- Think of your clients’ best interests first. Think of your employees’ best interests next. Then think of your personal interests. Build long-term relationships and become the trusted adviser.
- Prospecting is the difficult part; selling is easy. Develop centers of influence. Request referrals. Institutionalize prospecting to secure introductions to multiple, qualified prospective clients.
- Differentiate your practice. Develop expertise in a market segment. Create proprietary products. Develop benefits strategic plans. Just find a way to bring value to your clients in a unique and meaningful manner.
- Develop client needs first. Understand your clients’ business issues. Then create solutions that are pertinent and relevant. The product selections will become self-evident.
- Closing should be less than 15% of the total sales process. Visualize a funnel. The time spent closing the sale should be the narrow part at the bottom. If you invert a funnel, it doesn’t work. Likewise, this applies to the sales process.
- We all recruit in our own image. Know yourself well. And know your deficiencies even better. Then hire to your strengths.
- Your best sales people call you. And when they call you, they provide specifics about results. Poor sales people rarely call you. And they avoid your calls. When you hear from them, they speak in vague generalities.
- Poor performers pull down good performers. Good performers cannot improve poor performers. Don’t be reluctant to eliminate poor performers expeditiously before they impact your entire team.
- There is no sales management problem that you cannot recruit your way out of. You should always be recruiting so that ultimately you can select, not settle
- The primary responsibility of sales management is to replace itself. Mentor your replacement, and develop a winning sales management team.
Benefits Think 10 keys to boosting the sales of an employee benefit adviser practice
By
Jack Kwicien
Published Updated
4 Min Read
Jack Kwicien
Managing partner
Jack Kwicien, an Employee Benefit Adviser columnist, is co-founder of Daymark Advisors, a Baltimore-based consulting and advisory firm. He is also the co-developer of the SMART Benefits Strategic … Read full bio
