The Consultative Broker™ Briefing
Volume VII, Number 7
A Free Publication of C.R. Ekern & Company
888.670.1177
www.crekern.com
Copyright, C. R. Ekern & Company, 2007

Select Your Prospects

From time to time I like to remind myself (and others) that I was once one of the top-producing brokers in North America.  I need to say this occasionally, as it focuses me on the difficulties most of you face in continuing to build your books of business.  So, what I am about to tell you comes from over 25 years of experience as a successful seasoned producer/broker.  Ready?

You have the right and obligation to select your prospects.  Don’t let them select you!

The key to success in this business, as the marketplace softens, is to select your prospects carefully.  What a novel concept!  Does that mean that you don’t have to work on every deal that comes your way?  Absolutely!  As a Consultative Broker you get to choose who fits your production style and business model.  The successful brokers do this on a regular basis.

Here are some additional thoughts:

1. Only 1/3 of your prospects are working with you for the right reasons.  The remainder are selecting you to work on their account, in order to keep the other broker honest or because the competition is mandated.  In these cases, should you continue to work on the account, you become the prospect!
2. You should look for prospects that are “coachable/teachable” as my friend and Consultative Broker, Martin Yung, likes to say.  In your initial conversations, test your prospect’s business savvy.  If all the discussions head back to price, keep changing the direction to cost.  If the prospect follows the conversation, take the opportunity of showing him/her the importance of your value proposition.
3. You may need to have some patience with your prospects. You must understand that as a Consultative Broker who focuses on costs versus price, you will be different than the other brokers. In many cases, the prospects have never considered what you are explaining and they may be a little confused.  After all, who taught these buyers to choose a broker based upon price?  We did!  So, consider some of these discussions a re-education process.
4. Do not judge your success by the old standard.  In the past we determined our success by whether or not the prospect would let us “work on their account this year.”  That is not the yardstick of Consultative Broker success, as it is simply x-date driven.  The new standard of success is, “Will this prospect allow us to learn their issues, identify costs, and deliver a value proposition outside the commodity of the insurance policy?”
5. You must continue to prospect constantly.  Even the most successful broker practices this important principle.  In order to work selectively, you must have a number of prospects in the pipeline.  The reason most brokers are unable to choose their prospects . . . is because they don’t have enough of them!

Consultative Brokers understand that selecting prospects is one of their unalienable rights as a producer.  They guard this freedom as a producer fiercely, as they know that production time is their most important business asset.  They use this asset wisely in order to maximize their income for themselves and their organizations.

Best regards to all Consultative Brokers,

Rob Ekern
President
C.R. Ekern & Company

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Consultative Brokerage® Techniques are utilized by agents and brokers across North America in the development and retention of upper middle market revenues.  The Consultative Broker Briefing is delivered electronically free of charge to selected agents, brokers, and other insurance professionals across North America.  To subscribe to The Consultative Broker Briefing, please click here.

Copyright 2007 C.R. Ekern & Company