In the previous two posts I discussed a couple of company sponsored sales courses that I was required to take as part of my onboarding. One was focused on memorizing a sales pitch word for word with some extra emphasis on keeping a positive mental attitude. The other was nothing more than product training. Both of these companies had a lot of turnover, which meant that they needed to constantly hire new agents as the previous agents would quit just as quickly.
With this in mind, I would be remiss if I did not discuss one of the better sales courses. This sales class was with a very large life insurance company (I'll call them ABC) and was more comprehensive than the others. In my mind, the larger the class, the more turnover the company had. And as we have seen, more turnover means less successful sales people. Our class at ABC only had about a dozen of us, so that seemed promising.
One of the first things they mentioned was that only about 15% of the applicants had made it as far as this training. While the other companies hired anyone and everyone that could make it through a background check (we were handling other people's money after all), the onboarding process with ABC took a couple of months of preliminary interviews and "pre-work", which meant we had to do some online work beforehand.
They also bragged that, where other companies had a retention rate of 9-10% after three years, they had 17%. Translated, that meant that if they hired 100 new reps today, in three years a whopping 17 would still be with the company. Personally, I don't know if I would brag about that, much less even mention it, but they seemed to be very proud of themselves.
This class took a more holistic approach, as we learned about the company's history, their finances, the management team and other useless information that was supposed to let us know how awesome of a company we were working for. We were told this to let our clients know that they were in great hands and that ABC was the best of the best.
We were also taught how to prospect, with sales language that apparently had been tested by the greatest psychologists in the world, or something to that effect. Our phone scripts were a bit wordy and I managed to find an alternate script that worked much better for me and was company approved.
Probably the best thing I was taught in this process was how to do a "fact finder", which was a questionnaire to get the client talking. I had seen a few of these in the past and they were all horrible, but this was comprehensive. More importantly, when a veteran agent showed me how to use it correctly (not the way we were instructed), I started to get some traction.
The old timers* in the company would say "Your case is in the fact finder. You just have to get it done and you'll find a reason to sell them something." It was true. The fact finder would get a conversation started which could lead to getting the sales process going.
Not only did the fact finder get a conversation going with the client, but it also led to a rapport. By asking open ended questions and knowing how to word them properly, the prospect would start to loosen up and share their "pain points". All of this was shown to us in some form or fashion in the training class.
But the real key to ABC's training was that it was ongoing. Once a month we had to drive a few hours to the main office and spend the day doing more training and getting feedback on the cases we were working on. Also, we had a weekly coaching session with our office manager, not to mention the Monday morning meeting over breakfast.
After a while, the sheer number of training sessions was a bit too much for me. After doing some math, I realized I was spending about 8 hours a week on training and meetings. And the information was becoming repetitive. As the new agents were coming on board, I was having to sit through the same stuff I heard two years earlier.
Out of all of these scenarios, the last one was the best, but it still wasn't perfect. Sales training is an ongoing process, and like I mentioned earlier, you need to find a mentor who isn't part of your management team and can give you sound and objective advice. But keep looking for knowledge and sales tips. Whatever you are selling, whether it be cars, homes, financial services or vacuum cleaners, be aware that the world is changing constantly and what worked just a few years ago may not be relevant today.
*If you go to work for a company with no veterans, it's a bad sign.
Chris Castanes is a professional speaker who helps sales people succeed through workshops and humorous presentations. He's also the author of "You're Going To Be Great At This!", a humorous look at sales. For booking information, click here. He's also the president of Surf Financial Brokers selling life and disability insurance in several states.
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