From 24–26 February 2011, 4,500 financial services professionals from 25 countries gathered in Singapore for the 2011 MDRT Experience meeting. The meeting provided attendees with ideas, solutions and inspiration to help them achieve new levels of excellence. Here is a recap of what happened at the meeting.

Looking for inspiration, ideas and solutions to carry you through the year? Attend the 2011 MDRT Annual Meeting held from 5–8 June 2011 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA.

Expand your network, learn from the finest minds in the financial services industry and exchange ideas with the world’s most successful advisors through motivational and inspirational presentations. The MDRT Annual Meeting promises to leave you re-energised for the months to come.

Highlights of the program include a welcome reception at Georgia Aquarium, the world’s largest aquarium, where you will be treated to gourmet food and great company. Also, MDRT has partnered with Soles4Souls to co-host a unity walk, shoe drive and benefit concert this year.

For full details of the events mentioned, visit the MDRT Annual Meeting website, and browse through the Program Highlights and Don’t Miss Events tab.

Register today to take advantage of the early bird registration rate of USD 695, which expires on 17 April 2011. Click here to download the 2011 MDRT Annual Meeting Registration Brochure.

Mark your calendar to attend the 2012 MDRT Experience to be held in Bangkok, Thailand, 9–11 February 2012. Join MDRT’s experts in the land of a thousand smiles to discover new ways to grow your business, increase your income and accelerate your productivity. The 2012 MDRT Experience is open to both members and nonmembers. Invite your colleagues and encourage them to attend this motivating event.

The 2012 MDRT Experience is scouting inspiring speakers for the meeting. Applications are now open! If you are the person we are looking for or if you know somebody who fits the bill, complete this form and send your recommendations to
mdrt-experience@mci-group.com by 15 April 2011. Financial services professionals who are interested to apply must be current MDRT members.

First published in the 24 January 2011 issue of the Asia Insurance Review’s eDaily e-newsletter, the article reveals social media to be the top interaction point for selling insurance:

Insurance firms should include social media and analytics to sell to consumers whose shopping and buying patterns have changed, according to a recent study of 21,740 consumers in 20 countries by the IBM Institute of Business Value (IBV), a business research organisation that focuses on managerial and economic issues faced by companies and governments around the world.

The global insurance study, the largest ever undertaken by IBV, shows that more than 60 percent of consumers plan to use more than one interaction point — such as phone, website or face-to-face meetings — to buy insurance policies. One-fifth of the respondents say that they use more than four different interaction points to search and compare their insurance options.

Consumers select online channels (49.5 percent) as their top preference for information gathering purposes to search for insurance. Following close behind is personal contact with an agent (47.9 percent), peer groups like friends and family (46.4 percent), and websites of aggregators or independent comparison providers (35.5 percent).

"Our findings show that the customer of the future is diverse and multi-modal. Consumers prefer interaction point choices. They can and will switch insurers if their preferred interaction points are not available," according to Mr. Primo Aguas, an IBM ASEAN executive based in Kuala Lumpur.

IBV also says that insurers should study the data of insurance search and purchase decisions and employ them effectively. They should also engage consumers actively to reveal data about their preferences so that they can develop customised strategies based on personal experience. The use of customer analytics can reveal valuable behavioural data that will allow insurers to compare interaction point offerings to the preferred mix of targeted customers. Another recommendation is to improve interaction quality so that insurers can turn consumers into advocates of their business.

	MDRT India held four MDRT Days in India — 15–16 January 2011 in Mumbai, 19 January 2011 in Kolkata and 22 January 2011 in Delhi. The guest of honour for all four MDRT days was 2011 MDRT First Vice President, Jennifer A. Borislow, CLU. The MDRT Days attracted a strong response and were a resounding success.

To kick-start 2011, MDRT Korea held a local workshop on 19 January 2011 at the Chosun Convention, Gwang-ju. The workshop attracted more than 240 attendees and featured presentations by Choi Sang-Won, MDRT Zone Chair for Korea, and Dr. Seoug Tae-Hyun, a local university professor.

The 2010 Franklin MDRT Honour Forum on 22 December 2010 was organised by MDRT Taiwan and co-hosted by Smart Monthly, an investment and wealth management magazine. The event, attended by 150 MDRT members, aimed to reinforce MDRT values and ethics among the members, to encourage them to incorporate MDRT’s principles as work standards and integrate the Whole Person Concept to their professional and personal life. 

The event keynote speaker was Joe Navarro, an international speaker and ex-FBI agent and supervisor, who specialises in non-verbal communication and body language. Meeting attendees learnt how to leverage body language as a tool to improve their closing ratio. The event was very successful as the attendees learnt practical skills that were immediately applicable to their practice.

In this business, prospecting is the key to success. I have secured more than 1,000 clients in the past decade by depending on referrals only. After receiving a referral from my client, I would request my client to call the referral on my behalf and inform him/her that they should be expecting a call from me soon and I would like to arrange a meeting with him/her. However, there are times when I will face rejections. So to minimise the rejection rate, I would also ask my client to check when would be a convenient time for me to speak with this referral. My client would typically say, "You can call him/her next week. I will contact him/her before that." Then I ask, "Can I call him/her next Monday?" With that, I would pen down the date in my diary, in front of my client. In doing so, my client is reminded to keep his or her promise and to contact the referral. I notice that when I call on the appointed day, the possibility of setting up a meeting is higher.

Most of our clients and/or prospects wish to retire well but are stumped about how to do so. My suggestion is to ask your prospect: If they are actively and systematically investing for retirement If they know what is at the heart of investing for retirement Inform them there are five factors that will determine their success when investing for retirement: H - How much to invest for retirement E - Expertise that they have to invest A - Allocation of the money they have in different instruments R - Returns on their investments T - Timing of their investments Which group of investors is the smartest (based on profitability versus stress concept)

As an insurance agent, rejection from prospects is normal and should be approached positively especially since many still have a negative impression of insurance.

For example, there was one prospect who I arranged many meetings with; however, she would cancel at the last minute each time. Several attempts later, after finally securing a meeting with her, I went to meet her. On the way there, I accidentally fell into a manhole and injured my leg. Despite my injury, I was determined to meet her on time.

When I met her, her attitude toward insurance was still indifferent. Then, she noticed the deep cut on my leg and asked, "What happened? Why didn’t you go to the hospital instead?" I replied, "I arranged a meeting with you and I don’t break promises." Seeing my sincerity, she became more receptive and I successfully closed the sale. She even provided me with many new referrals.

The moral of my story is insurance agents must show concern for their clients and understand their plans, dreams and fears. Also, agents should regularly contact clients to maintain the relationship and answer their questions honestly and comprehensively, hence, bringing them peace of mind and financial security.

Since I came back from the MDRT Annual Meeting in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, I’ve been using a sales idea that I read in a book by Robert Krumroy and it has proven to be very successful. I bought this book for USD 10.

The idea is that we, the financial professionals, must sell the problem to the prospects. When the prospect buys the pain, the loss and the unwanted consequences of the problem, nothing else matters — not even the cost of the solution.

Sell the problem and the prospect will beg you for a solution. Sell the problem if you want to be successful in sales.

MDRT Asia Pacific Office

Tel: +65 6496 5505
Fax: +65 6336 6449
Email: asiapacific@mdrt.org
Web site: www.mdrt.org