Health Insurance Underwriter

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ment refers the CPA or attorney to specific sites that they can use to research the answer more thoroughly.

Getting to the Decision Maker Is the Key to
Consultative Selling

In the consultative sales process, we must first and foremost understand who the decision maker is. So who is the decision maker? (The answer is at the end of the article. Did you get it right?) If your access point is not the decision maker, a sound multistep consultative procedure can help you get there. This is the question that commonly comes up: “Why can’t I make the sale to the HR director? She is the one who signed the broker of record letter when I took over the case.”

HR personnel are not involved in the financial decision-making process of the company. As long as the only thing the employer is looking at is a cost/benefit comparison, the HR person has great influence on the product selection and the broker of record. If, however, consultative brokers get the ear of the CFO or CEO, they will likely have the advantage. With strategic planning, they will be able to show clients how to control cost and save money without cutting benefits—and, in many cases, eliminate compliance risks not dealt with by their current broker.

Let’s suppose that a competitor gets access to the CEO of one of your clients, perhaps through a financial planner or CPA who has a strong client relationship. Or maybe the HR director is asked by the CFO to get competitive quotes from several brokers because of radical rate changes. If the new broker is also product-driven and spreadsheet-orient-ed, you have a distinct advantage. You have given excellent service to HR and maybe even provide sophisticated HRIS

software services. You also have a strong relationship with the client.

On the other hand, if the new broker is consultative, it is likely there are a number of significant advantages that he will have. The consultative broker will assess employer risk exposure (COBRA, Section 125 compliance, HIPAA, etc.). He will explore cost-control mechanisms—such as integrating CDHC plans with a defined-contribution payment structure—to provide cost-saving strategies that will have long-range benefits. Finally, he will look at the impact of benefits on recruitment and retention. Then you will be at a distinct disadvantage. While you are talking about the benefits of a CDHC linked to an HSA and showing the bells and whistles of the product, the consultative broker will be discussing how to develop a multiyear strategic plan to achieve employer benefit objectives more effectively. Not only will the new broker have the decision maker’s ear, it will only take about 30 minutes for him to present his case and make the sale. Many times this can be done without ever showing a spreadsheet. It is a concept sale.

Step One: Problem Identification and Uncovering
New Opportunities

In the balance of this article, I will focus on what needs to be done to set the stage for the consultative sale. With a multiple-step consultative sales process, you will also find it easier to work “upstream” if your initial contact happens to be with human resources. Remember, HR cannot make a decision on a proposal that requires a financial decision. Oops—they can say, “NO.”