have destroyed the sale also. So, we need to
remember the right examples ready and use them in the
appropriate time. For an example, keeping the fund statement of
a profitable policy holder’s will help the sale. Only our experience
will teach us the art of choosing and using the right examples.

5. Few seconds before the meet: We must be there in the


meeting point at least 10 minutes before the given time. This will
reduce your last minute tension. The mental tension will reduce
the efficacy of our skills to a greater extent. As you are in the
prospect’s place, you need to do the following things. Keep the
things ready and keep them in your hand. Don’t search for things
after sitting in front of the prospect. Instead taking your visiting
card from purse or pocket before him, keep it ready in your
hand. “You are in his place and spending his time. So, ensure
you are not doing anything that disturbs him”.

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Fact finding is observing and collecting the required
details and information about the prospect. This is in addition to
the topic we saw “collecting information”. These data are the
data which can support or disturb the sale. For example,
prospect’s current financial status, health condition, his existing
insurance policy details, current commitments and so on.

We may not get correct information before we meet. But,


while presenting we can gather these information. We can
clearly know about prospect’s present needs, future needs and
his capacity. With the help of these information only we can
suggest correct plans to the prospect and make a meaningful
presentation.

While discussing, the prospect will give clue to many of


these information. By a close observation we can get enough
information. Concentration and presence of mind are very
critical for an insurance agent. For an example, a prospect may
look like wealthy. But he may actually be in a situation of crisis or
low inflow of money. This can be observed only when we
converse. Without knowing the fact, our speech will be useless.
Sometime, presenting without knowing the fact may lead to a
low premium policy than the prospect’s actual capacity.

There are two types of fact finding. 1. Finding the fact


through others and 2. Finding the fact during the presentation.
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With the first method we can know the prospect’s financial
status, family members, his interest on saving and insurance
plans, his health status and the people whom he consult before
taking a decision. These information are not important for all
types of prospects. But, if we know them we can make a better
selection of plans and present them. Through the second type,
we can know his interests, his mind status and expectations. For
an example, if a prospect is already invested more in bank
deposits, we may guess that he is more particular about safety
aspects.

So far we have seen in fact finding are to help us to select


the right plan. We need to observe his answers and objections
carefully to know whether they are sincere objections or
insincere objections. Only by a close observation we can know
this.

Observe Carefully: A proper sales presentation is making the


prospect also to participate in the discussion. Only by the
conversation of both, the fact will come out. Then only we can
understand the correct situation. After few months of starting
this business, maximum presentations will happen only with the
referred prospects. On this situation, we may fully depend on the
information given by the person who introduced the prospect. If
the fact is different, we may not attract the prospect.

For an example, in Chennai I went with my agent to


present to his prospect. As per the statement of my agent, that
prospect would be earning around Rs.30,000 and he is already
paying a home loan emi. So we decided that he would not be

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interested in paying higher premium. When we met the prospect
also he looked like that.

But, after few minutes of discussion, the fact was entirely


different. He was actually earning around 10 lakhs per annum
and but for a small home loan he was not having any
commitment on saving plans or insurance plans. He had a plan to
go for another house after the pre-closure of the existing one.

After knowing this, I recommended a plan with 2 lakhs of


annual premium to be paid for 10 years. The maturity after 10
years would help his daughter’s higher study. I explained about
the insurance cover in that plan and benefit also. I recommended
another plan to protect the existing home loan.

He gave us the cheque for both the policies without any


further discussion. But, my agent was approaching him to take a
plan with the premium of Rs.15000 per year and he was
explaining the benefits of that plan. Since this customer was in
higher income group, the plan of paying Rs.15000 per year didn’t
attract him and that could be the major reason for the delay. As I
mentioned in approaching, it is wrong to explain the plan while
approaching.

What we understand from the above case study?

1. Collect the correct information before presenting.


2. Make the prospect to participate in the discussion.
3. Don’t sell while approaching.

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Questioning Disciplines: You may think what discipline need to
follow in asking questions. In general people don’t like to be
questioned. But to get the details we must ask questions. So, we
need to ask questions in a gentle way. There are two types of
questions direct and indirect questions.

It is better to explain the customer in advance why you


are asking these questions and how that can help you to design a
better plan. For an example, “Sir, I need some information about
you to design a plan that exactly suit you and that can give you
the maximum benefit. May I get those details Sir?”

While asking questions, we must use appropriate polite


voice modulation and ask them clearly. After getting each
answer, you need to note them in your writing pad or note book.
This indicates that these information are important and you are
trying to do something with those information. The prospect will
involve in the discussion and we can easily read his interest in his
face and from his answers. If he cooperates ask further questions
politely and if not don’t compel him.

Methods of asking direct questions: Some common information


can be asked through direct questions. For an example, date of
birth, parent’s age and other family member’s date of birth can
be asked through direct questions. Instead of asking questions
continuously, after each answer render some thanks or
appreciations and continue to ask further questions.

For an example, once I was presenting to a top business


man along with my agent and sales manager. As mentioned
above, I collected the information. When I asked his only
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daughter’s name, he told as “Rhythm Sri”. Immediately I told him
that there is a special thing in this name. He got surprised and
asked me that. I told him that Rhythm is the English world
without vowels and that is the longest word without vowels in
English. You can imagine the result of that presentation. This
should come naturally. Once you seem to be artificial, the
customer tends to repel you.

While asking questions, look at his face and


simultaneously write the answers in your note book. Any
information that is not sensitive can be obtained by direct
questions.

Methods of asking indirect questions: Any sensitive information


can be obtained by indirect questions. Information regarding
debts, own house or rented house, health status and income
level can be obtained by indirect questions.

For an example, to know whether his parents are alive or


not, you shouldn’t ask directly. Instead, you can ask “Sir, what is
your father’s age now?” and “Hope he would be healthy now”.
For these questions, the customer himself will say dead if not
alive.

Instead asking the customer whether he is having any


disease, you can ask “Sir, are you going for any regular medical
check up now?” Moreover if any one else there in the place of
discussion, make your questions more gentle and polite.

Questions must be asked with presence of mind.

Collect maximum information before the meeting. After


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few months from the inception, we will be meeting more of
referred customers. So, we must collect as many information as
possible before we meet. If your customer knows that you are
aware of information about him, he would appreciate your
involvement on the discussion.

In this competitive world, the respect is given only to the


smart people. Smart people always keep themselves ready
before doing anything.

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Now you are before the prospect. Means you are in the
exam hall. The question and answer sheet is before you. What
you need to do now? You need to use each second to score.

The beginning: As you have got prior appoint, don’t think that
the prospect will be readily waiting to discuss with you.
Introduce you once again. Give your visiting card by both hands.
If you are before a well known person, spend some time
personally. Then, slowly ask his acceptance to discuss. Starting
your sales speech immediately after entering is not
recommended. If the prospect is referred by someone, speak
something about the person referred him and state your
relationship with him. This will create a favorable atmosphere for
sales presentation. Shortly tell him the purpose of this meeting
as, “Sir, I would like to discuss with you regarding the best plans
available with us. Shall I continue sir?”

Get his acceptance and then continue the discussion.


Doing this will get the attention of the prospect. If the prospect
allows you to speak and doing something else, wait till he pays
attention. Whatever you speak without prospect’s attention will
go waste.

Few prospects may insist you to speak while they do


something else. That time politely tell him that, “Sir, I hope you
are busy now. Shall I wait for few more minutes?”
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Presenting: Now we are in an important and most awaited
moment. First, brief about your company. Then explaining about
the plan directly is one method of presenting. But, I would like to
recommend a different approach. By practice you can master
this approach and do better. We need to bring life into our
speech. Both need to participate in the discussion. If you alone
speak, it will not be a conversation and it will be like a stage
presentation.

Our responsibility is to design a plan that can help our


prospect to provide financial solutions for his responsibilities and
dreams and not dumping a plan we choose. A life insurance plan
is like a raw material. Believe we can shape that in the way we
want. For an example, if a married man is having one daughter,
he may need a plan that provides finance for three of his
responsibilities. One is for his daughter’s higher education,
another is for her marriage and yet another is for his and his
wife’s retirement. In case of any unexpected death to the
prospect, our plan should provide money for these entire three
basic requirements. Instead of doing like this, explaining the
plans entry age, minimum premium, name of the plan will bring
no meaning to the discussion. Remember that you have not gone
there to take product training to your prospect.

As we discussed earlier, if your prospect is not


participating, your effort will go waste. Discussing like this will
bring the attention of the prospect.

So, make the prospect to participate in the discussion.


While presenting, get his acceptance after each step and go to

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the next one. Ask his opinion about each recommendation.
Doing this will bring his involvement and make the presentation
alive.

Ask for the information by using the questioning


techniques we saw earlier. Questioning should not be like
enquiry. Instead of asking the age, ask the date of birth of each
family member. There is a meaning for doing such. Information is
the real strength.

Once I went with my agent to meet a business man. We


collected the required data including his entire family member’s
date of birth. We found the next day was his son’s birthday. After
our presentation we concluded with the next appointment of
meeting him after one week. But, we went to his home the very
next day with a good birthday gift to his son by 7 am. It was a
surprise for him that we were there early in the morning with a
birthday present. He asked me how we knew that. We told the
truth and wished his son with the very first gift on his birthday.
They treated us well and I slowly asked him to gift a plan to his
son for his higher study on his birthday. Smilingly he gave us a
very good premium.

Small key opens bigger lock

The details of prospect’s income, his asset and liabilities are to


be asked with gentle questions. Now we have his full details. We
can design a plan that perfectly suits him and addresses his
needs and future requirements. Why we should design a plan
instead of explaining a plan already we have?

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Life insurance plans must fulfill customer’s needs. Our
existing plan or combination of few plans of our company can
fulfill the needs. For an example, designing life insurance plan is
like constructing a house to live. In a 1000 square foot land,
different types of houses can be built according to the status,
need and number of people in the family. But, a rich man’s plan
will not be affordable by a middle class man and a middle class
man’s plan will not be liked by a rich man.

How can we design plans based on the information we


got? Here we can see some examples.

Type of customer Need Plan


Newly job going Long term savings Plan with lower
youth and insurance premium and
longer term
Newly married Insurance and Term Plan with ULIP
savings or traditional with
15th year maturity
Married with a child Insurance, savings Term plan with ULIP
and child’s higher or traditional + child
education plan plan
35 -45 age salaried Insurance, savings, A pension plan
investments, added with Term,
education plan and ULIP or traditional
pension plans and child plan
Business man Insurance and ULIP, Term and
investment pension
People with short Limited premium ULIPs and limited
term income policies premium policies
Age between 45-60 Insurance, Limited premium
investment,pension policies

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Aged above 60 and Pension and short Single Premium
retired term maturity plan and immediate
annuity plans
People taken home Plans that can Loan protector
loan provide insurance policies or term
equal to loan plan
Working couple Equal insurance and ULIP, term or Joint
saving plans life plans
This is only a reference. We have to decide the plans according
to our customer’s need. With the help of seniors, we can create
many more tables like this.

Shall we design a sample plan here?

Prospect’s information: Age 37, married and having two children.


His wife is a house wife and the first child is son aged 6 and the
second one is a daughter aged 4. Monthly income Rs.30,000/-,
home loan capital outstanding Rs.7,00,000/-. Total savings
Rs.1,25,000/- current worth of the house is Rs.10,00,000/-.
Monthly maintenance expense Rs.12,000, for education
Rs.3000/- medicines and entertainment Rs.3000/- and for
parents Rs.4000/-. He is already covered for Rs.2 lakhs through a
life insurance plan.

Now we will design a suitable plan for him. To explain him


the life’s need in each stage we need to draw the life chart as
mentioned below.

Age 37 49 son’s 51 daughter’s 57 daughter’s retirement

higher study higher study marriage

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Future requirements:

Son’s higher education 18-6(current age) 12 years to go

Daughter’s higher education 18-4 14 years to go

Daughter’s marriage 24-4 20 years to go

Retirement age 60-37 23 years to go

5 lakhs each for children’s education, for daughter’s marriage 10


lakhs and for retirement 25 lakhs need to be provided. So, on
12th and 14th year 5 lakhs each and on 20th year 10 lakhs and 23rd
year 25 lakhs need to come to him. How can we design a plan for
all these needs and what are all the other factors we need to
consider?

First we calculated his financial needs. Based on the


above derivations we need to provide him a policy or a combo
policy that can give him maturity on the said years and the said
amount. The combo plan may contain two child higher education
plans, one endowment or ULIP plan and one pension plan. But
our duty is not over here. We need to ensure all these expenses
are met even if the prospect meets with an unforeseen event
like death. Now let us calculate his insurance requirement.

We need to calculate the present value of money. This


means how much is required to get a maturity of some money in
the required year even if it is kept in bank deposit. Let us assume
the interest rate is just 8%.

In compound interest, with the help of the number 72,

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we can calculate in how many years the deposit will be doubled.
For an example, if the rate of interest is 8%, by dividing 72 by 8,
we can calculate in how many years the deposit will be doubled.
The answer is 9 years here.

So, with the effect of the compound interest to get 5


lakhs after 12 years, now we need Rs.2,14,000 approximately. If
we want Rs.10,000 per month for running expenses, we need to
keep Rs.15 lakhs in the bank now. Let us calculate the present
value of all his needs as per the below table.

Need In how many years Present value


500000 12 years 214000
500000 14 years 184000
1000000 20 years 232000
2500000 23 years 460000
Monthly 10000 Now 1500000
So, he needs a life cover of Rs.25 lakhs now to meet all the future
requirements. To protect his home loan, he needs 7 more lakhs
(outstanding home loan amount). As per the underwriting rules,
we can give 15 times of his annual income as sum assured. As his
annual income is 360000, we will not have any trouble in giving
up to 4000000 of Sum Assured. Calculating this value is called as
Human Life Value. The values given here are approximate.

If we are doing these many calculations by considering


many points, there will be clarity in designing and recommending
a plan. In child plans today, the premium waiver benefit is either
optional or inbuilt now. It is a very good option and that meets
the purpose of buying a life insurance plan.

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We can satisfy all these needs in a single plan also. For an
example, ULIP plans that offer higher sum assured with flexibility
like partial withdrawal and different investment options can be
made to address all these needs.

We need to perform all these calculations before the


prospect in few minutes. Doing in front of the prospect, you
establish your interest, your skill and you attract customer’s
concentration. The customer will understand the real benefit of
your plan.

Now the plan is ready. Though you have calculated


everything in front of him, review all the points one by one. For
this example,

1. Life Insurance Cover for Rs.32 lakhs from today onwards


is must.
2. Maturity on 12th, 14th, 20th and 23rd years and the amount
as we discussed earlier.
3. To cover the entire family, a medical insurance plan with
family floater option.
4. To avail all these benefits, an affordable regular premium.
(Longer the term, lesser the premium)

Now he may raise objections or oppose. By handling


them only you can succeed. Prospect’s objections and doubts
need to be handled with responsibility and care.

If you know the correct answers for his questions,


explain. Otherwise, with his permission contact your higher
officials through your mobile and get it clarified. It is better to

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clarify there. But, if he asks for some proofs and documents
which you don’t have, you must get back to office and show him
as early as possible to ensure the continuity.

Never hesitate to show any documents or proofs to him.


You can not take a policy without fully convincing a prospect.
Even if you take without convincing him, it will be a lower
premium policy than his actual need or capacity.

Mostly we may have to meet the prospect repeatedly


after the first presentation. It is rare to take the policy in the first
discussion itself. If you happen to meet again, fix the next
appointment there. Ensure the next appointment happens
nearer. Taking longer time may reduce the seriousness you
created and it will be tough to create again.

Do not hesitate to meet him again and again. But, analyze


is there any true reason for postponing the sales completion. We
can understand the fact by observing their facial reactions and
body language.

The fact finding we saw earlier is about gathering true


information before the presentation. The fact finding need to
continue here also to avoid any mislead. Fact finding can happen
in two ways now. One through his statements and another is
through our observations. We may not get the correct replay for
all our questions.

So, we need to compare the prospect’s statement and


our observation. If you are sure that the prospect’s objections or
doubts are true, you can continue to resolve them and follow

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him. Otherwise, you need to search for the true reason to avoid
waste of time.

Things we need to do while presenting:

1. We need to present with full attention of prospect.


2. At every stage of presentation, we need to observe the
facial reaction of our prospect.
3. We need to speak by looking at his eyes.
4. We need to continue the presentation after checking the
acceptance of the prospect in each step. For an example,
while explaining that he may require 20 lakhs for his
child’s higher education, ‘Sir, as we discussed, hope you
can accept that you will need 20 lakhs for your child’s
higher education. Am I right sir?’ Here he will express his
acceptance or will express objection.
5. Show the required proofs and documents at appropriate
time. While showing them, keep them in your hands. If
you give them to the prospect, his concentration will go
in to the proofs and you may get struck in your flow of
presentation. But, if he insists to see the proofs, give him
and help him to understand them.
6. Handle your things carefully while presenting. Ensure
nothing disturbs your presentation.
7. After few steps, summarize what you have discussed. This
will ensure the continuity of the discussion.

Summarizing is an important technique to be used while


presenting. For an example, after explaining the importance of
life insurance, savings, children education plan and pension, you

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can summarize as, ‘Sir, first we saw the importance and amount
of life insurance required for you. Then the future expenses and
savings to meet them, after that we discussed about your
son/daughter’s (specifying name is preferred) higher education
and its cost, and finally we discussed about the pension you
require for your retirement. Am I right sir?’

Doing this will ensure the continuity and make the


prospect participative in the discussion.

Now we will discuss some more types of designing a life


insurance plan.

Why we need life insurance? A person’s unexpected


death should not affect his dependants financially. He need to
provide a financial arrangement to enable his dependants to
continue the life style he provided when he is alive and also he
need to cover all the loans he took so as his dependants are not
in trouble.

If this is true, do a person require life insurance if he has


good asset over liabilities to maintain the life style? Not
mandatory, if the asset is more than the liabilities and the excess
portion is enough to give the same life style to the dependants,
he may not require a life insurance cover. But, how many of us
are in that situation? Only one or two out of every hundred can
be financially comfortable and this percentage is negligible.

We can calculate the amount of life insurance someone


need with the following information.

1. Prospect’s monthly running expense. (Amount required to run


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the family’s basic need for a month) We need to multiply this
amount into 120.

For an example, if a family’s monthly expense is Rs.15,000/-, the


calculation would be 15,000 x 120 = 1800000.

The purpose of multiplying by 120 is to get the minimum


required amount even if the rate of interest is 8% per annum.
Here 8% of 18 lakhs is 1.44 lakhs per year and this is equal to
12000 per month.

2. Total value of liability: For an example, if a prospect has 15


lakhs of home loan, 2 lakhs car loan, 1 lakh personal loan and
35000 credit card outstanding, total value of his liability is
Rs.18,35,000/-. Since we are adding all loans, we need not take
his total monthly installments as liability.

3. Future financial needs: If this prospect has a son aged 5 and a


daughter aged 2, their higher education where the higher initial
cost involved will start at their age 18. That is from now 13th and
16th year. We can predict the future value of higher education by
calculating the effect of inflation. If he prefers to put them in
engineering college, now the cost of an engineering course in a
reputed private college is 5 lakhs.

Inflation is an average of 8%. This means in 9 years the


value will be doubled. Approximately after 13 years, he may
need 13,60,000 to put his son into engineering college. For his
daughter after 16 years he may need 18,00,000. But, this money
needs to come as maturity. The present value is still 10 lakhs
only.

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His daughter’s marriage will happen at her age 24 (from
now after 22 years). Now the cost of one average marriage is 4
lakhs and after 22 years he may need 22 lakhs. But the present
value of education and daughter’s marriage is 14 lakhs only.

4. Provision for Retirement life: Let’s assume the age of the


prospect is 35. His last child (daughter) will complete her study at
age 22 (from now after 20 years). That time, our prospect’s age
would be 57. He can plan his retirement at the age of 60 (after
his daughter’s marriage). In other words, from now after 25
years, he should plan for his retirement by way of a pension plan.
Now, for an aged couple the monthly expense is Rs.7000/-
provided if they have own house and that is yearly 84,000/-. If
we add miscellaneous expenses, approximately per year they
need 1 lakh. After 25 years, the value of this 1 lakh will be
around 5 lakhs. If they want to get 5 lakhs per year through the
interest rate of 8%, they need to invest 62.5 lakhs. Means, the
corpus amount need to be 62.5 lakhs. But today’s value of this
62.5 laksh is only 8.5 lakhs approximately.

The reason to take the corpus amount’s present value is


his wife need a provision for retirement if he is not alive.

Now let us sum all the present value of his needs and loans.

Provision for monthly expenses 1800000

Total value of loans 1835000

Provision for education and marriage 1400000

Provision for pension 850000


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Total requirement is Rs. 58,85,000/-.

Here, I have not added the inflation on hike in expenses because,


as he proceeds to repay the loans, the loan outstanding will
come down and that portion of insurance cover will compensate
the hike in living expenses.

If the prospect is having a plot worth 5 lakhs and other


savings and investments like bank deposits, provident fund and
gratuity is 8 lakhs, the total asset (leaving the home they live) is
13 lakhs. So, the net requirement of Sum Assured is 5885000 –
1300000 = Rs. 45,85,000/-.

Finally, we understand this prospect is in immediate need


of 46 lakhs of life insurance cover. We need to provide maturity
on above said years also. Now I will try to design a plan.

Step 1: For liabilities and monthly expenses, the required amount


is 36.5 lakhs. This should not be disturbed at any situation. So I
will recommend him to go for a term plan worth 40 lakhs.
Approximately the premium for 40 lakhs of Life insurance cover
will be Rs. 12,000/-.

Step 2: Next, I will recommend him to go for a ULIP plan with the
partial withdrawal facility so as to take money on the occasion of
his children’s education and marriage. The present value of these
(that is 14 lakhs) will be offered as Sum Assured under this plan.
Since he takes this plan for a long time, ULIP will have lesser risk
and higher profit. Premium would be 60,000 per year and the
sum assured that can be offered is 15 lakhs.

Step 3: Next is a pension plan with the term of 25 years and the
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sum assured will be 8.5 lakhs and the approx premium will be
Rs.28000 per year.

Totally 3 plans and the total premium per year is 1 lakh.


The monthly commitment to protect the entire family is JUST Rs.
8,330 ONLY.

If we plan like this, we can optimally compensate his


requirements. In ULIP plans, longer the term lower the risk and
these plans have top up facility also to increase the saving
portion once the income level is increased.

Purpose of any sale is to satisfy the need of the customer.


Our job is to identify a need or create a need. Without doing this,
however you try you may not get a successful sales completion.

While offering long term plan, you need not worry much
on market volatility. You will get longer renewal commission. But
the challenge here is not many of our prospects agree for long
term policies. To overcome this objection, we need to establish
the increased income of him in the past 10 years. It could have
been multiplied by minimum 4 times as he is aged 35 now. We
need to explain to him that today’s premium commitment of 1
lakh will become very much affordable after few years and if you
explain the flexibility of your plans, you can easily get the sale.

Method of explaining the plans to prospects:

While you are explaining the plan as mentioned below,


he can better understand. Let us see some graphical expression
for the above stated prospect.

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Explaining the education and marriage need and maturity as
below. (premium Rs.60000 per year and top up facility)

13 15 22 years

Now son’s daughter’s daughter’s


15 laks cover education education marriage

To explain the pension plan, we can draw as below and explain.

FU

ND

Age 35 age 60

Premium paying period pension receiving period

In pension plans with life cover, in case of the death of the


insured, the minimum guaranteed money given to nominee is
insured amount (here 8.5lakhs). After starting the pension,
depending on the pension plans selected at age 60, the nominee
will receive benefit.

To explain the fund value growth and effect of partial withdrawal


we can explain as mentioned below.

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Now son’s daughter’s daughter’s
15 laks cover education education marriage

Explaining with graphs like this has two advantages. 1.


Prospects will understand easily as it is explained visually. 2. We
can explain step by step without confusion.

Take a training of drawing graph like this for 15 already


met prospects to become fluent and confident. Here the
maturity, premium and other calculations are mentioned
approximately.

You need to calculate them exactly according to the


product and benefit illustration which gives maturity with 6% to
10% interest as specified by the regulator. All the above
illustrations are only examples for you to understand and that
will not represent actual scenario.

While presenting like this, you may come across


objections and doubts. If you know the solutions and answers for
them, clarify there. If you don’t have an answer or solution, with
the permission of the prospect call your higher officials from
there and get him the right solution.

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Now, the prospect may be in three different moods. 1. He
may not be ready to take the policy immediately for some
reasons. 2. He might think to take the policy latter after
consulting and analyzing. 3. He may take the policy immediately.
Last two decisions are favorable to us. But, even if he takes the
first decision, we need to follow. Some day he may take a
favorable decision.

Proposing to complete the sale:

If the prospect expresses the interest on taking this


policy, we need to gently propose for sale. First calculate the
exact premium and ask him how he wants to pay (either through
draft or cash). This is an important stage. We should not do any
mistake here. If the prospect asks for some time, politely ask him
why he needs the time. Another way of proposing for sale is to
give him the proposal form and request him to help to fill that.
These two steps are successful proposing methods two complete
the sale.

He may immediately oppose for sale and he may ask


time. The reason may be anything of time to prepare money, to
take decision to buy, to consult some one or it can be anything.
You can plan your next move only if you know the correct
reason. While asking how he wants to pay, if he says a mode of
payment as cash or draft, go to the next step of filling up the
proposal form. Ask him the important details and not them in
the proposal form. While filling up the proposal, if he co-
operates 90% sales is completed. Only you need to collect the
money and proofs. If he shows any objection or if he disagrees to

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take the plan immediately then politely ask him the reason. We
can easily handle objections. We will discuss about handling
objections latter.

Though proposing to complete the sale is the final step to


get the sale, it often helps us to know the prospect’s mind status.
Many prospects tend to go to a defensive mode once we take
the proposal.

But, proposing to complete the sale will give us a clear


note to further actions and proceedings. So, be happy even if you
get a negative reaction because you are not rejected and the sale
has just postponed.

Understand there are many factors influencing a prospect


to take a policy. Only he knows to give priority. In this stage, if
you force the prospect to take a policy he will be irritated.
Sometimes the pressure we give on prospect to take a policy will
force him to disconnect us completely.

As we discussed earlier, most of the prospects will not


accept for immediate sales completion. There may be any reason
for repelling. The only few prospects will tell you the actual
reason for not accepting or postponing. Most of the prospects
will say some other reason only. These reasons for not buying or
postponing are called objections. These are the expressions of
prospect’s thought. We need to confidently handle these
objections.

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Stages in Presentation:

Preparing before
meeting

Introduction and
beginning

Brief about the


purpose

Collecting
Information

Presenting
Not
interested

Proposing for sales


completion
Interested

Completing Sale

Service after sales


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Selling life insurance plans without handling objections
will happen once in hundred occasions only. So, expect the
objections always. Objections are of two types. 1. Sincere
Objections. 2. Insincere Objections.

1. Sincere Objections: In general, these types of objections are


due to the lack of confidence about the plan or organization or
want of money or even to get consultation from others. We can
handle these objections by our sincere approach and with the
help of our higher officials. Objections about the plan may come
due to lack of some aspect which he expects or his wrong
opinion about something our plan has. We can handle this
objection by highlighting other strengths and clarifying his
concern. Sometimes the objection can be also due to
misunderstanding. Whatever it may be, handling sincere
objections are very easy. We need to have patience and ability.

2. Insincere Objections: If your prospect wants to avoid us by


telling some reason which is not true is called insincere
objection. The only way to handle this objection is to
continuously follow him and create a good relationship with him.
Insincere objections are coming because the prospect is not
interested to tell you the fact. Sometimes this may happen when
the prospect is not interested to hurt you also. So, we need to
give due respect to any kind of prospect’s objection. Your focus
should be only on to completing the sale.

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To handle objections there are many methods are
available. There are Frequently Asked Questions and answers for
them also available with each company. Memorizing these will
not practically help us in all occasions. I would like to
recommend few methods by classifying the objections into few
groups. By understanding and practicing these methods, we can
easily handle objections. Unexpressed objections can be
understood by us only by experience.

Types of objections and methods of handling them:

1. Misunderstanding: These types of objections are due


to the misunderstanding of the plan or a part of a plan. It can be
anything like the rules of the plan, company, safety aspects, and
possibility of return and so on. To handle this, we need to show
him required proofs and documents. Commonly this kind of
objection is sincere objection. Meeting the prospect along with
higher officials will ease the situation to handle this objection.
But, the prospect may not express it sometime. To bring his
objection, conversation and observation is very important.

2. Lack of confidence: This type is the suspicion or lack of


confidence of the prospect about the plan, benefits, organization
and safety. To handle this objection along with showing the
proofs and documents, we may show the example of existing
customers. The first type is misunderstanding and this one is
suspecting. To handle this we need to work harder than the first
one. Through regular follow up and continuously showing the
proofs can erase this objection.

In the year 2004, we met a government engineer. He was


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expressing his doubt by postponing the sale. After few
discussions, I understood the reason for the postponing is lack of
confidence. Then I gave my company’s web site address and web
links to know more about the plan and benefits. He liked this
approach but he took few days to get back to us. After a week he
told me that he didn’t see that.

Then, I met him in his home with his permission and


showed him all the details in his home computer itself. I showed
him about IRDA and their rules and regulations also in his
computer itself. After understanding them, he took four policies
covering all his family members on that day. I understood after
this event that I can enjoy the full benefit only if I give enough
time to the prospect and prospect will not agree for sale without
clearing his doubts and objections.

Prospect will agree for sale only when he is comfortable.

3. Drawback: This type is considering a feature in our plan as a


drawback. For an example, mandate to continue the premium to
keep the policy in force may be a drawback according to the
prospect. Deducting mortality charges also can be a drawback
according to the prospect. We can handle this type of objection
by two ways.

If he is very strong against the drawback, we can recommend


another plan without that feature or we can strongly highlight other
features and benefits and request him to ignore the feature he thinks
as drawback. Normally consumers are adjustable when the other
benefits are really good. Even after highlighting if the prospect is not
satisfied, you can recommend other plan. After expressing the

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drawback type of objection if you immediately jump into other plan,
the prospect will not get confidence about you. So, it is better to do
homework to select the best suitable plan to the prospect as we
discussed before. Initially we may not have this ability. We can
approach our higher officials and seniors to help us and that would be
safer. Even though completing sale is our main focus, we need to do
that without compromising on ethics.

But few prospects may project the drawback very strongly to


avoid you (insincere objection). The only way is to follow him with
patience.

4. Feeling Unwanted: In general many of us think (unlike western


people) life insurance is not mandatory. We know death is certain and
it is uncertain. Only very few understand that can happen even to us.

Feeling Life Insurance or our plan or some features of our plan


as unwanted. This is different from drawback or lack of confidence.
Drawback is lighter version of feeling unwanted. In other words,
drawback means feeling that the benefit may be reduced by having a
feature. Unwanted is feeling is completely rejecting the plan or
feature. To handle this objection, we need to get his approval of how
many other features are liked by him. If more of other features or
other benefit of our plan is liked by him, we can request him to ignore
this unwanted feature. For an example, if a prospect feels it is
unwanted to have life insurance plan we can highlight the tax
exemption on paying premium as well on maturity. The stronger we
highlight these points we can close the sale. If a prospect rejects the
non-guaranteed ULIPs, we can show him the past growth records,
future possibilities of growth, transparency and flexibility very strongly
and propose to accept.

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Though we have identified four types of objections and found
the methods of handling them, we need use our presence of mind to
handle them. Sometimes the techniques can fail as our customers are
very clever. But, your perseverance and sincerity will sure get you the
sales.

In general, in business we call as Sales Closing. But, I


mentioned as Sales Completion often because in life insurance a new
and long term relationship is beginning after the sale. Our prospect
needs us very much after the sales for service. Sure this is a beginning
of a long relationship.

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As we saw earlier, the prospect will take enough time to buy
our plan. He has full rights to do so. He can take a favorable decision
only if we have patience. Even after presentation and handling his
entire objections the prospect may postpone the sale for many
reasons. At this juncture, we need to follow him with complete
tolerance and confidence. Following is not meaning that going behind
him always. We need to continue to open sales calls with more
prospects to be successful. We need to keep in touch with him to
remind that we have proposed a plan and we are willing to serve him.

After each presentation, we need to complete the sale or to


ensure the next appointment. We need to finalize what we need to do
in the next presentation before closing each presentation. We need to
conform to the prospect the things we need to show, things we need
to clarify or things to remind after each presentation. Only by doing
this we can get the benefit for our efforts.

In many occasions the prospect will simply say, ‘let us meet


after sometime’. But we need to conform when, where and what
details and proofs we need to bring to meet him next time. After this
conformation only we can do a meaningful follow up.

Following will test your tolerance. For life insurance agent


tolerance is important. The sales process was looking easy till
presentation. It will now create a different mindset in you. Few
prospects will cooperate with you well and give you proper further

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appointment. It may look like the prospects are purposefully delaying.
In fact it is not his intension to do so. But the real fact is that he is not
yet mentally prepared to buy your plan or your plan is not yet
attracted him. So, following is very important stage of sales process.

Techniques of following:

1. Following through telephone: As we saw earlier, speaking through


telephone is an art. Now our prospect is aware of us and our intention.
So, we need to keep two things remembered always. 1. You should
keep in touch with him to remember you. 2. You should look for a right
opportunity while following and exactly use it.

While following, don’t hesitate to remind and to propose for


sales completion. Please remember the earlier discussed things in this
book regarding what time we can call a prospect and we should call
them without troubling them.

If any celebration or a function comes, wish him and keep


reminding him about you. By doing this, he will not forget you when he
is prepared to take a life insurance plan. As we discussed earlier collect
maximum information while presenting.

In his family, someone’s birthday or anniversary may come


nearby. That would be the best occasion for us to concrete our
relationship. While each meeting or conversation, ensure you move at
least a bit close to him. You can not sell life insurance without selling
you.

2. Following by meeting in person: We need to do this method


carefully. We can meet the cooperating prospect with permission.

Whenever he calls you, meet him without hesitation because


behind each satisfied customer, there are hundreds of customers are

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there. We need to keep in touch even with prospects not showing any
interest. A real sales man will not waste any of his efforts. Meeting this
type of customer in person without permission will give a negative
reaction.

But you can use the opportunities of greeting him or wishing


him. A small gift on important occasion will bring a change in him
about you. Why we need to do all these? In life insurance sales, your
face value is very critical.

3. Following through other media: We can use this method to all


prospects. Importantly to keep the uninterested prospects in touch
and to create a good impression about you, this method is very
effective. Other media means SMS, email and letter and so on.

We may get unexpected benefit through this follow up. If we


have missed to create a good impression while meeting, we can
change through this type of follow up. The results are not immediate
by this process. It may take a long time too. After following or
reminding through this process for few times and then meeting in
person will create a good environment for business discussion.

While approaching and presenting we need to follow some


discipline. If he is a prospect, he is a respectful person irrespective of
your relationship with him. We need to keep the decorum in our
speech and action.

A suitable case study for this occasion, in the year 2003 I went
to meet a prospect along with my agent. The prospect is the son of my
agent’s close friend. He knows the prospect from the childhood. With
the old memories of the prospect being a small boy, my agent started
speaking with authority. The prospect seemed to be accepting our plan
but he was brilliantly avoiding the sale. After one week, I came to know
that he took a policy with our competitor through other agent for 2
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lakhs of premium. I didn’t share this with my agent. I didn’t get that
sale but I got a lesson.

While approaching or presenting, behave well and follow the


steps we discussed. There are many prospects have become family
friends who hated their agents initially.

We must do the following as a regular duty. There is no loss or


harm in following. If we miss to do a close follow up, someone else will
harvest the benefit of our effort. We approached one Mr. Noordheen
in Trichy during the year 2004. Somehow we didn’t get the sale. He
kept postponing things and finally our sales manager and agent left
asking insurance policy from him. But I continued the relationship with
him and I was in close contact with him. After 6 years, in the year 2010
April, he took two policies. This business came to me only by the 6
years close contact. If we keep meeting people without following, only
we waste our energy nothing else can happen.

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This is the climax of the entire show. The most anticipated
event is happening now. The factors affecting a sales completion are
many. For example, current financial status of prospect, expenses that
are coming in near future, other people in that place, that day and his
health condition and like this anything can influence the sales
completion. Without loosing our heart we need to continue to get the
sale.

The first sale to a prospect will take more time. But if we serve
him better, further selling will happen very easily. We were waiting for
this moment. Our strategies, approaches and follow ups were only
towards this moment.

This is happening only after the prospect has decided to buy


our product. We should be responsible now. Even a small unwanted
speech can disturb or reduce the premium or even disconnect the
process too. Sometime we may not understand the reason for sudden
change in prospect’s move.

The reason I am mentioning this here is our prospect will be


very careful now. We should also be like that. Sometime if the
prospect is giving a premium that is much lesser than his capacity may
behave normal and relaxed. Mostly this premium will be given for the
face value of the agent or to satisfy us. In many occasions we
completely satisfy the prospect after handling many objections and
take a sale. Even the rich man will not invest unless he is benefited.
During the sales completion, prospect’s mood will be in an elevated
state than his normal.

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In the year 2004 I went for the sales completion with a
business man. My agent accompanied one common friend of the
prospect and agent. After a successful discussion, the prospect called
his secretary (he called her to check the availability of cheque leafs). In
that time gape, the common friend started talking about one
unwanted event happened to the prospect and expressed his
sympathy. The prospect started speaking about that event in an angry
voice. The prospect became tensed and started blaming the people
who did against him. Finally the secretary entered his cabin and he
ordered four cups of tea instead our cheque.

That is why I stressed to avoid unnecessary discussions during


sales completion.

Things we need to do during sales completion:

1. Keep a fresh proposal form


2. You must have the necessary stationeries. Pens 2, pencil,
stapler, gum, rough sheets are some main stationeries you
must always keep in your bag. Don’t ask anything from the
prospect.
3. Collect necessary proofs and documents there. Delay may
even spoil the sales.
4. If you need to take photo copy, you take them in nearby shops.
Don’t expect your prospect to give you latter.
5. Don’t leave anything for tomorrow.
6. Try to control your speech during sales completion.
7. Don’t give too much of pressure to increase the premium. This
also may spoil the sale.
8. After doing all documentations explain the prospect when will
you give the receipt, when the policy document will reach him,
if medical checkup is expected to come, tell him when he has
to undergo medical checkup and keep your words honored.
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9. Submit the proposal form in the office as per the procedure
and ensure he gets the policy document in time.
10. After the customer receives the policy document, meet him
and explain him that the features you explained are printed in
the document. Again make a summary of the plan you offered.
This will increase the confidence he has on you. If he is happy,
he will give many references. Reference means the prospects
introduced by your happy customers.
11. After explaining the policy document, ask for references
without any hesitation. Only by asking references, you can
reach the unknown people. If you do all these, you will sure
get the references. I have personally experienced this.

In the year 2004, I met only NRI prospect along with my agent.
After many discussions, he gave only Rs.5000 as premium. After
experiencing our service, he was very happy with us. Within the
next 8 months, we collected 8 lakhs of premium from him and
from his references. Asking references is like breathing in this
profession.

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Many of us are thinking that there is nothing important to do
after the sale. This is not like other selling. A food vendor in a railway
station may not have any further relationship with his customer after
the sale. As I mentioned earlier, in our business, sales completion is the
beginning of a long term relationship.

The Guinness record holding salesman is Mr. Girard. His


success secret is called as Girard law of 250. As per this law, each of us
is closely associated with minimum 250 people in our normal life. By
satisfying one customer, we have all the possibility to access his 250
contacts. I strongly accept Girard law of 250.

After the sale, keep in touch with all your prospects. Do the
help if you can and become a family friend. Even if he is unable to give
you further business or reference, he will sure speak well about you.

Don’t dos after the sale:

1. Don’t change your mobile number often. This will make most
of your prospects to go away from you. If you change, ensure
all of your prospects and customers are informed. By doing
this, your contacts will not be lost and you will gain good
name.
2. Never miss the call of your customer. If you were unable to
attend the call, call him back.
3. Don’t switch off your mobile phone frequently.
4. If your customer wants to meet you after the sale, show the
same interest that you showed before the sale.
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5. If the customer is having any problem with the plan or
features, don’t hide. If you ignore or hide, the problem will be
manifold. If you meet with confidence, the problem will vanish.
No one can accept the irresponsibility.
6. Show the same politeness, speed and interest even after the
sale. As for as this business is concerned, the customer
believes you and your service. If you change your approach or
behavior, it will make your customer worried or irritated. If you
were honest during the sale, this problem will not happen.

The strength of life insurance business is long term earning.


Good things will spread slowly. Even simple mistake will spread fast
and magnified. If we want to do this business, we need to be clear and
honest. Agents without these will go out of this business fast.

The information, concepts and strategies shared in this book is


not my experience alone. I got them from hundreds of people by
discussing with them and observing them. I strongly believe this book
will be very helpful to you.

There are many agents doing a better service after sales. Their
income is increasing day by day without any hassle.

I would like to take the example of one successful agent whom


I know. Her name is Mrs. Umadevi Sukumar. Mr. Sukumar is her
husband and they both jointly do this business in Trichy. They
represent a private life insurance company since 2005.

They both do this profession as their main source of income


though they have few other business and investments. They have good
friends and relative circle in Trichy.

Since the time she started this business, she always speak
about achieving big things in this business. In the first year they
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became Million Dollar Round Table (MDRT) member by sourcing
business from their friends and relatives. They became the regional top
agent of that company and they achieved MDRT in the second year
also.

3rd year, they missed this title with a small deficit in premium.
But they achieved this title on their 4th year by a clear plan and hard
work. To become an MDRT, each year we need to source around 30
lakhs of regular premium.

They have done many more achievements and gone many


foreign countries through company contests and reward systems. How
they are able to do this top class business continuously for four years?

The answer is very simple.

1. They spend time to this business everyday.


2. With everyone they meet, they discuss that they are life
insurance agent and share their achievements.
3. They keep their entire policy holder’s (customer) information
ready with them.
4. They keep the list of left out people also ready with them.
5. They always keep in touch with their customers by calling and
meeting them.
6. After the policy document reaches the customer, they meet
them with a quality file to keep the document and explain
them once again about the features and benefits.
7. They never miss any function and celebration of their
customer.
8. They help their customers other than insurance also if they
can.
9. They have membership in the city’s important clubs and
actively participate in their activities.

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10. Every day they add new friends to them.
11. Regularly they update their customer’s fund value or bonus
value in a separate diary and inform when asked by the
customers.
12. Before the maturity comes, they update it with their
customers and give them a good service.
13. They never miss any training program organized by the
company.
14. They frequently visit the branch office and update their
knowledge.
15. They give first priority to customer’s benefit and keep their
benefit after that.

Once again read the above mentioned 15 points. If you follow


these points, Success is Easier.

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