Imagine this. And sorry for the dark image…

Imagine your great Aunt Betty just passed away and tomorrow is her funeral. You get dressed in your best and go to pay your respects with your family as you celebrate the life of your dear Aunt Betty. You’re thankful she lived to a whopping 91 years old. For the most part, she was happy and always made people laugh and feel special even though she never did have much. She would always say, “I may not have a lot of money but one thing I ain’t short of is a smile.” She always wanted to make people feel good. What a nice woman she was…

At the funeral, you hear Aunt Betty’s two sisters arguing about something. You think to yourself, what in the world could they be arguing about right now?! With a sigh, you walk over to them, clear your throat and quietly say, “Umm, Aunt Brenda and Aunt Shirley, we’re supposed to be celebrating Betty’s life! What could you two possibly be bickering about now?”

Your small, shriveled yet fiery, Aunt Shirley turns to you, looks up right into your eyes and says, “Well dear, your Aunt Betty left us with a $12,000 bill that we have NO idea how we’re going to pay. She had no life insurance. She didn’t have of any her funeral planned out and she didn’t have any real savings at all to speak of. We just don’t know what to do.” “Neither of us have that kind of money laying around either,” Brenda replied. You look around the room, you are stunned. You can’t believe this situation is actually happening right now. This was Aunt Betty after all. You think to yourself, “How did she not have this taken care of or at least anything at all prepared?” You don’t know how to respond to Aunt Brenda and Aunt Shirley. You have no idea how they’re going to pay that type of bill either…

The Challenge We Face In Uncovering Our Client’s Needs

This is the situation many of our potential final expense clients will leave their family to deal with if they do not do something about it.  They personally don’t have the money to pay for a funeral in full. Their family usually doesn’t have the money to pay for their funeral either and even if they did they don’t want to have to use their money for this. Clearly, a final expense insurance plan is the best way to protect their family. And yet, like Betty, many will pass away before ever putting any coverage in place and they burden their family big time.

As life insurance agents we need to get to know our clients, discuss with them their need for a product like this, and then show them an affordable plan that will protect their family.

The challenge is in getting people comfortable enough for them to tell you what their needs really are. Sometimes people are embarrassed. Sometimes they don’t know how to articulate their own needs or even know their own needs. Sometimes they just don’t trust you enough to tell you. Sometimes they clearly know they have a need but because they think it will be unaffordable they don’t want to open up. Getting them to the point of truly discussing what they need and why its really important to them and their family is oftentimes the biggest challenge we face in final expense sales.

This article will help you discover how to uncover and discuss your client’s need to buy final expense insurance even when it’s not that apparent.

Why It’s Challenging To Uncover A Client’s ‘Need’?

Yes we receive referrals from family members and friends, and we LOVE referrals. But, as final expense agents, the majority of our clients come through marketing methods – like direct mail leads, TV commercials, or other forms of advertising. What does this mean for us? It means the majority of our clients are people we have never met before. And this is the reason why it’s challenging to uncover our client’s needs. Think about it: You just met these people. You don’t know anything about them and there is yet to be any established trust. This poses a challenge for us since we know we have to establish trust in order for them to admit and discuss their true needs. And you have to get to that place of trust before being able to genuinely assist them.

So how do we do that?

With a simple strategy of beginning to establish trust, called C.O.R.E.

In the sales process and for training purposes we like to use acronyms to help us remember things. Some of you with a diverse sales background may be familiar with an acronym known as F.O.R.M. – Family, Occupation, Recreation and Message. This is a word that helps you remember to discuss things that are important to your client. In final expense life insurance sales there is a similar acronym know as C.O.R.E. to help us uncover key information, talk about what and who is important to our clients and really discover our client’s needs.

The acronym C.O.R.E. stands for:

• C- Children
• O- Occupation
• R- Recreation
• E- Emotion ( or the heart of the matter )

As a final expense agent, your job is to build trust with your clients. You want to become their trusted advisor and really, their friend. By using C.O.R.E. as a guideline to asking questions, you’ll be doing just that. You’ll build trust and uncover your client’s needs in a relatively short amount of time.

Let’s try this out. Imagine you’re on an appointment and sitting with a client in their home.

Here’s an example of how to use C.O.R.E:

C- Children

One of the first things to talk about with your client is their children and grandchildren. Parents generally like to talk about their kids don’t they? And grandparents definitely love to tell you all about their grandkids. A couple example questions could be: Do you have children? Or, I notice you have some photos here, is this your family? How old are they? Do they have children of their own? Are these your grandkids? Can you tell me about them?

You’re asking these questions because you genuinely want to know about their family and this is a perfect place to get them talking. They will most likely light up especially when talking about their kids and grandkids. Parents love to sing their children’s praises. You could go the extra mile, and be taking notes while they talk. Write down the names of their children and grandchildren. Interestingly they will usually open up here and tell you that the reason they were looking for information is because of their kids and grandkids. It’s important here to have them tell you in their own words that final expense life insurance is really about their family and their desire to protect them and not leave them with a burden.

O- Occupation

This is where you will ask what your client did for work when they were working. This may provide a place for you to relate with them. Perhaps you have a family member or friend who was in the same profession as they were. maybe they have a military background. Maybe even you have experience in that field yourself. Remember, you want them to be doing most of the talking and you are trying to discover why they might need your help. Take more notes.

R- Recreation

You want to ask your client what they like to do to pass time and what they do for fun. In your retirement do you enjoy traveling? Do you take the grandkids out? Where is your favorite place to take them? Are you part of a bowling league? Do you like golf? It looks like you enjoy hunting, do you still get out much? I see that you collect dolls. Tell me how you got started with that.

A personal client of mine many years ago liked to collect Coca-Cola paraphernalia. Her kitchen looked like a 50’s Diner. It was too obvious not to talk about. She lit up when I asked her about it. She went on and on about her Coke stuff. She even had a Coca-Cola Christmas tree decorated in her living room. It was a great collection and an incredible connection point.

All of these things speak to who clients are as individuals and their identity as people. It helps you see into who they really are.

Finding out what they like to do for fun often sheds light on their finances. Someone with a more expensive hobby, like golf, probably won’t have a difficult time finding the budget for a final expense plan. But if they say they can’t really afford to do much in their retirement, then you know money may be an issue for them. As a result, being sensitive to their affordability is going extremely important in order for you to move forward and be able to help them.

But most importantly, conversations about their recreation and social lives allows you the opportunity to connect with them as real people, human to human. It brings dignity, respect and relationship to this process. And that is more important than anything.

E- Emotion ( the heart of the matter )

Once you get them talking about their family, their life, and the things they value they will most likely start sharing personal stories with you. They may even get into the loss of a loved one and this is your chance to discuss that with them and the emotion tied to that. It can also open up additional opportunities for questions. You could even lead them by asking something like, have you ever dealt with the loss of a family member or loved one? Have you ever had to help someone with their final expenses before? Have you had some sort of health scare recently that has gotten you to think more about your final expenses?

Lastly, two REALLY IMPORTANT QUESTIONS to ask to uncover their “want to” or “real desire” when they tend to want to give you an easy answer to these sometimes emotionally difficult questions are:  “Who is this benefit for?” and “Why is it important to you to take care of this?”

The Purpose of C.O.R.E.

The entire purpose of doing this is to develop trust, build a relationship and strike an emotional chord with them. All of this moves them into action. They begin to hear themselves tell you why these things are important. When that happens they see you differently in this process. They begin to see you as an advisor, as opposed to an insurance salesperson. They begin to see you as someone who is simply helping them get what they want. And that is to take care of these people they just told you all about.

If they have gone through something similar to what Shirley and Brenda had, or they know of someone who has then you want to get them remembering how difficult a time that was. Let them talk about it. If it’s a health scare they have faced recently, you want to make sure they understand that they never know what could happen, and it’s important that they prepare themselves now before it’s too late. Their family that they just told you all about is counting on them taking care of this.

This part of the meeting is vital and is a sure way to get your client sharing their needs.

You will know when you finish up here whether this is really important to them or whether you should maybe pack your stuff up and get on with your day. If there is no real opening up here about why this is important to them, assisting them in completing an application is going to be difficult.

It All Comes Down To Trust

When you listen to people it makes them want to like you. When you let other people talk and you actively listen, and you engage in the story of their life, you make them feel important. When people feel like they are heard and they are important when they are around you they instantly like you. They will begin to trust you, and as a result, they’ll be real with you. When people feel comfortable and are real with you, they will tell you what’s important to them. You will discover together the need and desire they have to buy final expense insurance. And because of your time spent and invested in getting to KNOW them, they will want to buy it from you.

So, before your next appointment, familiarize yourself with C.O.R.E. and do your best to use it with all of your clients. Regardless of what type of sales you are in, not only will you start uncovering your clients needs more easily, you will also become more likable, confident and effective during the sales process as well. It’s amazing how many more people that you will get to help just by actively listening and making people feel important.

Go get em!