Mr Rajesh Krishnamoorthy, Managing Director, iFast Financial India Pvt Ltd:

The competitive environment is ever-changing. For anybody to have a sustained lead professional education comes in handy.

Without professional certification like FChFP, RFC, CFP to name a few, it will become increasingly difficult for “distributors” to understand the scientific ways of risk profiling, needs analysis, asset allocation, product selection, portfolio review and rebalancing. Without doing these, it will be hard for a distributor to graduate to an advisor.

Mr S K Samy, Honorary Secretary, Asia Pacific Financial Services Association (APFinSA), Singapore and Manager at Great Eastern Life, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

In Malaysia the Financial Services Master plan, implemented from 1996 to 2006, made many changes and commission disclosure is one of them. When customers know your commission, the mature ones expect the service that comes for that commission rather than resenting it or asking for a discount.  National Association of Malaysian Life Insurers and Financial Advisors (Namlifa), our association of Life insurance agents, places a lot of emphasis on education that helps the agent increase his worth in the eyes of the customer. Once that happens the customer looks at the value, not the (commission) cost.

Even for managers like me continuous professional development (CPD) of 40 hours a year is compulsory. You can be a manager for 35 years, I don’t care, but if you don’t do your CPD hours by the end of the year, you are terminated! If not by will, by force you have to undergo training and so companies are coming out with many programmes including personal grooming, courses on leadership, consulting counselling and consoling.

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Mr Deepak Sood Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Future Generali Life Insurance Company

Mr Harpal Karlcut Chief Executive Officer, Canara HSBC OBC Life Insurance Company

K Nitya Kalyani

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K Nitya Kalyani

Selling is the subject of many, many
books and training programmes. Of this, insurance selling is an important segment. This is a worldwide phenomenon.
Many critical outcomes depend on successful and sustained insurance selling. From financial security of a society to investments for business and for public infrastructure, they all depend on the ‘yes’ that some insurance agent, somewhere in the country, manages to get from his customer after much effort.
That ‘yes’ depends on three key aspects. Trust, knowledge, and a strong system of legal protection.
Today the world is changing fast and new customer needs are emerging. If the customer is to have confidence in the advice of an insurance agent it is absolutely necessary that the agent should have up-to-date knowledge.
The customer himself has a huge amount of information from various sources, often more than the agent! So the agent should progress from being an information source to becoming the expert who can help the customer sort it all out and make the correct decision.
This process is based on a relationship of trust he has built with his customers over years. In many cases, it is built over generations.
In addition to these two, there is a third requirement. The regulatory and legal systems have to ensure the welfare of the customer by placing some obligations on the insurance companies and agents and ensuring the obligations are met in spirit and in letter.
The last couple of months have seen a high level of activity in this, the regulatory area of insurance. In fact in the recent months the regulatory aspect of insurance has been in the news, with both positive and negative visibility.
Regulation of Unit-Linked insurance policies (ULIPs), the acceptability of commissions for agents, terms and conditions of ULIPs as a product, all these things have cropped up recently in the news and there have been mid-course corrections in the regulatory framework to prevent abuse and unethical practices.
One significant recent move of the IRDA is the proposed regulations on persistence. In short the proposal is to cancel agency licences of those agents who have over 50 per cent lapsation rates. The reasoning is that such performance is more likely because of mis-selling.
Other measures include an extensive needs analysis document to be filled before selling policies, a new policy information document called Key Features Document for each policy by an insurer, norms for discontinued ULIPs and for lapsed ULIPs, new norms for distance marketing and even the implementation of a grievances call centre.
Each of these moves is significant and some are being seen as difficult to implement and impractical given Indian conditions. We will examine these and other changes in the pipeline – and also changes that should come about in the Sales Skills series in the next few months.

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Self Presentation

Product Knowledge

Relationship Building

Ethics and Credibility

Set Yourself on Fire

Customer Centricity

Product Knowledge

Appealing Demonstration

Commitment & Desperation

Transparency Binds Customer to Me

Product Knowledge

Transparency

Sharp Negotiation Skills

Perseverance

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The great aim of education is not knowledge but action.

Herbert Spencer (1820 – 1903)

Change is a fact of life. Change takes away what we have, what we are comfortable with, and gives us new things to deal with. Making this new set of circumstances work in our favour depends on us.

Being able to change quickly to suit new circumstances or overcome problems and challenges is necessary. Being mentally ready and equipped to change quickly is the quality of winners.

How can we be ready for change before it comes, before we even know what that change is?

The world has much to offer us. We only see what is fun, pleasurable and easy and take those. But for those who watch carefully and can see the demands of the future, the opportunity presents itself but they have to invest the time and effort now to reap the rewards in the future.

In this mini-series, Agent to Advisor, we explore what makes an individual change for the better and how he can do it. Change from being just average, struggling to achieve the basic objectives of his daily work to becoming a fully charged, super-successful sales person who attracts business almost as if by magic and using the changing circumstances to his advantage even if the change is adverse.

First there is a trigger for change when an agent realises that he can achieve great success and that he wants to do so! Initially he begins changing from the inside, getting mentally attuned to seeking success. This is mainly a change to a positive attitude and related growth which we saw last month.

Why change today?

But today, in India, why change?

There are many reasons. Idealistically speaking, one must always strive to do better in one’s profession and life. Simply in that sense, change is progress.

The financial advisory profession and the financial services industry in India have changed enormously in the last 10 to 15 years. The developments in the insurance industry have changed everything in the lives of the companies, the agents and the customers too. To keep pace with these changes the agent has to take the lead for his own professional development.

An immediate trigger for change is the proposal floated by the Swarup Committee that all financial products should go ‘no-load’ by April 1, 2011. In insurance industry terms that means that insurance commissions, paid by the insurance company to its agent should be abolished. In its place the agent should collect a fee from his customer.

That is, the act of selling an insurance policy will no longer be a transaction but part of financial planning.

How does an agent go from commissions to fees? How does he graduate from being an agent to being a financial advisor? Those are the questions.

We spoke to a few experts in the field and here is a roadmap to acquiring the changes that come from outside.

Get Professional Education

No load! That has been a threatening word for the insurance agency in the last few months. But here is a different view on it. A presentation on the web site of Financial Planning Standards Board of India (FPSB) points out the opportunities when financial products start to being sold on a no entry load basis.

The relationship becomes more advice and customer centric than transaction based, it says, which will open doors for Financial Planning. Good advice will be appreciated and hence rewarded and customer service will be the key.

Hence, knowledge is a must and certification becomes important. But the point it stresses is that those who work in the client’s interest will be rewarded.

There will be issues like difficulty in putting a value to your service and advice or building the right business model and administrative workload. More importantly there would be competition in the form of online platforms with direct investment options for customers which could affect your immediate cash flows.

The point is, professional education builds the bridge from the present position to the uncertain future, whatever it may be.

Mr Joydeep Roy, Chief Executive, L&T General Insurance Company, Mumbai

Mr Joydeep Roy, Chief Executive, L&T General Insurance Company, who is also a long standing member of the board of trustees of FPSB has this to say. “Financial planning qualifications is the only way to professional excellence for the insurance agent and India badly needs expert advice on financial planning.”

The opportunity for the agent who is willing to commit the time and energy is enormous he says and the downside is that those who do not rise up to the occasion may find themselves left behind.

Speaking of the fee for advice model, Mr Roy says that it is true that this may not be suitable for all Indian agents at this stage  since the investment culture among the people is not widespread yet.

In fact it may not be feasible for a vast majority of agents since insurance for the masses is still a distant vision.

“Yet, there is a growing clientele for sophisticated financial planning advice and they appreciate the value of sound advice, is his endorsement.”

Get a Mentor

In the olden days in India they had the right idea. The gurukul system provided not only for a highly focussed learning environment but the guru could nurture, shape and discipline the minds of his sishyas each according to their abilities and even their personalities.

Mr P S Kochchar, President, Life Insurance Round Table and Agent, LIC, Mumbai

Getting mentored has been widely acknowledged as a very effective method to develop oneself professionally because of the experienced advice that one can get and the personalised attention and bonding that makes it possible for individual talents to be developed and for problem areas to be tackled effectively.

Many Indian insurance companies have mentoring programmes or buddy programmes where senior and top performing agents can offer their time and wisdom to the youngsters. In the public sector nothing like that exists but many mechanisms have been thriving including organisations like Life Underwriters Guild of India (LUGI), Life Insurance Round Table (LIRT) and the Life Insurance Study Circle in Kolkata.

These organisations hold events and create community forums for agents of all seniorities and levels of performance to come together for interaction. Leaders of such forums like Mr P Srinivasan who founded LUGI and Mr PS Kochchar, Founder of LIRT are mentors to vast numbers of agents in their own right and have created platforms for mentoring to thrive.

To Give is to Receive

This is the other side of the coin of mentorship. As anyone who has experience in teaching will agree, those who teach end up learning a lot themselves. Being a mentor is very educative too!

Mr Rajesh Chheda, Agent, LIC, Goa

Mr Rajesh Chheda, Agent, Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) based at Goa has been teaching insurance and salesmanship for over 20 years at institutions like Goa University and Goa Institute of Management.

He says, “looking at the explosive growth opportunities in India in the coming times, I thought financial literacy would be of paramount importance as this part of the world was producing some of the largest numbers of self-made millionaires and logic was that all of them would be requiring ace financial advice to manage their fast growing wealth!”

Hence was born the idea of his Financial Literacy Academy where he has started training select managers of AMCs, banks and freshers from college joining the CFP programme.

His objective is to help create a breed of financial planners who would give qualitative advice on financial planning. For this the first step is risk management and for that the first step is adequate life insurance cover!

Earn Professional Designations

Mr Anand Jathan, Country Chair, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh of MDRT and Agent, LIC, Mumbai

Mr Anand Jathan, Country Chair, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh of Million Dollar Round Table (MDRT) urges that agents should acquire professional designations like club memberships of the Corporate Club or Chairman’s Club in LIC or of organisations like MDRT.

“Be a member of some top clubs in your profession, so that when you go and present your business card the professional emblem speaks of you and your elevated standards,” he says.

Professional qualifications like Certified Life Underwriter (CLU) and Life Underwriters Training College Fellow (LUTCF) are popular, he remarks and, “if you have that qualification, in addition to practical experience, it makes you a perfect advisor. Other things count more, like experience and understanding your customer profile through good relationship, but in today’s world people look at your qualifications also.”

Be Informed!

“When you wake up in the morning, update yourself by reading financial newspapers,” adds Mr Jathan.

His additional observation is, “advisors and leaders in the insurance industry receive a solid platform through Premium to air their views and rise above their constraints with the help of inspirational contents of the magazine.”

As the most preferred magazine for insurance professionals Premium is also doing its very best in bringing to its readers the power of information.

Reading

Mr P Srinivasan, Founder and President LUGI and Agent, LIC, Coimbatore

This is the universal solution for any professional. Over and above education and training, more than anything else, the reading habit will sustain the good effects of all these and keep enhancing them as professionals and as individuals. As someone said, reading a book means learning easily everything that the author learnt painfully and by experience!

Reading opens up the entire world of experience and success to you by imparting the ideas of the author and sparking off your creative thinking.

Says Mr P Srinivasan, Founder and President LUGI, “reading good books is an inspiration and a motivation to do better and more things. Take the example of how I started LUGI,” he says.

He was reading Frank Bettger’s ‘How I Raised Myself from Failure to Success in Selling’ and “reading it made me start LUGI!”

Enough reason to start reading immediately!

K Nitya Kalyani

How to do it?

Working full time means there is little time for anything else. Working as an insurance agent goes far beyond that. The hours are long, the success is uncertain and slow initially and the anxiety and stress levels are high.

So where do we have the time for education and training, for reading or for professional activities, ask insurance agents.

Here, in the words of experts, are some ways in which you can do it:

Reading

“Learning is not attained by chance. It must be sought for with ardor and attended to with diligence.” – Abigail Adams

Chris Widener, success coach and author (www.madeforsuccess.com) has this commentary:

One thing I try to tell everyone I come in contact with is to enter into the learning process. In fact, I think it is virtually impossible in this day and age to grow personally and professionally without reading or listening to something. Our personal growth is based on the interaction with new ideas that stretch us and challenge us to think and act in new ways. Many people want to see change in their lives, yet won’t think or act differently because they aren’t learning new ways to think or act. Why? I think it comes down to this: Because learning is work. Learning doesn’t just happen. We need to pursue it, as Adams says, “with diligence.”

And his advice for action is:

Start yourself on the road to growth today! Pick a time each and every day when you can read for 15 minutes. It may be the first thing in the morning. It may be the first 15 minutes at work. It may be the 15 minutes before you go to sleep. Set it aside and begin to do it every day. If you have a long commute, stop listening to the morning show and get some good personal-growth tapes! Do you know that an extra 15 minutes a day of reading will give you 91 hours a year of reading? At two hours a book, that’s 45 books a year! And you said you didn’t have the time! Just give yourself 15 minutes a day, that’s all I ask, starting today!

Professional qualifications and designations

Resources relating to professional education in financial planning and the popular professional qualifications

Chartered Financial Planner, CFP

http://www.fpsbindia.org/

Financial Planning Standards Board India is a public–private enterprise and a professional standards setting body for financial planners in India. FPSB India proactively guides the development and promotion of standards for financial planning professionals to benefit and protect the public in the country. FPSB India closely works with all the stakeholders like the Government, the regulators, the industries/ associations, the corporate, the media and the general public to achieve its objectives.

The Certified Financial Planner (CFP) Certification is a mark of excellence granted to individuals who meet FPSB’s  standards of education, examination, experience and ethics.

FPSB India is the principal licensing body that awards CFPCM Certification in India through an agreement with FPSB Limited. CFPCM Certification is the highest level of certification worldwide in the field of financial planning with over one lakh CFPCM Certificants and widely respected by consumers, professionals and industry.

Education is an integral component of the CFPCM Certification Program and any candidate aspiring to become CFPCM Certificant has to register with any of the FPSB India’s Authorised Education Providers. However, candidates having specified qualifications and work experience have an option of waiver.

CFPCM Certification worldwide is awarded by FPSB Affiliates to competent and qualifying candidates fulfilling the 4 E Criteria of CFPCM Certification i.e. Education, examination, work experience and ethics.

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A man becomes what he thinks about most of the time.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Change is a fact of life. Change takes away what we have, what we are comfortable with, and gives us new things to deal with. Making this new set of circumstances work in our favour depends on us.

In this mini-series, Agent to Advisor, we explore what makes an individual change for the better and how he can do it. Change from being just average, struggling to achieve the basic objectives of his daily work to becoming a fully charged,

super-successful sales person who

attracts business almost as if by magic and using the changing circumstances to his advantage even if the change is adverse.  Once the need for change is triggered, the first set of changes come from inside him. He gets mentally attuned to seeking

success by acquiring a positive attitude, gaining confidence, developing the instinct to recognise opportunities and finally, the tough determination to use every opportunity and do great things with his life and career.

With awareness and, if he is lucky, with a good mentor or friend, he can make these changes within himself and sustain them for a lifetime. During this process of internal change, he identifies that another set of changes is needed and that he has to acquire those changes from outside. Getting prepared to do his job professionally with education and training, for example, is one of them. His looks, his grooming, his carriage and his communication, all have to change to reflect and attract success.

Changes from within

When an agent experiences that initial spark, realising that this profession has great potential and that he would like to be part of that success story, that is the starting point. Along with that comes the realisation that if he wishes to achieve success and greatness, it is necessary for him to make a supreme effort. That is the moment when he gets mentally ready to accept the opportunity and win, or gives up and continues to lead his unsatisfactory life.

Attitude is the foundation

If he chooses greatness, first his attitude changes.  If he had doubts about himself and his capabilities, at this time he will try to kill those doubts, begin believing in himself and his efforts and become mentally strong to work hard and overcome any real defects in himself and his circumstances. His problem could be self-pity or pessimism, laziness, lack of focus or lack of ambition. A change to a positive attitude will help him attack these. This change can be created consciously by him, and each one of us. It’s only a matter of conditioning.

He can train himself to have a positive outlook no matter what the world tells him and how many changes seem to attack him from every side. But the important thing is not to stop there. A positive attitude, an attitude of strength, has to be cultivated on a life-long basis.

Daily life can wear him out and erode his outlook. This is why it is important for him to strengthen his attitude consciously each day and each minute. Initially it will be difficult – it will look almost impossible. Over time it becomes second nature and he will be able to even help others with their moments of change.

Part of this process is that he has to nurture those positive thoughts until there is no room for any negative thoughts to grow. He should replace every negative thought when a prospect says ‘no’ with a positive thought that this will lead him to a ‘yes’ shortly. Belief is the foundation of all what is to come in the future.

Confidence overcomes  challenges

Once he starts cultivating an attitude of success, then comes a confidence building stage when he starts believing in himself and that belief itself helps him overcome most challenges. Typically at this stage he recognises negative influences like friends who make him feel depressed and helpless about life or office colleagues who complain bitterly rather than working sincerely. He avoids them and seeks out positive company, people who have a bright lookout on life and who are cheerful even when facing difficult circumstances.

He seeks out books and other materials that fill him with positive and confident thoughts. For many prayer and meditation become important factors in boosting their focus and clarity of thought. Confidence is not a destination. Confidence, just like attitude, has to be practiced and developed constantly. Once it becomes a habit, it gets easier for him to sustain it and build upon it. Tasks and challenges that upset him earlier become routine and even enjoyable activities because he has grown in the mental strength to tackle them.

Seizing opportunities

Seizing an opportunity is not an action. At the simple level we can see it that way. It is really an attitude. Not ignoring even a small chance to work towards success marks great achievers. Not because they are starved of opportunities but because they realise that any chance, big or small actually turns out to be big in the long run. It is also because it has become part of their mental makeup to respond to every chance with their best efforts.

Believe it or not, most people are blind to opportunity. They cannot hear it or see it because they are not attuned to it. They don’t recognise it. As the famous quip goes, this may be because opportunities are  usually disguised as work! Opportunities don’t mean success but represent a chance to achieve success.

Our agent who wants to become an advisor has to work to make that chance meaningful in his career.

An introduction to a prospect is not the end of his journey. It is the beginning of a stint of hard work to advice and convince the prospect about the kind of insurance and other financial products he needs. And like all good things in life this does not end with one effort – seeing and seizing

opportunities is a lifelong process. He has to grab every chance he gets without getting tired or bored!

Why don’t people grab chances to achieve something? The answers can be a throwback on what we saw earlier in this article. A lack of focus – he has not yet changed his attitude to welcome success and is still wallowing in self pity or empty dreams not backed by determination. Or it may be a lack of self confidence. His own limiting belief about himself and his abilities, self doubts that make him draw within himself and vegetate.

How limiting can these negative beliefs about ourselves be? They can mean all the difference between success and failure. Nobody, it is said, has ever exceeded his own expectations! So if you don’t even expect much from yourself, you have limited where you can go and what you can achieve!

And the funniest thing is that this limit is only in your mind. You will find that people around you believe in your abilities even when you are unable to do so yourself!

Another very critical thing about seizing opportunities or failing to seize opportunites is this. You may lose a sale even when you make your best efforts. It happens. But you WILL lose the sale that you don’t attempt. And the only thing that prevents you from attempting is your own mind, your own attitude.

Determination

Determination is the seriousness with which you take up each opportunity. It shows up as a series of actions but behind them actually is a tough mental attitude and an approach to life and work that says, “I will do what I believe in, and will not be discouraged by difficulties and problems.”

Once our agent, who wants to become a well paid advisor, approaches everything with a determination to achieve, he will find that the entire world seems to be conspiring to help him reach his goals!

Once he sets his mind to a goal and throws all his efforts and thoughts behind that determination, things just have to happen!

Not every effort will lead to success. So when his work seems to be leading nowhere the agent has to start looking for ways to improve it. Maybe he is approaching the work the wrong way. Maybe it needs more intellectual input and less physical effort. Maybe his assumptions about the prospect are wrong and so he is presenting him with a plan that is unsuitable.

Once he is able to take stock of his actions and do mid course corrections, his efforts will have better and better chances of leading him to success. Through all this he should not lose his determination to succeed.

Conclusion

The mind is stronger than most forces in the world and belief is what drives the human mind. If this belief is strong and positive, all the changes that need to come from within a person to take him from mediocrity to success will happen.

It will happen with an effort from him and genuine hard work. And it has to be his duty to sustain it lifelong without losing faith in himself.

K Nitya Kalyani

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In every professional’s life there is a moment of awakening when the realisation hits home that there is much more that he can achieve, if only. If only he were better equipped with knowledge, better organised, better informed and better skilled. The response to that inner call for professional development is what makes or breaks major professional success.

The insurance agent’s profession can be very frustrating and tough in the initial years. Once the realisation dawns about the potential and the value of the profession, there is a yearning to attain greater heights.

At that moment the hunger is born to achieve it and he begins to look for the resources to help him. In many cases he becomes suddenly aware of the power of the resources that he has known about for some time but never respected enough!

It may happen when his best friend gets a performance award and it hits him that he too could be tasting the same success at that very moment.

Or it could even happen when he is elated about a sale that went well and now wants a string of such successes. It could be frustration about what is stopping him from realising his own potential. This frustration, not many realise, is only due to their own unwillingness to step out of their comfort zones and learn.

Once he is ready for that first step begins the joy of learning. Often there is a lot of pain that comes with it, but the psyche is ready to bear the pain at the thought of the rewards that wait at the end of it.

The First Step

The first step takes many forms. For some it is seeking the advice of the development officer or some other mentor who has guided and supported them, maybe a senior colleague. For others, it is time to attend training and education courses and polish up their knowledge and skills. Whichever it is, the initial elation and subsequent hard work are never forgotten since they make tangible progress and enjoy its benefits.

Let us look at the initial spark of professional development as experienced by Mr Rajesh Chheda, Agent, Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) in Goa. In fact, his professional development journey is interesting to follow given the fact that being an insurance agent is

an important part of it, but only one part of his career. He started his career giving loans against shares at Citibank in 1989.

Mr Rajesh Chheda agent, Life Insurance Corporation of India, Goa

What started as a temporary job while he was attending his CA final exam classes became his first attempt at re-skilling. And it was so effective, those being the heady days of the first stock market boom post liberalisation in India, that Mr Chheda surrendered his Certificate of Practice to the CA institute and went to Goa to become the first professionally qualified sub-broker there.

By 1990 he decided that since he had re-skilled as a CA why not give the clients something better than they expected. His advantage being a CA in the financial field was that “I survived the minefield of capital markets from the time the index was at 1,000 to the levels of 20,000. That was one part, he says, the other was he learnt the power of technology.

In the early 1990s was the time when vSat based trading on the Over the Counter Exchange of India (OTCEI) was coming into vogue. He became the representative office in Goa and, though OTCEI did not take off, it was a great learning opportunity.

The Harshad Mehta scam did not affect his company but the Ketan Parekh scam found that an associate was tainted and Mr Rajesh Chheda’s company was ‘badly hit.’ It was moral responsibility towards his clients that saw him through and he went from having a car to riding a scooter for daily work. It was at this time that he re-skilled himself as a Life insurance agent in the year 2001.

“At that time I asked myself one question, why would someone like to deal with me as a Life insurance agent?” The answer was, ten years of experience, the CA qualification and wholesome advice given to clients due to these.

Shortly after he became an insurance agent Mr Chheda was on his way to the US to attend the MDRT meet – in a few months he will be attending his seventh consecutive meet!

But success did not prevent him from seeing further re-skilling opportunities. When Life insurance business thrived,

he met enough people who said they

did not need Life insurance but wanted Health insurance.

“So I became a General insurance agent,” he says of yet another re-skilling opportunity that came his way, with the tone of one who thinks this is a way of life.

“If you have one qualification,” he reasons, “getting an additional qualification is no big deal. You can

rework yourself since the base material is the same!”

And hence from General insurance it was mutual funds right when the markets were booming in the mid 2000s. In three consecutive years, he says, “there was a 1,000 per cent increase in my assets under management”.

Contrary to what others may think, this made him uncomfortable. “Perhaps I am getting overconfident,” he thought and decided to go in for yet another qualification, this time the Certified Financial Planner. Taking time off from September 2009, he finished the course and calls it his final feather in re-skilling.

Why now after so much professional education? In an indirect reference to the Swarup committee recommendations he says, “Instead of going against the regulatory environment, it is better to adhere to it and get ahead.”

His stand is not one of giving up he underlines. Instead it is a fact that compliance is becoming very important worldwide and if changes are happening elsewhere you should expect it to come here too.

In Hong Kong, he says, a video recording is necessary for establishing disclosures at the time of sale of an insurance policy – this sort of thing can become a requirement here too.

And re-skilling brings with it the ability to think ahead. For example “When I became an LIC agent in 2001 I had the habit of affixing a photograph of the policyholder and now it has become a mandatory requirement under the Know Your Customer (KYC) norms. He recalls that he is one of the few who sent policyholders photocopies of their proposal forms from the beginning. IRDA regulations require it, but most agents either did not know of it or ignored it. “The proposal form is the basis of the contract and the client should have a copy,” was his reasoning.

With these skills Mr Chheda can boast of being a comprehensive financial planner. “I was not so in the first place,” and that urge to better his knowledge and skills have made him a fully accomplished professional he says.

“At the same time I have not gone out of the road, I am in the same road of financial planning and advice for the last 20 years.”

If it has been a career marked by re-skilling and professional development, what was the trigger?

“My realisation came when I asked myself what kind of client I would like to serve. The answer was the high net worth individual. The next question was, what would he like? He would like a very well informed financial advisor,” and that is what Mr Chheda set out to become.

He gets all the business magazines, Indian and international and reads them. At a completely different level he learnt typing when young and it helped him to get comfortable with computers. It does not come overnight, he cautions, you have to learn to connect the dots!

At the end of it his one mantra is: Learning never stops, life has to be a constant redevelopment of yourself.

Interestingly the next step he took was to help create financial literacy among his peers. His Financial Literacy Academy offers financial awareness courses for the layperson and CHP certification classes for professionals.

“In the next ten years in India people are going to be rich and they are going to need financial planning. To provide them with the right service, what one needs is years of experience and soft skills, he says, pointing out to the next opportunity.

Necessity is the mother of invention when it comes to professional development many times, he says. When his business was hit by the scam he had to find a new livelihood and Life agency was being marketed as one that did not need any investment. Spotting opportunities in challenges was also a skill that the professional develops. For example, when he learnt that the LIC branch in his area was being shifted much further away to Panjim, he got himself a small office near the old LIC office to establish a presence and serve an un-served locality.

The idea he says, is to differentiate himself from the ordinary, ‘jholawala’ agent. “Why should someone deal with me if I am a one man show?” I may be a proprietorship but I should manage my business professionally. That is where technology was the answer. And technology, we saw, was something he was preparing to embrace through various steps at different points of time in his career starting from typing in his student days to experimenting with OTCEI’s systems later on.

Mr Ravi Jethani, Agent, Life Insurance Corporation of India, Mumbai

One of India’s top insurance agents  located in Mumbai and representing LIC is Mr Ravi Jethani.

For Mr Ravi Jethani, who also started his career in a related field like Mr Rajesh Chheda, in sub-broking at Bombay Stock Exchange, the idea of professional improvement struck immediately when he attended one of the first training sessions.

There was a lot more to it than he had imagined, he narrates. “Take goal setting, I did not know it was that important. It is so vital in life, let alone profession!”

The training sessions on personal development left him feeling that he wanted much more. “Only when you know what you don’t know do you want to know more, you get that insight,” he says.

And what courses did this encourage him to attend?

“Practically every course I could get my hands on… selling, financial planning, insurance planning, I attended courses on understanding individuals…”

And then there were books. A voracious reader, he has a list of must read books for every salesman, especially of insurance.

For one who is so charged up about professional development and its benefits, his tone drops a notch when asked how his peers approach the subject. The tone is back but subdued when he says, “Arre, people are oblivious to the benefits. They don’t accept that they have to go through the pain of self-development. All they say is ‘show me the magic potion’.”

“There is no magic potion!”

That much is certainly true. There is no magic potion!

Tips for Transformation

You want to grow from agent to being advisor. You want the commission income to be just a by-product or an additional income stream and your objective is that clients should be willing to pay you for your advice.  You want to reach for the stars in your work as an insurance sales professional.

Here are ten tips for professional development picked up from the leading practitioners in this field.

A Vision

Forget your target for March 31, where will you be in five years from now? Ten years later will you still be chasing the March 31 target and worrying about it? Remember, tax planning is the worst reason to buy insurance, and so you should not depend on it for selling it either.

What do you want to be doing by the end of your working life? What kind of lifestyle and professional reputation do you want to retire with? Do you want to groom your children in this line of work so that they continue to look after your clients and their childrens’ investment portfolios?

Then think of the big picture first.

A Plan

To achieve your vision you have to map out the road that will take you to it. In spite of your daily work and pressures of objections and targets and delays, you have to keep on the track to your destination. And for that, you have to set goals. Goals are dreams with a deadline, goes the saying. So to achieve your dreams, make a schedule.

Daily, weekly, monthly and annual targets help you get closer to your goals and, if you work to a plan, in no time you will have put in a decade’s worth of excellent professional work! Don’t forget to plan for professional growth through training and education, interaction with peers and role models.

Use Opportunities

Take up responsibilities and roles in professional organisations voluntarily whether it is at your branch or city level or at the international level. These are opportunities that you can use well as part of your career growth plan. Such organisations are run on a voluntary basis and you get plenty of chances to learn, contribute and grow. You not only acquire new skills and friends, but your talents will get noticed and appreciated!

Be Ethical

Integrity is the capital of the insurance agency profession. Professionals face hurdles everyday that challenge their ethical behaviour. Your decisions and conduct, not only at critical junctures, but in everyday working, demonstrate your ethics. We all look at others’ behaviour when we have to decide whether we want to deal with them or not. Remember others will do so too and professional whispers and scandals ruin careers.

Communicate Well

Communication may be the most critical ability you ever learn in your career as an insurance agent. Listening well, understanding your prospects’ concerns and needs and conveying to them your analysis and advice for their financial well-being is at the heart of your job.

As you become more senior in this field, the ability to communicate – to understand and be understood – can be the differentiating factor between a good career and a great one!

Commit to Lifelong Learning

You have probably heard this so often that it has begun to sound like a boring old bit of advice. But learning is the key to the advisory profession and in this fast changing world of insurance in India, you can get left behind in a matter of weeks if you don’t make efforts to learn everyday.

Join new education and training courses, read the financial newspapers everyday and ensure you read technical and professiona journals in your fied. Information is available in plenty and time is short, so choose your sources of information and knowledge wisely and keep pace with the developments.

Create a Great Network

It is not only prospects and clients that you should develop, but your own network too. Get connected with people who can help you develop professionally and personally. Study what makes them successful and how they got to a position where they can influence your career and its advancement. Make time to create and nurture your network because it is an important investment for your profession.

Ensure you are Visible

After doing all this, ensure you get the best benefits by staying visible. Your development officer or unit manager, your leading clients and prospects, the higher officials in your company, your peers and the leading practitioners in your field – all of them should know what you are, what you stand for and what you are capable of.

Don’t be irritatingly attention seeking or immature but create visibility by contributing to activities around you – contribute effort, ideas and time. These investments will come back to you with handsome returns!

Taking the responsibility for your career and its successes is a very empowered way to life and work. Once you do that, you are truly the master of your own destiny!

K Nitya Kalyani

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The debate centres on this. In India, do we have insurance agents? Or do we have insurance advisors?

It is not the wordings or technical definitions, but the basic nature of the work they do and the value they provide, that is in question.

An insurance agent represents an insurance company to sell its policies to the public. An advisor, on the other hand, while representing an insurance company, can do the more sophisticated job of analysing the needs of the prospective customer, planning out his investments in the best way to meet those needs and assisting him in selecting the right financial investments for the purpose. The solutions may include insurance, but need not be limited to any one investment instrument.

Almost all Indian insurance agents today see their job as only to sell a policy and earn a commission. This narrow definition of their role limits what they can do to a transaction – that of selling a policy and misses out on the larger role of advising the client on all his financial matters and providing solutions for a particular set of objectives.

It is this role that the advisor plays. He is valued for his advice and paid for it by the customer.

But that is not yet a reality in India except in a miniscule number of cases. Mostly, the commission paid by the insurance company – or for that matter the provider of any financial service or product – is the sole source of the agent’s income.

Creating focus

The question of whether someone is an agent or an advisor was brought into sharp focus in September 2009 when a Consultation Paper on ‘Minimum Common Standards for Financial Advisors and Financial Education’ was released for comment on September 2, 2009 by The Committee on Investor Awareness and Protection headed by the now retired Chairman, PFRDA, Mr D Swarup.

The paper recommended that the agent who sells insurance should be compensated not by a commission given by the insurance company, but by way of a fee paid by the customer for the advice received.

Shock, disapproval, vehement protests and shows of strength followed the release of this consultation paper. The report also infuriated the insurance fraternity because of the way it tarnished the reputation of the entire industry not giving it the credit for all it has achieved and painting it black with accusations of mis-selling and deceitful intentions towards the customer.

Acceptability apart, the recommendation was a radically new way of looking at income from an agent’s point of view. It also looked afresh at the whole transaction from the point of view of the customer who had no idea about either the quantum of the agent’s commission nor was aware of the work that is involved before and after selling the policy.

The questions

The recommendation’s future will take its own course. Yet, the question has been raised and it is relevant for the insurance agency as a profession to seek answers now and get clarity on the matter.

Do we have agents or advisors? Is their advice perceived as valuable enough by the customer that he would be willing to pay for it? Are they in a position to charge a fee from their customers and if so, would it be enough to sustain them and retain the profession as a viable though challenging career?

Some of the answers to this is being answered by the experience of the mutual fund industry. From August 1, 2009 Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), the statutory body that regulates the mutual fund industry, banned what is called the ‘entry load’ in funds. This is the fee that the fund house collects when an investor buys units in any of its funds and this goes to the independent financial advisor (IFA) who handles the sale. This entry load was 2 per cent plus service tax and the direction indicated was that IFAs could now charge the customer a one per cent fee for the transaction.

The point was, most small customers and IFAs dropped out of the game because of customer reluctance to pay the IFA.

Coming back to insurance, it is time to think about the nature and scope of the professional development challenge of converting to a fee based model.

If the aim is to get to that position in their profession what do they need to do?

This question concerns agents and their principals – the insurance companies.

A larger question is about the nature of the industry and our society, the stage it is in now. Is it feasible, or even desirable, for all agents to move to a fee for advice system for carrying on their profession?

This is the basis of a series of stories we will bring you in the next few issues of Premium as part of the Sales Skills series. It will be about the critical factors that insurance agents of today should consider if they want to build themselves a brighter future.

Mr P S Kochchar, agent, Life Insurance Corporation of India

The prescription is worded aptly by Mr P S Kochchar, a veteran LIC agent who now operates as a corporate agency. As founder of Life Insurance Round Table (LIRT) which has been working for the professional development of agents,

Mr Kochchar says, “Don’t be a retailer, be a doctor. There is no other requirement in this profession.”

Progress

Forget about being a doctor or even a retailer. Not so long ago – just about ten years ago – the  insurance agent was not a highly regarded person in society. No one believed it could be a profession of choice and they were treated more as a nuisance than a valuable guide in financial matters.

The reasons for this were many. First of all, the agent was trying to sell something while human psychology was to value what they wanted to buy rather than what is offered to them or pushed at them.

Secondly, a bare minimum education of +2 was enough to become an agent and skills were never a criterion. So, on what basis could a customer evaluate an insurance agent and accept him as an advisor worth a professional fee?

Something changed when the industry went into the reforms phase in 1999 and an examination and licence procedure was mandated for insurance agents. It was a step towards filtration and quality, but the Life insurance industry, in its urgent quest for quantity of agents and quick deployment sacrificed the quality of its agents and the examination system became the subject of much criticism.

Getting Professional Education

India has always prized education. We even have festivals like Saraswati Puja and Vijayadasami to celebrate it!

School and even college education are hardly enough to sustain a serious career these days and, like information technology, many other industries and professions demand constant learning and updation of knowledge just to stay competitive.

Perhaps the insurance agency is entering that phase now. Knowing a few policies and a few people meant a comfortable income stream as an agent in the years gone by. But today there are lakhs of agents who want your customer, What is more, your customer knows most product information before you meet him because he has talked to your competitors or he has done his research on the Internet.

In this situation, what differentiates an agent from masses of others who can and do offer the same products and services? One answer is professional education and qualifications.

Even at this early stage, India has developed a choice of professional qualifications that an agent can take up. The chartered financial planner (CFP) qualification granted by the Financial Planning Standards Board of India (FPSB,) the Fellow Chartered Financial Practitioner (FChFP) qualification offered by Asia Pacific Financial Services Association (APFinSA), financial planning MBAs and other courses now being offered by various colleges and universities all provide a step up from the ordinary.

Building up knowledge

Education provides a strong foundation and it is knowledge built up on an ongoing basis that is the superstructure of a career.

Mr T Balraj, Agent,Life Insurance Corporation of India, Hyderabad

You have to know all financial products, not just insurance says Mr T Balraj, Agent, Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) at Hyderabad. Having qualified for the CFP certification last year, he realises that this is only one step in his quest for setting up a financial advisory practice on the basis of a fee chargeable to the customer.

“Not just the financial products but the concepts behind them, their taxation implications and their impact on your client’s investment plan,” are what a good advisor knows at his finger tips, he says. Yet, people may be reluctant to pay a fee for your knowledge initially, but later on you will be able to start charging fees, he says from experience.

Developing your soft skills

In spite of qualification and the best of contacts, an agent who does not know how to present himself, who has not polished up his interview techniques, who is not skilled at extracting data, who cannot only persuade his clients but also be tough in telling them the difficult facts like exclusions and condition, may not find lasting success.

The best way to develop soft skills like communication is to practice with a sharp awareness. There are many trainers and institutes that offer soft skills training – again a benefit derived from the IT industry – and choosing a suitable course can make the difference between latent potential and your blossoming as a successful professional.

Using technology to serve your customer

Without using technology you will vanish from the market. Resistance to the simplest advances in technology is giving agents a reputation of being left behind the times. A new breed of young agents is learning to use it fast and that is a trendsetter for the entire profession. As time goes by, companies will rely entirely on technology to support agents and service policyholders. As for the customers, they are already embracing all the good things technology brings them by way of customer service and instant response.

Mr Rajesh Chhedha,Agent, LIC, Goa

Mr Rajesh Chhedha, Agent, LIC in Goa says that using Net-based software services and having a mobile office have completely changed the way he operates. He can be in Mumbai pursuing his CFP studies and still take care for his clients needs or make sales calls since he is enabled by technology.

Many information web sites are available to agents to keep updated and learning to access and use them is also imperative.

Plan on learning continuously

Concepts of financial planning and investment, knowledge of products of your company and competitors, taxation and long term financial planning are just the starting point. In this field one has to learn continuously says Mr Anand Jathan, Agent LIC at Mumbai and Zone Chair, MDRT. His advice? Read the news.

Mr Anand Jathan, Agent, LIC, Mumbai

“When you wake up in the morning, read the financial newspapers,” he says also recommending financial magazines for specialised news, analysis and information.

Make it your own responsibility

“In the 21st century, you can’t depend on someone to come and train you,” says Mr Rajender Sud, Director and Head of Agency Distribution, Max New York Life Insurance Company, Gurgaon.

Mr Rajender Sud,Director and Head of Agency Distribution, Max New York Life Insurance Company, Gurgaon

You have to invest time, money and effort to acquire skills, knowledge and attitude, he emphasises. And that includes practicing your skills, reading and spending time with successful people. It’s in your hands, he says simply. “Otherwise you will get eliminated!”

Customers are, he points out, looking forward to educated and knowledgeable advisors.

K Nitya Kalyani

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Being an insurance agent or a financial services advisor means you are a provider of financial solutions and answers to your customers’ challenges and needs.

The first step to providing a solution is to understand the need or the problem first! To get to the heart of the matter and understand the prospective customer’s needs or challenges you have to ask great questions!

Asking questions does not mean, “Sir, will you buy XYZ policy?” In fact that is not such a great question to ask! The very heart of insurance selling is NOT to sell a product but to provide a solution.

Mr Ravi Jethani, agent, Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC,) Mumbai

Asking questions, the first step“Asking the right questions, asking good questions, is a major skill for a salesperson,” says Mr Ravi Jethani, one of the top agents of Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC,) located in Mumbai.

“If you ask the right questions, you get the right answers,” he says and illustrates.

“Just the other day someone called me from a bank. He had a specific need: he had taken a Rs one crore housing loan and wanted an insurance policy to cover it. I could have sent him a quote and finished with it, but I met with him, which is my usual procedure.”

What transpired was very different! The 39 year old prospect had only Rs 5 lakh insurance cover, his wife was a housewife and he had two small children.

“I asked him,” says Mr Jethani, “If you only cover your housing loan and if you die, how will your wife survive for 35 more years and how will your children be educated and brought up? Do you have lands? Do you have jewellery to fall back on? Do you feel comfortable about the options you would leave your family with? Do you know what they think of such a possibility? Is it fair to them?”

The prospect did not at all think it was fair. In fact he thought it was a genuine injustice to his family and decided to take a Rs one crore cover for his housing loan and another Rs one crore term insurance policy!

Asking is the beginning of receiving, says Mr D V Suresh, Chief Life Insurance Agent with LIC in Hyderabad. “For any salesperson, it is very essential to know what he wants, for which he should know how to ask for it. It is the first crucial step in the sales process.”

According to Mr Francis Alapatt, Sales Trainer based at Chennai, the ability to ask the right questions is the most important skill not only in selling, “but in any human interaction,” because all genuine questions are a search for a real understanding of a situation.”

“By asking questions one discovers the need of the customer to be addressed in the choice of products,” says Ms Anamika Roy Rashtrawar, Head-Sales of Bajaj Allianz General Insurance Company, based at the company’s Head Office at Pune.

Ms Anamika Roy Rashtrawar, Head-Sales of Bajaj Allianz General Insurance Company, Pune

What questions to ask depends on which product one wants to sell. “In case a car policy has to be sold to a new customer, the appropriate question should be ‘‘Your vehicle is insured however, would you like to know the latest offers in private car insurance ?’’

“If you want direct answers, ask close ended questions,” says Mr Ravi Jethani. If you want to probe and analyse, ask open ended questions.

In an initial client meeting he would typically ask, “If I were to meet you 10 years later what financial progress would you like to have made by then?” or, “What are the two most important concerns of yours going forward?”

These initial questions get them to open up and think about their financial requirements and aspirations.

Mr Suresh says, “It is very essential that the person to whom you are asking the questions is put at ease first. He should feel comfortable talking to you. He should neither be bombarded with questions directly, nor should he get the feeling that you are there to grab something from him.”

The most important quality a salesperson should possess is not to expect anything from the person whom you are meeting, he says, though the ultimate purpose of the visit is to clinch a deal!

Mr D V Suresh, Chief Life Insurance Agent, Life Insurance Corporation (LIC,) Hyderabad

Next, he says, it is a must to understand the circumstances and the environment of the prospect, a brief background of the prospect and his business or job profile is important.

Coming to the core, never would a prospect be comfortable when you ask his or her income. Mr Suresh’s tip: Ask how much he spends on himself and his family every month!

“Generally, I have seen that they speak the truth when asked this, but it is not so when you ask them how much they earn!”

After this you can move closer to examining his needs and aspirations and suggesting solutions.

In conclusion Mr Suresh says, “If you are not moving closer to what you want in sales, you probably aren’t doing ‘enough asking’ or the ‘right kind of asking’.

How to acquire the skill

Only by consistently being on the job, says Mr Suresh. The best way one learns to ask right questions is by going through the roller coaster rides of cold canvassing.

“Read,” recommends Mr Ravi Jethani. “Read about successful agents and how they ask questions. Read Tony Gordon’s ‘It can only get better,’ Frank Bettger’s  ‘How I raised myself from complete failure to success.’ Any agent who has not read these two books should not go out into the field!” he offers, having read it 25 times himself.

Six years ago, he recalls, he had no clue about all this. That is when he became an insurance agent. “I developed an interest and started asking questions. I attended seminars, listened and learnt!”

As a trainer, Mr Alapatt believes it is practice that is crucial to developing this skill. “But there has to be interest on the part of the person asking questions and they should be clear about what information they are seeking to uncover. Only with that kind of focus and energy will the person be able to elicit the information required,” he says.

What helps in acquiring this skill

Says Mr Suresh, “You have to be inquisitive to get the answers for what you are looking for. You have to have updated knowledge about your subject, about your company, about the industry you are in, and about the prospect/customer’s environment both professional and personal to get what you are looking for.

Without interpersonal skills you cannot approach the prospects/ customers with the right spirit. Interpersonal skills are developed over a period of time interacting with people, seeing people, reading books on interpersonal relationships, understanding concepts like neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) and the like, he adds.

What inspires an agent to ask great questions, and to learn how to do it, according to Mr Jethani is “A genuine interest in the prosperity of the other person and the well being of the other person.” Honing up on interpersonal skills through courses could help, he says, adding, “fortunately I am good at it naturally!”

What prevents acquiring the skill

Apart from not having or learning the skill of asking the right questions, what stops the agent from asking questions?

The answer is: Fear. Exactly what reading, learning, practising and applying in live sales situations will cure!

“Though much has been heard on questioning skills at lectures and in seminars, not much is done as far as implementing them is concerned,” says Mr Suresh.

“Unfortunately, salespersons are given no time to understand the importance of these basic skills. They are time pressed to meeting targets set by Branches, division or Zonal offices and or by Development Officers…”

“How can anyone appreciate the importance of such valuable skills when they are all running after overstretched targets?” he asks, adding that “In the present market conditions where the

prospect/customer is informed, the grand old methods of barging into the prospect’s place and asking have gone….Without all relevant skills a person cannot succeed in the present market.”

Another reason elaborated by Ms Rashtrawar is, “A lack of trainers with good product knowledge and sales experience who can help.” Also the fear of rejection prevents agents from asking questions, she says.

The problem could sometimes go deeper, according to Mr Jethani. The impulse to ask questions is due to a genuine concern for the client. That is just not there and many agents just sell a product and come back. ‘Here is a new policy, it is important for me that you buy a policy from me is their attitude,’ he outlines.

Benefits!

And at the end of it all is the benefit of asking great questions – more business, better business!

“Ask and you shall receive,” quotes Ms Rashtrawar, “The more we ask, the more information is revealed by the customer and we can fit a correct product to his need.”

Says Mr Suresh, quoting a Chinese proverb, “He who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who does not ask remains a fool forever.”

Says he, “A major stimulant to creative thinking is focussed questions. There is something about a well-worded question that often penetrates to the heart of the matter and triggers new ideas and insights. This helps the salesperson successfully come to the desired result.

If you do not ask the right questions, you do not get the right answers. A question asked in the right way often points to its own answer.

Successful people ask better questions and as a result, they get better results!

Make Questions Work

Mr Francis Matthew Alapatt, Sales Training Consultant, Chennai

1. How crucial is the skill of asking good questions to the selling profession and how does one develop it?

Real answers, solutions or relationships, are possible only if one can form an accurate and realistic understanding of customers’ or other people’s  needs, or requirements. To arrive at this one must have the ability to ask the right questions.

Equally important is “how’ to ask these questions. Very often people focus on what to ask and not the appropriate manner of asking questions in that particular context.

Both these abilities are ‘performatory’ abilities and the only real way to develop them is through practice, using specifically created exercises. We need to train our children early in these skills, encourage them to ask questions and develop in them the ‘social cognition’ on how to ask these questions appropriately.

2. What are the standard questions one can ask a prospect or existing customer? How does this change according to the circumstances?

There is no formula. Fundamentally all selling begins with an ‘ explorative phase.’ This phase encompasses a creation of rapport; an attempt to ‘qualify’ a prospect as well as a search to understand his specific needs. These can be varied and belong to  different ‘ need hierarchies’  as defined by Abraham Maslow. This search for his ‘needs’ can involve understanding the problems he faces, the solutions that he seeks and what his priorities are.

The fundamental principle is to use ‘open questions’ to get a general feel of the situation and then mentally ‘flag’ areas intended for more intensive probing. This probing can be done by employing mostly open or general questions.

For example: “What did you like best about your last car?” which has a wide choice of answers; closed questions like “Do you like Chinese food?” which has a limited choice of answers; clarification questions like “ In what way is this shirt/saree better than the other one?” and reflective questions which make one think like “Why do you think he bought that music system?” or “ What kind of problems do you think he will encounter?”  ‘How would you compare that to brand X?” and so on.

3. What do you need to polish these skills?

As I said earlier – practice. But there has to be interest on the part of the person asking questions and they should be clear about what information they are seeking to uncover. Only with that kind of focus and energy will the person be able to elicit the information required.

4. Why do people fail to appreciate the importance of this skill?

Primarily because in our traditional system of education we did not encourage the asking of questions. We absorbed knowledge very fast initially because we were taught never to question the Guru. But, at some point when we had to depend on ourselves to progress further in any endeavour, we lacked the skill to ask the right questions.

5. A simple illustration of how good questions work A man walks into a furniture shop “I want a dining table and chairs” he tells the salesperson. The standard response will be “Come let me show you what we have.”

Or slightly better: “How many seater sir?” or even “What type of table-wood or steel or composite?”

This salesperson is not putting himself in his customer’s shoes. He needs to imagine himself going to buy a dining table for his home. Then perhaps he may ask “What size and shape is your dining room?” If he thinks of his family he may ask:   “How many of you will use this table?” “What age are your children?” “Are there very old people?” “Do you entertain a lot?” “What kind of surface” “What kind of looks? colour scheme?” These are relevant questions as they have a clear bearing on what the customer may be looking for.

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“I am going on a three-week trip to the US to represent our esteemed country as member of the prestigious Million Dollar Round Table. I owe this achievement to you and you only. I dedicate this success to you and you alone.”

- Extract from a letter from a leading insurance agent to his clients.

A charming, if expansive, letter that I have never forgotten years after I first saw it, and it reflects perfectly the larger than life personality of the senior agent who wrote it!

Communication is easy; it is writing that is a challenge! Confusing? When you want to convey facts or your feelings it comes straight from the heart. Have you ever had trouble telling a child how much you love him? Or hesitated to tell the vegetable seller that the onions are too costly?

But things become difficult when you sit down to write something in the form of a letter to a client or an email to a prospect. You don’t know what to say and soon give up the entire effort. The mistake you make here is that you think too much and become self conscious.

Good writing takes effort, but it is not impossible. Good writing comes from the heart. Yes, that applies even to writing business letters! Here is a simple rule that I learnt when I began a career in writing: Write the first draft from the heart, the second one from the head!

What that means is simple. Write down what you want to convey, the facts and your feelings, as they occur first.

Then rewrite the entire thing keeping in mind whom you are writing to and your purpose in writing to them.

The first draft: From the heart

First, you have to be clear what you want to convey. There are two major types of business communication.

One is prior to making the sale: Do you want to introduce yourself? Do you want to emphasise that you have been referred by a common acquaintance? Is the purpose of your letter to convey that you have a great reputation as an insurance agent for decades and that the prospect should trust you and give you a chance? Are you asking for an appointment based on this introduction? Then just write all these down.

The second purpose of business communication is to service the customer and keep him informed about your business with him and his future needs.

Here, you may want to document the terms you have agreed on. Your letter may be to inform the customer that your company has felicitated you as one of its leading agents and you want to thank them for making it possible. You want to inform them that their policy premium is overdue and the policy is in danger of lapsing. You want to congratulate them on their achievements to share the happiness of their happy moments and successes…. Again, just write down what you want to convey.

At this stage what you should focus on are the facts, your genuineness and your earnestness in reaching out and conveying your thoughts. Why you are writing the letter should be clear and your requests, if any, should be simply stated.

The second draft: From the head

This is where most people face trouble. However, it need not be such a nightmare. This stage involves your skill at the language.

Choose to write in the language your customer is most comfortable with. Use the tone that is most suitable for your communication. Polite, professional and to the point is what you should try to be. Avoid flowery words that mean nothing, but if you are an expert at language, by all means go ahead and impress your customer with your command over it.

If, on the other hand, your problem is more common – that you are not very good with language – then keep it short, simple and sweet.

Second pair of eyes

It is a good idea to get help for written communication. Just as you have to learn to dress formally, present yourself or talk to customers, you have to learn to write letters to them too. However, this form of communication has one major advantage; someone else can write the letters for you! Or you can improve upon your draft by giving it to someone else to check and correct to make it perfect.

Templates

Many agents have developed a dozen or so form letters or templates that they modify slightly and use for different prospects or clients on different occasions. You could also develop templates for seeking an appointment with a prospect or a client, informing them about good insurance solutions you are recommending for them, conveying that their renewal is due or that the policy is maturing.

Over and above these purely business related communications, do develop some templates for informing them from time to time how you are progressing as a professional and service provider so that their impression of you and confidence in you grows.

A word of caution: Be careful when you send them to the customer, make sure that you fill the blanks with the correct information. Don’t address Client A as Mr B because you overlooked something in the template! Then your smart idea of using templates will backfire on you and you will look bad!

Technology

The use of technology, computers, email or cell phone is something that we have to learn to adapt if we are to do business dynamically. Each advance in technology brings an opportunity and a challenge to the way we communicate.

Take computers for example. Having templates and modifying them for different customers is so easy with a computer. In fact there are many templates and samples available on the Internet to help you develop your templates from models.

Email as a communication medium has some peculiarities that you have to be aware of and also be wary of. It is easy to write a one line message or reply and hit the ‘send’ button. But it is also easy to send by mistake a message with errors or something that you have not drafted carefully or edited fully. Remember, when email goes, its gone. And it reaches the recipient in seconds.

A good office practice would be to draft email messages and replies in a separate file and copy paste it into the ‘Compose Mail’ window of your email programme or webmail. This way you have all the advantages of instant communication and none of the dangers of unintended mistakes.

SMS is another fast becoming popular mode of communication. Remember, it can become a huge nuisance to the recipient if you don’t observe normal courtesy for his time and attention. This is one more dangerous area where your well intended communication may backfire on you, as the customer will end up being annoyed with you rather than impressed.

Why write?

Says Ms Premi George Mampilli, Agent, United India Insurance Company and Kotak Mahindra Old Mutual Life Insurance Company, based at Chennai, “You may not be the best of talkers and your language may not be the most proficient, but seal the deal with a letter to give your client comfort!”

Ms Premi George Mampilli, Agent, United India Insurance Company and Kotak Mahindra Old Mutual Life Insurance Company, Chennai

Earlier, she says, we were giving out pamphlets. Now the tendency is to say ‘go look at our web site.’

“First of all we are trying to sell something and the client is not very interested. He may listen to you, but if you give him a pamphlet or a proposal he will look at it when he has some leisure.”

But today, she laments, “We are too lazy to write because it involves effort.

Previously we used to write to clients asking them for appointments, where is it there today? Do agents know how to start and end a business letter?” she asks.

And by her definition it is not very difficult. “Be brief and to the point, the customer should know at a glance what you are conveying and what you want.”

Mr Brijbhooshan Chandoke, Agent, Life Insurance Corporation of India, Kalyan

Mr Brijbhooshan Chandoke, veteran agent of Life Insurance Corporation of India based at Kalyan underlines this aspect too. Written communication is done by agents but only for reminders for premium or maturity or survival benefit payments. A few of them go a step further and send birthday greetings or anniversary wishes, he says. But very, very few do anything over and above that. But, it’s very important, he underlines.

“My experience is that when you interact with someone asking for appointment, send a letter confirming the date and time of the appointment and assuring that you will be there. Or after the first sales call write a letter confirming what you discussed and thanking the client. This way you will confirm what he said and send the message that you will stand by what you said in the meeting and won’t go back on it.”

“Your sales becomes stronger and the process becomes faster,” he says, than if your communication was only oral.

In his own case he goes a step further and writes letters to clients only by hand. “With so many computer generated letters, clients don’t even open the envelope once they see it’s a mass communication.

I believe that my personalised letters always get attention!”

By hand or otherwise, he stresses, written communication by an agent to a client increases the agent’s credibility and multiplies his business.

Unfortunately, he admits, most of our agents don’t develop this skill and it is our fault as senior agents that we have not taught them the importance of this activity!

Legal protection

In insurance, which is a business based on a legal contract, reducing discussions to writing serves a very important purpose. What you tell the prospect orally and what he understands may be two very different things. You may assume certain things and the customer too may assume certain things, leading to anger and disappointment at the time of a claim and even to a loss of the relationship and future business.

A simple and recurring example that agents talk about is the extent of cover, or exclusions. In hospitalisation policies, for example, the prospect thinks that everything is covered and the agent thinks that the customer already knows that many things are just not covered.

Says Ms Premi, “It is always better to put down things in black and white when you have discussed business on a one to one basis. At a later point of time you can always fall back on it, if not, it’s just talk and the other party can just turn around and say ‘I did not know this.’”

Making clarifications through a letter ensures that the agent and the customer make decisions based on known facts and that there is no room for future misunderstanding.

On the Life insurance side too, it is useful for agents to document certain aspects of their sale. In fact, such point of sale documentation, as it is called, has become compulsory when some kinds of policies – like unit-linked insurance policies (ULIPs) – are sold.

Companies are treating it as a good practice to get the customer’s and agent’s signature on the illustration given about the returns on the policy and also a declaration that the customer has understood that the market risk in a ULIP policy belongs to him.

K Nitya Kalyani

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