STANDARD INSURANCE COMPANY “You have a complicated product.” That was the comment from one of Psychological Associates’ consultants to Mr. Mark Turner, Director of Field Sales Training for The Standard Insurance Company, also known as The Standard. The remark refers not just to the wide array of employee benefits and retirement plans that bear the Standard Insurance name. The fact is, the sales force of Standard doesn’t even sell these programs directly to the businesses that buy them. Instead, Standard must persuade independent brokers across the country to offer Standard’s programs to business owners. Standard’s sales consultants do an outstanding job, making Standard a national leader. But this success requires the ability to build strong, interpersonal relationships with brokers. That’s where Psychological Associates has helped Standard succeed in business. Mark is thorough and analytical. When looking for training based on relationship-building and meeting brokers’ needs, he found Psychological Associates’ cornerstone concept, the Dimensional® Model of Behavior™, a perfect fit for his firm’s program. “It has research behind it, and it’s valid,” he said. While that put us on the short list, Mark then ranked our sales development program against competitors’. Ours achieved the highest rating for meeting Standard’s needs. Once Psychological Associates was on board, our consultants worked on site with Mark, assessing and interviewing Standard’s top-performing sales consultants, to develop a profile of the essential skills, competencies and behavior traits that contribute the most to sales success at Standard. Using that information, we partnered with Mark and his staff to customize our DIMENSIONAL® SELLING SKILLS program to support the complex selling requirements described above. Participants in the one-day workshop gained insights into more effective relationship-selling by analyzing practice cases prepared by Standard. A hallmark of Psychological Associates’ workshops is application of newly-learned concepts to a real-life selling situation that participants bring to the workshop to practice their skills. As Mark says, “Lectures can only go so far. But it’s the application and how you leverage it that makes this program unique and valuable.” While participants were energized by the experience, what about results? Mark is just as thorough in this area. Since the program began two years ago, he has been monitoring sales consultants’ success in advancing or closing their real-life cases. “We measure impact. We can actually measure progress.” Overall, Mark says his company attributes significant improvement from developmental efforts. A recent survey shows that almost 90 percent of those who responded say their Dimensional® sales skills improved their sales effectiveness. Over 80 percent say their probing skills, so important for engaging brokers, have been improved. One consultant attributed a $500,000 premium to selling the real-life case he practiced in the workshop. So, who says insurance isn’t exciting? We believe helping a company get better sales results is always exciting, especially when it is The Standard in insurance. |
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