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At last I found myself selling what is considered the toughest thing in the world to sell—a piece of paper with a promise to pay, known as a life insurance policy. Life in- surance is strictly ari intangible product, and requires the HOW TO TURN OBJECTIONS INTO SALES 49 highest form of creative selling. It is said that anyone who can sell life insurance can sell anything, even ice cubes to Eskimos or safety razors at a barber's convention. In this field I encountered thousands of objections, and the ones re- lated below will give you a little food for thought. The only way to learn to encounter objections is by contacting pros- pects, and the only way to turn them into sales is by positive and creative thinking. One day I called on a prospect about a life insurance proposition, and, after I presented my Sales Plan with all the skill possible, he suggested that I send him a sample policy. "Mr. Buynow, I will be very happy to send you a sample policy, but before I do I want to tell you a true story about Mr. Putoff. I do not know whether or not you knew Mr. Put- off, but many insurance agents called on him from time to time, and he always suggested that each one send him a sample policy. The other day Mr. Putoff passed away, and after his death Mrs. Putoff went down to the bank and opened his safe deposit box. She thought that her husband had made ample provision for her and her four children. However, in looking through the contents of the safe deposit box, guess what Mrs. Putoff found? She found ten sample policies for $10,000 each—$100,000 worth of sample policies that were not worth a cent! "Mr. Buynow, I was one of the guilty parties to Mrs. Put- off's misfortune, and I do not think I played fair with her and the children. I should have persuaded Mr. Putoff to buy some life insurance, rather than to have aided and abetted him in cluttering up his safe deposit box with a lot of worth- less sample policies. Therefore, Mr. Buynow, do you think I would be playing fair with your wife and children to send you a sample policy? I feel that I would be betraying them, and furthermore I want you to know right now that I repre- sent them in this matter. I owe them a debt of responsibility." This got under Mr. Buynow's skin. Using the sample pol- 50 HOW TO TURN OBJECTIONS INTO SALES icy argument, I turned his objection to life insurance into a sale of a $25,000 life insurance policy. |
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