Episode 225: Selling – The Art of Disqualification

Welcome to the Unstoppable Profit Podcast. This podcast will give independent insurance agents all of the tools to grow your business and live life on your terms. Wherever you are today, if you're starting with nothing or well on your way to the success you desire, with the right people, processes and promotions in place, you will be unstoppable. And now I'd like to introduce your host, Mike Stromsol.

Greetings and welcome to the next episode of the Unstoppable Profit Podcast. By the way, if you're watching this podcast, then you see I have a shirt on that says hashtag UPP Life. And I get a lot of questions. What is up life? It's a way of life. It's a way of life where you've implemented excellent people, world class processes and systems and you're simply promoting the heck out of it in the way that we teach in the Unstoppable Profit Producer program. And what's that result for you? It means that you've got peace of mind. Knowing that you can have freedom whenever you want it or need means your organization. You, an agency owner, leader and your organization are dialed in. You have a plan, you have a vision, not only for the next quarter, for the next one year, for the next three years and beyond, you've got it all dialed in. Is going to be perfect. No, but it's a way of life and that's what we want for everybody that we're able to connect with. And thank you, thank you for coming to this episode of the Unstoppable Profit Podcast. I am super pumped and excited today because we're going to talk about something very, very simple, which is how we try to keep it, the super complicated business plan ready. You're not going to want to miss this. Get clients, keep clients. That's it. That's all we need to do. Get clients and keep clients. And today we're going to talk about just one of them, the getting clients portion of business. It's not overly complex. It just takes great planning and focus and daily habits and knowing how to do it the right way. And I want to share with you part of doing it the right way. That's really going to save you a lot of time and aggravation. If saving time and aggravation and the sales process is important to you or something you want to learn more about, then get something to write with and something to write on. Because you don't want to think this, you want to ink this, you want to document it. Let's get ready. I am Privileged and thankful and grateful to have over 35 years of experience as a 100 of the time proud independent insurance agent. And I want to share with you something that I learned over 20 years ago. And I will never forget the day that I learned this. I remember seeing, studying it was an audio training at that point. Remember cassette tapes? That's what it was. It was a cassette tape. But I learned it, I implemented it and it changed everything forever. Not only from a mindset standpoint, but in the way that I sold in the insurance agency business. And I learned it from a gentleman by the name of Jacques Worth. He said, american males, you have complete permission to call me Jack. And so from Jack Worth I learned this. Jack Worth, who's actually now retired, he was the founder and past president of High Probability Selling. It was a sales consulting and training organization for salespeople. He observed hundreds of salespeople in his trainings in many different industries while they interacted with prospects and customers. And most importantly, he learned what the top 1% of the world's best salespeople and I know that's you or it's going to be you. He learned what the top 1% of the world's best salespeople do that the other 99% do not do. And that's what he taught. And one of the things that I'm going to share with you today is a leading strategy in that realm. And simply it's the art of disqualification. Yep, the art of disqualification. And we effectually in our circles we call it the triple no go. So simply, the better the question, the better the result. The better the question, the better the result. I have a list in front of me of 12 developed triple no go questions to ask a prospect. Because your goal is to get to the brass tacks as fast as possible as to whether you want to do business with the candidate or the prospect or not. Do you want to do business with them or not? If they are not within your ideal client avatar, you want to move them on as fast as you can because there are millions of prospects out there in the world, millions of them. You don't need millions of them, you just need maybe a few thousand. And so you've just got to go through them and weed them out and only get to the cream of the crop that you want to do business with. That's why we've also developed the sales growth accelerator for people that we work with. So you have the plan and everything else, but once you get that all together, you want to disqualify people as quickly as you can. So let me go through the top 12, and I'm just going to give you some examples on the podcast today of the top 12, and the number one is this. So imagine this or picture this. Remember, the mind works on images. Imagine this or picture this. Prospects calling in on the phone. Got it? Good. Okay, so I'm answering the phone. Okay. Hey, great to meet you, Joe. Thanks so much for contacting us today. Let me ask you a couple of questions to make best use of your time. I want to respect your time and I know you don't have a lot of it, so let me ask you a couple of questions to make the best use of your time. And this is obviously after you get their phone number and maybe other contact information just in case you get disconnected, right? Yeah. You never want to lose a prospect. So, Joe, why did you call us today?

And that's what you do. You shut the heck up.

All kinds of answers are going to come back. Why did you call us today? I'm not happy in my current situation. My agent's not calling me back. I'm not happy about the price. I had a bad, bad claims experience. Whatever, whatever, whatever. But open ended question. Why did you call us today? Let them answer. Let them tell you why they called you today. Thanks, Joe. Appreciate that. Next question. Are you happy with your current agent.

Again? Shut up and let them answer. They're going to tell you. Yeah, I'm happy with my current agent, but, you know, the price keeps going up. Or I'm not happy with, you know, some paperwork that I'm getting. Or, or, Or I'm happy with the agent, but I'm not happy with the situation. Fantastic. We're just trying to get to the truth, Joe. Thank you. So how long have you been with your current agent or company?

I've been with them for 20 years. That's good. That shows loyalty, right? Oh, I've only been with MLS for a year. I shop hard every single year and I'm always looking to save as much money as possible. So I change agents often. Well, that's information you need to know, right? The art of disqualification. Okay. And then you go right for the jugular. Number four. So, Joe, are you price shopping today?

Exactly. Shut the heck up. If they're price shopping, that may not be somebody that you want to do business with. And if they are, end the call. It's really that simple. There's millions of more prospects out there for you. Okay, next, number five. And this is where I originally ended up. With five. Okay. I've built onto that over the years and I'm going to share with. Share those with you in just a moment. Okay? But number five is. So, Joe, is your current agent a family member?

Again, shut the heck up and let them answer. But the thought process here is this. If they say yes, you are not going to change their mind about doing business with you. And they are using you and using your time to. To leverage themselves to get a better rate. It's that simple. So if they're a family member, end the call or the session. Period.

Now. Time to move on. Those are the first five questions in the art of disqualification. I've used them and I've used them and I've used them to weed out the tire kickers, if you will, and really get to the people in our ideal prospect avatar or ideal client avatar that we want to do business with. Because there's millions of opportunities out there. Especially, I mean, if you've got a referral program as an example, and you've got 800 people, 800 clients, I should say, if you got 800 clients, they all know 100 other people, 100 other people that will come to your wedding or come to your funeral. That's 80,000 opportunities. What more is it that you want? You. You got this. All right, so those are the top five triple no go disqualification questions. And I've developed some others over the years. I'm going to share those with you right now. A number of these are normally in more complex accounts, whether you, for instance, if you're writing the entire personal lines account, or you have a commercial insurance account where you've got risk management included as well as. Okay, so that's where these types of questions might come in so that you can learn more. You're just looking to learn, one, to disqualify as quickly as you can. Two, on how you can better serve people in their insurance programs. So the next one is, what do you want your insurance program to accomplish?

Now that's kind of a deep thinking question, right? What do you want your insurance program to accomplish? Well, first, I would hope your candidate, your prospect or your candidate would say something to the effect of, I want to make sure that our family is properly protected against financial.

Risk. And I want to make sure that all, all that we've earned so far, our properties, our savings, our investments, et cetera, et cetera, are financially protected against anything that might happen. That would be a great answer. Or over in the commercial insurance realm, what do you want your insurance program to Accomplish. I want to make sure that our risks are protected. I want to make sure that our management of risks has a plan that's consistently implemented. I want you to partner with our company to make sure that we consistently implement that. I want us to have a team in place that will make sure it's taken care of. I've got other things to do in the running and leading of our business and I don't have time to be concerned about this. That would be a good answer. What do you want your insurance program to accomplish? Number seven, can you locate your insurance your current insurance policies immediately? Can you locate your current insurance policies immediately? Now nowadays in today's world of technology, AI and the such, that might not be his concern as much anymore. Larger commercial or mid to larger commercial? Yes. But our friends at companies such as can it be Connect and others make that super, super easy for you. And I was just actually in a coaching session with an agent yesterday and that agent said to me, mike, my tech stack in combo with agent with Canopy Connect has me completely dialed in. And we are virtually unstoppable because of the fact that we know exactly who we're going to go after. And if they don't come to the table with exactly what we ask for, we don't do business. We don't. We say we can't provide you a quote, we recommend you look somewhere else. They are that dialed in. Okay. And it's the answer to the question, can you locate your current insurance policies immediately? In that particular case, they use Canopy Connect for all of their personal lines.

Prospecting if you will, because they can get logged into their current insurance program and pull their deck pages immediately. So great strategy. So they have made the highest and best use of their time and they've got completely dialed in. Okay, next question. Other than cost, what is most important to you when you think about your family's insurance protection? Or other than cost, what is most important to you when you think about your business's insurance protection?

Great question, right? Ask them and shut the heck up. Okay. And you can add on some sub questions. Once they get them start talking. Is it protection from lawsuits? Catastrophic coverage for your home or your business buildings? Is it your claims being covered? So you're starting to dig into areas here that they might have pain. And the higher that pain meter, on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the most throbbing intense painful pain, the higher that number on the pain meter, the more your opportunity exists right now. And so that's what we're looking to get to other than cost, what's the most important thing to you when you think about your families or your businesses? Insurance Protection. Again, what we're looking to do is get price off the table. You don't want to sell on price, you want to sell on protection and what you can bring to the table to properly protect them. Okay, next number nine. Have you had any claims problems with your current carriers in the last five years? Have you had any claims problems with your current carriers in the last five years? Again, you're looking to uncover how good a job their current provider is doing with regard to claims, which is the most important reason that we exist in the insurance business. Because I mean, look, people don't want to talk about their insurance, they don't want to think about their insurance, they don't want to deal with their insurance, they certainly don't want to change their insurance and they don't want to pay for it and they certainly don't want to use it. But when they need it, it better be there. Okay, so great question, right, to uncover whether they've had any discomfort, if you will, with regard to claims in the last five years. Next, number 10. Overall, has your current insurance agency or provider. Now you need to learn to shift here a little bit because provider might be a direct captive relationship. As an example, overall, has your current agency or provider lived up to your expectations of them? Another kind of open ended question, but a good question to keep digging and uncovering where they're at. Okay. Has your current agency or carrier lived up to your expectations of them? Overall.

Yes or no? We're looking to get them talking about their satisfaction with current relationship and what I have found over the years. When I get the answers to these questions and conversation with the prospect, I know exactly my plan of attack. I know it exactly or I know that I'm going to walk away because there's probably nothing that I can do unless they're willing to say sign a broker record if that makes sense. But it's early in that conversation so far. Okay, next number 11, how many? And this is an important one. And you may want to move this up the ladder. It's completely up to you. You handle it and manage it the way that works best for you. Okay, how many different agents are currently working on your insurance program and in today's hard opportunity, that's an important question, right? Because there aren't too many carriers writing business right now. And if you've got them, good likelihood other agents that are out there writing business have the same carriers. So you want to get to this question maybe earlier. Nowadays, how many different agents are currently working on your insurance program?

And if they say I've got five or six agents working on it right now because I want to make sure I get the best deal, you likely want to say, Sam, that's fantastic. I'm glad to hear that you've been able to reach a number of agents in the marketplace. You're already in a good place and there is likely nothing that we can do for you. But, but wait, I was recommending by, by my neighbor and another person that I know to be the best agent in the area. Sam, thank you so much for saying that. There is a way that we can do business, but it will take us doing some paperwork and we may or may not be able to get it done by your renewal date. Thank you, I respect that. But I want to do what's in your best interest, Sam. So you got again, get back to the art of disqualification. The art of disqualification. Lastly for today.

Sam, thank you so much for sharing all the information and helping us get really, really clear that on how we can best serve you. My last question for you in this initial conversation, Sam, what would it take for you to leave your current agent or carrier.

If we can do everything that you've told us that you want done in your insurance program? If we could come to the table, protection and price and everything else, risk management, everything else you've asked, Sam, what would it take for you to leave your current agent or carrier? And is that something that you're willing to do?

You got to get to the brass tacks and if they're just using you or leveraging you in any way, then you likely want to make a sound business decision and walk away and move on to, to the next prospect. It's really that simple. I can't tell you how many thousands of hours this has saved me over the years that's allowed me to work on high quality prospects. Instead of investing a lot of wasted time and dealing with tire kickers and people who aren't our ideal client, who are just trying to use us to get to a better price or whatever it is they're after and who aren't willing to give us all of their policies, they just want us to shop one of their policies.

The high performing, highly profitable independent insurance agency business is a business that has a plan, that knows what kind of accounts they want to write, that pursues the entire account, not monoline policies and is niche driven where possible to make sure that they are writing consistently the same type of account with regard to classification of business, etc. Etc. So that expertise continues to get better all of the time. That's all we want for you is to be able to build a phenomenal incredible insurance agency business. And I hope this share today on the Art of Disqualification has helped you. And if it has, please leave us some comments in the comments below. I would love to read them or if you have any questions, same thing, put it in the comments below. I would love to learn how we can serve you at a higher level. And if you need to stop this, if you're driving right now and need to go back and watch this, just simply go to YouTube. In the search box type Unstoppable Profit Producer. When you get there, go to videos and you will see all of our podcasts and all of our money making strategy series by the way are all there for your ongoing learning and higher achievement opportunity. So if you need to go back and write down those 12 questions in the Art of Disqualification, please do so as quickly as as you can. And I hope this has helped you today. And if this is your first time on the podcast, welcome. My name is Mike Strom, so I'm widely recognized as a leading author, speaker and coach for the independent insurance agency business. You can learn more about everything that we do @unstoppable profit producer.com if you're interested in attending one of our virtual or live events, you can learn more about our live events at Be Unstoppable Boot Camp or our virtual events are at uppfaststart.com all of our events are designed to share with you our best money making strategy strategies developed over 35 years of research as a 100 of the time proud independent insurance agent and all designed to help you grow your business, create wealth so you too can have more freedom to live life on your own terms and plagues. Please make sure that you subscribe to our podcast. Just just go to unstoppable profit podcast.com go up to the top, click subscribe so you won't miss one valuable episode. And if you got great value out of this podcast, please share it with somebody else that you know that you care about in the industry or outside the industry. Because you know a lot of the things that we talk about here are business principles. Business principles. Okay, so thank you so much for tuning in and we're available on all the channels out there. Apple Podcast, Spotify, stitcher again, our YouTube channel, Amazon and more. So it's really super easy to find us on the channel of your choice. And again, thank you for joining us today. I look forward to seeing you on the next episode. And until then, get out there, make a difference, be unstoppable, leave no regrets. And it's not going to start by thinking about it. It's not going to happen by talking about it. Only action is going to get you to your next win or, or your next lesson. I'll see you in the next podcast.

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