My "Bersonal" View

Prospects are more likely to be wearier when it comes to sales tactics, so it’s best you avoid an approach that will get the client’s guard up.

Are you guilty of any of these?

It’s an absolute certainty that each one of us has had at least one negative experience with a salesperson who just does not stop pushing and pressuring us into a sale. While many Insurance Agents worry they won’t make a sale if they aren’t assertive enough, others fear it will chase a prospect away. You really shouldn’t create extreme pressure for your leads. The only thing it will do is make them want to pull back, even if your product could be a perfect fit. Look out for signals which would indicate that your prospect is feeling uncomfortable and know when to back off. For example, if your prospect keeps canceling appointments or if they just cannot see the value of life insurance. It will also save the agent time and they can focus their energy elsewhere.

Top tips for you to come across less ‘salsey’:

·         Focus more on having a conversation with someone rather than just selling.

·         Listen to and understand the prospect’s needs. Ask if what they’re offering is of real value to them.

·         Developing a sense of trust with the prospect will help to convert the lead into a sale.

·         If you want to go the email route, personalize each email and follow up that email with a call before or after it gets sent.

Ensure you are equipped with these fundamental sales skills:

·         Prospect Research – know about the person they are visiting; this adds value and shows the person you are in fact interested in them. And not just selling to them.

·         Meeting Scheduling – planning is essential in order to make a commitment to the prospect to meet face-to-face.

·         Build a rapport – this is the first and most important sales tactic, before diving into any sales pitch. The agent needs to make a connection with the prospect first. Find a connection.

·         Ask and Listen – this is a basic sales skill most Agents get wrong. Stop talking, ask more and listen carefully. By listening you will know your sales pitch based on the prospect’s personal circumstances. People love to talk about themselves, give them an opening to do just that by asking questions.

·         Ask for commitment – if you do not ask for the business, you will not get it.

·         Relationship – build and maintain this relationship, whether at the prospecting stage or client phase. Building a relationship is key to continued sales growth.

Follow Up

If you make a promise to the prospect that they will follow up with additional information, make sure that they actually do so. It’s pointless making a successful sales pitch and then never following up. Keep set appointments and don’t be late.

Most people know that the IRS extended the deadline for filing and payment of 2019 taxes to July 15, 2020. But a lot of questions still come up. Luckily the IRS has created a website to help. You can find it at:

http://www.irs.gov/coronavirus

The site includes sets of questions and answers on the July 15th tax deadline, the employer tax credits under the stimulus laws and other tax relief. You can also view formal guidance, news releases, statements and other documents for details on the many federal tax changes in response to the Covid-19 crisis.

It’s all about diversification

Modern Portfolio Theory has a very simple premise when it comes to diversification: Look at your investable assets in their most basic asset class components of cash, equities, and fixed income – while, being mindful of your risk tolerance. Then create a customized asset allocation that combines these components in such a way as to maximize growth and minimize risk. Modern Portfolio Theory is nothing more than Modern Diversification.

Of course, there are some additional asset classes money managers may expand into: real estate, certain commodities (precious metals and petroleum, for example), and life insurance.

Life insurance? Certainly! Consider the two fundamental components of life insurance purchased for a lifetime: the underlying cash values (asset class = fixed income) support the death benefit, and the death benefit itself (asset class = cash). This is not to suggest life insurance as an investment. When acquired for the classic purposes of replacing an individual’s Human Life Value, or when used to provide liquidity to an estate, business, or charity, life insurance properly acquired can be an important part of an overall approach to asset accumulation over one’s lifetime.

Life insurance is most typically allocated into the fixed-income category for its underlying cash value, which is in turn invested in high-grade bonds to support whole life policies. At the other extreme, life insurance can earn Index Credits if policy reserves are deployed, for example, into an S&P500® Index account.

Regardless of asset class attribution, cash values should be viewed as a long-term asset. Life insurance is not a savings account (there’s no immediate access to your cash values in the first few years), and yet the return on its long-term accumulation value is very similar to the real returns of high-grade bonds when considering the tax advantage of tax-deferred accumulation on cash values. When the insured dies, the accumulations become part of the death benefit, for which there is no income tax – essentially, “forgiving” the tax-deferred accumulations during life.

It’s also about risk tolerance

Considerations of risk tolerance are the key to success when pursuing asset allocation’s approach to diversification. Risk tolerance is typically described by four distinct categories: Conservative, Balanced, Aggressive, and Very Aggressive. A “conservative” investor’s risk tolerance is so averse to the loss of principal that it results in less than 40% – sometimes only 20% – of invested assets being deployed in equities. The balance is in cash and fixed-income securities, such as taxable and non-taxed bonds. While this better assures preservation of value, it is often at the expense of returns, since there is a historic relationship between the amount of risk you are willing to take and the reward you may achieve for that risk. Also, when preservation of principal is the objective, purchasing power is often sacrificed and the real after-inflation value of the investment could actually be negative.

At the other extreme are the “very aggressive” investors, who will ordinarily have their entire portfolio invested in equities. While there is a possibility that such risk tolerance, properly deployed, could substantially overcome the “drag” of inflation, there’s no guarantee of a return of anything – including principal.

There are numerous subjective qualities that result in an investor’s style ranging the spectrum from conservative to very aggressive, and you should consult a qualified financial professional to help you determine your unique considerations around risk tolerance.

There is an unmistakable energy when a great client meeting concludes. You believe that the client is going to move forward and there is no way that this is going to stall. However, even the best client meetings have a remarkably short life if not acted upon.

After a great client meeting, how long do you think the impact lasts? A few hours? Maybe a day? Two days at the most? The quality of follow through is imperative. It serves three vital roles:

1. It provides the information necessary to advance the relationship with the client.
2. It enhances your reputation as a professional.
3. It extends the “lift” or “energy” of the initial effort into the future.

Here is a good follow-up formula to use for all of your client meetings. Both good and the not so good meetings need follow-up…so make a plan and follow it.

• One day later send them an email thanking them and recapping the details of what happened in the meeting. If you promised information or materials provide it here.
• Three days later contact them via the phone to schedule a follow-up appointment or call
• Seven days later follow-up by sending at least a hand written note or thank you card through the mail

The world is in turmoil. Our world of finance has turned upside down. We must adapt. We must transition to the “Next Normal” one day at a time.  Here are some quick tips of how to move forward.

Times are hard right now. Everyone is doing their best to cope with the “New Normal” brought on by the Corona Virus. Working from home. Kids out of school. Restaurants and bars closed down. Sports of all kind shut down. Isolation. It’s at times like this that I am thankful for colleagues who step up and help. One of my colleagues, Bob Seawright, writes a great Blog called “Above The Market” . Today’s article was written by Bob and I thank him for stepping up to provide us this great back story on why we need to wash our hands. Stay safe and enjoy.

Wash Your Hands by Bob Seawright

No instruction has been more consistent throughout the coronavirus crisis than the insistence that we wash our hands. Pretty much all the time. A lot more thoroughly and for a lot longer than we’re used to. The reminders are insistent, too, and sometimes annoying.

But they are important. Therefore, it is appropriate that we recall the tragic story of the patron saint of hand-washing. He’s Ignaz Semmelweis, a 19th Century Hungarian obstetrician who found lasting scientific fame, but only posthumously.

Semmelweis discovered that the often-fatal puerperal fever, sometimes called “childbed fever,” common among new mothers in hospitals at the time, could essentially be eliminated if doctors simply washed their hands before assisting with childbirth. Semmelweis observed that a particular obstetrical ward suffered unusually high instances of the disease and that doctors there often worked in the morgue right before aiding in childbirth but had not washed their hands in between. He speculated that “cadaverous material” could be passed from doctors’ hands to patients, causing the disease. He thereupon initiated a strict handwashing regimen at his hospital, using a chlorinated solution, for all who would assist in childbirth. Death rates plummeted.

Semmelweis expected a revolution in hospital hygiene as a consequence of his findings, but it didn’t come.

His hypothesis, that there was only one cause of the disease and that it could be prevented simply through cleanliness, was extreme at the time and ran counter to the prevailing medical ideology, which insisted that diseases had multiple causes. Despite the practical demonstration of its effectiveness, his approach was largely ignored, rejected, or even ridiculed. Things got so bad that Semmelweis was ultimately dismissed from his hospital post and harassed by the medical community in Vienna, forcing him to move to Budapest.

The story gets even stranger from there. In Budapest, Semmelweis grew increasingly outspoken and hostile towards physicians who refused to acknowledge his discovery and implement his protocols. Vitriolic exchanges ensued, in medical literature and in letters, and Semmelweis was eventually lured to an asylum where his opponents had arranged for his incarceration. He was beaten severely and put in a straitjacket. He died within two weeks.

The Semmelweis approach only earned widespread acceptance many years after his death, when Louis Pasteur developed the germ theory of disease (which offered a theoretical explanation for the Semmelweis findings) and Joseph Lister, acting on the French microbiologist’s research, practiced and operated using hygienic methods to great success. As a consequence, Semmelweis is today considered a pioneer of antiseptic procedures and something of a martyr.

Psychiatrist Thomas Szasz (highly controversial himself) summed things up aptly.

“[I]t can be dangerous to be wrong, but, to be right, when society regards the majority’s falsehood as truth, could be fatal. This principle is especially true with respect to false truths that form an important part of an entire society’s belief system. …In the modern world, they are medical and political in nature (emphasis supplied).”

What has come to be known as the “Semmelweis Reflex” is our tendency to reject new evidence or new knowledge when it contradicts our established norms, beliefs, or paradigms.

The Simmelweis Reflex and other decision-making biases compromised the containment of COVID-19. In classic examples of the planning fallacy, governments have consistently underestimated exposure and overestimated their control of the situation. For example, less than a month ago, U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson spoke of shaking hands “with everyone” and business as usual, while Italy was in disaster mode. He has since reversed course, closing schools and imposing a societal lockdown, and contracted the disease himself.

Stopping COVID-19 will require harsh and difficult measures. St. Louis Federal Reserve President James Bullard suggests that we “[f]rame this as a massive investment in U.S. public health.” It is also a massive investment in survival. Yet, in classic displays of confirmation bias and overconfidence, individuals young and old have readily latched onto narratives that suggested the pandemic might be a general threat, but isn’t much of a threat to them.

Lockdown, Manhattan style: an incredibly grim photo of all the Caviar delivery guys waiting to pick up orders of $70 veal parm at Carbone https://t.co/OWM7fDvoWB pic.twitter.com/leCtqHmzwK

— Tom Gara (@tomgara) March 23, 2020

When we grab a glass of what we think is apple juice, only to take a sip and discover that it’s actually ginger ale, we react with disgust, even when we love the soda. We quite naturally try to jam the facts into our pre-conceived notions and commitments or simply miscomprehend reality such that we accept a view, no matter how implausible, that sees a different (“alternative”) set of alleged facts, “facts” that are (conveniently) used to support what we already believe.

As C.S. Lewis wrote in The Magician’s Nephew, a children’s book that is much more than that, “What you see and what you hear depends a great deal on where you are standing. It also depends on what sort of person you are.” If you want to be the sort of person your children (real or potential) look up to, take this crisis seriously. When treatments for COVID-19 are developed and, ultimately, a vaccine produced, we’re all going to have to take our medicine, literally and figuratively. Until then, stay inside. Practice social distancing. Follow the recommended procedures.

And don’t forget to wash your hands.

During the last week of February 2020, the S&P 500 lost 11.49% — the worst week for stocks since the 2008 financial crisis — only to jump by 4.6% on the first Monday in March.¹ Then we saw an even more dramatic drop as the Corona Virus started to spread and the market tumbled to numbers lower than when Trump took office in January 2017. By all accounts, the drop was largely driven by ever-increasing fears about the potential effects of the coronavirus (COVID-19) and its ultimate impact on the global economy. Although many market observers contend that the market was overvalued and due for a correction anyway, the unpredictability, strength, and suddenness of the historic tumble was unnerving for even the most seasoned investors. If recent volatility is causing you to consider cashing out of your stock holdings, it may be worthwhile to pause and put recent events into perspective, using history as a guide.

A look back

Since the turn of the millennium, the market’s negative response to health crises has been relatively short-lived. As this table shows, approximately six months after early reports of a major outbreak, the S&P 500 bounced back by an average of 10.47%. After 12 months, it rebounded by an average of 17.17%. Although there are no guarantees the current situation will follow a similar pattern, it may be reassuring to know that over even longer periods of time, stocks typically regain their upward trajectory, helping long-term investors who hold steady to recoup their temporary losses, catch their breath, and go on to pursue their goals.

What should you do?

First, keep in mind that market downturns sometimes offer the chance to pick up potentially solid stocks at value prices, which could position a portfolio well for future growth. Again, there are no guarantees that stocks will perform to anyone’s expectations — and decisions could result in losses including a possible loss in principal — but it may be helpful to remember that some investors use downturns as opportunities to buy stocks that were previously overvalued relative to their perceived earnings potential.

Moreover, if you typically invest set amounts into your portfolio at regular intervals — a strategy known as dollar-cost averaging (DCA), which is commonly used in workplace retirement plans and college investment plans — take heart in knowing you’re utilizing a method of investing that helps you behave like the value investors noted above. Through DCA, your investment dollars purchase fewer shares when prices are high, and more shares when prices drop. Essentially, in a down market, you automatically “buy low,” one of the most fundamental investment tenets. Over extended periods of volatility, DCA can result in a lower average cost for your holdings than the investment’s average price over the same time period.

Finally and perhaps most important, during trying times like this, it may help to focus less on daily market swings and more on the fundamentals; that is, review your investment objectives and time horizon, and revisit your asset allocation to make sure it’s still appropriate for your needs. Your allocation can shift in unexpected ways due to changes in market cycles, so you may discover the need to rebalance your allocation by selling holdings in one asset class and investing more in another. (Keep in mind that rebalancing in a taxable account can result in income tax consequences.)

During this time of uncertainty, ISN Network wants to let you know that our office is still open with the exception of most of our staff working remotely. We are still able to take your applications via email, fax or mail.  All of your calls can and will be answered.

The good news is ISN Network’s model has always been to provide financial planning services remotely through technology, phone consultations and “zoom” technology.   We are in the perfect position to deploy our services more than any other financial services provider and all throughout the states we are in!

More than ever, financial planning should be on everyone’s mind.  Let’s be proactive to help others preserve and protect what’s important to them through proper planning and help them achieve peace of mind.

Let us be the expert while you plant the seed and get the conversation started. We’ll take it from there as your strategic business partner and keep you in the loop, every step of the way.