Change Selling KPIs To Encourage Discovery

On Wednesday I had the honor of providing the keynote for the Utica National E & O Insurance Sales and Appreciation Conference. We explored member retention and attraction challenges and techniques. Since it’s my belief that this is not a sales activity but really a discovery mission, I shared tactics that work when trying to understand prospective and actual members so you can connect benefits to needs. Someone asked me how they could help a long-time salesperson to unlearn old, tired behaviors and teach new ‘salespeople’ effective skills while still remaining competitive. The answer – change the KPIs. Instead of focusing on dials, focus on research results. Focus on actual meaningful conversations. Invite the sales staff to engage in specific discovery activities and to report out on the results. In order to learn new actions, they need to put those actions into practice and then talk about the results. It’s a habit they need to learn. Old habits are unlearned by replacing them with new ones. When the new activities are tied to expectations, people will do them. This applies to ‘sales’ of all kinds, not just member retention and attraction.