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Today, let's explore the mindset of our Final Expense clients. While countless conferences and training sessions focus on fostering a successful salesperson mindset, truly comprehending our clients' mindset can unlock the doors to remarkable sales performance. As independent agents and entrepreneurs, we possess the self-starter spirit that many of our prospects lack. To excel in the Final Expense business, we must understand the unique mindset of our clients, the Professional Procrastinators, and employ effective strategies to guide them towards making crucial decisions.

The Professional Procrastinator Mindset:

1. They avoid making decisions instantly, often citing the need for more information or time to think. However, the underlying reason is their discomfort with decision-making and their belief in their own immortality.
2. They take pride in stalling decisions and have perfected this skill throughout their lives, from chores to job-related decisions.
3. They justify their indecision by finding flaws in the salesperson's approach, such as their appearance, demeanor, or the questions they ask.

Strategies for Overcoming the Professional Procrastinator Mindset:

1. Master the art of the assumptive close and establish yourself as an advisor, not a salesperson. Assume that you will close the sale and guide your clients through the process as they are accustomed to being led.
2. Create an environment conducive to the sale by taking control of the situation from the moment you walk in. Turn off distractions, establish a professional atmosphere, and address any environmental issues.
3. Guide your clients through the decision-making process by being a "kind bulldog" – assertive without being offensive. Establish your role as their advocate and expert, and lead them through a seamless presentation that allows them to commit to a budget and make a decision without feeling pressured.

The Key to Success: To effectively employ these strategies, you must truly believe in the value of the product you sell and the benefits it offers your clients. Maintaining high standards of integrity is crucial, as is understanding that by not closing a sale, we are doing a disservice to our clients. By learning how our clients think and guiding them towards making a decision, we can ensure that they do not leave their loved ones with the burden of their final expenses.

© Copyright  Legacy Secure on MI Inc

Final expense will continue to be a very strong market providing leads and sales for years to come. The ever-increasing cost of final expenses continue to rise meaning premiums will continue to increase as well.

There are certain inherit traits to working the final expense market– the feeling of chasing business due to defaulted premium payments and no shows for appointments. The busier you are any chargebacks will melt away.

Reaching out to clients sometimes leads a mistake in account numbers provided at the time you took the application. This happens more often than you might think. I’ve lost count on how people gave me the wrong account number to their credit union checking or savings. It can be as simple as adding a “dash” that kicks back the account to the carrier.

“no shows” can be mitigated by never booking appointments longer than two days out. Even doing this still generates no-shows. It’s for this reason I book FE appointments in blocks of three with and extra 45 minutes between blocks. However, even with this habit I will schedule 6 to 7 appointments a day knowing I’ll most likely sit with half.

It’s for all of the above reasons I started looking at the Mortgage Protection Market. The sales process was very similar. It was a one-call close meaning, once I delivered my presentation my expectation was a decision and completed application.

I also found that 20% to 30% of the time I used a final expense product to complete the sale. Some people just couldn’t qualify for a term product to cover the whole mortgage, so I pivoted to covering monthly mortgage payments for a given time.

When I decide to mix in Mortgage Protection leads, the “no-shows” began to disappear and no one defaulted on their premium payments. As part of my fact-finding in running these leads I added the question of what they had setup for Final Expenses. Surprisingly, most had nothing, so more often then not I sold two policies for the breadwinner. Term to cover the mortgage and simple issue whole life to cover final expenses.

Working both markets reduced the number of Final Expense leads I needed every week from 30 to 20 when I added 10 Mortgage Protection leads every week. Using this weekly standing lead order mix gives me the opportunity to stay busy every week and keeps me at an average of $20k a month in sales.

© Copyright  Legacy Secure on MI Inc

Once a buying decision is made by a new client, often times they start to second guess their decision. What that really means is that their ideal picture has changed from the benefits they wanted to gain to the loss of money while living on a fixed income.

That's when buyer's remorse begins to set in. It's vital for any life insurance producer to cut off any doubts by addressing this issue in advance for this objection. This can be difficult to accomplish since what we offer is an intangible product, yet it can be done. The intangible product I am referring to is the need for a final expense life insurance plan.

If it’s one complaint I often hear from agents who work the final expense market its retention. After all policy retention will affect your commission, carrier contracting, and your time. If you’re paid an advance it can be daunting. Therefore, let’s discuss how to improve that aspect of the market.

Have you heard this one? “…don’t worry about chargebacks in final expense, it’s all about the numbers…you’ll have so many applications and policies in the pipeline you won’t even notice.” While that might be true if you’re submitting and placing 10-15 applications week in and week out, for the average agent doing half that amount (5-7 applications) it can feel like you are never getting ahead. Sending half your week chasing down NSF’s just to get policies back on the books.