Don’t Sell Yourself Short!

It’s 2021, and it’s a new year. And I hate even to be cliche, but it may be time for a new you. Today I’m going to talk to you about why you can’t sell yourself short as a producer.

Take Control of the Phone

It’s a new year, and I hate to use the cliche, but it may be time for a new you. Let’s talk about three things that producers do to sell themselves short. The first one is they don’t take control of the phone call. How many times have you heard this? “Hey, Mr. Prospect, this is David at Florida Risk Partners. Listen, I know you weren’t expecting my call today, so I promise I’ll keep it brief.” Hey, I’m an upbeat, fun, friendly guy. You’d want to talk to me for a few more seconds. The problem is I’m weak. I’ve sold myself short. I haven’t put a value on my own time to let that person know I’m investing in them as much as they’re investing in me. Flip the script a little bit. Maybe try something like this. “Hey, Ms. Prospect, this is David at Florida Risk Partners. I know you weren’t expecting my call, and I promise to be brief. And quite frankly, I’ve only got about a minute myself. So, I promise we’re going to get through this.” Now they understand that my time is just as valuable as theirs.

Take Control of the Meeting

What about a new business meeting? How many times as a producer, have you gone into a new business meeting, and you just get grilled right out of the box with tons and tons of questions? Why not step back, take a deep breath, and let that prospect know this is an interview that goes two ways? “Listen, I understand all your questions. And honestly, I want to make sure we’re on the same page. I’m here today because I need to make sure that you and your company will be a good fit for my firm just as much as you need to decide the same. So, as long as we understand each other, I’m happy to continue going on, but I just wanted to make sure this isn’t a shoo-in. I still have decisions that need to be made on my side of the table as well.”

Now, you may irritate some people. But guess what? You’re going to gain respect from a lot more. People appreciate when you come from a position of power, control, and one where you’re on a level playing field. Now, there are people out there that like to beat up on the weak. They’re not my clients anyhow. Don’t undervalue your time.

Take Control of the Process

The biggest area where I see producers sell themselves short is they compete on price. They quote business. Instead of solving problems with a value proposition, they sell products for a price. What happens when the market hardens? What happens when you can’t get that coverage from that carrier anymore? What happens when pricing goes up? What happens when somebody else comes in and saves them 50 bucks a year? If you sell on price, you die on price, period. Value propositions, if written correctly, are recession-proof. They’re market hardening-proof. When the market hardens, my value proposition gets much stronger because companies are looking to save money. They’re looking to decrease turnover. They’re looking to train their people correctly. There are so many different things that I can discuss. Whether we go in with a learning management system through ThinkHR, or we’re proactively doing experience modification factors and auditing them with Modgic, it’s all about the value with Florida Risk.

We tell our prospects that if they want to hire us, they can hire us, but we have to place all of the insurance because that is the funding mechanism to buy our value proposition. You can’t get all of this unless we can do this. Because you’re already paying money to somebody, you’re just not getting what we’ve talked to you about today. And by focusing on the value we bring, we focus internally, and we allow them to see externally what we can do for them. But you enter that meeting with a position of confidence. You can confidently talk about all the times your value proposition has made an impact on a prospect who became your client. It’s challenging to talk about the endless number of times that you’ve saved a ridiculous amount of money for somebody.

Which one do you think resonates more? The fact that you saved somebody $10,000 in premium or the fact that Florida Risk went in and saved somebody $75,000 due to an error in a mod or by cleaning up reserves on claims, or even by identifying and putting measures in place to control the soft costs associated with their claims. I can assure you the value proposition plays better and longer.

So, as we go into ’21, this is my challenge for you. Don’t sell yourself short. Look at these three things: the phones, the meeting, and selling on value. Change up what you’re doing. Go in with a position of strength. You’re going to kill it in commercial insurance.

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