Start selling HR. In the mid-1990s, I launched a company that offered value-added sales technology aimed at improving the effectiveness of all benefits consultants and brokers.

At that time, it was all about making broker-consultants super producers through the use of standard message, value-added tools.

That was then, and today is a far cry from then.

Today, and two recessions later, the employee benefits selling market has once again changed.

Employers care about good salespersonship, but care more about the total value proposition that a broker or consultant can offer. For the most part, selling rates and your firm's service abilities falls on deaf ears.

Davidson is principal of Davidson Marketing Group and founder of the FutureOffice Network and SalesRockstar. Reach him at craigd@ davidsonmarketing.com.

Selling HR solutions

Let's look at what's happened since 1995. Employers laid off human resource professionals en masse in each of the two latest recessions, first in 2000, and again in the current downturn that started approximately 18 months ago.

When the recovery came in 2000, two phenomena could be observed. First, small businesses grew as the primary generator of jobs. Second, fewer human resource professionals returned to companies.

Those who returned were expected to be generalists in the areas of employee benefits, human resources, compensation, employment law and employee communication, among other disciplines.

The same pattern is likely to be repeated this time.

Herein is the opportunity for employee benefit consultants and brokers - especially brokers. Most brokers have a book of business full of groups with fewer than 100 employees. What do these employers need?

Employers with fewer than 200 employees, and especially employers with fewer than 100 employees, desperately need help with their insurance. Beyond that, though, the bigger need is for help with human resource administration, employment law, compensation administration and employee communications. We'll call these the core disciplines.

Examples include:

*How to create and maintain a workplace free of sexual harassment (which is required by federal law)

*How to create job descriptions that must be compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act

*How to create compliant employee handbooks and fill them with compliant content

*How to hire and fire employees without inviting a lawsuit

These are just a few of hundreds of rules that employers need to know, and which they probably are not following. They are golden fodder for selling with the value-added method.

You are the employer's trusted adviser, and your buyer views insurance as interrelated with the core disciplines noted above. Your job is to bring solutions to your buyer and make their job easier. No one else is in a better position than you to accomplish this task.

However, you must change your sales behavior to talk holistically about your prospect's needs.

Become accomplished at uncovering areas where your buyer is inefficient or noncompliant. Certain sales technologies can greatly help you accomplish your new mission and grow your book.

Sales Rule No. 1

Everything that you say to your buyer must appeal to fear or greed.

Appealing to fear means that you highlight something bad that will happen due to noncompliance with state and federal laws in the core disciplines.

Appealing to greed means that something good will come to the buyer for complying with the core disciplines.

Push these buttons at all times in your sales presentation, and you'll be amazed at how it helps you make more sales.

It is important to note that while you need to know a few things about the core disciplines, you do not have to be an expert. You only need to know a few stories and have the right technology that can be offered to your buyer as help in these core disciplines.

Davidson is principal of Davidson Marketing Group and founder of the FutureOffice Network and SalesRockstar. Reach him at craigd@ davidsonmarketing.com.

Sales Rule No. 2

Do not practice consultative selling.

If you want to be different from the herd and sell new value, you must understand that consultative selling is dead. You are using a new sales presentation based on greater value and an expanded relationship.

Consultative selling will not get you into the proper position to show off your capabilities. Your buyer will eat this up; he or she is not expecting you to present solutions in the core disciplines.

You need to make an old-fashioned sales presentation to alert the buyer to your capabilities. The buyer will be turned on by your presentation if you stay on message and do not talk about insurance rates while giving the sales presentation. The insurance rate discussion will come later.

You have 20 minutes to highlight your expertise in the core disciplines. You definitely want to use good sales technology for this, since the technology will act as a show-and-tell game.

If you take more than 20 minutes, you lose sales momentum and risk getting the "deer in the headlights" response from the buyer. Less than 20 minutes, and you're going too fast.

Twenty minutes is the magic number to shoot for. After 20 minutes, you can talk about rates, but your prospective buyer will already have a different perception of you.

A consultative selling discussion should only occur after 20 minutes of showing your buyer the possibilities of working with you.

If you haven't already received verbal and physical buying signals during your 20 minute presentation, ask the buyer for affirmation of what you're presenting. Unless the buyer is mad at the world, you'll likely get an earful.

Remember what the buyer says.

Davidson is principal of Davidson Marketing Group and founder of the FutureOffice Network and SalesRockstar. Reach him at craigd@ davidsonmarketing.com.

Sales Rule No. 3

Do not let your prospect forget your message.

You probably won't make the sale on the first call (although many of our clients have walked away with AORs after the first cold call).

The days and few weeks following your initial presentation are critical. You must pepper your prospect with high frequency, high value, high touch communications catered to the buying signals you picked up in the consultative selling portion of your presentation in the initial sales call.

Davidson is principal of Davidson Marketing Group and founder of the FutureOffice Network and SalesRockstar. Reach him at craigd@ davidsonmarketing.com.

Sales Rule No. 4

Close the sale.

Hopefully, you've been setting up for the close from the first time you met the buyer. Too many sellers lose sales because they are lousy closers. Become a great closer.

It starts with the impression and demeanor you set with the buyer at the first meeting. Do not attempt to close the sale around your best rates on insurance products or the markets you have the insight scoop on. That is passé.

Do close the sale around your presentation of an expanded relationship around the core disciplines, the ability to take away pain and worry from the buyer, and your technology (If you don't have value-added sales technology, get it!) which will be a big part of the maintenance of the buyer once you close the sale.

Never be afraid to ask for the sale.

Davidson is principal of Davidson Marketing Group and founder of the FutureOffice Network and SalesRockstar. Reach him at craigd@ davidsonmarketing.com.

Be sure to maintain service levels after the sale

I am blown away by how many producers hold on to groups by visiting them once a year at renewal.

One has to consider the cost-benefit of service versus group profitability, but out-of-sight, out-of-mind is the same thing as putting a "For Sale" sign on your poorly serviced group in today's competitive marketplace.

Here again, value-added technology comes into play; it allows you and your agency to "touch" customers frequently with electronic tools and content that does the following:

*Helps the employer meet his needs

*Builds and maintains relationship

*Further solidifies your image as a differentiated seller in the buyer's mind.

If you're going to retain an account, service the account especially when adopting holistic selling around the core disciplines.

Service is the mother's milk of retention in the brokerage business. You need to find a way of selling more without cutting back on superior service.

The trusted adviser of tomorrow, and today, provides superior service by leveraging technology to assist in facilitating the relationship and working through the technology to connect with the buyer on their needs throughout the year.

Seize the moment and you will increase sales

Benefit consultants have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to think and behave differently by capitalizing on the gazillion employers who need help with the core disciplines discussed in this article.

By using value-added sales technology and staying on message, you should expect a sales production premium of around 30% from each of your producers. That produces a strong ROI and gets you to where you want to be positioned for the future - a trusted adviser, but one with more services, knowledge and time-saving tools to offer.

PODCAST

Despite common perceptions, one study shows health plan admin costs are low.Sherlock Company's Doug Sherlock shares the results of its recent report showing that benefit administration costs average 9% of premiums across all policies. Tune in to eba.podhoster.com to hear Sherlock discus how prior estimates - often two or three times higher and frequently quoted by public-plan advocates - could be so disparate.