Not that many people noticed, but I took a week off from the blog last week as I tried to regroup a bit. I wanted to use the time to consider a few options. Partly from general burn out and partly because coming up with a new insurance related topic three times a week is harder than I thought, I mulled some stuff over and have decided to make a few changes.
Part of the problem is that I continue to write another blog on sales and marketing twice a week. I appreciate that it makes me do research on new products and keeps my brain "flexing it's muscles", but it was becoming a bit much.
After some consideration I will be changing the format here a bit. There will probably be only one (two at most) blogs each week, with less text and more video. This helps me because I'm a decent writer but I can knock out a short video on a topic in a minute or two, which is about the same time it would take you to read one of my blogs.
I'm looking forward to sharing more information on life insurance, disability, long term care, accident and cancer insurance, as well as our other plans.
To start us off on a lighter note, here is a good submission for you. If you have any ideas or suggestions, please leave us a comment. Thanks and please subscribe.
Chris Castanes is the president of Surf Financial Brokers, helping people find affordable life, disability, long term care, cancer, accident and other insurance coverages in North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee and Georgia. He's also is a professional speaker helping sales people be more productive and efficient, and has spoken to professional and civic organizations throughout the Southeast. And please subscribe to this blog!
Selling insurance is a serious business to most people. Let's face it, life insurance, disability insurance and other lines like cancer and accident plans are heavy subjects. Sitting with a client and talking about how their family will handle it when they die isn't the happiest discussion of the day. And asking them how they think their loved one will handle the family's finances if they can't work or become chronically ill is necessary, but not the kind of conversation one considers enjoyable.
As an agent and insurance broker, I've had people tell me that they just want to avoid these doom and gloom topics. I completely understand that our everyday lives are full of negativity and bad news, especially with a pandemic and economic troubles in the news each day. But some topics, like making sure that your family is taken care of, have to be considered.
With this in mind, I try to keep the conversation serious, but not too serious. Half of the battle is to keep a good demeanor and let the client know that the seriousness of what we are trying to accomplish, which is securing the financial future of a family.
However, sometimes a little humor injected into a conversation lightens the mood. I'm not advocating wearing a clown outfit when meeting with clients. But I do think that tossing in a little humor doesn't hurt anyone and keeps it all in perspective. Check out the video below to see how a bit of humor is okay.
A good example of this is when I discuss life insurance with a client. Part of the talk usually involves funeral costs. The average funeral runs about $7360, according to the National Funeral Directors Association, and there are usually some other expenses associated with death, like a brief hospital stay. To be safe, I may give a client an illustration for $10k. I sometimes will include a second illustration for $15k and show that as well.
When the client asks why I show two illustrations I say, "The first quote covers the cost of your funeral. The second one is for the funeral plus an open bar for your mourners." That usually gets a chuckle. I even had one client take the higher coverage.
In my 20+ years in the business, I've worked with people who tried to be either too serious, or thought that they were standup comedians. Personally, I try to get to know my client a bit before trying to inject jokes. And I have even had clients who took a dark subject, like their own death, and made light of it.
One client of mine began by telling me, in front of his wife and kids, that he had been shopping around for someone to cremate him and was on the hunt for the best rates. "I think I've got a guy down to $750, but I want him to guarantee that rate." His wife looked on in horror as he laughed at his own comment. "She's worried that the crematorium will increase the price when I'm not around to argue," he said with a sly grin. Dark humor at it's best.
Someone once said that people won't always remember everything you say, but they will remember how you made them feel when you said it. I don't expect my clients to remember every facet of the policy they are considering, but I do want them to feel comfortable and know that I'm looking out for their best interest, hopefully with a little humor.
Chris Castanes is the president of Surf Financial Brokers, helping people find affordable life and disability insurance coverage. He's also is a professional speaker helping sales people be more productive and efficient and has spoken to professional and civic organizations throughout the Southeast. And please subscribe to this blog!
The Greek word for "insurance" is "asfalisi", which literally means "security". Not like a security guard, but more like a security blanket. In other words, insurance makes us feel secure knowing that if something bad should happen to us, like an accident or health crisis, our bills will be taken care of and so will our loved ones.
People love to "get away from it all", with trips, vacations, hobbies or music. We all need something to take our minds off of the everyday issues we deal with, from work to family, traffic to bad neighbors. There's a lot of stress out there and some in the medical community point to this stress as the root of a gamut of medical problems. And the cause can be those nagging little voices in the back of our heads letting us know if we get sick or hurt, we still have bills to pay.
Are you the breadwinner of the family? What would happen to your loved ones if you were to die too soon? Could your spouse and children stay in their home? What about debt? Who is going to pay those bills? Can the kids go to college? And what about those day-to-day expenditures, like when the refrigerator breaks down or you need a car in a pinch?
Sure, you could do something like a GoFundMe page, but why not avoid all of that by purchasing a life or disability insurance policy from now? And with a pandemic all around us now is a great time to call us at Surf Financial Brokers and have a conversation.
We hear people always say that life is too short to suffer through all the aggravations and stress. Let us help you get a little more peace of mind with coverage that is affordable. And stay healthy!
When we think of retirement planning, we usually think of traveling, visiting the grandchildren or working in our garden. Looking forward to age 65 is a milestone for a large number of us, but the reality can be quite different.
Did you know that only about 15% of Americans fully retire at 65? Most will just continue working or cut back on the hours they work. And self-employed people, such as business owners or 1099 employees just keep working as well because they know the boredom will set in and want to stay active.
When I talk to groups about retirement years, I go over the three stages of retirement:
The Go Go Years - This is when we think of retirement as traveling and having a good time.Visiting the grandchildren, going on cruises and days full of pickleball sound great, and if you have some money saved up you can move to a great retirement community.
The Slow Go Years - As the name implies, maybe we need to take it a bit easier. "Piddling" in the garden and staying closer to home. Sometimes a health related issue or an accident begin this part of the process.
The No Go Years - Serious health problems and aging keeps us in home or a facility. This can also be the time when you can go through most of your savings due to healthcare costs, even if you are not in a facility. As a matter of fact, home healthcare services can cost up to twice as much as a nursing or assisted living facility.
Unfortunately, when planning for those retirement years, we fail to plan for the No Go years. Some have their heads in the sand, not thinking it will happen to them. According to the Motley Fool, 69% of people will need long term care insurance. And you're likely to need it from 1 to 3 years. Given that care in a facility isn't cheap, and in-home care is even more expensive, why not shift the burden of the costs to an insurance carrier instead of wiping out everything you've worked your whole life for?
There's a myth that the government will take care of you. Signals from politicians show differently and we don't recommend you rely on it.
Fortunately, there are options and depending on your age and health, you can find something in your budget. The long term care insurance landscape has changed over the last few years. Many insurance are acting as if they no longer want to be in that part of the business by selling off those books of clients to other carriers, while others have changed their policies by decreasing the rich benefits they previously offered for years.
However, there are still a handful of carriers still offering long term care policies. And now we even offer a short term home healthcare policy which is a great way to stay in your own home affordably. In addition to these options, many life insurance policies now offer "living benefits" in their coverage which can help with the dilemma of being chronically ill.
If you would like more information about planning for your future healthcare costs, contact us or use our "Books a Free Consultation" tool. We'll be happy to have a phone conversation with you. And as always, stay healthy. Chris Castanes is the president of Surf Financial Brokers, helping people find affordable life and disability insurance coverage. He's also is a professional speaker helping
sales people be more productive and efficient and has spoken to
professional and civic organizations throughout the Southeast. And please subscribe to this blog!
When I first got into sales professionally I was taught to cold call and the mentality that went with it. I was selling accident plans door-to-door in rural areas of North Carolina and the hours were grueling. We'd have a meeting in the morning of a local diner and then spread out to assigned areas throughout the county.
Dropping by someone's home unannounced was the nature of the work, and many times the people were home. If someone was home, I'd go through my spiel only to be told that they wanted to wait for their spouse to come home and discuss it over. The whole scenario was dumb.
Through all of this I learned that how to introduce myself to total strangers, how to persevere through a lot of rejection, but most importantly, not to be afraid of the cold calling process. Knocking on doors was easy if you could handle people not wanting our product.
A few years later I sold office supplies for a small company. With just a few accounts I had adopted from a previous salesman and barely any knowledge of the products, I had to develop my own strategy to build a clientele. Using my experiences from the world of accident plans, I methodically worked one office building at a time, walking in with something in my hand to give out other than a business card. I would distribute our new catalog, or a sale flyer that I designed myself (this was before everyone had a computer with a word processor).
Working B2B was so much easier than calling on people in their homes and my success rate was above average when you consider the resources I was given. People were happier to see me at their businesses than their homes.
That office supply company was okay, but there was no room for growth and I didn't want to be an old guy asking people if they needed paper clips. I eventually got back into insurance again, but I decided to call on businesses to grow my book of business. Many times the sales calls result in individual policies, so it all works out.
Cold calling has gone by the wayside for most people nowadays. There are other ways to get clients, but I still use those basic skills to work a room or networking event.
Recently, Chris Castanes, the president of Surf Financial Brokers, has released his first book, "You're Going To Be Great At This!", a humorous look at his career in sales. Part primer and part memoir, this books gives you the inside scoop on recruiters, sales managers and crazy customers.
If you are considering a career in sales or are already in the business of selling, this book can give you the lay of the land so that you will see the obstacles before they become problems. Drawing from a career selling insurance, office supplies, retail and even telemarketing, "You're Going To Be Great At This!" is filled with lessons learned and plenty of "dumb stories".
And if you are a customer, client, buyer or consumer, there's something in the book for you as well. With a mixture of humor and a little bit of bad taste, "You're Going To Be Great At This!" might give you a chuckle or two.
"You're Going To Be Great At This!" is available on Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle edition and can be found here.
