Archive for December 12th, 2007

Insurance Sales: Money & Sales

Wednesday, December 12th, 2007
by Cheryl A. Clausen

How do you respond when a prospect tells you they don’t have any money? What do you do when a prospect tells you they want more money? Do you accept these statements as fact? If you do you’re falling into a sales trap that means no sale for you. Even though their statements sound logical you’re missing the critical information you need to make a sale. When you hear that someone doesn’t have any money you think you should just remove them from your prospecting list or you should wait until they do have money. You’re missing a real opportunity, and you aren’t even aware of it.

Realize lack of money is never a real objection. When a prospect tells you they don’t have money what they’re really saying is that what your offering isn’t valuable to them. On a daily basis sales professionals miss the boat by accepting lack of money as a real objection when it’s nothing more than a clear signal that you haven’t done a good job of helping the prospect to see the value in what you have to offer for them.

No matter who you’re talking to or what you’re trying to sell them lack of money is the prospects way of saying you haven’t demonstrated value to them. It’s your job to figure out what they really want and why that’s important to them. If you don’t you have a “no sale”. This is also true if a prospect tells you they want more money. No one actually wants more money they want what money can buy. When you hear a prospect say they want more money your natural instinct is to sell more money. But that is a fatal mistake because you’re going down the wrong trail.

When you try to sell more money you’ll soon find yourself walking away without a sale. When a prospect tells you they want more money you have to find out why they want more money. What would it mean for them, allow them to do, allow them to have, or allow them to be?

No matter how you make decision or how you think other people make decisions the evidence is irrefutable that the real driver is emotional. When you hear they don’t have enough money, or they want money you now know you have more work to do to get the insurance sales you want. Don’t walk away, or jump ahead trying to make the sale when you hear either of these money statements.

Instead you want to slow down and step back. Think of it as if you’re peeling away the useless outer skin of an onion to get to the part that’s living tissue. Peel away and discover what they really want, how having that would impact them, and then you can begin to help them to discover how your solution will help them to make what they want possible.

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The List-Builders That Still Work: Squeeze Pages

Wednesday, December 12th, 2007
by Ray Edwards

Are you wondering if squeeze pages still work well to build your email list?

What is a “squeeze page”? It’s simply a page you place in front of the rest of your site that requires visitors to give up their name and email address before they get to see any information.

Making a free offer to your site visitors in exchange for their name and e-mail address is a great way to grow your e-mail list, but it has to be done carefully so that you don’t also drive away potential customers.

Here are some things to think about

Growing your email list is the surest way to grow your business, sales and profits.

The problem we run into these days is simple: people are more reluctant than ever to give up their email address. The squeeze page is still the best way to build your list, but it requires more thought today than it did even a few months ago. Using a squeeze page carelessly can do your business more harm than good.

First, know that the most effective squeeze page is used on “salesletter site” - that is, one built to sell one product. Using a squeeze page as the “gatekeeper” of your salesletter sifts and sorts potential buyers by level of seriousness. It also gives you a list of prospects who are clearly interested in your offer (or at least in your subject).

The worst thing you can do it use a squeeze page in front of the wrong kind of site.

These include sites that are portals, intended for branding, or blogs. These sites are used for very different reasons than are salesletter sites; so don’t put a squeeze page in front of them.

The squeeze page is a barrier.

It keeps people out of your website and it can potentially scare off your customers.

When you’re marketing to a targeted audience, and offering strong “ethical bribe” such as a video, audio recording, or special report, your squeeze page can be a valuable list-building tool.

Why are people more reluctant and wary about giving up their email address? Spam, viruses, scams, and spyware are a few reasons.

The answer to this issue is simple, in my opinion. Squeeze pages can build your list super-fast; you just have to choose the right websites and scenarios in which to use them.

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