Sales Process: Prospecting → Closing

This is the AGMG sale, start to finish. It’s the same shape every time, whether it’s a referral, someone you know, or someone you just met. Consistency is what makes it teachable, and duplicable.

1. Prospecting: connect, don’t sell

Appointments don’t come from a sales pitch; they come from connecting with people. Where prospects come from:

• Events and gatherings: networking events, groups, community meetings. You introduce yourself, ask people what they do, and find the point where what you offer serves them. Most of the best prospects start with a conversation, not an offer.
• Referrals: ask every client for two names at the end of every sit. It’s the cheapest prospect you’ll ever get.
• People you know: the ones who already trust you. Anyone with a family or an income to protect.

Log every prospect in your follow-up the day you get them.

2. The way in: connect with what matters most to each person

Here’s the skill that separates a strong agent from one who struggles. Don’t present the product first. First find what matters most to that person, and go in through there. The same set of programs is presented differently depending on who’s in front of you:

• A business owner: what weighs on them is taxes, and often having no protection or savings for themselves. The way in is to talk about that, and show them a program that gives them coverage and savings at once.
• A parent: what matters is their children’s future. The way in is the children’s program: it starts at a dollar a day, builds savings, includes a small life benefit, and opens the door to scholarship help for college. (See the scholarships page for the detail you can share with families.)
• Someone 45 to 55 with no retirement: what worries them is that Social Security won’t be enough, especially if they’re self-employed. The way in is retirement accumulation.

If a family has no children, income protection is still there. If there’s no business, retirement is still there. There’s always a way in; your job is to find it before you present the product.

Caution

When you talk about taxes, savings, or returns, say it the right way and don’t promise what a product doesn’t guarantee. The exact way to present the tax angle for a business owner is reviewed by your partner before you use it in the field.

3. Setting the appointment

• Confirm both decision-makers will be there. Selling to one spouse who has to “ask the other” is how deals die.
• Set a specific time, confirm the day before, and show up early.

4. The presentation

Run the same five beats every time:

1. Rapport: be a person first. A few honest minutes about their family and their work.
2. Discover the need: who depends on their income, and what happens to those people if the income stops tomorrow. Let them feel the gap; don’t fill it for them.
3. Present the fit: one program, matched to the need and the budget. Not a menu. The one that fits.
4. Handle objections: see below.
5. Close: assume the sale and move to the application.

5. Handling the common objections

Objection	Response frame
“It’s too expensive.”	Reframe to cost per day, and to what it protects. Then offer a smaller face amount, not a discount.
“I need to think about it.”	Find the real question behind it. Usually it’s price, trust, or the spouse. Answer that.
“I have coverage through work.”	Show what happens to that coverage the day they leave the job.
“Let me talk to my spouse.”	This is why both are supposed to be there. If they’re not, set the follow-up before you leave.

6. Qualifying: where the sale falls through most

The sale almost never falls through because the person doesn’t want it. It falls through when you sit down and it turns out they lack the basics to buy: no bank account, no passport, or no ITIN. That’s where the process stretches out.

Qualify early, without making it awkward. Before you’re deep into the presentation, know whether the person has what’s needed to open the program. And if something’s missing:

• Don’t drop them. Route them to get an ITIN, through the allied tax agency or whoever your partner points you to. A prospect who doesn’t qualify today can qualify in a few months.
• Set expectations clearly. An ITIN by mail can take 4 to 6 months. Keep the prospect in follow-up with a real date; don’t let a six-month wait turn into a lost prospect.

(Coming soon: a section on completing applications with an ITIN, to close these cases the moment the number arrives.)

7. Closing and completing the application

The close isn’t the signature; it’s a clean, issued policy. The moment they say yes, move straight into Entering Applications and complete it correctly right there, at the appointment. A sale that comes back as a returned policy is not a sale.

8. After the sit

• Log the outcome in your follow-up: sold, follow-up, or dead.
• Ask for referrals before you leave, win or lose.
• Set the next touch. Nothing gets left without a next step.

Tip

A new agent should be able to read this page and know exactly what a sale looks like before they ever run one. If something you do in the field isn’t on this page, it should be; tell your partner so we add it.