Advances and Continuations

How often have we watched someone, or been that person, who’s standing in the lobby ringing the bell again and again as though that continued effort would actually speed up the elevator’s arrival? Doesn’t make sense, does it? Yet all of us, in many contexts, are subject to the same kind of conditioned behavior that wastes time and resources and completely fails to move us closer to our goal. That’s called wheel spinning, and in sales it is a costly and draining activity.

Neil Rackham's seminal book, Spin Selling, focuses on this significant problem by talking about continuations and advances. The latter move the sales process closer to a resolution while continuations have you dog-paddling in place, and over time are like being stuck in the mire. Advances can be small or large, but they all move you towards the finish line. They include activities like scheduling the next sales meeting, making a Webinar presentation or simply getting the name and title of a particular decision-maker. An advance may also disqualify a “suspect” by confirming he’s not at all open to an insurance review, and while that may not be what you want to hear, it resolves the situation, or as we say at PMA, it gets that target business ‘off the radar’.

Continuations, on the other hand, involve activities that bring no further progress towards a sales decision. At the end of your meeting, the risk manager thanks you for your time, applauds you on a well-done presentation and offers a vague invitation to ”check back” next year.
Obviously, continuations are to be avoided. To do that you have to first recognize them when they occur and then break the pattern. In the teleprospecting process, when you’re working to gain traction with qualified prospects, continuations may happen all too frequently.

“You’ve got me at a bad time,” says the manager responsible for insurance decisions, after your third attempt to get him on the phone, “I can’t talk right now”. Fair enough, but if you just cordially let him go, you’re back to square one. Instead, if you say, “I’m calling about providing a competitive insurance and risk review. Would you like me to call back next week to see if we can set something up?”, you’ll be able to disqualify a suspect who answers “no”, or plan on a call back with someone who’s expressed some buy-in.

As we become aware of how frequently continuations might be stalling the sales process, we can focus more effort on avoiding them altogether. Spending valuable sales time with recalcitrant prospects with whom it’s hard to get traction can be a real drain on your time and energy. You have to be alert and quick to avoid the trap of continuations, and train in making advances at every opportunity.

Inquiry and Assertion

Don Draper, the high-flying ad agency Creative Director in the Emmy Award-winning TV series Mad Men, is telling someone about the subtleties of human motivation: “Trust me, I’m in advertising,” he says with sincerity.  Hearing this wonderfully ironic remark, we smile knowing all too well that advertising people shouldn’t be trusted; they’re masters of spinning the details to get us to buy what they’re selling. And while, it has been said, people do like to buy, they don’t like being sold.

The overwhelming tsunami of the world’s sales messages is greater than ever and growing all the time.  Our natural reaction to this onslaught of propaganda is to protect ourselves by ignoring it, or reacting defensively. The more persistent the attempts to influence us, and the stronger the assertions - the more defensive we become.  But as teleprospectors and sales people it’s our job to communicate the value of what we offer.  How can we accomplish that without triggering negativity and resistance?

One solution to this apparent dilemma is to use skillfully directed questions instead of assertions. Carefully focused queries can be tremendously powerful. When we substitute questions for assertions we avoid evoking defensive reactions, and most importantly, we engage the prospect in the buying process. And as we mentioned earlier, people like to buy but they don’t like to be sold.

A brief example: At a recent PMA caller meeting we were discussing how we don’t want to ‘scare prospects off’ by pushing too hard to schedule sales meetings for our clients when insurance renewals are many months in the future. 

“I’ve done that and found the prospect got annoyed and backed off altogether because he felt I was being too pushy,” one of our callers offered.  Another responded, 

“What if you framed it as a question instead? You might ask the prospect, ‘How would you feel about meeting with the agent this month when you’re not under the typical renewal pressures and have more time to dedicate to the process?  Some manufacturers find this a better alternative. What do you think?’ “. 

When approached this way the prospect may agree to schedule a meeting now, or they may decline and prefer to be called again closer to their x-date. But odds are strong they won’t feel pressured or react defensively.  Instead of a push/pull discussion, both parties are thinking and acting collaboratively.

The Three Arenas of Competition

by Joe Arak, President, Professional Marketing Associates

When you think about the competitive advantages your agency offers, there are really only three basic arenas of competition: price, product and service. While some things might fit into one or another of the categories (bonding, for example could be considered either a service or a product), it’s helpful to think about your value proposition in terms of these three arenas, and to match your strengths with the needs and values of the target businesses you’re going after.

Agencies and Producers get into trouble when they heedlessly try to compete in all three arenas at the same time. Hence, it's critical that you consider your core strengths and decide how you want to position yourself in the marketplace. Are you going to go pursue new accounts primarily on the basis of cutting costs and delivering the most competitive price quotes? If that's the case you should make sure your programs and carriers consistently offer the lowest premiums for particular business classes and then focus on those classes aggressively.

If it makes more sense for service or product to be your competitive trump card, you'll want to concentrate your new business prospecting on companies who’ll be likely to need and want those advantages rather than those driven by a bargain-shopping culture.

Once you’ve determined the competitive arena in which you’ll communicate your advantages, be specific and down-to-earth in spelling them out. "World class service" may seem like a seductive proclamation, but what will that actually mean to the prospects you're courting? Telling prospects that they’ll always be able to speak with "real people" and not get caught in voice mail loops, means much more than paying lip service to your “great service”. Similarly, providing specific details and numbers about your agency and services communicates more potently and persuasively than generalizations. Isn't it more meaningful and assuring to let people know that your agency has a 98% client retention rate than simply telling them, "Our customers love us"?

Communicating your value proposition with explicit details, numbers and facts helps prospects visualize and better understand the advantages of working with your agency. If your sales approach is about cost-cutting, let prospects know that you’re able to shop more than a dozen carriers to make sure they have the right coverage as well as competitive premium rates. Or, if you offer a Safety Group program that has been paying dividends the last few years, mention the specifics: “The annual dividends for our landscaping clients have averaged a full 25% in the last two years.”

If you have an industry program that offers specialized, tailored coverage that’s not readily available in your market area, ask your prospects if they’re sure their current program includes that particular coverage and let them know why it’s beneficial.

Whatever your arena of competition, the devil and the angels are really in the details. The more precisely you can spell out the specifics of what you actually bring to your customers, the better they'll understand and recognize the value they're getting.