Claims Advocacy Won't Save You From Getting Lost in the Crowd

You just told a buyer you have great market relationships, claims advocacy, and a team approach... so did the last three agents who called on that account. 

Randy Schwantz breaks down why 400+ sales workshops and over 10,000 insurance producers all give the exact same answer when asked what makes them different, and why that answer is costing them the deal. He walks through the ladder of abstraction: the exact process for turning a vague capability like "claims advocacy" into a specific, provable process a buyer can actually compare against the incumbent. If you've ever lost a piece of business to an agent who "matched your deal" at the last minute, this episode shows you why, and how to make sure it never happens again. Press play before your next sales call. 

If this episode was helpful, share it with a producer or agency leader who needs it. 

 Get more insights like this every week:
 👉 Subscribe to the podcast & blog: https://thewedge.net

👉 Book a Call to Learn More About How We Can Help You: https://thewedge.s.gy/ogNGiO

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

[00:00:00] Hey, today we're gonna be talking about differentiation and the secret to standing out from the crowd amongst everybody else. And so what I want to do is reveal the number one reason that most agencies get lost in the [00:00:10] crowd, and how you can flip that script instantly. So let's get started. So first of all, what is differentiation?

It says right here, the act or process of differentiating. Okay, well, [00:00:20] let's go a little bit deeper. Different. Differentiating, different. Not the same as another or each other. I'm not the same as each other. We- we're different. We're unlike in nature, unlike in form, [00:00:30] unlike in quality. And yet what I want to get in and show you, when we go back to just saying this, like, what's the number one reason most agencies get lost in the crowd, is because they all [00:00:40] say the same thing, and here's my evidence to show you that.

Having done hundreds of workshops with producers, in fact, a little over four hundred, with over ten thousand [00:00:50] producers, what I want to do is just give you some of the results that they give me. So every time I start off a workshop, I'll say, "What makes you different? What makes you better? What have you got to sell?"

If what you bring to the table is [00:01:00] the same as what they already have, they don't need you. So please put down on your piece of paper what makes you different, what makes you better, what have you got to sell? And so what I want to show you right here on the screen is what [00:01:10] they give me. Then I'm gonna show you quick eleven different workshops I've done, eleven different things, and we're coming back to this whole deal here.

Reveal the number one reason most agencies get lost in the [00:01:20] crowd. Here's the crowd right here. So I sit there and go, "What makes you different?" So we have tech skills market access. Okay, everybody has market access. All right, product [00:01:30] knowledge. Everybody has product knowledge. Experience, risk management, market share.

Okay, fine. We specialize. We have this great retention rate. We got great customer service. I think you see the point on [00:01:40] this. Let's go to the next one here. Claims advocacy, right down here. Move this over. I'll probably use my little marker here to just kind of help with some of these things. And what I'm looking to ask you to do is look for the pattern.

Look at the [00:01:50] reason most agents get lost in the crowd, 'cause here's what they say. Market relationships, alternative insurance solutions. We have experience, data analytics. We're ethical. Uh, we take a [00:02:00] team approach. We have knowledge. Of course, we have client testimonials. We have loss control. We're transparent.

We get results. Client advocate. I think you get the point. It doesn't get any [00:02:10] better here, does it? So let's go on to another one. Let's just keep going. We have technology. It's our approach. We have data. We got carrier relationships. We're coverage specialists. We can analyze contracts. [00:02:20] I have expertise in my niche.

Look, who doesn't have expertise in a niche if you're in a niche? Whether you're doing public entities, whether you're doing contractors, you're doing assisted living, if that's your niche, [00:02:30] then you've got expertise, but so do your competitors have the same sort of expertise, if you know what I'm saying.

Claims advocacy shows up again. Effort, ability to execute. You get the point. Let's keep going here. Moving [00:02:40] over. Look at this. We get results. We got good people. We got exclusive products, really. Ethical behavior, nice. We got a great reputation. We're transparent. We take a risk management [00:02:50] approach.

Execution. Got a better process. I think you get the point. And so I'm wearing you out here with the same thing kinda over and over again, and there's a reason for that Because [00:03:00] as we go through this thing, the whole deal is why, what's the number one reason agencies get lost in the crowd? Look at this.

I mean, it just keeps going, the same old thing. Expertise. We have ethics. [00:03:10] We leverage, uh, I don't know what that says. Uh, we got a great service model. We have proprietary programs. We have analytical tools. Of course you do. We're innovative. We've had success. We [00:03:20] have better people. We've got claims advocacy.

Claims advocacy shows up everywhere. It's just crazy. Accountability and, and people, good resources. You get the point. You get the point. You keep getting the [00:03:30] point here. I know you're getting the point. Look at this one. Experience, knowledge, technology, carriers, solutions, relationships. Why do people get lost in the crowd?[00:03:40] 

Because almost everybody's saying the same thing over and over again, and this represents not one, not two. This represents over 400 producers when asked [00:03:50] this question, and we're putting this stuff up here. It becomes insanely the same, and that's the problem with it, isn't it? When it's insanely the same, then [00:04:00] what, what happens?

We're all the s- we all become the same. And see, what I'm asking you to do is, is be the buyer, and you hear this stuff. Sounds the same. So where do you get differentiation? [00:04:10] I think it starts off with your philosophy, your sales philosophy, and there are at least two different types of sales philosophy. One is the consultative approach, where because I'm [00:04:20] knowledgeable, 'cause I have expertise, because I'm a good guy, because I'm good at relationship, I go on sales calls, I ask probing questions, and through my consultative approach, I find out what the p- prospect's pain [00:04:30] is, and I solve it, and that's my differentiation.

Okay, so that's one type of differentiation. What's the second type? Because I'm a coverage geek, I believe in coverage, I believe in price, then I'm gonna go get the policies. I'm gonna [00:04:40] sort through the policies. I'm gonna try to find coverage gaps. I'll make a big deal up out of that, and that is a sales process.

So one is consultative, one is price coverage, and then the third would be, what I think of [00:04:50] as, and, and kinda where we come from, with the wedge. See, ba- back in my early days, you know, I took Dale Carnegie, I took Sandler. Dale Carnegie is attention, interest, conviction, desire, close. So, you know, you're [00:05:00] trying to get attention.

You're trying to do something to get their interest. Uh, you're trying to get them convicted they need to make a change. You raise the desire, and then try to close them. A consultative approach, one might say, Dale Carnegie. [00:05:10] Sandler went after pain, but it's all around asking questions. And personally, you might find that easy.

I found it really, really hard. And so when I started coaching and [00:05:20] consulting insurance agents, I would ask them, "So if they got those guys, why you? They got that guy, why you? They got those guys, why you?" And we would get this vague sorta stuff, kinda like what [00:05:30] you see here on this piece of paper. And the more we worked on it, though, we could start to drill down on it, make it black and white and concrete, and we moved people from this idealistic claims [00:05:40] advocacy, we have loss control, we have claims management, into those are the things you do or those are departments, down into not just what do you have, but how do you do what you do?

And as [00:05:50] we got better at that and producers got better at that, winning got easier. Let me show you what I'm talking about here. So in this context right here, this is how I would run sales meetings in [00:06:00] insurance agencies all day long. We'd take the opportunity, throw it up on the, the board. There's the name of the, the business, partner.

There's Kyle. That's the buyer. There's Dan, the producer. [00:06:10] There's John Jenkins, the incumbent. And so that really became pretty simple to me. I go, "Dan, it's what you do that John doesn't do. It's where Kyle is being underserved but does not know [00:06:20] it. Do you agree with me on that?" "Yeah." "Good." So then if they got John, tell me why does Kyle need you?

And then we'd give Kyle a chance to define those things that he [00:06:30] does, that he believes he does, that the incumbent's not doing, such as simple things like this: claims review, equipment list review, exposure analysis, a narrative renewal, review [00:06:40] disaster recovery plan, job hazard analysis, set up program. So we'd, we'd work to get those things out and defined.

Boop boop. And we're going from the general or the abstract to the [00:06:50] specific. What do you do? Then we'd rank these most important to least important to help him win. And you know, you could drag and drop it. If exposure analysis is number one, let's put it up there. [00:07:00] Boom, that's number one.

If, you know, review the disaster recovery plan, boom, that's it. Because look, if you're in North Carolina, you're in California, you're down in Florida, I mean, look, man, they've had a [00:07:10] lot of disasters, and a disaster recovery plan could be huge in terms of a concrete, single differentiator that would help you go win a piece of business, something you [00:07:20] do that the incumbent's capable of doing, but they're not.

And so then we take that stuff. So let's suppose that claims review became number one, just for the sake of this deal. We'd get that stuff out, make [00:07:30] that black and white. Boom. Verb to noun, verb to noun, action to an object. I'm reviewing claims. I'm gonna analyze the exposures. I'm gonna, I'm gonna review disaster recovery [00:07:40] plan.

So I gotta have a verb to a noun. I'm doing something to something, right? Get those things defined. Once we get that defined, then we go to the next step we call ladder of abstraction. Now, there [00:07:50] was a senator out of Hawaii called Senator Hayakawa, and back in 1939, he wrote a book called Language In Action, and he refers to and he popularized this [00:08:00] concept called the ladder of abstraction, where you move from abstract to specific.

So let me give you example. Most agencies you saw right there would say they had great [00:08:10] market relationships. They would say that they were claims advocates. Okay. Claims advocacy is a concept. We fight for you. Advocate means I'm gonna fight for you. I'm gonna fight for you to [00:08:20] get the claims you're done right.

So that's kind of what you're gonna do, but now we gotta break down how do you do it because at that level, we already know that everybody's saying it So the bias here, nah, nah, nah, [00:08:30] nah, a lack of differentiation. If we come back and look at it again, what is different? Not the same as another, unlike in nature, form, or quality.

Unlike in quality. How do you do [00:08:40] it better? So then we could take something like in this case, a claims review. You review claims. What do you do or how do you do it? Well, step number one, we're going to get out the loss [00:08:50] runs, scan through the open claims, locate those reserves that are set too high, and then develop a plan to get those things reduced.

Now that becomes the how [00:09:00] we do it. This becomes the what we do. This is the how. And so if you wanna be great at differentiation, my opinion, having worked with tens of [00:09:10] thousands of insurance producers, trained a lot of them in things called the Wedge Workshop sales training, teaching them how to go win, having run over four thousand sales meetings, making them define and defend how they're [00:09:20] better than incumbent, I think you gotta get great at going down the ladder of abstraction from, from your generalized capabilities down to what you do, how you do, and build to communicate it so that now you can get contrast.

[00:09:30] Contrast. Here's an example. Both of these are objects by which to drink out of. We'll call this a coffee cup. We'll call this a Yeti. This is generally for, like, cold drinks. This is for hot drinks. [00:09:40] When you put them next to each other, you can see a radical difference. But at a conceptual level, they're both just containers for liquids.

So creating contrast, making it black and white, just like [00:09:50] what we have here on the, on the screen, can make a huge difference. Now, what is also pretty cool is that once you've done this, and it doesn't mean... You're probably not a wedge guy, but if you're a wedge guy, a wedge is [00:10:00] all about driving a wedge between your prospect and incumbent so the incumbent doesn't get last look.

Drive a wedge between your prospect and incumbent so that in doing so, you raise the expectations of your buyer and get them to [00:10:10] discover that the incumbent's not doing their job. If you haven't raised the expectation of the buyer, then they're probably content with what the incumbent's doing. And I see on, on LinkedIn, "Yeah, man, it's really hard.

I went out and talked to [00:10:20] this prospect, and they let the incumbent come back in and match my deal. I just think he's being dishonest." Well, why wouldn't he? Unless you give him a reason not to, and your reason not to is when [00:10:30] they raise expectations, when you raise the expectations of your buyer, and now this is my new expectation, and the incumbent's not meeting it, why would I wanna continue to deal with that incumbent?

And [00:10:40] then if you work that buyer through then what they could get from you, then they're going, "I don't want that anymore," and they'll quit rolling you. And it all ties back into what I'm showing you here on the screen. So then once you've taken [00:10:50] your things, your generalized department, what you're doing in claims management, what you're doing in loss prevention, what you're doing with transportation, what you're doing with workers' comp, what you're doing in the marketing account, what you're doing under coverage and [00:11:00] exposures, and you define those processes, then you create a whole stack of them, and then from these You can create a wedge database, which is exactly what we've done right here.

Created a wedge out of that deal. There's [00:11:10] those steps. That's the what right up here. What: claims review. How: right here. And then from there, we can go write a wedge. When your agent came out 90 days after [00:11:20] renewal to do a claims review, and they got out the loss runs, scanned through the open claims, located the reserves that were set too high, and then developed a plan to actually get those reduced so you wouldn't have to worry [00:11:30] about your mod spiraling out of control because you don't pay for insurance.

Are you comfortable how they went through that process? And what's the answer they're gonna give you? In most cases, well, they didn't do that, and that's the essence of the wedge. Now, [00:11:40] as a producer, theoretically, your sales leader would be running you through this, getting you prepared for that next sales call because incumbent agents have a pattern.

And, you know, [00:11:50] pick Des Moines, Iowa, pick Indianapolis, pick Dallas, pick Houston, pick Galveston, pick over here where I am, you know, Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina. Pick down here where I am, Bluffton, [00:12:00] South Carolina. It's like when you're competing on kind of a local basis, you and your partners run into the same competitors over and over again.

You know, if you've been in the market for ten or fifteen or twenty [00:12:10] years, chances are you competed with your core competitors hundreds of times. And if you become a student of the competition, then you know what they're doing or what they're not doing. You know whether or not they're a price [00:12:20] coverage reactive services firm or whether or not they're a proactive services firm.

Then you know if they're a proactive services firm, are they actually delivering on it? Because a bunch of the producers, even though they got those [00:12:30] capabilities, they don't deliver on it, and that's where wedge comes in, and that's where differentiation matters. So if you look at most of the books on selling, when they talk about [00:12:40] differentiation, they'll say things like, "What is your unique selling proposition?"

And maybe you have one, but when I look at most of what they say is a unique selling proposition, there's nothing unique about it. It's just an idea or [00:12:50] concept. If you can't get good where it's easy for the buyer to compare your deal to the incumbent's deal and see that difference, you'll always struggle with differentiation.

If you sit there [00:13:00] and follow a routine like what I just gave you, differentiation becomes easy. And to even enhance it more, once you've developed this, you've developed a database of all your [00:13:10] differentiators right there by category. Let me look at this. Account management, fleet management, claims management, coverage and exposures.

So when, as a producer, you go, "I want [00:13:20] to get ready for this call. What am I gonna do? Well, maybe I'll just do that business interruption limits review." Click on that little dude, add it to the opportunity. When I want to come back and review it, there it is. I'm in my [00:13:30] sales call. I pull up my iPhone. I read through that deal.

There's my qualifying questions. There's my wedge, and I'm ready to rock and roll and go win business. So [00:13:40] if your goal is to take your sales to a new level, certainly one of the critical things you gotta have is differentiation. Why would a buyer want the same? [00:13:50] And so what I've given you here today is an amazing way to codify, write down, make concrete your differentiators so that you've got a lifetime of [00:14:00] them, and you'll win a lot of business that way Hey, look, my name is Randy Schwants.

I created a system called Bignition. We call it the Triple Threat Solution. It's a combination of sales training, [00:14:10] sales CRM, and sales leadership training all bundled into one package, making it easy for leaders to drive growth in your agency. Hey man, if you have an interest or you ever wanna talk to us, just fill out [00:14:20] a form and let's have a conversation.

Thanks.