Transcription
What is up? Welcome back to the CA Power Player podcast. I'm your host Cody Asins. Man, dude, I got one of my favorite people I ever interview back in studio today. Before I go to him, here's why you should tune in and pay attention and take notes to every part of this. Today we're going to be going in the big parts of a final expense teles sales script. I'm talking opening overview, big questions, the things that you need to know that will absolutely revolutionize your sales in the next several weeks, several months.
Also, um, if at any point during this you want to continue to watch behind the scenes content of our podcast, live dials, etc. or the final three questions I'm going to ask our uh guest at the end of the show today, you can go to castudios.tv. Please welcome back to the channel Dave Duford.
Greetings and salutations. Thanks for having me, Cody. Appreciate you. Always nice to see you as well. All the way from uh Chattanooga.
Chattanooga, Tennessee.
Tennessee to big old Springfield, Missouri. I like it out here. It's nice here. Kind of similar markets. It is. It is. Yeah. Not bad. Uh, before we dive in. Um, why this now? Because we are about to get into the meat and you guys are going to love it.
Because first of all, you know, we have that very successful video you and I did that this morning.
Morning. I looked, we had 81,000 views.
And it's our mock final expense presentation. Very good.
Very good. Helped a lot of people.
Phenomenal. But here's the thing. That was filmed like three or four years ago. And Teles sales has changed. It's changed dramatically. And the reason I'm here is because I wanted to treat this as a as an opportunity to update on how we approach the script at my company, the dig agency, and to help the people out there who are watching who sell final expense or even sell life insurance, other products as well, how to modify their script to keep more people on uh, the phone uh, in order to sell more insurance. So, that's really the purpose we're here.
I love it. I mean, you probably you probably have uh, I mean, what percentage of agents do you think are using a not using a script, using a script that isn't working or script outdated or?
Well, with 90% of agents or more failing every single year that just start. I mean, most of them don't have the right training. They don't have the right support and they may have a script, but it's it might be just terrible.
True. And so, it's something really important to get down because people are less patient than they used to be.
They want to know what's in it for them as quickly as possible. There's all these serious considerations that you have to account for if you're going to get anywhere in this business.
Yeah. I'm also excited you're about to share your own script.
Yes.
With the world.
This is the one we use in our agencies. This is just something I made up on the flight over here to do the podcast with you. Like it's what we're using dayto-day with our agents.
Yeah. And and thank you for not making it up on the way over. That's and and using giving us something that really uses. Right. How much premium do you think you've written with this script or that you're currently writing?
Well, so uh, let's see. Last year in our first full year of our free lead program, we did six million plus in in business. Um,
Congratulations.
Thank you very much. And uh, we have agents regularly writing 30 40 applications every single month uh from home using this exact script working final expense largely final expense clientele.
That's awesome. I love it. Well, excited to dive in.
Yeah, let's share it with them.
Ready?
Yeah.
All right. So, a couple of things I I want to frame here so people understand about how this all works.
Okay.
So, the thing is with our Mildrid, we call our clients Mildred, right? Final expense. Mildred picture granny, you know, old, right? That's final expense.
Yeah.
You know, back in the day, even like five, seven years ago, granny had a flip phone. She, you know, uh, still watch TV. But that all has changed. Most people now who are in our demographic have smartphones.
Yeah.
They have Facebook and they now suffer through all of the same attention span issues and demand for immediate uh, answers to their questions.
Amen.
So, they're less patient. um, they want to know quickly if you are the person to help them or not. And um, they will phase out and do something else even when you're on the phone talking to them if you're not getting to the point and not delivering them what their expectations are.
Amen.
Okay. So, what does this all mean? So, as we get into the script here momentarily, it means what we have done, we actually cut our script down by about 50%.
Wow.
We close and get to the verbal part of the close before the application. It takes a little bit longer, but we get to the verbal close in approximately 10 to 15 minutes.
No way.
Yeah. Yeah. So, the point is what you'll see with a lot of scripts is they want to have a lot of rapport building, as you'll talk about in a minute, a lot of that's gone now. Even even something I held on to very close, a lot of the reason why stuff, that's still important, but not nearly as important. Because if you spend 20, 25, 30 minutes on the phone like a lot of these other scripts do, Mildred's falling asleep or she's got you on speaker phone while she plays Candy Crush or whatever they play these days.
Yeah.
She's doing something else other than being totally dialed in and listen to you.
So, you need to have a script that can address stuff quickly. You need to have specific words and verbiage that triggers the person to actually dial in and listen. And you just have to drive consistently towards the point and get to the sale faster.
So, you want to drive dive in?
Man, this is exciting. Let's go. 10 to 15 minutes. Like that's that's incredible. I I I know call you know call I know call centers right now that unless the call goes at late. They don't allow them to finalize a sale without the call going two hours.
Oh, it's I It's hard to believe, but it's true. There's one in particular I'm thinking of. Their script's like 25 30 pages. Okay. Ours is like nine to say this to compare.
Y.
And they just grind and grind and grind them down till they just give in and buy.
Yep.
And um, the purpose and people say is well, you got to make friends with them. You got to gain their trust. But the the truth is at some point you've said enough in the script and you need to move on to progressing to the next phase uh, building value or closing, let's say.
So, and again, people have short attention spans. You can wear them out by too much talking.
Yeah. And they'll just phase out and they're like, "This is never going to end. I'm not interested." And they'll want to do something else. So, this is all just how it is now.
Cool.
And you have to sell accordingly to to get the most value in the least amount of time to these people.
And you see a similar close rate either way.
That's the thing. Yeah. Absolutely. So, what we found the old script, the one that I taught on our on our video, you and I did a couple years ago,
Y. The exact same percentage closed on that old script to the one that's about half as long.
So, in other words, so what we would see with our agents is they would spend, you know, maybe 15, 20, 25 minutes less per sale, but they were still closing at the same rate, which what does that mean? They can now write more business per hour.
Absolutely. With a shorter script without a suffering of the business quality. So, they're making more money, making more sales than they were with this bleaguered lengthy script that was just completely unnecessary.
Yeah. And everybody was just said, "Hey, that's that's how it's got to be." So, it's interesting you're giving us a different alternative. And you answered the next question, which was I ask about close rate, but then also persistency. And you said you're not seeing a difference, a dip in quality either, which I know is very important for you. You're running a very big agency. You're scaling and growing. You're helping a lot of agents. Persistency matters to it should matter to everyone man I know it really matters to you.
And I think that's some to some extent that's separate from how you it's from what the words on the script are it's it's what you sell and how you sell and what I mean by persistency and for the new people out there persistency is how much of your business sticks on the books especially within that first year is the most important. And what you sell matters greatly meaning, you know, for us at the dig agency, we vary up the carriers so we have different options we want to uh, put that client with the best combination of price and value, right? But if you have limited options, you're open to being replaced a lot more often. You can be replaced either way, even if you have options, but it's less likely to happen. And of course, how you sell. And for us, what that means is more about how you sell the product. Do you push too much coverage on the person they can't afford?
Um, or do you actually assign something in terms of what the budget is? So, for us, we do what's called selling the premium. So, instead of saying, "How much coverage do you want?" What we spend our time doing is focusing on what amount per month is comfortable for you. We'll get into that specifically in the script, but that way Mildred can tell us, "Hey, yeah, I can afford X amount." And they can tell us with 100% certainty, we've overcome now the uh, biggest objection, which is price.
Y. And so, when we actually then close and then give them the full scoop on what they can get, there's no price objection because they've said they could afford it.
Interesting. Well, I'm excited to keep diving in.
Yeah. Perfect. So, let's start with the opening. So, if give me a second here, I'm going to bring up my uh, script and and we're going to put this on the screen for you guys at home.
I love it.
So, the opening of the Telesell script. So, this would be when you're out. Most people outbound dial leads. Some people take inbound.
Um, you can modify this if you're doing inbound, but understand this is outbound.
So, here's how the script goes. Hey Cody, this is David with the Dig Agency calling you back with the final expense price quote you requested on Facebook. I see that your zip code is 37343. Is that correct?
Yes.
And is this for yourself or a loved one?
Uh, myself.
And how long you been looking?
Probably like six months.
Six months. Okay. So, we'll stop there and I want to basically uh, decompress discuss kind of what we're doing differently now.
Interesting.
So, first of all, the tone. I tend to be a little bit more Shamwow orange glow guy. You know, the people who are over over 30 know who that is. I got to start finding relevant people.
Crap. I'm over 30.
You're old, Cody. You're in that crew.
35 now.
So, so, so, orange glow guy was uh, Shamwow guy. These are like very excited. You know, they're like off the deep end. They're fun to listen to. But most people who if you're telemarketing like that are going to shut down because they're just going to feel like you're a salesperson.
Okay.
So, what we've Excuse me. So, what we've seen more often now is that if we take a neutral tone, like we're just calling them back to give them the information they requested, that works more effectively than the upbeat version.
So, so, pro tip number one, if you're making dials, listen to yourself. You should record yourself, analyze what you're actually saying, right? But but not just what you say, how you're saying it.
So, try to take a tone where you're just you're just doing your job. You're just getting information back to people. And this tone even I have right now would be more representative of what I would think is most effective for final expense. Don't trigger that alarm on these prospects thinking that's a salesperson and they look for the door to hang up. Does that make sense?
It makes a ton of sense. I've always been told like low, slow, controlled.
100%. Yeah, exactly.
I always struggle with that a little bit because that is not my personality.
Yeah. Right. So that's a good point.
Yeah. We're we're you we're YouTubers. We got to have a little bit of that.
Correct. But on the phone with, you know, Mildred, you know, she likes it slow and steady.
All right. A couple other things here. Um, this is a big one. Price quote. You noticed like in in sales, we're the old way to do sales is never talk about price. Never talk about.
I put that in parenthesis because I heard that I'm like, I would have never done that five years ago.
Yeah. So, we started doing this a couple of years ago when we started our free lead program and testing different scripts. And the reason we put it in is because when we didn't say it, we felt like the people we were talking to are like, "Can you get to the price quote? Where's the price?" I mean, you're going to deal with those kind of objections. But instead of pretending like it's not on their mind thinking about it, we're addressing it. Okay. And what that does, I believe it becomes like a trigger word.
It's like that word you say that immediately snaps and gets their attention.
Yeah. Now, we don't give the quote. We just say price quote. We're getting back what they wanted, which is a free quote. That's what our all most ads say, you know, fill this out for a free quote.
So, we're using that verbiage on the phone, but the audience needs to understand we're not giving the price at this point, but we're saying quote to trigger them and to draw draw them in.
I I'll build on this, too. We don't just we don't just say it here. We say it in multiple steps along the way.
Yeah. So, if we are going through an explanation, we're telling them about who we are and why they should listen. and we'll get into that in a moment. We then say, "Okay, so before I get that price quote to you," and then we get into something else. But that again just it's like a way to snap them alive, make them listen, and to pay attention. Again, goes back to that whole thing like you have to satisfy what they want, which is they want a price quote, but we all know as sales people, we have to build value. We have to get them to understand why they should do business with us versus somewhere else. So, there's this kind of like intermediary area where we have to do this without saying the price.
Absolutely. So, but we want to say price or get price quote to get them dialed in.
Interesting. Don't do it too much though because then it's like okay, you know, anything you do too much it loses its effectiveness. So, you use it strategically at different points.
Smart and and yeah, make it makes uh, it's interesting, but it's working.
It works works absolutely well. The other thing we don't do notice this. Did I ask you how's your day going? Did I ask you um, how's the weather in Springfield?
No.
Why? Because you know as a prospect that I don't care as a salesperson.
Yeah. Correct.
But I'm saying it because there were supposed to do this in the beginning of a sales call to like become friends to get your trust.
Yeah. No, that stuff is old school. It it probably works. I mean, there's people who make it work still but to a large extent saying those corny old ways to build rapport immediately in the client's mind is going to think ah, this is a sales presentation I got to go through and they a lot of times in our market in final expense, they've talked to other people.
Y. So, they're like, I got to tell them about where I live again and then it's just immediately lowers the energy and the trust factor.
Well, and then they're probably thinking, oh my gosh, I got to be on a call for an hour again.
Exactly. Exactly. Grind it out. I had one lady that we did a sales call review on and she's like, I've already talked to 12 agents about getting a quote and I'm like, this then a lot of people are like this cuz people who are on Facebook, we do a lot of Facebook ads, a lot of our viewers do as well, like they're getting other ads shown to them just by how Facebook operates, similar ad categories and they're going to be filling out multiple forms so you got to be prepared for that mentality.
So, I digress. So, um, what we do is we just get to the point. We ask easy questions like, your zip code is 373343. Like if that was your zip code and that's where you lived, of course you're going to answer yes to that. A higher likelihood. So, it gets them saying yes faster. Okay. And then is this for yourself or a loved one? We ask that because of course if the loved one is who we want coverage on, I don't want to pitch them without them being present so we can get their signature when we close them. And then how long you've been looking for is just a way to start and open a conversation. Okay.
And what we do and kind of jumping forward a little bit. Well, what about rapport? Aren't they supposed to like you?
For sure. But what we found to build rapport is most effective is actually into health questions. So, we ask them about their health, what their current health status is, so on and so forth. And that just opens up all sorts of things like, yeah, like one one sales call we recently reviewed on YouTube. Guys like, I'm a paraplegic. I fell off of a scaffold and broke my back. And I don't know if that's the best way to build rapport, but it begin it starts an interesting conversation. They're revealing things about themsel that's personal.
Y. And there's that interchange that builds that rapport, right? So, it happens it happens much more naturally and I think much more effective later and they're much more likely to build rapport because you didn't waste their time with a bunch of pointless questions. It's kind of the it's inverse now. It's weird because I certainly sold for years building rapport like in the front.
Yep. But now you can just build it midstream and totally works great.
It's cool. I have seen a lot of top producers that will build rapport not just if they do the beginning. They're really good at building rapport throughout. They're not just like, "Okay, we did it. Now I don't have to do it ever again." Like,
It's natural.
Yes, it's natural. A lot of sense. 100%. Yeah. And it's it's just something that happens, but it seems to happen more naturally just in the health questions.
Now, you do get objections. And I wanted to build on this, too. And again, my takeaway y'all watching at home, the most important stuff is how you handle the opening. Because if you can't keep someone on the phone in that initial 30 seconds, it doesn't matter how good your product is or how well you close, you're just going to fail out of the business. So, you really have to spend time nailing this. So, I'm I'm going to spend most of my time here with you, you know, ironing this out because it's so important. So, of course, there are objections that can happen.
You know, objections like what um, I've already got life insurance. Um, I'm not interested. Um, I'm busy. Whatever. Right? There's all sorts of objections. We really have two ways to handle them.
And what we noticed, and I picked this up from Johnny Nitan, so I'm admitted admittingly saying I stole this from him because it was so good. Okay.
He was on Ultimate Agent, I think the first first season, right?
Correct. That's right. And um, he called it the interruptive uh, objection. So, what we find with doing telesales, especially final expense, one objection you get is like, I've already got life insurance. I don't need to talk to you anymore. Goodbye. Click. And before you can even say anything, they've hung up on you, right?
So, when we note that their pitch is raised, that they're talking over us, then you have to actually interrupt them. You have to stop them in their tracks and basically yell at them.
So, like, let's do it together. Give me give me uh, an objection like that and I'll I'll demonstrate for the audience how we would go over that.
Yeah. I I don't have time. I got to go. I'm.
Great. That's exactly why I'm calling Cody. Stay on the line. I literally just saved the guy $43 a month and uh, another was in a two-year period policy and we put him into a first day policy. Let me do that for you as well. All I need is a few minutes. Are you a smoker or non-smoker?
So, the key thing there is you interrupt them. You give them a value statement. So, in this case, we use a specific number of how much we saved them. I'm not suggesting for the for the skeptics out there that, oh, Dave's saying you have to say exactly that dollar amount. No.
Yeah. Say a dollar amount that you have saved them money or have heard somebody has saved them money that's relevant and make it true for your circumstances. But what you're doing there is interrupting them. You're stopping their mindset of hanging up to listen to you. And what they they never the prospects never have anybody talk over them.
So, they're they're going to be shocked.
Correct? And they're going to listen to you. And you'll find a lot of those people will actually slow down and then let you pitch. Okay? So, in short, they give you that old raised voice, I'm getting off the phone with you stuff.
Yeah. Interrupt them, yell at them a little. You not scream, but like raise your voice. Match their energy.
Give them a value statement of what you've done to benefit them.
Yes. And then you notice the last question was, "Are you a smoker or not?" The moment, it's not that that's the magical question to ask. The key is to actually ask a question.
Amen. So, why do we ask a question? So, you can take back control of the presentation. Pro tip, anytime that you get off on your presentation because the client asks a question that's not in that word track of yours, asking that question after that rebuttal in this case gets you back to where you were in the script. Very important. I'm going to interrupt the podcast to tell you about our Kaboom leads that are literally blowing up. If you would love to never get disconnected numbers or wrong numbers ever again, then you will love our leads at Kaboom Leads. All of our lead types, we text the prospect a six-digit security code. They go back in the funnel and put that in to verify that it is a real accurate cell phone number and they've responded to a text message. We do this for all of our lead types. If you haven't tried Kaboom Leads, you can use coupon code podcast to get 10% off of your very first order at caboom kaboomleads.com. Back to the show. Yes. I used to uh, I used to it's been a long time since I've said this, but I used to if I knew someone was about to give me something negative, then it was like, okay, I don't want them to finish their whole sentence cuz then they've said it, you know, that's good.
Right? That's interruptive objection. Did we give the second one?
Right. So, we the second objection we have is just basically everything else that we we put it into. So, it could be a price objection. It can be I'm busy objection. And then what we say there is, "Yeah, no problem. Just need a few minutes to get you the pricing you want. Again, pricing, quote, pricing. We're we're responding to that call of action. We're telling them what it is that they wanted.
So, back on script and what you do with that's totally up to you. Not going to try to sell you anything. Just want to get you the quote. So, how long have you been looking? So, again, asking that question, get back on track. So, that that's really so we what we try to do is again in the in the process of learning how to sell the less that you have to remember or practice and the more you can like have like the Swiss Army knife of objection rebuttal where it can do all sorts of things that's the better. So, again, the the interruptive objections really important because that's very common these days and then everything else can fit into the other one and that simplifies the learning process we think.
Yeah. Would you say call the other one more uh, like a responsive and what?
That's what most people are used to doing from an objection standpoint. Just more responsive. They're just like waiting and like then hoping. I think part of it too, you know, it's like picture yourself talking on the phone like I I will when I'm on the phone talking to a friend. I don't ever talk over them. I let them finish their statement.
And then I say something. You know? So, I think we're just naturally if we use the phone heavily, which maybe some of our younger audience, do they ever call on the phone? I guess this is their first foray.
This is phone calls, not text.
It's hard to interrupt a text.
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. So, the good news is they're not used to it. So, they're like a blank slate for us to train.
So, um, but with that said, I think we're just used to, you know, speaking and then letting them speak. And so we have to kind of shortcircuit that mentality.
Yeah. And then um, you know, really get to training ourselves to recognize when to be responsive because you definitely can be responsive to some of these objections but then when they actually shut the prospect up and interrupt them.
Yeah. Don't let them finish that negative thing they're going to say like you said.
Perfect. So, good. So, good. I had a bunch of complaints over the years of me interrupting guests. So, I'm trying not to do that today.
That's all right. We'll just say it's for uh, we're exemplifying how great the script is.
Exactly. Exactly. That's how well it works. All right. So, we're going on to the script here. I'm going to go a little bit further. This is good. Very good. Still thinking through the opening too, like so unique. So, unique.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay. So, the next thing I want to cover is the introduction. So, once we get through some of these uh, initial objections in the beginning, uh, we handle any kind of concerns. We're not rapport building. Again, I repeat, we're not actually trying to buddy buddy them. We're getting to the price quote. We're getting into the meat of the thing. Okay? So, the introduction is as follows. Because it's important that you position yourself as uh, whoever you are and what your benefit is to the prospect. Why would they want to listen to you? They probably listen to a bunch of other agents already. And you need even if they haven't, you should think that way. So, you need to have some sort of script that positions who you are and effectively frames to the prospect why they should listen to you. So, script-wise, here's how we say it. So, we say, "By the way, if you missed it, my name is David Duford with the DIG Agency. Obviously, I'm a licensed broker here in Missouri. I shop all the 30 plus major insurance companies and get you the qual get you qualified for the best plan uh, with the highest possible value. Of course, it needs to be completely within your budget. That sound good to you?" So, a breakdown here, very, very easy to understand. Um, I tell them who I am. I tell them which company I'm with. Of course, I tell them I'm a licensed broker in whatever state they're in. Okay? And then the big differentiating factor is for us, we teach agents to be brokers. So, we're going to say we shop all the major, how many of our companies you have, uh, insurance companies to give you the best combination of price and coverage, right? You can go a step further and say unlike a lot of other companies, they only represent one. What we're doing is just we're we we're not beholden to one company. We're trying to get you whoever is going to get you the best value. And so if you appreciate having the best price and getting the best budget, we're your guy. We're the guys that you can that can help you. Cool. Right. And and the response from a person in final expense at least who's on a fixed income, they make 1,200 a month. You know, they don't have a lot of money to spend on this discretionary basis. They really appreciate that. Okay.
Yeah. Um, they like the fact that you're saying, "We want it to fit your budget. We want to get you the best deal." Because a lot of these people are used to getting ripped off, you know, when you take the time to explain it to them. They appreciate that.
Yeah, that's awesome.
Okay. So, as we go through the presentation further, um, a couple of things come to mind here. Um, we want to overcome objections before they manifest or before they're verbally uh, spoken. So, one of those objections, of course, is the bank account. Now, why is that important? Because some of our clients don't have bank accounts and therefore we can't set up automatic drafts. They may have alternative forms of payment like Direct Express, Chime cards, etc. And if you go through a sales presentation, if you're new here, and you go through a final expense presentation, but you don't account for the type of uh, form of payment that they would do, you may pitch a product that doesn't accept, say, Direct Express or Chime. And now you have to backpedal.
Right at the close and then find another product which likely is going to be more expensive or maybe ineligible for full coverage. Okay?
Yeah. So, you want to know up front what kind of situation on the on the account basis you're dealing with. So,
And what about what time marker would I be figuring this out?
We're probably at 3 to 5 minutes in.
Wow. Okay. Now, I'm not really including it here. Um, but prior to this section, we do some un we do underwriting. Okay. We get right after we ask like how long you've been looking for. All right. Let's talk about the price quote. Let's get into some underwriting questions. So, we start by asking, hey, what are what major issues have you had in the past couple of years and then we'll get more granular there and then again, as I explained earlier, that's when that rapport building process starts that's when they're they're sharing information it's really personal and then maybe we share information about our grandparents that they had and or that we had personally and that connection starts to naturally manifest at that point.
So, beyond that point is when we start the bank account.
Okay. Now, uh, script-wise, how this sounds, let me pull it up here. Um, some carriers take certain payment methods, others don't. So, do you have a valid US bank account or not? And then if you don't have a bank account, who is it with? Is it Direct Express? So, it's very straightforward. Um, what we found is some some agents are fearful that, well, if I ask about a bank account upfront, then I'm going to be turned down.
Mhm. The reality is most everybody has bank drafts these days. It's quite customary and normal. Don't shy away from asking about that.
Um, you just need to get that information because you cannot close effectively without it.
Y. And most people are going to be fine setting it up on a draft.
I've also heard uh, Chime mentioned more nowadays which I think is an actual bank and as actual account.
It is. It's it's Yes, you can set up a draft on a Chime card. Yeah.
Um, I'm always wary of any card based business personally because.
So, it's still a card.
Yeah. But you could but it's unlike So, Direct Express doesn't authorize AC payments like a bank account would.
Yeah. Um, but Chime does, but I think it's still in in that category of a lower quality piece of business.
I would agree based on just Yeah. Between maybe it's right between Direct Express and account.
I would say that's a fair obviously you want.
It's a fair statement.
Cool. So, next on the list here is we want to get the price. We want to get the budget. We want to get a budget. So, we're not necessarily getting the price. So, price requires us to fully underwrite pitch and get to the close. To be clear here, what we want to know is if Mildred actually can afford this stuff. Okay. The best policy to purchase is the one that's there when the client dies. In other words, Cody, the policy that pays you as the agent is the policy that stays. Policy that pays policy stays. You don't want to oversell in the final expense business or even a life insurance business. You want to make sure it's going to serve the purpose it's intended to do, which is pay the beneficiary upon the client's death. Okay?
So, a couple of things here to to to uh, get into. First of all, I like to use a price anchor. You know what a price anchor is?
So, for the audience at home, a price anchor is Okay, let's get into the price. I'm going to run some quotes here. Mrs. Mrs. prospect. Oh, you don't want this price quote. It's at $400 a month. That's pretty expensive, right? And Mildid, of course, making 1,200 months. Like, yeah, I don't want that. I can't afford that. So, why do we say that? Because when we have a price anchor, it is the relative comparison of what expensive looks like. So, in other words, if you didn't know there was a plan for $400 and then I quoted you on 150 to 200, you might think that 150 to 200 is expensive, but I just showed you a 400 or mentioned it. So, that's actually twice what 152. So, that's I'm giving you a deal in a sense, right?
True. So, it allows us to position ourselves and ask for a relatively higher premium. You know, our case size is that our business is about a,000 AP 80 bucks a month. So, if we're at 150 plus, that's good. So, I the point is Cody is we can ask the question of a high premium without them hanging up on us with that price anchor. Does that make sense?
Yes. The next phase is if if so, then we ask, okay, so if I can qualify for a program today, can you afford somewhere between 150 to 200 a month? Um, now we we may phrase that differently. If they told us they already got a policy and they're paying 100 bucks a month and it's too expensive, or I had a policy and it was 100 bucks, it's too expensive, I'm obviously going to read and react to what I've been given and then quote them something less than that, right? But if we if we're not given any guidance on how pricing should be, then we're going to start high. Okay.
This is after you already price anchored 400 bucks.
Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. The max, whatever that is% or you just use or you just using 400 bucks as a.
That's just what we're using as the price anchor. So, just that's the throwaway price. Yeah. I mean, it's very rare. Sometimes our agents get it a couple times a month. $400 a month policy. That's nice.
Sure. But we throw that away again to position what expensive is and what affordable should be. And then the next question with a budget range is 150 to 200.
Yeah. And so, there's two things that can happen. Mildred can grasp her heart and immediately die because $15,200 a month is expensive and she says hell no.
Sure. Or she says yes or maybe. Now let's talk about all this because it it's really important you do this correctly. If she's like no, I can't afford that. You know, my cat food for my five cats is, you know, $200 a month. Can't add that in. Then you say, "No problem. That's too expensive that I don't want you to get that. What if I can find you a different plan and it's somewhere between, say, 100 to 125 a month."
So, we step down the price. We never argue with the prospect about, "Well, you should be able to afford this cuz I said so." That's a great way to.
It's the exact coverage you need. What are you talking about?
Yeah. Are you stupid? No. Because they'll they'll say, "Okay, you're right." And then they'll cancel it the next day because they remember they're broke and they can't afford it anyway.
Exactly. So, we step down until they give us absolute certainty they can afford it. So, we'll come back to that in a second. Okay.
Um, of course, they could say, "Yeah, that works." And what we want to hear there is 100% certainty.
Now, that's compare or contrasted against somebody who says, "Well, I think I can afford that."
That's not 100% certainty.
No. And anything that's not 100% certainty is a no. for the purposes of of what we're doing today, which is ensuring our client can afford it. So, in other words, if Milder tells me, "Yes, I can afford. Yeah, I can do 150." Then I may respond back and say, "Okay, what you're saying is you can absolutely afford it, right? That makes sense for you. That's good for your budget." And she says, "Yeah, well, now I know her budget. I can confidently move forward to the next phase explaining how our product's different and better, etc."
But if she says anything other than a yes, it's a no, including I think I can afford it. So, in that case, I'll say, okay, when you say you think you can afford it, it sounds like that might be a little too expensive. You don't want that plan. So, what if I can find you something else? Say it's between 100 125 a month. So, we work it down. And I will not stop because I don't care about the premium. Of course, I want to sell as big a policy as I can, but I want to sell a policy.
Yeah. And even if that goes to $10 to $20 a month, then that's sufficient for me. I will not stop dropping that price till I get a budget that they can 100% afford. Does that make sense?
Yes. And it's all about aptivity. That's what we tell our agents. Help people get policies on the books. Help people get them insured. It doesn't matter if it's 10 20 bucks a month. You're you're a blessing to these people. You're helping them out.
Um, the money will take care of itself if you're doing the activity. Okay. The activity.
Um, so we just step it down until they say yes. Okay.
Okay.
So, um.
Like the c the question where you're circling back around to be 100% sure.
Yeah. Yeah, because if they're not 100% sure here, they're gonna give you some nonsense objection at the end and then they're not gonna admit that they're just broke and they can't afford whatever is it sounds as if as the price is.
Yeah. Nobody wants to say that. It's kind of embarrassing. You don't admit that.
Yeah. Of course. I mean, you know, you're in your 60s and you didn't make as much money as you thought you would. You're not in the position financially. Like, it's it's it's a hit to the ego for a lot of people. So, you have to take the initiative as the agent and listen intently and read between the lines and say, "Oh, this person's not 100%. Let me let me make the offer to lower it."
And they will appreciate you for it.
Yeah, they will. A lot of agents are just too like trying to get a sale. You're not.
No. You're you're you're really trying to earn a client that stays on the books.
You'll get the sale, but will you keep the commission? No, you'll get a charge back. That's what you get. It's not not sale. It's chargeback. So, okay. So, we've got them just to bring everybody up to speed. Um, they know who we are, why we're there. We've got their medical information, so we have a good idea of what they're medically qualified for.
And then we now have their budget. All we have to do at this point, it's a downward hill from here, meaning it's a lot easier. All we have to do is just tell them why our stuff is better than the other guys. Okay? And what we do here is kind of the classical pitch at this point. If you've watched our other video, you've been very familiar with this. And at this point, we just talk about the difference between term life and whole life. Now, um, in final expense, you're going to sell whole life insurance, okay? And you need to take time to explain to our clients, which are are bludgeoned and buried with piles of junk mail from all of the insurance companies like Colonial Pin, New York Life, etc. that are trying to sell them in most cases an inferior product than what we could sell them. They don't know exactly how this stuff works because the truth about the plans is buried in the fine print. So, you're going to be their advocate, your ed, their educator, and you're going to tell them everything about these plans that they don't want you to know.
And out from that, you're going to be seen as the shining example of of honesty and integrity to help the client out as me best as possible.
So, what we like to do is talk about, do you know the difference between term life or whole life insurance? They usually say no. And we give them a very brief explanation. So, term insurance is the stuff from New York Life um, Globe Life Insurance. They will cover you if you're medically eligible, but once you reach 80 or 85, depending on the company, they cancel you.
Yeah. Term terminates. So, imagine, Mrs. Prospect, you make to that age and you outlive the plan. How you going to feel?
Like crap. I don't have any coverage. And you wasted. I know you don't get a refund. Right? So, we framed now how the other guys work and they're not working in your best interest. Right? So, that's the big one. When we have somebody who.
is medically eligible for full level coverage from the first payment date, then, um, we will then frame how guaranteed issue works in a negative connotation. So, guaranteed issue would be a two-year waiting period policy, how companies like Colonial Penn use it. And, and yes, it's a great company, but you have to wait two full years if you get their guaranteed acceptance plan, no matter how healthy or ill you are. And if you die by some random natural cause in those two years, you only get back the money paid in plus interest, not the full amount of coverage. And many people just don't know about that.
So, by slowing down, explaining this to them, they realize, "Wow, this guy or gal knows his or her stuff." And everybody wants to work with the expert and the person looking out for them. This is how you gain their trust because then it's at this point you can position what you're selling. Whole life insurance, the rates never go up. Coverage never cancels due to age or health. As long as you continue to pay the premium and assuming they're medically eligible, you're covered first day, full coverage from the very first day. And that's pretty much all you have to say. We used to have a much more, uh, elaborated, drawn-out explanation of how level coverage works or term and whole life. Again, because our clients have the attention span of a fly, we have to get to the point.
Yeah. Okay. And it's usually at this point we're like, "Great. Does that make sense, Mrs. Prospect?" "Yes." "Okay. Let's get back to that price quote. Let me pull up these prices." So, we're going back to saying "price quote" again, right? To dial them back in. And then from there, Cody, I mean, it's pretty simple. Um, uh, we do Oh, this is the one thing that is very different. So, I don't know if you remember in the other video, we used to talk about the "why." What's your reason for getting coverage? Right?
Historically, I've always taught that we ask the "why" in the beginning of the call to get them dialed in. But the "why" questions for us, and this is just what we found, it's this very open-ended, um, revealing, personal kind of testimony that the client, in the first couple minutes, may not be comfortable with. Okay? And sometimes people just, they're just not into it yet. They ask these questions. And the other thing, too, is when you ask the "why," it is the emotional driving force to why you should buy insurance. Well, if you spend 10, 15 minutes after that going into your presentation, they may have less of a recall rate, specifically of why they're doing what they're doing.
So, what we've done, which is crazy because we never did it before and it works, is we ask the "why" right before the close. So, at, and notice at this point, I haven't asked them why they even looked into this in the first place, right? But now we have. So, um, at this point, we're going to ask them, "So, what were your thoughts and concerns when you requested this information on Facebook?" And we want them to give us an actual reason, not because, "Well, I was on there looking at, you know, funny cat videos and I saw your burial insurance ad." Uh, we want them to say, "Yeah, I just lost my spouse. My best friend died. They didn't have any coverage and it was expensive. It was terrible." We want them to lean into, "I don't want to be a burden to my loved one. We want peace of mind." These are kind of the things that really our clients say that we know that we're interested. We want them saying this.
And when we get that information from them, then we get to the close. Then we present to them, "Okay, here's the company you can qualify for. It's XYZ insurance company. They've been around X amount of years. The reason I'm selecting them is because usually because of a certain condition." I want to connect what we're selling them with their health or lack of it. So, we're picking this company because they take COPD, first day, full coverage. No other company does this, or very few others do it, and they do it at a great rate. Why does that matter? Because we're connecting the reason why to buy with our offer. And so, "Oh, this is special. This is different." That's why people make a decision, especially because so many people have talked to other agents before you. So, you have to keep that positioning framing in mind. I've always heard that to where, uh, you have too, where you talk to a prospect and they'll say, "Well, yeah, but I can't let this one go because the agent said for this reason I had to have this, you know, right?" So, they start, they do start connecting the dots of like, "Oh, I, this is the one for me."
And think about it, they're not going to connect the dots unless you connect it for them. Yeah. Correct. So, this is why you should have it for whatever reasons, right? And it can be, it's because you're in great shape. This is why we selected this company. Yes. Or because of some health issue. Okay. Okay. So, you have to kind of, as the agent, recognize what the main benefit of the policy is to the client versus the others and tell that to them because they just, it's like every other insurance if you don't say that, right? Yeah. And these little things are what help prevent our other competition calling up and saying, "You should switch. I can get you five bucks cheaper." Well, the agent said COPD or whatever. Right.
So, um, and then at this point, we pull up our quotes. We give a either a one or two, a two-option close or a three-option close. So, um, and so what is that? So, for the new people out there, uh, three options would be good, better, best. This is a classic close where the client has selection of they can choose what they want, but we don't, we don't say, "Hey, do you want to buy?" You never ask the client a question they can answer "no" to because then you're giving them an out. What you want to ask your prospect is, "Which of these three options do you want to move forward with, or do you want to get approved for?" Okay? And the idea behind that is they can, they have an option to say "yes" to something. We don't care which one it is. We just want to say "yes," right? That's the important thing.
Yeah. Um, a couple of things I like to do that enhances our ability to get the highest amount out of the client. And I say that, I want to sound like I'm some crook, like I'm trying to squeeze every dollar, like, but I want to show options. I want to show options to clients and let them choose what works best for them, but I want to do it strategically. So, I think this one I picked up from, um, a great agent. I'm just Ryan. Uh, I forget his last name. It'll come to me in a minute. Ryan, uh, Ryan told me this was great. So, on the three options, we got that budget. Let's say Mildred said $80 to $100 a month. We're going to show the first and second option as $80 and $100 a month, right? The third option, we're going to go an interval above it. We're going to do that's going to be the stretch option. So, we'll show $120. And then, and why do we do that? Because sometimes people are playing their cards closer to the chest. They're not going to tell you exactly what they can afford because they don't want you to take it all. They're a little bit more sophisticated.
So, they may be downplaying what they could. So, it's just worth tossing out there to see if you can get that extra amount because maybe they'll say "yes" to it. Especially now that you've educated on what it is that you do and how it works and they're a lot more confident in the offer, right? You should at least try. Trying, you don't lose anything because you have the first and second option which absolutely fits their budget. Okay.
Yeah. And, um, my recommendation, the final step here is to recommend which one they should choose. Mhm. So, if Mildred tells me, "I want the full cremation. I don't need $25,000 in coverage. Just burn me and put me in the coffee lid, the coffee can, right?" And I show her option A, B, and C. And let's say it's $5,000, $10,000, $15,000. I'll tell her, "Hey, look, if you just want the simple cremation, you all you really need is the $5,000. Now, you can get the $10,000 if you think you need some extra coverage or you just really want to make sure there's enough later on if inflation happens. But really, either option A or B is going to be the best choice." Okay? So, that way I'm telling them what to do because now at this point, as a salesperson, you remember the start of the call, they're skeptical of you. They think you're a scammer. They think you're full of it. But now, you're at the end of the call and the likelihood is the rapport and the trust is a lot higher.
Yeah. And people need help making decisions. That's why salespeople are gainfully employed because people don't want to make bad decisions. They want to rely on experts. And by the end of the sales call, you have started off as an unwelcomed pest to a welcomed guest. So, tell them what you think they should do. But be bold and be honest. Like, if you don't think they should get to $15,000, I mean, don't just do it because it's there. Tell them what you really earnestly. If it was your mom, what would you tell your mom to buy? That's how you should treat your client.
That's good. Okay. And then show them the options and shut up. Don't say anything because many times our clients need a few seconds to think through the numbers, to digest. "Can I afford this? Can I move money over to do this? Do I really need this?" Don't interrupt their thinking process to arrive at their final decision on the price. Very, I had one lady who wrote along with this is in person many years ago, and I got to the close and I offered the three-option close and I said, "Which one works best for you?" And then I shut up. Like, minutes passed. It felt like an eternity. You ever been in that situation? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You're just like, and about 2 minutes in, a very great, not very nice agent, I liked her a lot. She said, "You know, you could start off with that less expensive one." And I was like, "What the hell are you saying over there? You said shut up. That's what I thought." And then, of course, he didn't buy. He's like, "I need to think about this one." So, anyways, don't be that person. Let the client think through this. Let them go through this and then make that decision if they need it or not, or which one they're going to buy, really.
And, uh, most of the time, it just takes a couple of seconds. Yeah. And then if they, if they have objections, then you handle them at that point. That's right. And you deal with them. So, the last thing I want to, I want to go over now, just, just to be clear for the audience, this is about 60% of the script. We've left out specific parts. Um, but we, the meat and potatoes is here today. So, you know, you should be able to take this and put it into action and, and, and do a really good job of getting results out of it.
Yeah, phenomenal content. Thank you. Last thing I want to hit on here is I think one of the biggest issues, uh, sales agents will have is when somebody comes up with a social security, like, how do I ask for the social security number without hearing an objection? So, the script that we like to use as we get into the application and we're filling it out, we say this as follows: "Just like every company, they do a medical and a prescription background check using your social number. So, go ahead and hit me with your social number." So, we say "social number," "social security number." Okay, I know it sounds lame and stupid, but by saying "social security number," it just triggers this reaction of it's a scam. So, if they're already kind of, you know, sometimes they're not like 100%, like we want them to be, as much as possible, 100% sold at the end, but sometimes they're like 80, 90% there. So, we want to again, modify the words we're using. Drop "number," just say "your social number." And, and the other thing, too, guys, is don't preface it by saying, "Hey, Mrs. Jones, I, I'm going to ask you something that's really important. It may sound serious." Don't say all that stuff. It's like, "You may not want to give it to me, but I've got to have it." Yeah. Agents will do this because they, they're nervous about it, and that represents his nervousness, and then the client doesn't know any better and they're like, "Well, maybe I should be concerned." So, it's just like, "Hey, what's your name? What's your address?" And tell me, "What's your social?" It's, don't, don't make it a big deal. It's just like every other question on the applicant.
"Hey, man. Totally agree with that. So, you don't want to do, 'Dave, what is your social security?'" "Number." "No." "And then, and then actually probably worse than that is the bank. Like, people at this point, they're like, 'Yeah, people have stole my social security. Now I'm broke anyway, but my bank account? No, I ain't giving my bank accounts.' That's probably the bigger issue to deal with." "I agree with you on that. They'll give you their social. I agree with that. Bank, though, that's what matters." "Yeah. Correct. That is what matters. That is what matters. Like Mildred probably don't even care if you steal her identity at this point." "Right. Yeah. Whatever."
So, that's, that's the big thing. And so, to kind of summarize this for everybody, like, I, I can't stress enough, our clients in the final expense space, especially, they're all on these now. They're all getting, uh, uh, they're all seeing on, they're all scroll, doom scrolling on Facebook and TikTok, even. Correct. Their attention spans are for nothing, and they do not tolerate being bored or not getting what they want. Okay? And so, you have to modify your script to reflect the reality our clients are in, which is get to the point, say in early on in the script what they want, which is a quote they requested. Don't bore them with questions that you know they don't care about answering, like rapport building. Um, trust will naturally come up later. And, um, drive to the pitch, drive to the close. Um, it will be a welcomed relief from what they normally hear, which is some drawn-out, boring, 25-page script that they want to pull their hair out listening to. Don't be that guy, you know?
Yeah. So, there we go. It's awesome. Amazing content. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate you being back. If they want to learn more about DIG or and you, where do they go? What do they do? So, if, if y'all have never heard of me, go just put in Dig Agency or David Duford into YouTube. Go down the black hole of content that's, uh, thousands of videos. Thousands of videos. I don't know if Cody has more than I do. I mean, we'll have to compare. I wonder actually. Yeah, we'll have to see. We'll have to compare here. I wonder. I've got like 3,600, 3,700. Probably around the same. Maybe some.
Um, and then if you guys are looking for an agency, uh, real quick, Cody, if you don't mind me doing a shameless plug for it. Uh, the DIG Agency is my company. Our specialty is helping agents who want to sell remotely from home, uh, using a free lead system. So, we don't charge agents for leads. Um, we do all of the lead generation ourselves, so the quality is fantastic. Um, agents who make great fits for our companies, part-time or full-time is acceptable. Um, new agents, newly licensed agents, especially because they need training. They need support. We're not MLM. We just care about training the crap out of you to sell people successfully. Okay? So, like, you're a great fit if that's you. Uh, we don't want narcissists or a-holes. That's like our only exception. But other than that, we're pretty wide open, anybody.
Boom. So, uh, go to davidduford.com to learn more about us if you'd like to learn more about the agency. Cool. 3,300 videos, by the way, and change. Wow. On YouTube. Can you believe that? Felt like you've done 3,000 plus videos, Cody. Doesn't feel like that many. No, feels like we've done a bunch, but not that many, right? It's amazing. You've been doing it for a long time. You're someone who also, I think you guys can sense this. Like, dude, I, I'm a fan of Dave. Someone I trust. Like, I, I don't always say it on every podcast, but like, dude, I could give him the login to my bank account. I'd be totally comfortable. Like, this is, this is that dude, you know what I mean? And I've always tried to be that guy. He, this is, this is, he, he's that type of individual. I know it's important to say, especially if you're new to him. If you're, if you get on YouTube, you're not new to him, you know what I mean? And you've seen us a bunch together, a bunch. There's a mutual respect. You know, he's built something really special. I'm grateful he's had us on his, and we've had him on ours a bunch as well. And he comes back and he's bringing great content. So, it's like, hey, what do you do when people do a good job? When you let them, a part of your stuff, you bring them back, right? Especially when it's like, hey, a full, you know, breakdown of an appointment and now, breaking down a script. Yes, sir. It's cool. That's right. Thank you for doing that. Appreciate you being back. Cody. Enjoy it. Yes, sir. Also, I'm about to ask you three additional questions. Yes. For CE Studios. Okay. These are, I'm actually excited to see your answers because they're very unique questions. Okay. Hopefully, you're a member of CE Studios. If you're not, you go to cstudios.tv to see the rest of this content. But thank you for being on the podcast. Thank you. Appreciate it. And I appreciate you guys hanging in, listening, and to this incredible episode. Make sure you're dissecting this thing, taking notes. Please go apply some of this content because I can guarantee you, based on the fact that he's selling millions a year with this, it will help you produce more. As always, we appreciate you listening and we'll see you on the next podcast and inside of Studios. Goodbye. [Applause] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music]