B2B insurance sales can be a difficult endeavor even with a relatively eager agency prospect. There is a budget approval process including a CFO review, buy in from key team members, the coordination of schedules, legal review and finally getting pen to paper. These are just some of the many challenges inherent in any B2B sale. Add to those obstacles, a prospect that is a good candidate for your insurance solution, but has objections to your value proposition or a relationship on a high level with a competitor on the "C level" executive and we've just touched upon some of the key obstacles in a B2B insurance sales cycle. How can you overcome these objections and get an agreement? Here are a few tips that will help you get past the objections and create an easier path to the sale:
- Anticipate the most common objections and have prepared responses ready.
- Create a list of additional points to leverage – your elevator pitch may only be 30 seconds long, but there are many nuances to your value proposition that you should have in your back pocket.
- Have examples of successes with clients which are similar to your prospect, and be ready to share these verbally and in writing (client case studies).
- Name drop whenever relevant – but if you're going to do this make sure you're on solid ground.
- Understand competing insurance agency solutions and pitches, and determine how and why your solution is superior. Your superior solution might just be the service you bring to the table.
- Find a methodology to create a unique value proposition, differentiating yourself and your agency from your competitors. Often, the best way to do this is articulated in the next bullet.
- Sell by telling stories. Stories are more interesting and the information conveyed is much stickier. You may not remember the details of the last meeting you attended – but I bet you remember all of the salient details about the "The Boy Who Cried Wolf", and that story dates back to Aesop.
Following these few tips, B2B insurance agents, or for that matter, almost any B2B sales professional can improve their conversion ratio and create an improved sales cycle. B2B selling is both an art and a science, it's a numbers game and is thus quantitative, but it is also a definitively qualitative process requiring constant review and self assessment.
