 Hey, welcome to Phone Phenom. If you're just now joining us, we shoot a video every single Tuesday focused on helping you be better on the phone and being a Phone Phenom. If you're just now joining us, if you've never heard of us before, we're going to talk about the five easy phone sales tips for life insurance agents today. When I was 20 years old, I made $117,000 in my first eight months as a life insurance agent. I've grew multiple call centers. We market for the three largest final expense call centers in the country, and we focus on helping insurance agents in any way we can. We also have 8% Nation. It's going to be in Vegas. We're going to have 2,000 insurance agents there. But today, I want to talk about five easy phone sales tips that you can implement right away and see success with. Stay with me as I go through each one of these. Number one of five is to gain control early in the call. I would say that most agents do not gain control early in the call. What happens is they end up leaving that up to the prospect. They let the prospect take control. They let the prospect interject. They let the prospect give you an objection. They let the prospect jump in and gain control, overcome the call, etc. Great salespeople gain control early in the call. And what I mean by that is, okay, Betty, hey, it's Cody, hey, getting back to you about this, okay, now I'm a local-filled underwriter. You put your security password as this. Hey, I'm assuming you remember doing that, right? Excellent. Well, hey, I'm here to help with these state regulated final expense programs that put me in charge of your account. And I'm going to give you the information right now. So let me ask you a couple of quick questions. Okay, and they just jump in. They gain control early in the call. If that's not you, it needs to be, and it can be, and you need to think about your calls. Even what I love to do is actually record the calls, listen back to them and say, okay, did I gain control of the call? What did I say? How did I say it? And did I say what I need to say? Okay, because that's the best way to learn. So number one, gain control early in the phone call, all right? Number two, okay? Number two, out of the five easy phone sales tips is, I would say don't listen to objections, okay? You could also consider that ignore, okay? And I would say that it's not like I typically totally ignore them, but for an easy phone sales tip for a new agent, it would be do not listen or give validity to the objection that you're hearing. When they jump in early in the call and say I'm not interested, or I didn't do it, or I'm broke, or I have no money, or I don't have time, or my, you know, I'm not the decision maker, et cetera. It's too early in the call to listen to that. And when you listen to it, when you respond, when you assume it's true, you give validity to something that may or may not be true yet. So I want to discourage you to giving validity to objections, ignore them, don't listen to them, move past them, because it's human nature to give an objection. When you walk into a store, okay, when you walk into a store, they say, hey, how may I help you? Well, I'm just looking, you know, or can I help you? And you say I'm just looking, I'm just shopping, right? Or not yet, I don't know, right? And then a minute later, I'm like, I'm looking for a freaking cord, why didn't I ask them for help? But it's human nature to say I'm just looking, I'm just shopping, to give objections, okay? So don't listen to objections. And if you had to work an objection, and you believe it's true, then use my three aced overcoming objections, which is agree, answer, and ask. I was just training my service team this morning at 815. I do that every single day, 815 to 830. And what we've been talking about is being agreeable. When someone says, dude, I, you know, I hate your service. Most people get disagreeable, combative, you should be agreeable, which is rare, and it kind of surprises people when you are. So don't listen to objections, all right? Number three, let's jump right in. Number three is ask questions, that also helps put you in control, okay? Ask questions, and then shut up and listen. Most people talk too much on the phone. And the best way to gain control is to have them talking. I know it sounds different. I know it sounds backwards. I make sales when I ask questions and I listen, okay? When they talk more than I do, I generally make the sale. When I talk more than they do, I typically don't, okay? So that's backwards for most salespeople and how you're trained, and how you're trained as a kid. You don't gain control by puking on them, by talking a lot. You gain control by asking questions, and then shutting up and listening. And I'm not saying asking two or three questions and ad-libbing and talking a bunch. I've got like, I've got some people here that do that. And some people that will be trained do that. Some people like, Coach, do that. But you don't need to do that. You need to ask questions, then you need to stop and you need to listen, and you need to let them respond. And if they say, I don't know, then you need to use a hypothetical. So if you say, hey, who do you currently have for your who do you currently have for your life insurance? If they say I don't know, you need to immediately jump in and say, well, if you had to choose, okay? Psychologically, you don't want people not answering your questions. When you allow them to not answer your question, you are telling them it's okay to not answer my question. You don't have to answer my questions anymore, and you're in control. Get answers to your questions by asking questions and then shutting up and listening. This is a valuable phone sales tip, because this is what gets most agents in trouble is not stopping asking questions, regaining control of the call, and then listening to what they say. I'm sure Jordan Belfer would say the same thing. He's speaking at 8% in 2020. I'm assuming he would say the same thing, which is, I guarantee he would. Number four, this is a little more advanced as we move down the list. This one's a little more advanced. I would say the last two. Number four, take it away. And I didn't promise not to have the best handwriting in the world, as you're probably noticing. Number four, take it away. What I mean by that is, constantly take it away. When you are talking to someone, I'm hoping I can get you approved. You may qualify. I'm not sure if you'll be able to get this, but I'm hoping that you can. Or I've had other people in the past that they really wanted this, but the last person I talked to, they begged me for it. However, they weren't in good enough health to qualify. So there's some factors to indicate, we don't accept everyone. If you make it seem that way, it's like you're taking it away from them. And people don't like it when you take stuff away from them. Instead of just saying, hey, everybody qualifies. I want you to, I want to sell you insurance, and I want you to buy, and everybody can do it. Instead, I love to take it away. Hey, you may qualify. Hey, you may be able to get this. I'm not sure. I'm hoping you'll be able to get this. They're great programs. They're great plans. And I would love for you to be a client of ours. However, I'm not sure that you'll be able to get it. You have to qualify. There's steps to this. And I'm going to make sure that I explain everything, and that I show you everything, and that you make an educated informed decision, and that when it comes time, you're prepared and you're ready to make that decision. And hopefully, we can get you approved because I would love to get everyone approved. However, it's not always possible. And I know there's people out there that I wish I could have helped that they also wish I could have helped them, but I can't help everybody. Take it away. Use some jargon and some language to be able to take it away. And professional advanced salespeople know how to take it away in the middle of the sale when they ask questions, so that they want it even more. And it also comes down to the value when you're building the benefits, and you're going through the value of the benefits, and you're getting engagement, and you're asking those eight, nine trial closes that we talk about. That's a big piece of that. It's to take it away. Number five is to assume every step of the way. Assume they're going to answer the phone. Assume you're talking to the right person. Assume that they're going to allow you to gain control of the call. Assume that they're going to answer all your questions. Assume that they're going to afford it. Assume they're going to pick the middle option when you give them three options. Assume that they're going to answer every question along the way. Assume that they would love this. Assume that they have the need. Assume they can afford it. Assume they want it. Assume everything successful. Because a successful salesperson that wants to get great at phone selling is not going to ask a question, are you interested in this? That's never going to come out of your mouth. If it is, let's cut it out. Successful professional salespeople instead would say or would ask, I'm assuming that this is of interest to you, which is why you responded. Now let me ask you a couple of quick questions to see if we can get you approved. That's a different way of saying the exact same thing because what happens is, yes I want you to ask questions, but this is where the assuming comes in. Professional salespeople tell. They don't ask. They ask questions. They don't ask for permission though and they don't ask if someone wants to do it. They tell the person, this is what I recommend. This is why it comes with all these benefits. You're going to love it. Here's the three options. I recommend this one. Which one would you prefer? They keep it simple and they tell. They educate. They build value. They don't ask for permission or they don't ask. Are you going to do this? I'd love for you to do this. Can you do this for me? Do you like this? I'm assuming that you love this, correct? That is being assumptive. That is taking it away and that will get you what you want. These are the five easy phone sales tips you need to implement right away. If you like this video then I guarantee there's two others that you want to check out right now. Top five mistakes that new insurance agencies make on the phone or the five step process for converting a lead to a sale. Go check those out and I'll see you there.