Insurance Sales: A Needs Analysis Isn't A Product Sales Tool

After you've done a needs analysis, do you get a lot of not now's and other objections? That's because you're incorrectly implementing the right idea. And that happens because you think a needs analysis is a product sales tool and it shouldn't be.

You see when you do a needs analysis you’re doing it so you can figure out what product you can sell the prospect. This is a backward approach, and an incorrect implementation of the concept. And the reason it backfires on you is because you think as soon as you see the solution that the prospect should see it too when nothing could be further from the truth.

Until the prospect tells you there is a need and why; there isn’t a need and there certainly isn’t a want, and if they don’t want it they won’t buy it no matter what you say or how long you pester them. So square one is you have to get the prospect to tell you what they’re really looking for. And that isn’t nearly as easy as it sounds because quite often they’re confused, and aren’t really sure what they’re looking for.

They may not even be entirely clear about what they want. Your objective in the needs analysis is to get to help them to get their needs clarified and on the table for discussion. If all you know is what they need realize that people rarely take the action to buy based on their needs.

But as you’re helping them to articulate what they want and they begin really opening up to you their wants will begin to surface. The gold, or closed transaction is found in what they want. They may not be clear about what they want and they may not have thought a lot about it before, but that’s what you’re there to help them do.

People can and will take action to buy to fulfill their wants. When they understand that they want something they will come up with their own logical explanations for why they should buy, and that’s exactly what you want to help them to do. At no time are you ever talking about or discussing products or solutions.

And the reason for this is very simple. Until the prospect has told you they have a real need and that fulfilling that need would get them something they really want, you don’t have anything to have a sales conversation about. When they’ve told you both their need and their want then and only then can you take the next step which is to discover what the value of that is to them.

When you rush in with a solution before both you and the prospect are ready you lose. You lose because you’re trying to provide a solution that has no importance to them. When you do that they may passively agree to the sale; but then they back out, cancel, or simply won’t follow through to complete the process. And the whole time you’re pulling your hair out in frustration wasting oodles of time on a sale that’s never going to happen. So understand how to properly implement a needs analysis and change your results.