Winning Employer Confidence - Part 1: Employer Confusion
Every broker wants to close more business, but getting employers to bite on is difficult. Why is that? Let’s look at it from the employer’s perspective.
Today most small businesses with more than a few employees already have a benefits plan in place, and you were to ask them about, it’s not their favorite part of running their business. Employers generally have three main stumbling blocks that prevent them from taking real action by working with you:
Part1 Confusion – They are confused by the what, when, why, and when of your solutions
Coming next week!Part2 Apprehension – They are afraid of how the employees will react to benefit decisions
Part3 Termination – They most likely have a broker already, and hiring you means that they have an uncomfortable confrontation head
Let’s talk briefly about these issues and what you can do about it
Part1 Confusion:
There’s a fine line between “telling time” and “knowing how the clock works”, but there are no greater discomforting words than “just trust me, I’m the expert”. It’s true that many employers do not want to get into the nitty-gritty of benefits the way you do, but they don’t want to be left in the dark either. To rely on one more metaphor, a passenger doesn’t need to know the details of aero-dynamics, but they do need where the airport is, the time of take-off, estimated flight time and route of travel, and where the plane lands.
What, ie, What are we going to offer?
When it comes to making employee benefit recommendations, employers need to have a clear view of what their options are. They need to know what the market looks so they can anticipate not just what they will offer, but also what their competitors might offer. Simply showing them options similar to their current offering won’t cut it, they need a broad market view, so they can feel strategically empowered by their decisions. The “just trust me” sales pitch fails to provide the employer with that feeling of strategic empowerment.
**This is the Benefit Sculptor “plug”, but I’ll leave it at that. You can can schedule a demo here:
Why, ie, why are we choosing these benefits?
We are never offering benefits to “lower the cost” or to “fight health care”, your employer doesn’t want to hear that. Those can be your professional priorities, but they aren’t your employers interest. They want to hear the business language of efficiency and effectiveness, Which stresses that you must first seek to be effective at meeting the needs of your customers, and then be seek to be efficient. The customer is the employee and the goal is always tied to a labor objective. When you include this in your consulting narrative employers become centered around the “why” of your recommendations.
A simple formula for approaching this is to ask an employer to rank whether their top concern is recruitment, or retention. If they don’t know, then retention is the default.
For retention it’s all about “change”. People feel “change” more than anything, and long-time employees respond more to change in benefits than anything. To keep current employees happy, change as little as possible unless you are making improvements.
For recruitment it’s all about competitiveness. Here the employer has to be convinced that it’s costs money to be competitive. When you are talking to employers about the cost of competitive labor, they understand. Don’t let your views about health care inflation overshadow this conversation. Yes, recommend efficient products, but remember they are trying to convince employees to take the job. Find the balance!!
When, ie, what does our road-map look like?
People like road-maps, and I could almost leave this topic here. But, in very simple terms, one of the best ways to start a renewal discussion with an employer is the road-map. This is a great place for a flyer/handout or checklist that tells them everything to expect along a renewal process. Processes have starting points and endpoints. I’d suggest that the starting point of a renewal process is scheduling the renewal meeting, and the end of the renewal process is when all employees have received their new cards. Your checklist can look something like this:
Plan decisions must be made – who are our vendors, and what are our products
Employee communication – Open enrollment meetings and employee counseling
Documents collected and submitted – Employer and employee document, and vendor docs
Carrier approval has been confirmed
Confirmation that employees have their cards
This does two things for you. First, it sets you apart and creates a psychological impulse for an employer to start following your process. When they are following your process, they are becoming your client! Second, it sets expectations that makes the relationship move productively. If there is a hiccup in the process (and there will be), everybody shares the same baseline for understanding the process
Conclusion
Building trust comes to down to creating an understanding. The more you can reduce confusion the greater your opportunity for winning the employers business!
Look forward to next weeks newsletter where we discuss “Apprehension” and how to deal with it.
