Should you overplay or underplay your communication techniques?

If clients don’t see the benefits of income protection, is it better for you to push too much or too little?

During a recent conversation at MDRT headquarters, MDRT members had some different perspectives on the issue:

“Sunny” Jae Lee, IAR, a nine-year MDRT member from Los Angeles, California:

I think it all depends on our clients’ needs and wants and specific situations. I have a client who is retirement age and is well-covered in many of the areas other than income replacement. Several years ago, I addressed that concern, and the family was not really listening, but then I had them come to my office more often. Every time we sat down, I kept on being very persistent about it. Not really pushing or twisting their arms, but through persistence, I persuaded them because I thought they really, really needed that. Finally the husband bought it.

Two years later, he got cancer. His wife called me and said, “I really want to thank you for your persuasion.” He was cured, so he’s fine, but because of that, his wife also bought a policy.

I knew that they really needed this piece of planning. But when I feel other people don’t really need it at that moment, I help them with other planning and wait until later on for income protection.

Elli Schochet, CFP, a 20-year MDRT member from Toronto, Ontario, Canada:

 I don’t love confrontations, so I tend to chicken out. I’ll try to push the envelope to a certain extent, but if I see it’s not going anywhere, I’d rather salvage the relationship and try to readdress it at a later point in time than to push them against the wall and have them leave the practice completely.

There have been situations over the years where I’ve presented such a solution at one point in time that hasn’t been the right time for various reasons. It’s on the agenda on a going-forward basis, and we’ll readdress it from time to time. Some clients will eventually take action and deal with the issue, and some clients won’t.

Shelley MacIntyre, CHS, a five-year MDRT member from Belleville, Ontario, Canada:

We totally care about our clients and want to make sure they are protected in all situations. I think that inherently we all try to avoid confrontation as much as possible, but if it’s something we feel very strongly about, I think we need to push harder. Even if the resistance comes down to price, you can tailor the plan to make sure they at least have some coverage until a later time when they can afford to get a better coverage, because some coverage is better than no coverage and just backing away. So I think we need to push a little bit harder.

Hear more in the September episode of the MDRT Podcast: