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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.
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professionals, we can financially protect each family and thus we
can help the nation to have financial stability.
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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.
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.
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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.
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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.
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of our customers. We should not do anything that hurts our
customer.
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In Life Insurance there are some common formulas of
getting business.
(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.)
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”.
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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”.
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.
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.
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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.
Work Everyday:
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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.
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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.
Be Honest:
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annual premium to 40 times depending on the customer’s need
and interest.
Exercise:
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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.
5. Draw the following table in two pages starting from the left
page to right page.
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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.
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.
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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.
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?
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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.
Gold:
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that as business and not for common public.
Share Market:
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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.
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.
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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.
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Insurance Act 54:
These are few laws that can increase the confidence level
of our customers.
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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.
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.
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2. The time we give for this profession:
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.
4. Will to learn:
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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.
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.
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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?
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achieving the minimum required business each year and after
few years they will vanish from this business.
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self confidence and perseverance.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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this profession is like a gold mine.
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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.
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.
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.
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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:
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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?
There are few steps involved in preparing. We will see them one
by one here.
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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.
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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.
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interested in paying higher premium. When we met the prospect
also he looked like that.
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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.
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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?”
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the next one. Ask his opinion about each recommendation.
Doing this will bring his involvement and make the presentation
alive.
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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.
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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.
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Future requirements:
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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.
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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.
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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.
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him. Otherwise, you need to search for the true reason to avoid
waste of time.
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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?’
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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.
Now let us sum all the present value of his needs and loans.
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.
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.
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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
FU
ND
Age 35 age 60
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Now son’s daughter’s daughter’s
15 laks cover education education marriage
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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.
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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.
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Stages in Presentation:
Preparing before
meeting
Introduction and
beginning
Collecting
Information
Presenting
Not
interested
Completing 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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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:
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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.
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.
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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.
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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.
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.
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.
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.
There are many agents doing a better service after sales. Their
income is increasing day by day without any hassle.
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.
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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.
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