Phil Jeynes's Blog
Phil Jeynes, Monday, 27 June 2011
Phil Jeynes is head of account development at PruProtect
Word of the day at last week’s Protection Review conference was “fluffy”. Aviva’s Louise Colley started off in her opening presentation wherein she talked us through the process of making their memorable life insurance advert (you know the one – Paul Whitehouse plays the deceased Dad) and the theme persisted throughout the following discussions and talks.
What we all kept coming back to was the need for us, as sellers of protection, to connect more with the emotional side of our customers – their fluffy side as it were.
When I first came into the industry and was trained to sell life cover (well, endowments in those days but we don’t need to dwell on that) the key was a technique called “disturbing the need”. The phrase has caused consternation with our regulators in recent years because of the implication of undue emotional pressure being placed on the customer.
This is a complete misinterpretation of what remains the fundamental groundwork for the sale of protection products; it is only by getting our clients to think about the potentially catastrophic effects a serious illness or death would have on their own life and the lives of their loved ones, that we can make them see the need for the products we have to offer.
Often in this world of compliance and regulation we forget the basics of what we do. The products we offer are vital for any family and unless we tap into their emotions we have no hope of making them see this and less chance of getting them to part with any amount of their hard earned cash.
We don’t need to be ham fisted in this endeavour (remember the miniature coffin sales trick? Ask anyone who was around at the same time as Allied Dunbar if not…), just a little bit fluffier.
