How to avoid buying back a sale 

Do you talk too much in sales meetings, like I did when I started?

My sales manager even told me after a failed sales call once that I had spent an hour making the sale and then the next 30 minutes buying it back. He meant that I had the deal and then I talked my way out of it. Ouch! That hurt.

This is more common than you think for reasons you may not expect. First, when someone asks you what time it is, you don’t have to tell them how to make a watch. That was my idea. It was a complicated image when I first heard the idea in the 1970s but now, making a Smartwatch? Imagine the story that would take!

If they want to know the time just give them the simple answer. Don’t get into the details about how and why watches work, the history of watches, the origin of timekeeping, and even time zone math. Just give them the time. It’s the same with insurance.

Next, in our noble pursuit of full disclosure, compliance, transparency, and proving our brilliance to everyone who will listen, we can feel it’s our duty to unload everything we know on the prospect, even the parts that don’t matter or aren’t even relevant to them. So, we dump the whole load, necessary or not.

It’s that information overload that buys back a deal. Please… clients need interpretation, not information. They want context not content, and they pray for wisdom not data.

They want the product of your expertise not the basis of it. And be sure to ask smart revelation questions too. Be an advisor.

Do that and you’ll speak less and sell more.   

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