Qualify Your Prospect Upfront By Using This Confidential Questionnaire. A Key Life Insurance Sales Training Topic.
Out of all the topics written in this website, this topic page, in my opinion, is the most important one you need to read and comprehend. It is the interview questionnaire I developed and refined throughout my selling years. But before I do that, let me set the stage. This objective of this questionnaire is to ask key questions before you get into your presentation. It helps to define you and your prospects intentions. I never expected a new agent to have this mastered in their first 10 or 12 interviews. It is something you will learn to master over time. Many companies provide a fact finding worksheet with all kind of personal data that you ask the prospect for, which is important. However they do not ask, what I consider the key questions that will help you actually make the sale and remove many of the objections at closing. By refining my fact finding questionnaire and asking questions upfront, I found out that I could minimize objections at closing and eliminate a number of other objections during the interview process. As an example, I would run into the following objection at closing, "Well I have to talk to my Father, my Mom, my Accountant, whoever?" So to eliminate that objection at closing I decided to include that question up front in my questionnaire. If they did have to visit with someone then I would say, when can we schedule an appointment with your Dad, Mom, CPA or whoever? More life insurance sales training: This fact finding session is where your sale is made or lost and is pertinent to the end result. Believe it or not, I actually closed on the sale using this questionnaire, even before I went through my presentation, by getting a money commitment from the prospect. Read on. As I explained in the sales process, when dealing with people. “People buy what they want and not what they need.” Find out what they want and develop your sales presentation around that theme. Learn to sell people on concepts and ideas, not products or insurance policies. What is it that this Insurance policy is going to do for me and my family? Let me explain. The Automobile Industry sells its cars and trucks around concept selling. (Eg: “This car will make you feel better. It makes you enjoy life more, and so on” verses it has a 500 hp engine and six spark plugs and a backup battery.)
Objective Of This Fact Finding Questionnaire
This is where you interrogate your prospect, as I call it. It is where you start to set the stage. As I have mentioned in some other topic pages, this is the area where most new agents fall flat on their face. You need to run the interview in an effective manner. You need to Learn to listen and ask the right questions. See Insurance Selling Tips. Most agents talk to much. They think they need to do all the talking to impress the prospect. One of the key ingredients in relationship building is let the other person start talking about themselves. Think about it for a second. Aren't you impressed with people who let you talk about yourself? Sales Tip: It is so important to ask the right questions and then shut up and listen. If you can get people to start talking about themselves and what they want and what their concerns are, it will help you set the theme for your presentation. When I say theme, this is the prospects hot button that you can then refer to through out the interview. As an example, let’s say you find out what their hot button is. Let’s say it is to make sure that his son or daughter gets a good education, or he wants to retire at 57, or he wants his wife to stay home and take of the kids while they are growing up. With that mind you can then continue to refer to that theme (or hot button) through out that interview. “Mr. Prospect, can you see how this program will allow you to achieve what you want, and that is to make sure your wife will be able to stay at home and be a mom while the kids are growing up in the event of your premature death.” If you do not establish that theme, then when you get to the close, you will be trying to sell the prospect on what you think he/she needs verses selling them what they want. You will then spend a lot of wasted time during the close throwing out all kind of different reasons in hopes that they will buy your product. In most cases you will walk out of the house without a sale. Why? Because you did not listen to what the prospect wanted and did not ask the right questions. Learn to listen. Let’s now take a quick look at what the questionnaire form looks like. The information below contains the additional information you can add to build your own questionnaire. 
Date: ___________ First name _________ Last name ______________ Age: __________ Birth date: ________ Spouse name:_______________ Age:__________Birth date: ________
Employer: ________________________ how long:_____ Spouse’s employer: __________________ how long: _____ Children: Names: /ages: ________________ ________________ _______________
****************************************************** (Now I would like some general information from you) Do You: Have a will: _______ last time updated:_________ Life Ins. owned: ______________ What Type: term/WL ______________ Any Group Life: _____________ Ins on spouse: ______________
Have disability Plan: ______ details: ________________
Own an IRA _____ type_____________ Have Health Ins______ Do you have mortgage? ____________ Do make extra mortgage payments? _______ ******************************************************** (Now I would like to get into more detail) Who helped you devise your current insurance and savings goals and what formula did you use to determine the amount of insurance you should own and the amount of money you should have available for retirement? _____________ A) What are your intermediate and long term goals? Own home __ education__ own business__ retirement __ travel __independence __Family security__ other:____________________
B) Which of the above financial goals do you consider most important at this time?___________________________ C) Other than what we talked about, are you doing anything else to achieve your financial goals? ______________________
What is your favorite type of savings plan? ______
What has been average rate of return over last 5 years? Are the earnings taxable? _____ How liquid are these funds for emergencies? _______
D) Based on today's dollar, how much retirement income would you need if you were to retire next month, assuming kids gone? $_________ month. At 6% interest, how much capital would this require? $__________ E) If your savings habits over the last 5 or 10 years continue to age 65, will you be happy with the results? ______ (Keep in mind if you are 35 years old, you only have 360 months left to save, and if you save $100 month, that is only $36,000. We have to maximize your dollars.) F) When making financial decisions, do you make your own or do have to consult someone? _________________________________
G) If I could show you an idea that would help you accomplish some or all your financial goals, and force you to set money aside on a regular basis, what could you force yourself to set aside or reposition on a monthly basis if you really liked some of the ideas I share with you. Of course, if you did not like any to the ideas I share with you, then I wouldn't expect you to do anything with me.
What dollar amount?? $5.00 week, $10.00 week, $15.00 week, $25 week $___________
(Note: If you can not get the prospect to agree to some type of dollar amount, for what ever reason, then there is no reason to even start the interview process. If a prospect told me they are not in a position to set any money aside for their financial future or family protection, I start to close my computer up or sales book and say “Mr. Prospect, since you are not in a position to do anything now, when would be a good time to get back to you? And before I left I would still ask for referred leads as this person will feel obligated and will give you plenty of leads)
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