B2B insurance sales can be a difficult task even with a relatively eager agency prospect. There is a budget approval process that includes a CFO review, buy-in from key team members, coordination of schedules, legal review, and finally writing. These are just a few of the many challenges inherent in any B2B sale. Add to those obstacles, a prospect who is a good candidate for your insurance solution, but has objections to your value proposition or a high-level relationship with a competitor at the “C-level” executive, and we’ve just touched on some of the main obstacles in a B2B insurance sales cycle. How can these objections be overcome and an agreement reached? Here are some tips to help you overcome objections and create an easier path to the sale:
- Anticipate the most common objections and have answers ready.
- Create a list of bonus points to build on: Your elevator pitch may only be 30 seconds long, but there are a lot of nuances to your value proposition that you need to have in your back pocket.
- Have examples of customer successes that are similar to your prospect and be ready to share them verbally and in writing (customer case studies).
- Drop the name when it’s relevant, but if you’re going to do this, make sure you’re on solid ground.
- Understand the solutions and propositions of competing insurance agencies, and determine how and why your solution is superior. Your superior solution might simply be the service you bring to the table.
- Find a methodology to create a unique value proposition, differentiating you and your agency from your competitors. Often the best way to do this is articulated in the following bullet point.
- Sell by telling stories. The stories are more interesting and the information conveyed is much more sticky. You may not remember the details of the last meeting you attended, but I bet you remember all the salient details about “The Boy Who Cried Wolf,” and that story goes all the way back to Aesop.
By following these few tips, B2B insurance agents, or just about any B2B sales professional, can improve their conversion rate and create an improved sales cycle. B2B selling is both an art and a science, it is a numbers game and therefore quantitative, but it is also a definitely qualitative process that requires constant review and self-assessment.
