Selling Price Increases

I was in a meeting the other day with a number of insurance agency owners talking about sales and the importance of de-commoditizing our industry.  I noticed an overwhelming concern from the meeting members that inexperienced agents are focused on trying to sell strictly on price rather than presenting the value they bring to the client.

Too many agents either don’t want to or don’t know how to explain premium increases to their clients.  They feel they must bring in cheaper quotes every year in order to keep them as a client.

As an industry we could do such a better job of becoming a valuable asset to our clients.  Clients won’t typically leave you or your agency unless they feel they have a reason to not trust you.  If he or she knows that what you’re presenting is the best value for their company (even if it’s more expensive than the prior year), they will be fine with it.

Agency owners and sales managers, we need to train our inexperienced agents on selling premium increases and how to properly present the value they bring to their client.  Until we start doing that we’re going to be stuck competing on price, which is a losing situation for everybody.

Here are some additional resources and articles related to this:

• NFIB: Selling Longtime Customers on Price Increases
• The Sales Hunter: The Price Increase Switching Game