The “Virtual Selling Quadrant” That Empowers Insurance and Financial Advisors to WIN More Clients in Less Time
I want you to meet a modern-day whiz kid.
He’s 24 years old and already has a resume that would cause most 44-year-olds to drool.
His name is Caleb Guillams, and he’s the founder and CEO of BetterWealth – a company that’s focused on showing people how to be smarter and more efficient with their money today while maximizing their future wealth potential.
Yes…he’s 24. But don’t let his youthful appearance fool you. He’s earned every one of his stripes.
When Caleb was a teenager, he read every personal finance book he could get his hands on.
While still in college, he was promoted to lead the entire investment division of a local community bank.
Caleb spent two years traveling around the world, learning from some of the top financial advisors in the country. And along the way, he discovered the top strategies and principles for building and creating wealth.
He’s also become a pretty successful entrepreneur, business owner, and sales expert.
BetterWealth is now a million-dollar insurance agency specializing in whole life. Caleb’s company employs 16 amazingly talented people and is operated completely virtual.
I also want you to meet Jereme Roodhouse, his top salesperson and right-hand man.
Jereme is the guy who is out on the front lines meeting with hundreds of prospects and nurturing them through a strategically optimized sales process.
And he has a very wholesome yet effective approach to sales – one that’s predicated on empowering the prospect and putting their needs first.
Hundreds of insurance and financial advisors showed up and we discussed million-dollar tactics and frameworks for virtual sales success.
The discussion was so valuable that I wanted to write this blog post to share some of the top concepts with my readers.
In particular, I want to focus on four key elements of our conversation – something I’m dubbing the “Virtual Selling Quadrant.”
The Virtual Selling Quadrant
When properly implemented, the Virtual Selling Quadrant almost guarantees successful meetings by pre-qualifying prospects and carefully nurturing them so that, by the time you hop on a call with them, they’re hanging on your every word.
That might sound like hyperbole – like it’s too good to be true, but these are the kinds of meetings Caleb and his staff are participating in on a daily basis.
So, without any more hype or buildup, here’s a rundown of the four elements of the Virtual Selling Quadrant for insurance and financial advisors:
1. Pre-Frame
If you’re waiting until the sales meeting begins to start selling, you’re playing from a disadvantage.
You’re losing control and leverage, which is ultimately killing your chances of being successful with virtual selling.
The meeting always starts before the meeting.
Either you control the experience that leads up to the meeting, or the prospect is left to make their own assumptions.
And if you want to take the reins, you need to invest in a process known as “pre-framing.”
Pre-framing is a purposeful framework that you can use to naturally and ethically shape someone’s thought process about a conversation before it’s actually addressed.
Any time you’re meeting a prospect for the first time – virtually or in person – you should leverage the power of pre-framing to align meeting expectations, build authority and expertise, and eliminate doubts and hesitations.
As Caleb says, you want your pre-frame job to be so strong and natural that you create a sense of scarcity where people think to themselves, “If I could talk to this person, my life would be better.”
Pre-framing is all about building and managing expectations. And with the right strategy, you’ll never have to chase people.
You should always be asking yourself, “Why would people want to talk to me?”
If you can’t answer this question – if there’s nothing you can think of that should make people want to talk to you over the dozen other insurance or financial advisors down the street – that’s a problem. (You’ll need to spend some time at the drawing board figuring out what you’re really doing in your business.)
We’ll discuss some of the specific ways you can motivate people so that they genuinely want to talk to you in the third part of the Virtual Selling Quadrant, but for now you should understand that everything that happens prior to the meeting is laying the groundwork for what will happen in the meeting.
When you pre-frame, the client does 80% of the talking. It becomes easy to move people to action.
2. Focus on Education
I’ve been saying it for years…and it was good to hear Jereme say the same thing:
This industry is backwards.
There’s too much sales speak and persuasion going on…and not enough education.
Your virtual sales process should be education HEAVY.
Before the meeting, during the meeting, and after the meeting – you should be educating, educating, and educating some more.
To borrow a concept from author Daniel Pink in his book To Sell Is Human, you should be focused on “non-sales selling.”
Non-sales selling is basically any activity you do that has the potential to directly or indirectly impact client satisfaction or the perception of your product and service offerings.
In other words, most non-sales selling is education.
You educate the prospect with the right information and trust that they’ll reach the obvious conclusion that they need X, Y, or Z in order to solve the problem they have.
Education is part of the sales process today.
As Jereme says, “We do not hold the keys to the kingdom of knowledge anymore. We have to be facilitators of a dialogue and all the clients to learn.”
Allow the client to learn so much that they have no choice but to buy.
Facilitate a format where buying feels like the obvious choice to another person.
3. Provide Value Beforehand
You should provide so much value before the meeting that people are basically ready to move before they even log in.
You want to make it easy on them to buy.
One way you do this is by establishing credibility and authority.
This can play out in any number of ways, but here are a few good options:
Anything you can do to provide direct or indirect value to a prospect prior to a virtual sales meeting is going to make the meeting that much easier on you.
Don’t have the time to host a podcast, write a book, or line up a bunch of media interviews?
Well, it’s important to remember that everything doesn’t have to land on your shoulders.
You should always be looking for ways to remove yourself from the process so that you can grow your business at scale.
And as Jereme mentions, there are two important components to making this happen:
You must have enough trust to let others support and execute your mission.
You must have enough humility to recognize and believe that you are not the linchpin.
A vision built on yourself is a vision built on selfishness, which doesn’t motivate people.
A vision built on impacting others is what will move people to work with you.
I say that to say this…
Adding value before meetings is important, but you don’t have to be the one constantly podcasting, writing, or being interviewed.
There are other ways to add value and establish credibility.
If you have a team of people, you can leverage your credibility to enhance the credibility of your team members who are getting on calls with prospects and clients.
This is called “Transference of Authority.”
You can use the Transference of Authority concept by featuring team members on your podcast, in your videos, or on your blog.
Then when prospects hop on a call with this person, they’ll think to themselves, “This person must be the real deal, because they were featured on…”
Caleb features his team – including Jereme – so that people feel like they know, like, and trust him before ever logging into a virtual meeting or hopping on a call.
4. Understand The “Why”
The final pillar of the Virtual Selling Quadrant is to understand why your prospects and clients are here.
The more you listen, the more you’ll understand them. And, in turn, the more meaningful and persuasive your sales conversations will be.
The first key to understanding the why is to shut your mouth and ask better questions.
Not sure how to ask good questions?
Jereme reminds insurance and financial advisors that any time someone uses a noun in a sentence – which should be all of the time – you can always ask five questions about it:
Who?
What?
When?
Where?
Why?
You can always ask questions. (Use your brain to figure out which question fits.)
Be inquisitive.
Dig, dig, dig.
Get to the heart of the matter, and this will give you a basis from which to work from.
The second key is to understand and empathize with prospects.
The opening of a virtual sales call is critically important. It sets the tone of how a virtual meeting happens.
Figure out how you can nail the first 60 seconds.
When it comes to Zoom meetings, here are some of Jereme’s favorite tips:
Always open meetings with being grateful and vivacious.
Always greet with a smile and a “hi.”
Conduct a real quick observation of their surroundings. (They’re inviting you into their space – use that to speak directly to the person and employ empathy.)
Make people feel understood so that this person gets you. Be highly observant of what’s going on. Create a space where people can feel as if they’re ready to be understood.
People appreciate when you respect their time. Dive right in.
Remember that a virtual sales meeting is about the prospect. You’re trying to identify the potential financial cancer they have so that you can correctly diagnose it.
The diagnosis precedes the prescription.
The focus is on diagnosing the problem and maybe you’ll prescribe.
That’s the approach you should take and the message you should send.
One FINAL Chance for the FREE 7-Figure Playbook
Last week, we gave away a massive Zoom Playbook that’s helped numerous virtual advisors plan and execute 7-figure meetings.
We had such great feedback on the Playbook, that I want to offer it again.
Eventually, this guide might end up being a paid product (or it could get even slipped into one of our paid programs)…
But for now, I’m willing to give it to any virtual advisor who’s proactive enough to grab it today.
Inside you’ll find 51+ screenshots that show you how to optimize your Zoom settings so that you can host more professional and higher quality meetings that reflect the care and precision that goes into managing your clients’ financial resources.
What are you waiting for?
Access your FREE copy and KISS glitchy video, poor audio quality, and Zoom confusion GOODBYE.
I’ve been the leading advocate in our industry for making the shift to virtual advisory for years.
And, unfortunately, it’s taken a major world event to make most insurance and financial advisors realize just how important it is to embrace the virtual advisory model.
But here we are, nearing the end of 2020 and the future of the industry is clear.
Going virtual isn’t just a fleeting trend – it’s the “new normal.”
Thousands of advisors have already discovered the value in running virtual businesses – and I think you’re becoming privy to these advantages as well.
But if you want to be successful with virtual advisory, you must learn to WIN with virtual selling.
That’s why, over the next few weeks, I’m focusing the bulk of our Virtual Advisor Power Hour content on virtual meetings.
These LIVE workshops are totally 100% FREE.
They’re my way of giving back to our industry a time when advisors need guidance most.
And while there’s no “catch,” I do want to mention that these training sessions are only available live.
Unless you’re a Advisorist Max member, there are no replays or second chance viewings. If you want to sink your teeth into the value we provide, you have to show up and play full out.
Hundreds of you are already doing so – and we’d love to welcome you into our supportive community.
Jeremiah is the founder and CEO of Advisorist® and is a 23-time award winning financial marketer, a TED speaker and philanthropist. He’s been featured on Forbes, CNN, and Worth. His work has generated over $2 million insurance leads and helped advisors in over 51 countries generate over $300 million in sales commissions. He is the author of the best selling book, SHIFT.
