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Bonus Episode! Matt's Top Tips Supercut - #1

• Income Protection Task Force • Season 1 • Episode 9

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In this special mid-season bonus episode, guest host producer Stevie is here to showcase Matt's Top Tips from Season 1, episodes 1 to 4 which are jam-packed with excellent advice from regular host and "The Protection Coach" Matthew Chapman.

We are also asking for your thoughts for season 2 as well, as we want to make the podcast the best it can be for season 2, please fill out this survey to support us, it all helps!

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Speaker 1:

Hello and welcome to this special bonus episode of let's Talk Income Protection. I'm your host, stevie Arnoldi, producer of let's Talk IP, and in these two episodes in our season break we have a super cut of Matt's top tips, a little special remix of the jingle there for you. So before we get into the top tips and ahead of season two, we want to improve the podcast. We want it to serve our listeners and make it as engaging as possible. We have a survey link in the episode description. Please do fill that out. It really really helps us guide what the podcast is going to look like and sound like for season two, and we've also simplified the way you can communicate with us too.

Speaker 1:

We want season two to be truly interactive, where you can get your burning questions answered, continue conversations and add your insight, or even disagree with matt entirely for a healthy debate. We would love we welcome it all, and you can do that by clicking the send us a message button at the top of the episode description. It will open up an SMS messaging app and then you can type away. Just don't forget to give us your name, unless, obviously, you want to stay anonymous, of course. Right, let's get into today's episode. Why not grab a pen and paper? You might want to take some notes as we check out the top tips from episode one and two of the podcast, where Matt underscores the value of leaning on business development managers for their expertise. Stepping out of your comfort zone, adopting a mindset that places informed advising at the heart of client interactions, not defaulting to short-term plans, and bringing your conversations to life, matt over to you.

Speaker 2:

Matt's top tips of the week. Yes, that's right, folks, it's my top tips of the week, and my discussion with Kieran this week gave me a few ideas for the topics, so I think what I wanted to focus on is a couple of things that really stood out from that conversation. The first was the value of using your BDMs as a resource. Now, that could be BDMs from providers, it could be within networks, for example. The key is understanding that these people have a level of knowledge that maybe you don't, and so it's important to lean on their expertise. So if you aren't certain about something, if you're a little bit misguided maybe you don't understand income protection the way you would like to lean on these resources, because these people will be more than willing to support you. They will be more than happy to educate you, because they know that when you understand the product and know how to communicate it to your customers, you are far more likely to recommend it, which means they're going to win business as a result. So, by all means, lean on those resources. I think Kieran's points around empowering the client to make informed decisions is a very smart one. It's really important to use IP as the foundation for all of your recommendations. At the end of the day, you can't borrow money without an income, you can't invest in your pension or an investment plan without an income, and so, rather than seeing protection as something you would bolt onto the side of your recommendations, such as a mortgage or a wealth piece of advice, it's really important to remember that IP can form the foundation enabling you to go and give advice in the mortgage space or in the wealth space with a degree of confidence, knowing that your client is financially resilient enough to actually be able to deliver on the advice that you're giving, whether that be paying into their mortgage, borrowing money or even paying into their pension funds. Now it's really interesting because he talked about getting outside of his comfort zone and, as I've said, using BDMs as a resource for that is a great way of achieving it Because, don't forget, nothing amazing happens inside a comfort zone.

Speaker 2:

In fact, when I start any of my coaching programs, one of the very first things I do is try and win the hearts and minds of the advisors by focusing on what they can do to really see protection differently, and I encourage them to go outside of their comfort zone because, quite frankly, more of the same will always yield more of the same. So, as advisors, we have to continually challenge ourselves. We have to continue to get better. It's the very notion of continuous professional development. So go outside of your comfort zone, learn new things, develop your skills, speak to people like myself, speak to different advisors that you know.

Speaker 2:

One of the greatest things I can suggest to you is get a protection buddy, ideally someone outside of your organization, somebody who you know is a great advisor and that does things that maybe you would like to do, because you'd be surprised at how helpful that resource will be in helping you to learn how you can improve your protection conversations. But I think the one thing I would say above all else is this your mindset is the most powerful tool you've got. So, whether you go into a protection conversation expecting it to be bad or to feel like a sale or whatever you think is going to happen, ultimately that is exactly what is going to happen, because you will drive it and manifest it If you go into your protection conversations with the right mindset, believing in the importance of what you're doing and the power of protecting your clients, the importance of income and why it's so essential to know you've always got money in the bank each month, then chances are your conversations will take a positive spin, and it's really down to the advisor's mindset. It's often not that the client doesn't want to take things like income protection or other protection products. It's typically down to how the advisor perceives what they're doing.

Speaker 2:

Now, remember this when you arrange protection, particularly income protection, what you are doing is creating a more resilient household. You are giving that client a financial lifeline so that when things go wrong, they've always got enough money in the bank to pay for all of those essential bills that need paying. And what you're really doing there is building financial resilience, and that is a wonderful thing to do. It's highly noble and it's a wonderful, aspirational thing for clients to perceive. So, instead of seeing protection as a negative thing, instead of thinking it as you're selling insurance contracts, look at income protection as a vehicle, as a tool to help deliver financial resilience and produce great outcomes for your customers.

Speaker 1:

Yo, Matt, give me the top tips of the week.

Speaker 2:

Right. So let's get down to the fun bit, my top tips of the week. So I'm going to touch on two of the things that were topical in the conversation today. The first one is not defaulting to short-term plans. When we listened to Charlotte's story earlier, it was abundantly clear how important to her, her family and her household having that full-term plan was. Her dad was off work for over 15 years, she was saying in the interview. Now that's something to remember.

Speaker 2:

If we think that most clients will probably claim somewhere between seven plus years, we know that a short-term plan is insufficient. So one of the tips I'm going to give you as an advisor is, if you're struggling with that, if you're struggling to keep clients on the full-term options, it could be because you're offering a short-term in the first place. So one of the tips I'd give you is, when presenting income protection to your client, don't initially give them a short-term option. The short-term option, or even the age-banded option, like in Mike's question, should probably be one of the last resort solutions once you've exhausted all of the different permutations and options of your full-term plan. So the idea there is give the client the full-term guaranteed max benefit option first, because you've set the benchmark high. Anything below that's going to seem like great value. So you can adjust and manipulate and tweak the various different elements of the plan to bring that price in for the client, but ultimately we're starting with what we know the client needs. I want you to think about this for a minute. When you quote a full term guaranteed plan with maximum benefit, all you're really doing is giving the client near enough what they get today. So anything less than that is going to be insufficient to sustain the lifestyle they've got. So think about that for a minute. And when you're recommending your plans, start off in isolation with one option what the client needs. Once you've done that, if there's pushback, if there's objections, you can work with them, potentially to start going towards a short-term plan.

Speaker 2:

But given how important it is to have an income for the rest of your life, as Charlotte so eloquently and beautifully explained in the interview that would be my first top tip Make sure you're presenting the full-term guaranteed option first and that's where you should start. That is the benchmark, and the second one is about bringing it to life. What I saw with both of the advisors I interviewed today was that they were bringing their conversations to life. Those eye-opening moments, those things that made them better as advisors, that made them see the value of income protection, was when they started to bring the concept of protection to life, for both themselves and for their customers. As I said a minute ago, with Charlotte, we're looking at the idea that her family needed that income and it's what supported them through her younger years, it's what allowed her to pursue a career, it's what allowed her to go to university and achieve the life she wanted to enjoy, the lifestyle that she'd become accustomed to, and she even acknowledges without that income that would have been impossible. But just by explaining that was incredibly powerful. We all listened, we all got engaged and so naturally we can see the value of income protection when someone does that.

Speaker 2:

And so she brought the concept to life. It wasn't about the product, it was about what that product did for her and her family. And the same with Hannah. If you look at what Hannah did, she said, okay, well then, she related it back to her own experiences. You know a traumatic period, and let's think about that for a minute. It wasn't the fact that anyone was violent towards her, it was the mental health impact of someone threatening her, and it came in a very different way to what she expected. It's resulted in anxiety and a number of different issues that maybe she would have initially thought would have been an issue for her, and so what she does is she uses her story to bring it to life.

Speaker 2:

So, wherever possible, use the simplest analogies, the simplest examples, ones that clients can resonate with. Most people you know will have come across someone in their life that suffered from a serious illness or been off work for an extended period of time, or had cancer. We all know someone that way. So we use these examples to bring protection to life for our customers and for them to see the value in it. And if you're struggling to think of examples, if you don't have any yourself, just use COVID.

Speaker 2:

If you remember when we went into lockdown and it was about four years ago now from the launch of this particular episode, so it was around April time 2020, we went into lockdown and what happened? We couldn't go to work, we couldn't generate an income, we had an income shock. And what was the government's response? To create the furlough scheme, which is just glorified national income protection A percentage of your salary paid to you because you can't go to work. Now there's never been a better example in living memory of how to bring protection, particularly income protection, to life. So if you're struggling with those examples of how to bring it to life, just draw on everyone's shared experience of COVID and the need for that furlough income. Those that got it will remember how valuable it was, and those that didn't will see the value in having an income because they didn't get it last time. Either way, whoever you're speaking to when you bring it to life that way, they will see the value of income protection. Hope those tips have been helpful, guys.

Speaker 1:

Wow, jam-packed content there. If you need a moment to digest and I wouldn't blame you now is the time. Grab a drink, let that all sink in, then get yourself back here and strap in for more top tips. Right next up, we have Matt's top tips from episode three and four, where Matt discusses building financial resilience for your clients over selling. He also discusses overcoming objections, focusing on what's important to the client and using language that makes sense to them. Right back to you, Mr Chapman, matt's Top.

Speaker 2:

Tips of the Week. Now, today's interview really did get me thinking. Now you'll often hear me talk about reframing perspective and the importance of what we do as advisors. It's very easy to see protection as selling insurances and, as I've said time and time again and I'll say again today, we are not just selling insurance. We are building financial resilience and when you look at someone like Damien, you will see the impact and the difference that having income protection made. Thankfully he had an advisor like Tracy.

Speaker 2:

But we all need to question are we doing enough to make sure our clients are protected and do we see what we do as important? See, for me, income protection particularly is essential. Nobody can survive without an income. We all need an income just to get by, and COVID taught us that. We had an income shock and we all realized how important it is to have money in the bank every single month. Since then, clients are far more receptive. You look at Damien's situation. He spoke with Tracy and he arranged income protection. As a self-employed person, he saw the value of having that income coming in every month and thankfully he did take the cover.

Speaker 2:

So what I want to do in this section is give you a tip, and it's more probably to do with mindset than anything else, which is when you go into a conversation, don't ever assume the client isn't interested in what you've got to offer. Don't ever assume that the client is not willing to participate in a protection conversation. Most advisors I coach and that I know often go into these sessions and they already assume before they start the call the client doesn't want to take protection. They've entered into it with a negative mindset and that has an impact on the language they use, the body language, the positioning, the way they talk, the way they present, and the client's naturally going to be more objecting to that because they're not going to listen to what the advisor's got to say, whereas we now know, listening to someone like Damien, that type of product had such an impact on him and his family, and so we need to respect that. We need to go into our conversations free of bias, free of stigma, free of our own concerns. We've got to remove our own bias around what we're doing and remember that every time we protect someone, we do something positive. We make a real difference to people like Damien and his family. So remember that when you go into conversations, don't go in there with a negative mindset, go in there with a positive mindset.

Speaker 2:

Now, the other thing I'd say is that, listening to the question I had a minute ago in the previous session about Ask IPTF, the sick pay one has also got me thinking, because, you see, I think these types of things are often issues that we all encounter. We come across a scenario, an objection, a challenge to our presentations and we instantly think that's a problem. And it's the same as what I've just said it's all about the mindset. So when you've got these types of objections, this is what you need to do. The first thing is sick pay in particular. You've got to start looking at how you can reframe or reposition and discuss that with your clients. So what they do is they see, actually, that sick pay is a great tool, something they can use to leverage to get access to cheaper long term cover, and that's a great way of positioning it. But the same principle applies to all objections you get.

Speaker 2:

When you get an objection, try this exercise, write it down. What did the client say to you? When did they say it in the conversation? Why do you think they said that to you? Then I want you to go back to your conversation and think what could I have done differently to stop that objection from materializing in the first place? You see, this is an exercise that I did for many, many years, and what it did was it completely refined my protection presentation to the point where I kind of preempted all the different types of objections that clients were going to throw at me, and by changing my presentation early on, I whittled a lot of them out. I removed the wind from the client's sails, so to speak, so that they were left with very little to object to. Because by positioning it in the right way, by adding lots of value, by using logic-based arguments, you can really create a presentation where the client's limited in terms of what they can come up with as an objection and when they do, no worries, you go through the same process again. You write it down, you refine your pitch and you stop it from arising in the future, and what that will do is lead to much better conversations with your customers. So do that for me. Don't just see objections as a barrier that make life really difficult. See them as a chance to learn, to develop and to enhance and improve your protection presentations. That's a really good thing.

Speaker 2:

The other thing that I remember from what Damien said to me was fascinating around using different things. So he said it wasn't just one thing, it was the fact that Tracy presented in the right way, she used the right language, she did it at the right time. She used statistics to compound what she was trying to say. And one of the tips I want to give you today is don't just use statistics willy-nilly, don't just use claim stats, don't just use the likelihood of someone falling ill in isolation. You've got to bring it to life. You've got to use some context, in the way that Damien's a perfect example of what needs to happen. When you stop working, you find yourself ill and you can't work. We've used that as an example. Now you could do that with a client. But when you're talking about claim stats or you're talking about the likelihood of something happening, the problem is those in the cells are intangible, right? They're just numbers.

Speaker 2:

If I said to someone you've got a 31% chance of being off work, you're just going to think actually that's not a huge amount, is it? 31% chance I might have two months or more off work. Well, over my life, that's not a big risk, is it? I might be able to do okay, and so optimism bias creeps in and then we think that's okay and we don't need the cover. So when you do use statistics or claims, numbers or likelihood things happening, you've got to put some context around it, and I think I did this in a post recently. I said, right, if it's 31% chance, I'm going to need two months or more of work. Contextually, what that means is every month I'm betting two months or more of my salary. With a 31% chance I might lose it all. Now when you put it into that context, suddenly it becomes hold on a minute. That's quite high risk. I don't want to take that risk anymore. So we made the numbers come alive.

Speaker 2:

Another great example is I was doing a coaching call with a client recently and they told me about an example they used where, when they did a bit of logic-based comparison with the client, it really had an impact. What they did was they said to the client right, let's look at what percentage of your income that you're using to invest in your mortgage and your property, and it turned out it was around 39%, and then, when they gave them the full protection presentation, it ended up being around 2% of their earnings. In that context, the fact they're happy to pay 39% of what they earn towards their debt, yet just 2.5% 2% to protect everything they own, including their ability to pay this debt suddenly that protection presentation becomes extremely high value. Suddenly that protection presentation becomes extremely high value. So, again, if you're going to use stats and figures, do it in a way that compounds your advice, that is logic-based and gets the client truly bought into why you're doing what you're doing.

Speaker 1:

Matt's top tips of the week.

Speaker 2:

Oh, I love that Exciting to be offering my tips. So, as I and someone who was so involved in the Seven Families Project listening to Karen talk around how the key thing here is listening and understanding about what matters to the customer, what's important to them, and that's the philosophy that we need to be using when we're advising our clients. When you go into any meeting with your customer, remember it is not the product they're buying, but the solution it offers them. So one tip I can give you today, above all else, is to stop focusing on the product and what it does. Don't say things like it replaces a percentage of your income when you're unable to work. Think about how you can use relatable examples to bring it to life and focus on what's important to the customer. For example, it makes sure you've got income so that at the end of the month, you've always got enough money in the bank to pay your bills. Keep the lights on, feed your kids, stop the fridge, keep the heating on, keep a roof over your family's head.

Speaker 2:

Now, straight away, we did the same thing. We said the same thing. We explained the concept of the product, but this time we brought it to life using examples of things that really matter to the customer. Now, for most people, these are inherently basic things. It's things that actually they get up and worry about. Feeding my children is a number one priority, and so if someone offered me a solution to guarantee that I could always do that, I would find that valuable. But if you just talked about replacing your income of a certain percentage if you can't go to work not when you can't go to work suddenly it's losing its value because you're not focusing on what matters to me. You're trying to peddle a product and sell me an insurance contract. So my top tip today, above all else, is to think about what Karen said, when we think about the responses and the feedback and the comments that were made in the seven families videos oh, and, by the way, if you haven't watched them, make sure you do, because Karen is absolutely right Within there there are some golden things that you, as an advisor, can learn, that you can shape into your protection advice conversations, where you can understand what happens in a real world example and what your client really cares about when things like this happen. And, as I say, if you can do that, if you can understand that and you can position the product in a way that delivers those things for them, you'll be far better placed. You'll have heard me talk about in the past around using the right kind of language, okay, so I gave you a little example just then around how you could describe how the product works, which again is not product but solution itself, focusing on how the benefit would actually be used. But you can go one step further and use these aspirational comments, these aspirational languages If you're dealing with someone who's never gone through this process before.

Speaker 2:

Consider using phrases like financial resilience, income security. These are things that people crave, that they want. The very reason people go to work or put into their pension and do these things is because they want the security of income. That prime example of saying to someone if I came to you tomorrow and said I guarantee your income for the rest of your working life, you didn't need to worry about it. But the only way I could do that is if you took a 5% pay cut.

Speaker 2:

Would you do it, knowing that 99% of people probably say yes? Why? Because the income security is more valuable than the income itself. A 5% pay cut is a small price to pay for that income security. Yet in reality, we know income protection, certainly a full-time contract will be significantly less, more like 1% or 2% of someone's earnings. So sometimes we just need to think about how we bring these concepts to life for people, focusing on what's actually important to them, not the product we're trying to recommend, not the product we're trying to push. It's about what is going to produce the right outcome for this customer. What do they care most about and how can I position the product in a way that they can see the value in that? Those would be my top tips today would be my top tips today.

Speaker 1:

Well, that's your lot for today. I'm afraid folks but if you've enjoyed today's episode want to ask Matt a question ahead of season two or even debate him on something on today's show? Click that send us a message button at the top of the episode description and fire away. Just remember, please do leave your name if you'd like to. Now let's Talk. Income Protection is produced by C-Studios. Executive producers are Joe Miller, andrew Iberley and Vicky Churcher, and I'm Stevie Arnoldi. Empower yourselves, empower your clients and let's talk IP.