It’s been awhile since I’ve wrote here.  But I wanted to share the story of my first sales presentation after the presentation seminar.  (Yes, I know it’s been a few months.)

My first presentation was for a plastics manufacturing company.

I went, and came with an application form for business insurance and sat inside a cafe a block away from the prospect and thought about what to say.  The problem with selling property and casualty insurance is that I don’t have any set scripts for any particular business segment.  It’s a very simple product.  We read the contracts and pick out the features and benefits and present them to the client.  However in this instance, the client ended up calling me.   They were a referral from a life insurance person that cold called and basically knocked on the prospects door and provided a presentation.

So this was a little different.

The prospect knew why I was there.  We had spoken on the phone.  They needed a commercial general liability policy to satisfy their lease.  I went in early and spoke with one of the partners.  I was waiting for a man named Mark.

After spending some time asking about the business Mark showed up.  I introduced myself and my firm and said to him, it takes an application to get you a quote.  (That’s actually when I do make a presentation.)

We spent about 40 minutes talking to him and asking about the business.

After that I shook hands with them all and left.

I remember getting back to the office and sending the quote out to a few underwriting companies.  The prospect mentioned that there was another insurance agent that had arrived in the morning so locking in a quote right away was imperative.  In the insurance industry with business insurance the first broker that gets the application to the underwriter is usually the only one to be able to quote that company.  After three days, only one would respond with a quote as foreign sales are usually a problem for insurance companies.  When you get to that, you end up dealing with different laws in different countries.  One company wanted over $20,000 in insurance premiums.

I remembered that prospect only needed something to cover the lease and equipment in the event of a fire.

So I suggested that to the underwriter and they came back with a premises liability policy only.  It was a lot less at  around $4,000.

I spoke with the prospect on the phone and e-mailed the quote to him.

The presentation was in offering the quote.  This was the realization.  When I get a referral, my presentation is actually not in the first meeting, but the second meeting.  Yes, there is a mini presentation of who I am, but the prospect knows why I’m there.  They called me.  My presentation is afterwards, when I have a quote in hand from the underwriters.

Their quote was exactly what they needed.  Premises liability only.  And coverage for their equipment in the event of a problem.  The problem was that the price was still out of their budget.

I followed up on calls for the next three weeks, but would not get a hold of Mark.  It seemed that he would see my number and just not answer.  I left a few messages.

My last resort usually is to send an e-mail.

We’ll see what happens, but using Pauline’s Rev Turbo score card, if they don’t have the budget it never looks good.  The best you can do is stay in touch until they do have the budget to buy from you.

In the meantime, let me tell you about my second sales presentation, third and fourth ones after that…