How to Utilize Storytelling When Selling Final Expense Insurance
The challenge in selling final expense insurance is to get prospects to start thinking about their own mortality. Storytelling is the best way to draw them in and educate them about the role of final expense insurance in protecting their families.
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There’s a bit of an art to storytelling for sales, and not every salesperson is good at it. Fortunately, selling with stories is a skill you can learn and improve upon.
It may surprise you to learn that science also plays a role in the use of storytelling to persuade prospects to purchase final expense insurance.
Storytelling is a sales tool every final expense salesperson should have in their toolbox because it works.
With these things in mind, we’ll explain why storytelling is powerful and how to structure your story to make it engaging. We’ll also provide some tips on maximizing your presentation’s impact.
Shortcuts:
3 Reasons Storytelling in Sales for Final Expense Insurance Is Powerful
Structure of a Compelling Sales Story
Better Selling Through Storytelling: Using Examples
7 Tips for Storytelling for Sales
Improving Your Storytelling Skills for Sales
A Memorable Presentation Gets the Sale
3 Reasons Storytelling in Sales for Final Expense Insurance Is Powerful
Storytelling for sales professionals is powerful because we can envision stories in our minds. Also, we like stories, and we like to share them with other people.
Our brains are wired to respond to stories, and that’s valuable information when you’re trying to sell final expense insurance.
Most of us know people who are inherently social. They’re the kind of people who can talk to anyone about anything. They have a story for every occasion; they tell stories well, and everyone listens. Storytelling is what attracts people to them.
Here are three reasons why storytelling can help you offer quotes for the best burial insurance to your clients:
- We are naturally drawn to stories and storytellers. People have been telling stories for centuries. We like stories because they help us understand things and each other.
- Our brains are wired to respond to events and characters in stories. This process is called neural coupling. Neural coupling occurs when your brain starts firing neurons in the same pattern as someone else’s brain when you talk to them about something.
- Storytelling causes our brains to release oxytocin. Oxytocin is a hormone that affects the way we talk and behave. Oxytocin is also called the “love hormone” or “cuddle hormone” because it makes us feel warm and fuzzy.
These reasons demonstrate why storytelling in sales is such a persuasive sales tool.
Telling a story about why someone needs final expense insurance will help you create an emotional connection with your prospects. This emotional connection will help to build trust quickly, which is essential in getting to the finish line.
Structure of a Compelling Sales Story
Think about your favorite television show or movie. Have you ever thought about what keeps you tuned in (and why you are bummed when an ad comes on)?
Do you remember the last good book you read? Was it a real page-turner?
Whether a story plays out in the pages of a book or on a screen, it has many of the same elements.
A great story opens with an eye-catching question or statement. The first chapter introduces the main characters, background, and setting. Before too long, the creator will create a conflict of some sort.
The story builds to a climax, which is the point of no return. From there, the tension begins to unravel. The main character learns to face their fears, the conflict resolves, and everyone lives happily ever after.
The plot keeps you wondering what will happen next. Sensory details, vivid images, metaphors, and anecdotes create emotion, drawing you in even further.
Storytelling in sales is much the same. Your story should have a beginning, middle, and end. The idea is to paint a picture of why someone needs final expense insurance, describe what happens if they don’t have it, and close with the ask.
Your goal is to inform and persuade your prospects through storytelling instead of entertaining them. The end is simply your call to action.
Visual Aids Increase Impact
Our brains are hard-wired to process the information we see. According to a study, about 80% of the information our brain’s intake comes through our eyes. Other research shows that two-thirds of the electrical activity inside the brain relates to our vision.
A visual presentation is a critical part of a sales appointment, and research also proves that.
Visual aids can come in several forms, including:
- Photographs
- Illustrations
- Videos
- Tables, charts, and graphs
A joint study by 3M and the Corporation and the Management Information Systems Research Center at the University of Minnesota showed that adding visuals to a presentation could evoke a dramatic response from an audience.
Researchers showed two different groups the same presentation. One presentation used visual aids, and the other did not. The goal of the presentation was to get the audience members to register for a series of time management seminars.
As it turned out, 43% more of the audience members who viewed the presentation with visual aids signed up for the course than those who viewed the presentation with words alone.
In another study, researchers showed participants a series of items and asked them to memorize them. Researchers alternated the items with images and spoken words.
Researchers then showed participants a list of words and asked them to choose whether they were part of the list of items they had memorized. The results? Participants were more inclined to remember the objects they memorized as images than the spoken words.
What we can glean from these studies is that adding images and videos to your slides will make them more memorable in sales presentations.
Screen Sharing: An Important Telesales Component
Final expense insurance plans aren’t terribly complicated to understand.
The challenge in a sales appointment is that people are generally less familiar with them than with standard term or whole life policies.
Visual aids can help prospects get up to speed quickly with the basics of final expense insurance, which will help you get to the call to action faster.
Final expense insurance plans are commonly sold virtually, so how can visual aids be included with a telesales appointment? The simple answer is screen-sharing.
A quality screen-sharing tool will have a hassle-free setup, allowing you to share your screen immediately, so you can get right to your presentation. The best software will also ensure that your videos and images are crisp and clear and will play on any device, old or new.
Screen-sharing is a good way to present stories about people your prospects have heard of and also, your own story.
Better Selling Through Storytelling: Using Examples
Celebrities tend to influence our lives and culture. Often, we can relate to stories about musicians, actors, politicians, and other celebrities’ lives. We like tracking their successes and, sometimes, their failures.
The relatability factor connects the dots between how celebrities have handled their life insurance policies and why prospects should buy a policy from you right away.
Here are two examples of how to use celebrity storytelling to drive home that everyone needs life insurance and why they need a policy in the right amount:
Corey Haim
Corey Haim started his acting career as a child. He starred in The Lost Boys and several other films. While Corey struggled with drug addiction as a teen and adult, he ultimately died of a common illness.
At the age of 38, Corey died of pneumonia, leaving no money or assets behind. He didn’t have a life partner or children to leave anything to. He didn’t even own a car.
Corey never purchased a life insurance policy, leaving the cost of his final expenses to his only living relatives—his parents.
Whitney Houston
Award-winning singer Whitney Houston died when she was 68 due to a combination of drowning, heart disease, and cocaine use.
Unlike Haim, Houston had purchased $312,000 in life insurance. However, her divorce documents stated she had earned over $1 million in her singing career. Her life insurance proceeds were minor compared to the wealth she’d earned during her lifetime.
These and other examples can help paint a picture of a life well-lived and the challenges people leave behind after their deaths.
While celebrities’ stories may resonate with your prospects, your story of how final expense insurance protects your own family is also worthy of sharing.
What’s Your Story?
Chances are that something started you thinking about purchasing final expense insurance to protect your family. Your sales presentation is a good place to share it.
Did you have trouble coming up with funds to bury your parents?
Did you have a friend who died unexpectedly and didn’t have a life insurance policy to cover their final expenses?
Do you know of someone who has been diagnosed with a terminal illness and is using the living benefit of a terminal illness rider to help pay their medical expenses?
Telling your own story gives you a chance to explain why everyone should have a final expense policy and what motivates you to sell it. By doing so, you will likely encourage your prospects to share their own stories about what motivated them to check into buying a final expense policy.
Your story may hit home more than stories about people your prospects only see on television or the stage.
7 Tips for Storytelling for Sales
We’re not necessarily suggesting you build a sales presentation around caskets and people donned in black. There are many creative ways to demonstrate empathy and create urgency without fostering gloom and doom.
Storyboarding can help you create an informative, persuasive presentation while keeping the mood light, inspiring, and ripe for a sale.
Here are seven tips for using storytelling in sales:
- Express empathy through your words and images. A personal experience may have triggered a prospect to acquire a final expense insurance policy for themselves. Respond empathetically to it.
- Start with a list of two to three essential points. Build your presentation around these messages.
- Highlight the rising cost of funeral expenses. The median cost of a funeral, including a casket and burial, increased 5.8% from 2021 to 2023. The cost of cremations has risen 8.1% over the same period.
- Get permission when telling another person’s story. This doesn’t apply to a celebrity’s story, as their details are usually public knowledge. However, if you’re sharing a friend or partner’s story, make sure they’re okay with you telling it.
- Be flexible. Prepare your presentation, but let the prospect drive the conversation. A screen-sharing tool will allow you to display slides in any order if the discussion naturally moves to a different part of your presentation.
- Practice your presentation, but don’t memorize it verbatim. Strive for a natural back-and-forth discussion. When practicing your talk, pay attention to your tone and pacing.
- Be ethical. Always be honest and transparent. Be sure to respect your prospect’s boundaries and cultural preferences.
Improving Your Storytelling Skills for Sales
When it comes to specializing in final expense products, it’s worthwhile to refine your storytelling skills.
Here are several ways to do that:
- Attend workshops and seminars
- Participate in role-playing exercises with peers
- Work with a mentor who has been highly successful in sales
- Listen to great storytellers, noting how they keep audiences engaged
- Listen to the best storytelling podcasts regularly
As you improve your storytelling skills, you’re bound to see an improvement in your sales and commissions.
A Memorable Presentation Gets the Sale
As a final expense salesperson, your primary goal is to get prospects to envision what life will be like for their loved ones after they die. Storytelling is the key to helping prospects create that vision.
Research supports the idea that people respond to storytelling in sales and that visual aids can make an impactful difference.
Storytelling in final expense sales is similar to developing a story for entertainment or any other purpose. Stories must have a beginning, middle, and end. Conflict is an essential element of a sales story, as it leads prospects toward a climax and final resolution, which is your call to action.
Even if you don’t get the sale right away, a good storytelling presentation while likely stick with prospects for quite a while. When prospects are ready to become clients, they’ll be sure to reconnect with you and complete the sale.