Stop Watching Tiger King, and Start Making Sales Calls

What have you been doing with yourself for the past two months? Checking emails? Completing a spring cleaning purge? Binging Netflix? (Don’t even try to deny obsessing over Tiger King!)

But what about work? Have you been reaching out to your clients? Prospecting new ones? Making sales calls? If you haven’t, you’re missing out on a great opportunity!

Despite the many challenges brought by the COVID-19 pandemic, there’s one undeniable benefit: the gift of time. Before now, there were never enough minutes in the day. Whether we needed more time for work, family or friends, having enough to go around was rare.

Now, we have more time than ever to spend with our families. And spending time with them comes first, as does self-care. But there’s also more time to work on once-neglected prospects. And more time to grow our businesses.

Here’s how you can start making more sales calls—and more sales—while working from home.

Email is just a start

If you’ve been relying on email as your sole method of communication for the last two months, change up your strategy. Because if you want to stand out right now, you need to communicate in a way your customers will notice.

People are hungry for connection. The stay-at-home orders across the country and quarantines at many senior living facilities have left older Americans lonely and desperate for real, human interaction. As a result, your clients have never been more likely to pick up the phone when you call.

So when you do touch base, make an effort to truly connect on a personal level, not just check in on their insurance needs. Here are a few tips to keep your sales calls genuine, impactful and productive:

• Start by asking how they’re doing. This may sound trite, but they’ll appreciate the opportunity to talk to someone about the challenges they’re facing, especially since most are isolated from their family and friends.
• Keep a timer or clock close by. Limit your conversations to 10 minutes.
• Creating a script (and sticking to it) is a good way to make sure your conversations aren’t too long. A script will also help you make sure you take care of the business of the call and don’t just spend 10 minutes chatting.

What should be in your sales calls script?

Creating a script is very personal. You want the conversation to flow naturally, but you don’t want to forget any of the reasons why you called. Here are a few things you should cover in all your sales calls:

• Confirm their contact information, including their email address.
• Ask how their plan is working for them. If the plan isn’t working, find out what changes they would like to make.
• Find out if they have family or friends who would benefit from using a Medicare insurance professional. This includes any additional members of the household as they may qualify for an additional discount.
• Remind them of the additional services you offer like annuities, life insurance, long-term care, etc.

Once you have your script down, practice! Bonus points if you can work on your script for sales calls with an actual senior. You’ll be surprised how much you improve just by going through the words a few times with a family member or friend.

Also, create a follow-up email you can send to your clients after each and every one of your sales calls, and let them know to be on the lookout for it. Make sure the email has a subject line that clearly reminds them what the email is for, and that they can easily forward to a family member or friend for referral purposes.

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