‘Prebunking’ the sales killers before they attack

We’ve all had the experience of coming in on a Monday morning to a client message that goes something like this: “Uh, yeah, so I thought about it and talked to some people, and I don’t think I’ll be moving forward with that insurance.”

Your gut wrenches; you wonder what changed over the weekend and how this client who agreed that the recommendations made sense, were in their budget and solved all their problems could turn like this over the weekend.

Dutch psychologist Dr. Sander van der Linden, Cambridge University professor and author of The Science of Misinformation gave us an answer nearly a decade ago. In his article, “Inoculating the Public Against Misinformation About Climate Change,” published in The Journal of Experimental Psychology, he put experimental rigor behind something I used to do with clients: prepare them to defend against well-meant but bad advice of family and friends.  

In his book, Foolproof, Van der Linden lays out how to inoculate our clients against the bad advice they will hear from popular talking heads and family members who care about our clients but don’t share our level of knowledge. As such, these well-meaning people harm our clients and their financial future by introducing doubt in their minds.  Van der Linden “prebunks” their misinformation.

Start with assumptions; consider the process

Let’s start with the assumption that this is a new relationship that did not come teed up by another professional, such as an attorney who has told them to buy $5.75 million of permanent coverage from you to complete their estate planning. Let’s instead assume the person was indeed “sold life insurance.” Consider the process that they went through to the point of your recommendation.

1. You reached out and set an appointment, hopefully through an introduction, as this has the highest social capital involved to minimize relationship friction. You probably had to apply some pressure and persuasion to get the appointment in the first place, overcoming objections of “I’m all set” and “I’ve got a guy” to even get your foot in the door.

2. You sat down with this individual, made a good first impression and were able to explain what you do and how you do it. Then you did a comprehensive fact finder to obtain the data needed to make a recommendation.  You invested enough time to connect on a personal basis but also to dig into their underlying feelings or philosophies in order to connect these with their goals and objectives to integrate the quantitative components with the qualitative.  

You bonded with the client and understood them. They bought in to the fact that they have some financial issues that they are now motivated to address, plus they believe you have the expertise to help them. They want to work with you. Your relationship capital is high.

3. You analyzed the situation, produced a data-heavy set of projections about all the shortfalls in their situation, then proposed a solution that they decided to implement.

Let’s look at where in that sales meeting — that “close” — you missed the opportunities to inoculate your client against bad external advice and, as such, they fell to “buyer’s regret.”

Build your client’s immune system

Between Steps 2 and 3, you missed a chance to begin building your client’s immune system. During that fact-finder meeting, you could tell the client, “It looks like there are some areas where you might have received some misleading information along the way or have some gaps in your knowledge. Is it OK to send you links to some third-party sources or articles to build your knowledge base before our next discussion?” 

This question allows you to start enhancing your credibility and reliability, and launch the inoculation protocol with the first shots of externally verifiable and non-salesy education. Two or three links or resources from a source other than your company will prime the client for more information and start building their knowledge base and defenses against the common misinformation that is everywhere.

Providing resources helps inoculate your client by injecting weakened (or dead) versions of the untruths or myths that they will commonly hear about life insurance and other financial products, then deconstructing the myths with verifiable data from unbiased research. By purposely introducing weakened versions of the emotionally powerful arguments that clients will later be exposed to, you prime their defenses by making them aware of the potential arguments and giving them counters to the statements they will hear from uninformed individuals in their circle. And like many vaccinations, it will take a couple of shots to fully develop immunity.

Most advisors avoid this process because they believe that their presentation skills are adequate to insulate their clients from the constant exposure to conflicting information that can instill doubt. But this is not true. Hundreds of peer-reviewed psychological studies show this to be arrogant and ineffective.  

Acknowledging that we can’t be with our clients, constantly whispering in their ear and deflecting misleading information, means we must give them rules of thumb to enable them to understand the false narratives about financial services products that are commonly uttered and remove the power to dissuade them. Yet most advisors are afraid to do so.

Call it what it is

Just as Harry Potter calls Voldemort by his name instead of referring to him as “He Who Cannot be Named,” facing the enemy and saying his name reduces his power. Bringing up the shortfalls in your products creates a balanced perspective for the client. This is stronger than your one-sided sales pitch about why everything about your policy is perfect for them.  

Acknowledging potential weaknesses is a sign of strength that healthy and resilient egos accept.  Have the strength to face the questions and the suboptimal components of the product head-on. It makes you more professional and your arguments more powerful.

Talk about the elephant in the room. Summon up the shadow and look right at it, address it and dispel its mystique.  In my presentations, I would tell clients the five reasons not to buy cash value life insurance and address each reason individually in that client’s unique situation. Clients would acknowledge that they were good potential arguments but did not apply in their individual situation. Then the client would be fully protected against the well-meaning but misguided people in their life who could have killed my sale.  

Because I understood the psychology of doubt well enough while being confident in my client relationship and the recommendation to present the good with the bad and give a balanced view, I allowed the client to make an intelligent, informed decision based on all the facts.  

Not hiding the bad parts means there was nothing to hide. This transparency builds trust and builds better relationships by exposing the client to the questions they would get in the wild and teaching them to fend off attacks themselves. This is how to protect your sales from a psycho-
immunization point of view.

Joe Templin, MCEC, CEC, CLU, ChFC, CAP, is the author of Every Day Excellence and creator of the Financial Services Daily Drip-Every Day Excellence training email, https://www.salesactivitymanagement.com/everyday-excellence/. He is NAIFA New York State membership chair. He may be contacted at joe.templin@innfeedback.com.