To be successful at insurance sales, you must be able to quickly understand the emotions churning inside your potential clients. Having empathy for your clients and knowing their situations is critical. You have to become skillful at synchronizing what you say with a wide variety of client emotions. How well you do this makes a powerful impact on your income.

It’s sad but true, many people put off making insurance decisions until someone close to them faces an unfortunate situation. They wait until someone or something shows them the value of having proper insurance. In some cases, your potential clients may have been badgered into talking with you by someone else who thinks they need what you have to offer more than the clients themselves do. You may work with people who are suffering pain from major upheavals that have taken place in their own lives due to a lack of proper insurance and they’ve vowed never to let it happen again. Whatever the situation is, you will have to adjust your demeanor, your words and how you present your products.

I teach selling skills. Yet, if I taught you all the strategies and all the words to say, and failed to teach you the importance of having empathy for your clients, I’d be doing you and them a disservice. To be successful in this business you must know a lot about how to sell and about your insurance products. But, even more important, you must truly care about people, if you plan to make this business a lifelong career.

Start right now by asking yourself, “How do I feel about how they feel?” If your attitude is, “I couldn’t care less,” don’t be surprised if they don’t care about doing business with you. You can’t fake concern. If you’re not truly empathetic to your clients’ needs, your attitude will show through in your body language or in some other discernable way and the clients will pick up on it. They may not even be consciously aware of it, but something will tell them not to do business with you and they’ll go into a defensive mode where they’ll come up with all the excuses in the book to not make a decision today.

There probably aren’t two clients in a hundred who’ll admit it, but one of the main reasons people talk with insurance agents is to get attention. Learn to give it honestly and effectively and you’ll succeed.

If I were talking with a wife and husband who are having their first child, I’d be a little more concerned with relating to her than him. Even though he’ll be excited about the future and concerned about their child, he’ll also be the one facing the statistical reality that it’s more likely he won’t be around to see it all through than his wife will. The wife is concerned about her future and seeing that the child or children are able to live the life mom and dad are currently envisioning for them.

Now let’s look at another situation that a change in someone’s health creates. Your clients may have recently faced a serious health issue and found out they didn’t have proper insurance when they were already in the midst of it. Now, they’re talking with you to see that it doesn’t happen again. They’ve had a dose of reality and need to feel secure. Even if you can’t provide all the health care they’d like to have focus on the security that your program can provide.

One or both of them might be upset or angry about being in this situation. They may feel they’ve lost face with each other by not being on top of their needs. You’ll have to tread lightly with this couple until you get them focused on the solution rather than the problem. When you walk in there, you’re part of the industry they’re mad at. And they’re especially afraid of making a mistake again with their insurance needs.

When people are excited and happy about the future, they’ll be more in line with your research on programs that might fit their needs than people who are unhappy about the past will be.

The key to success in any selling situation is to leave your opinions, your personal situation, your history outside the door, unless you have faced a similar situation where you can speak from the heart. Start asking questions so you can understand why they are talking with you. What are they thinking? What do they think they need versus what your experience tells you they need? Why do they think that? There’s an underlying reason that they’re ready and willing to talk with you right now. Until you know that reason, you can’t start feeling their feelings and relating to them properly in order to serve their needs.

Although some situations are touchy to work with, they’re more likely to give you the opportunity to render great service to someone who really needs it. In any situation where you’re talking with a couple, be especially careful not to take sides or favor one person’s opinion over another, even if they’re right. You have to play it very professionally with both of them. Keep it constantly in mind that if either person suspects you of making judgments about them, you’re not going to be their agent. You’re working with people who make buying decisions emotionally, not logically. You must first work with their emotions, then help them see the logic in following the plan you recommend. You do that by building a performance that relates to their needs.

As an insurance professional, you have more than a job; you have an absolute obligation to do everything in your power to feel like your clients feel.

For more of Tom Hopkin’s great sales articles click here. Or download a free chapter of his book “How to Master the Art of Selling Financial Services” by clicking here.

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