Blue Oyster Cult was wrong. You should fear the reaper.

No matter how many times I scream this from the mountain tops, Voluntary Benefit salespeople continue to allow the business owner to shut them down with nine little words, “Let me ask my people if they are interested.” Excuse me while I channel my inner Dennis Miller.  “Now, I don’t want to go off on a rant here, but if you think that you have a snowball’s chance in …..Phoenix of landing that account, you are sorely mistaken.” But as usual, I’m getting a little ahead of myself here.

Let me back up for just a second. If you have been in the Voluntary Benefits arena for any length of time, you know that most business owners are control freaks. If you have done your job and followed a sound sales process, when you ask for the business the business owner is probably going to agree to move forward. Don’t celebrate just yet! Instead of hearing the cash register in your head go cha-ching, you should be hearing a warning siren. You see, right after he or she says yes, their inner voice says to them, “Holy Crap Batman, I just bought! I had better get control of this situation right now or who knows what I am going to buy next!!!” So to tap the brakes, they say, “Let me ask my people if they are interested.” If you wait for those nine words to come out of their mouth, you are going to lose every time. In fact, I call that simple nine-word statement “The Kiss of Death.” No matter what you say next, it is going to look argumentative at best. Pushy and salesy at worst. Obviously, you have to try, but your chances aren’t good. But hey, weirder things have happened…

The ONLY way to avoid the “Kiss of Death” is to crush it with a preemptive strike. In other words, you must bring it up yourself before they do. There are multitudes of ways to do this, so pick a few and practice them with your manager, or fellow agents. You do practice, right? In these examples, you are meeting with Frank of Frank’s Welding.

Tim’s 5 Best Preemptive Strikes Against the “Kiss of Death”

• No pause/interrupt method – Once you have asked for the business, before they can fully respond even, you need to jump in with both feet and say this, “Well Frank, I’ve been doing this a while now (No matter how new you are, you have been doing this for a while.) and there is only one way we have ever seen that this won’t work. That’s if you walk out into the shop and yell out, “Does anyone here want to buy more insurance?” He will quickly see how ridiculous that sounds.
• You’re O.K., I’m not O.K. method – Assuming your meeting is going well, instead of asking your normal closing question, ask this: “You know Frank, I think we can really help you and your employees here! But there is one challenge I can see that might derail this whole thing. This can’t be casual. To make this work, I’m going to have to see everyone, and I don’t know if that is even possible in your environment.” This is also a version of a “Take Away” close. If you let Frank be the guy that solves the issue, it will almost always be a much better solution than what you thought of. People will not burn down that which they helped to build. By the way, If Frank offers a solution, he just bought. I know this sounds silly but, STOP SELLING!!!! Let Frank buy. I can’t begin to tell you how many deals have been lost because the salesperson talked themselves out of a sale.
• Many of your colleagues method – Somewhere near the start of your presentation say, “You know Frank, many times when I am done meeting with a potential client like you, they are so excited about the products and services we provide, they can’t stop talking about them with their entire team. Unfortunately, they are often disappointed with the lack of enthusiasm the team conveys back. But my job is to show you how to make an announcement to your team that will make them want to learn more.
• That would be great if it worked method – Before you ask the closing question say, “The other day one of my potential clients told me that he wanted to poll his employees to see if they were interested. I told him that would be great if it worked. If that worked, I could just call every business owner in town, ask them to put me on hold and yell, ‘Does anyone here want to buy more insurance?’ Then I would know exactly where I needed to go.” Again, he will quickly see how ridiculous that sounds.
• Social proof method – During your presentation, name drop 2-3 of Frank’s competitors that have your product. Then simply say, “You know what all three of these companies had in common? Their business owners were skeptical that their employees would be interested. Fortunately, they decided to bring us in, present to their employees, and then gauge their interest. I’m convinced that if we had done it the other way around, the employees wouldn’t have been interested. Heck if you were to ask me if I was interested in sitting through an insurance presentation, I’d tell you no way, and I’m in the industry!”

Conclusion: No one wants to meet with us until they meet with us. (Tweet That)

Question: What other objections can you blow up with a preemptive strike? Continue the conversation below. I promise that I will respond to every comment and email personally and promptly.