Benefithackers.com

Mistake number three is not just something I did, but I think it’s something all people in selling do. Times have changed on how people communicate. And yet most people are still communicating like it was 1999.

The way buyers are buying today is much different than the way they did 3, 5 or 10 years ago.

Sales, business development, new client acquisition. For anybody responsible for bringing on new accounts in the employee benefit sector this podcast is for you. This will help prevent the number one mistake I made for years and once I corrected it, my results improved dramatically.

NEXT STEP. So you are about 20 minutes into your call and then you panic. Where do you go next? What do you say? Is it their choice or your choice? Use this technique and you will relieve stress and anxiety for you and also the other person.

4 AREAS … OF PAIN. By pain I mean, what is the issue challenge or problem or annoyance that you will determine if it’s worth solving for the client or not. There are lots of problems and challenges with every employer group. Don’t get distracted by getting into the weeds. Focus on just 4 and your conversations will be easier to handle.

ATNE (pronounced at-knee). Average total number of employees. Get familiar with this term because every single health insurance carrier will be asking you about it. Plus, it will allow you to have more meaningful conversations with prospects.

SIZE MATTERS. OK this is a cliché phrase that’s overused a lot. However, understanding a few basic definitions will become your best advantage when talking with others, as you will educate them and become a subject matter expert very quickly. FTE. ALE. Small Group. Mid Market. Large Group.

COMPETITION. This is your biggest competition. Failing to understand this before each and every interaction is in my opinion the number one reason why deals are lost during the first appointment.

PEPY (pronounced pep-eee). Per employee per year. When your doctor takes your blood pressure at the beginning of your visit, it tells them key things about your health. The same is true with PEPY. This tells you as the advisor some key facts about what’s going on right at the beginning.

ADMINISTRATION. This is the least sexy part of the plan

$4,300,000,000,000 (TRILLION). This is how much the entire US healthcare ecosystem spends every year. These are the hospitals, the pharmacies, manufactures insurance brokers doctors PBM’s everything. Understanding this dynamic will help you position … “Winter is Coming”

Pharmacy / RX Costs. If you are going to do a deep dive on any component of the health plan, this is where you should spend your time. The amount of money spent on prescription drugs is anywhere from 30% to 50% or higher up total cost.

Top High Cost Claims. A statistic you will repeat over and over is that 80% of the total cost of any health insurance plan is directly or indirectly related to CLAIMS. If that’s the case, don’t you wanna know what the top areas are? So you can discuss insights strategies and ideas on how to reduce them?

5 Components of a Health Plan. This took me years to become aware of or even fully understand why I needed to know about it. Can you name the five major components of your car ? You probably can and we’re talking about a $50,000 purchase. If you ask a CFO to name the five components of something they spend $2 million on don’t you think they should understand that also?

Transition to Discovery. This is how you transition into the discovery phase of the call. How this goes determines whether it feels like in an interrogation or a conversation. Let’s just say it should feel like the conversation.

Your

The NEXT 2 Minutes.

10 SECONDS. The first 10 seconds out of your mouth sets the tone for the entire conversation.

20 minutes. You got about 20 minutes before the other person‘s brain becomes overwhelmed and starts to lose interest and shut down their attention.

When we communicate with other people, what happens to the other person as they’re listening? This is a key factor to understand before we open our mouth and say or show anything.