I've met very few human resource professionals interested in offering more benefits to their employees; in fact, almost all are frustrated that their employees aren't using the ones they already have.
Yet most brokers I know lead with product when attempting to cross-sell worksite voluntary benefits to their clients. By trying to sell the client on the virtues of the voluntary products, most of these brokers predictably fail to cross-sell much of anything.
In an article back in March,"Four steps to cross-selling voluntary," I revealed the essential secret to cross-selling voluntary: Don't push voluntary...use voluntary to solve HR's problems.
The brokers most successful in cross-selling voluntary have learned to adopt a different mind-set, one that focuses entirely on their HR client's needs and solving their problems using the tools of a voluntary benefit enrollment.
What's in it for HR?
A savvy, veteran market manager for a leading voluntary carrier once advised me to constantly ask myself, "What's in it for HR?" before even presenting voluntary to a client.
This question embodies the necessary shift in mind-set from one of self-serving to serving your client's needs, from "How can this help me?" to "How can I help my client?"
As Zig Ziglar has observed, "You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help other people get what they want."
This simple, albeit radical, change in begins to transform the broker's role immediately and reverse the typical power dynamic in the broker/client relationship.
Change your role, take control
The majority of benefits brokers never rise above being just a salesman pushing product, their success too often determined by their product/price value proposition. Most of these brokers allow their sales efforts to be driven by sales goals and their own self-interest.
With their value to the client defined by their latest renewal offer, these brokers generally live in fear of their HR clients and lay awake at night worried about losing the broker of record letter.
With his new mind-set, the broker can begin a three-phase process that allows him to take control of the broker/client relationship:
- Relate to the HR client -- Build much stronger rapport with the client based on the broker's enhanced knowledge of HR issues;
- Recognize the client's pain points -- Identify key problems facing HR; and
- Reveal the solution -- Show clients how to eliminate their pain and solve their problems using the tools of a voluntary benefits enrollment.
Solving a client's problems -- and usually at no hard cost to the company -- is a very effective way to strengthen the broker/client relationship and reduce price to a secondary consideration in the relationship.
The result? The broker as advisor succeeds in cross-selling voluntary, takes control of the client relationship, locks in the BOR -- and gains the client's appreciation and respect.
Enter the HR conversation
In transitioning to the advisor role, the quickest way to build rapport with the HR client in this new role is for the broker to enter the HR conversation the client is already having.
To better understand the client's needs, the broker learns more about the issues and challenges facing HR. Previously article, I mentioned some of the more vexing problems reported by HR, including burdensome paper enrollments, poor employee personal data, low employee morale, poor plan participation, employee retention and ineffective benefit communication.
Of course, HR issues range far beyond insurance and benefits. Some of the more pressing concerns include recruitment, retention, HR technology, raising productivity and training/workforce development.
To become conversant in HR matters, I urge brokers to join the Society for Human Resource Management and to read HR industry publications such as SHRM's HR Magazine.
Then, when talking with the client, the broker can speak the language of HR -- not insurance -- and demonstrate an understanding of the issues facing the client.
Ask and you shall find...the client's pain
As sales professionals know, the right questions are the best way to guide the conversation and discover the client's pain points that can be solved with the tools of a voluntary enrollment.
Working from the client's responses to the list of top 10 benefit issues, the broker uses strategic questions to begin to narrow down the most painful problems.
Some examples include "What activities eat up the most manpower?", "What activities do you most dread every year?" and "What activities would you get rid of if you could wave a magic wand?"
Gatekeeper of resources
When the client is really feeling the pain, it's time to reveal how the client's problem and pain can be solved. The broker's question, "What if I could show you a way to eliminate your pain?" opens the door to an invitation from the client to present voluntary benefits and how they can solve the client's problem.
Now the broker is acting as the "gatekeeper of resources," a hallmark of the advisory role. Voluntary benefits and especially the enrollment process and its ancillary services represent valuable resources that a broker can bring to the HR client to solve the client's problems.
Even clients who previously might have been resistant to a voluntary offering usually are happy to accept voluntary as the means to solve a painful problem, especially when that solution comes at little or no cost to the client.
There are literally scores of services that a voluntary enrollment can provide to solve a myriad of client problems, usually at no hard cost to the client. There's not room to list them all but some of the most common include the following.
Voluntary benefits themselves can fill plan gaps and enhance the benefit plan.
The enrollment process can provide ancillary services including electronic enrollment of the core benefits, personalized benefit statements, employee surveys, and employee data cleansing. In their enrollment meetings with employees, benefit counselors can communicate one-on-one the value of high deductible health plans/CDHP, 401(k) plans and Section 125 plans and explain benefit statements, benefit plan changes and company policies including, for example, sexual harassment and internet use policies.
The more knowledgeable of the many ways that voluntary can solve HR problems, the greater the number of resources he can bring to bear on the client's problems, the more successful an advisory broker will be at cross-selling voluntary.
Differentiate by being better
By becoming a true advisor to the client, a broker differentiates himself in the most meaningful way: by being better, not just different. Different is wearing a bow tie; better is solving the client's problems. As the gatekeeper of resources that have value to the client, the broker himself becomes a valuable resource for the client. By entering into the client's HR conversation, the broker not only engages the client in a way no insurance salesman can, he also is able to learn about the client's real needs and problems. By identifying the client's pain and helping the client appreciate the severity of the pain, the broker creates a selling opportunity that will solve the client's problem and eliminate the pain.
Finally, by showing the client how to solve the problem and end the pain using voluntary benefits and enrollment, the broker cross-sells in a way that enhances his value to the client by better serving the client's needs.
What client doesn't want to keep a broker like that?
*For further information or to contact this author, please use the forum below.
Nelson Griswold is a former executive with a national enrollment firm who now trains and coaches brokers to successfully cross-sell voluntary. He can be reached at 615-656-5974 or nelson@cross-sellsolutions.com.
