Sales people can be far more effective by understanding some common traits among seniors and how they make buying decisions. Any retirement financial planner must pay attention to these tendencies:

The Sample of One
Seniors have been alive for decades and they have accumulated more experience than those who are younger have. Therefore, it’s not surprising that they place great weight on their experience as their guide. However, I have noticed this reliance on personal experience taken to extremes, and I call this psychological attribute “The Sample of One.”

For example, if the senior had a bad experience in the market and does not want equities, don’t try and convince them!

Experienced sales people who know about the “sample of one” will accept it and move on. Experienced sales people know that the best way to help your prospect is to have them take action. Even if your recommendation is the “best” one, if the prospect is uncomfortable and does not act, then nothing has been accomplished. Experienced sales people do not waste time “arguing” the facts. The marketer, Herschel Gordon Lewis, himself a senior, says,” Seniors may not have seen everything on this planet, but many of them think they’ve seen everything.”

“Don’t Give Me What’s Best; Give Me What’s Comfortable”
In general, seniors are not optimizers; they are “satisfiers.” They are not seeking the best financial solution; they are seeking the solution that feels good, the solution that satisfies their desire for comfort.

Just today, I talked with a retirement financial planner who told me about meeting a retired couple who owned an annuity. They had a comfortable estate and no intention to ever use the annuity. He showed them the advantage of converting the annuity to a life insurance policy and how their heirs could benefit. They liked the idea.

Up until this point, all of the concepts were familiar—they knew about the annuity, they had some familiarity with estate taxes, and they had owned life insurance before. He then explained that they would hold the life insurance in an “irrevocable life insurance trust” and the deal died.
He killed the deal by using four words together that were totally foreign. They had no knowledge of an “irrevocable life insurance trust.” They got uncomfortable. No comfort=No deal.

Please keep this in mind. With seniors, you won’t get a second chance. Before ever mentioning a solution, you must have completed your fact-finding one hundred percent, which includes the emotional fact-finding (like/dislikes, biases, prejudices, preconceptions, etc).
Time Frame

Return calls quickly and respond quickly. If your prospect or client is retired, their schedule is not as cramped as your schedule. You may think it’s reasonable to return all calls within twenty-four hours. Many retirees will consider anything longer than an hour too long.

If your assistant takes the call and says you are on the other line, the senior assumes that when you finish that call, you will call back—and waits for your call. He or she has no idea that: you have a proposal due later that day, your hard drive has just crashed, you just got a referral to a $5 million account, and that he bank called to say that your business account is now in overdraft position and you better get down to the bank. They expect you to call back right away.

In a study by Prince and Associates of why investors changed financial advisors, “nearly ninety-six percent were very happy with their portfolio’s performance. They were dissatisfied with the service they received and the relationship with their advisor.” I will add that in my experience, seniors are more sensitive to the service issue than any other market segment.

Keep these senior attributes in mind in making your presentations and you’ll find they procrastinate less and make decisions more easily because you are a better presenter.

More on Marketing to Seniors from ProspectMatch

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There are two groups of affluent seniors:

The “Next-Door” Wealthy

Members of the first group are the affluent (investment portfolios of $1 million or more) who do not think of themselves as wealthy.  Let’s call them the “next-door” wealthy.

These are people like the dry cleaner who started and grew a low-tech business, or the fireman who purchased and fixed up rental homes in his spare time.  These are the “Millionaires Next Door” aptly described in Tom Stanley’s book of that title who live in middle-income neighborhoods and drive cars beyond 100,000 miles.  Picture Sam Walton driving around in his 1972 pickup and you’ve got the perfect example of the “next door millionaire” affluent prospect.

Since most members of this group accumulated their wealth through the ownership of small businesses or by investing in real estate, you can easily rent lists of these people. Consult Standard Research and Data at your local library to find these lists or perform an Internet search for list brokers that can provide lists of:

1.    Businesses with under 25 employees excluding professional firms (doctors, lawyers, engineers, etc).  These are likely to be successful businesses with high margins.  A business that has remained small and has preserved its capital produces a rich owner.  If an age match can also be done, look for owners over age 60 as they will have the most money.

2.    Businesses with fewer than 25 employees but with more than $2 million in their qualified plan.  This is public information from the IRS 5500 form, and can be obtained from several list brokers.

3.    People who own five or more rental homes or apartment buildings with 10 to 20 apartments.  Several firms compile lists of real estate owners.  In most counties, the home they live in has a homeowners tax exemption while rental properties do not.  Therefore, owners of multiple rental properties can be easily identified.

You also find these people by subscribing to magazines with titles like “Rock and Quarry,” “Scrap Metal Today,” and “Earth Moving Machines.”  These magazines have ads from the low-tech businesses that have not attracted competition that have very high margins and wealthy older owners.

Attracting the “Next-Door” Wealthy

Because the next-door wealthy do not think of themselves as wealthy, you can attract these folks using the same tactics that you would to attract the middle market, as these people think much like those in the middle market.  Direct mail, ads and seminars are all effective tools for prospecting.  Note that if these methods have not worked for you in the past, it’s not because these methods don’t work.  It’s because you have not used them correctly so find an expert to assist you.

The next-door wealthy purchase the same products and services as the middle market.  Working with them is just like working with other clients—they just have more money.

The next-door wealthy are typically conservative investors, and want to save taxes.  They are not big stock market investors, as they don’t like to lose money.  They feel that real estate and a business are much safer investments.

In addition to the common products (long-term care, annuities, bonds) the following products and services interest them:

1.    Charitable Trusts and Gift Annuities.  Introduce charitable trusts and charitable gift annuities to those who are real estate-rich and cash-poor which allow them to liquidate their real estate, increase their income and avoid immediate capital gains tax.

2.    Defined Benefit Plans.  Help the business owner convert from a profit sharing plan to a defined benefit plan so he can make larger contributions for retirement and save more taxes.

3.    Family Partnerships.  Demonstrate how a family business or real estate can be passed on with less tax.

Planners successful in this market are not the “three-piece suit ” types who have a Harvard attitude.  These affluent clients are attracted most to down-home simple people who sincerely want to help them.  Don’t drive up in your new Corvette.

In the next post, we will deal with the other group, the “showy wealthy.”

Want to know how agent Charles Wood found a client worth $200 million dollars?  he did it with Internet Leads.

http://www.prospectmatch10.com

that most do-it-yourself mutual fund buyers (and many advisors) make. Obviously, these are people who have been thinking about or have interest in buying or changing their mutual fund investments. They are already motivated as they requested the booklet.

All you do is send the booklet , and then follow up with the prospect by phone per the instructions we provide you.

Because these prospects will have already received your booklet, you will find the call a warm call (People tend to give credibility to items in writing and the professionals who supply them). You will be treated as an expert and not as a salesperson when you follow our instructions that you receive when you register for the ProspectMatch service.

Use our booklet at no extra cost or your own literature

                                >Register to get Mutual Fund Buyer prospects <

All you do is send the booklet and then follow up with the prospect by phone per the instructions we provide you.

Because these prospects will have already received your booklet, you will find the call a warm call. (People tend to give credibility to items in writing and the professionals who supply them). You will be treated as an expert and not as a salesperson when you follow our instructions that we provide when you register for the ProspectMatch service.

>Register to meet people seeking Higher Interest<

Prospect Match lead generation. Details how Prospect Match sources leads for financial advisors and insurance agents.

http://www.prospect-match.com

1) The caliber of the prospects you speak to
2) The variety of prospects you talk with
3) The caliber of your presentation

Let’s take these in order over three posts. Today, let’s cover lead generation — locating qualified insurance prospects.

Your way of prospecting will be the main determinant of how many prospects purchase.

You’re prospecting method must only generate prospects with a high chance to purchase, i.e. qualified insurance prospects. Here’s the contrast of two prospecting systems. The first approach produces success while the next approach saps your vitality.

Cold-calling, a typical way of prospecting, produces prospects that must be convinced. You could be convincing to some degree to get the appointment and you end up arm twisting your prospect to meet. Once they hang up the phone, they reconsider. Are you shocked that many prospects cancel before their set meeting?  Are you finding qualified insurance prospects this way?

What would occur if instead, you took out an advertisement offering a free guide about a certain topic (e.g. “Three Reasons to Have Insurance Once Retired”)  in which you had experience? Certainly, the people who reply to the ad have interest in your offered item. That’s the kind of prospect you want–people who act, people who are qualified insurance prospects.

A young lady who a short time ago entered the field of real estate asked me about the best method to gain clients. I had her compose a brochure “Ten Errors to Avoid When you Sell Your Million Dollar Home.” We placed the ad in the food section of  the daily paper, we selected the day that has all of the food coupons. The cost of the ad does a whopping $250 and the real estate agent received 62 responses.

How long would it have taken to locate 62 interested and motivated people by cold calling? This method we have just described for gaining qualified insurance prospects allows you to make much better use of your time because your initial call is a warm call to a receptive motivated prospect.

Now you can see the difference and how you’re prospecting method determines the caliber of prospects you attract. So your prospecting MUST be based on the following model-you offer an item to people who meet your criteria (e.g. by age, revenue, profession, zip code, by interest, and so on) and you ONLY contact those people who want your package. The supplied package can be:

a) a guide or free-of-charge report
2) a free seat at a workshop
3) a totally free quotation
4) a free-of-charge analysis

Then, whenever you contact the prospect, you get in touch with them simply because they requested something of you. You are not asking for their business, you are not trying to twist their arm or convince them, you are contacting them to decide with them  how you are able to serve them. This puts you in the power position and starts the partnership on the correct foot with a qualified insurance prospect.

In a soon-to-be-published post, I’ll discuss the best way to gain high quantities of inquiries from these high quality prospects.

It’s crucial to fully grasp the main issue and how to generate profits as an insurance agent.
Your main goal, if you want to get rich, should be to have in person conferences with qualified prospects who fulfill two criteria:
1. The prospective client has dollars in their own control (i.e. not tied up within a 401k)
2. The prospect is interested in possibilities to do better with their own capital.

Should you have any additional criteria, you are going to give up profits as an insurance professional. For example, should you have still another requirement that the potential customer have interest in annuities because you promote annuities, this will set you back a lot of sales because there is NO Potential customer who cares about annuities. Prospective customers value their own goals like

1. Safety of principal
2. Tax alleviation
3. Liquidity

It is the agent’s job to first clearly identify what the prospect desires to accomplish and then, if appropriate, show the prospect how the agent’s products and services can fulfill those aims.  To find as many “matches” as possible, the agent first needs to maximum his appointments.  But most agents don’t do this.

Most insurance agents skip this concept and instead of concentrating on the maximum quantity of visits with prospective customers who satisfy the two criteria above, the insurance agent will call potential clients to determine their desire for annuities, managed money, life insurance , etc. In other words, the poor agent looks for prospects that want his products. However such a call makes it obvious to the prospective client that your attention is in YOUR solutions and service and not his or her aims. That’s why you really don’t obtain the amount of appointments you need to. That’s why you’re poor.

Let’s provide an example. Our company, ProspectMatch, runs plenty of ads on the Internet to find consumers thinking about financial subjects. The offer which got the very best response was for a booklet about methods to enhance social security earnings . This is a often searched topic for seniors. Yet every insurance professional told us they don’t desire those prospects. ” I can not generate any money dealing with people about social security.”

This is a myopic view that keeps most advisors poor. Many of these potential customers who choose this booklet on social security income satisfy the two requirements above but given that the advisor is SO centered on their own programs, his or her OWN goods and services, they will never have an appointment with viable prospects who may become good clients. It never occurs to poor insurance brokers that individuals interested in a guide on increasing social security income are curious about more income, from any source. So they are often excellent candidates for immediate annuities. However the insurance pro’s product-centered tunnel vision never enables this possibility to surface.

Focus on the big picture–meet with people you can help and don’t Focus on your products and services. The financial offerings are merely tools to help folks accomplish their own objectives, instruments that don’t need to be talked about until the last 10% of your discussion. Be a prosperous insurance agent.