Attended a free LIC agent training yesterday. Though these trainings are marketed as free, these are exclusively organised to sell paid trainings offered by the firms conducting them. If you are an agent attending such trainings, there is every possibility that you will end up buying paid trainings sold in these free seminars. You can observe almost all of Robert Cialdini’s Influence strategies being used against agents sitting in the audience in these trainings.
The training starts with an anchor who is also a successful agent sharing his experience as an agent and how his life changed when he came across a training few years back. He then introduces the trainer by showering great words of praise over him and increasing his stature in the minds of audience with his every sentence. He asks agents attending this trainer’s seminar for the first time to raise their hand (this is to check how many new prospects they have got to sell their paid training). He applauds their decision of attending this training because it can potentially be the turning point in their career as Insurance agents.
Now the anchor asks agents who had already attended the paid training to come over the stage and share their experience of the training and how training helped them in their business. Some 10 – 12 agents come on the stage and share their experiences. They are all praise for the trainer and his training. Many of them say that they are choosing to attend the training once again because it helps them get back to their top selling form.
The trainer is then welcomed on the stage with round of applause, new agents joining the applause seeing others doing it. The trainer now takes control of the proceedings. These trainers are very good speakers and can grab the attention of their audience from the word go. For next one and half hour the trainer entertains the audience with his oratory skills. He talks about the nobility of the profession of insurance selling , he narrates his own story of how he started his agency and climbed the ladder of success in Insurance selling. He talks about the respect this profession has earned him and what a great life he is living because of this profession. He talks about MDRT, COT, TOT agents and the huge earning potential offered by the profession of Insurance selling.
The audience starts getting excited about their own prospects in Insurance selling now and starts taking trainer seriously. You can observe nodding heads increasing with every passing minute in the audience.
The trainer then moves to the talks of how more business can be earned. He discusses ideas of prospecting, insurance pitching and selling. He narrates few stories of how he succeeded in big insurance sells using these ideas. Trainer makes audience understand how ideas sell and not the product in insurance selling. He gives examples of agents who used his ideas successfully and are doing great business now. He also claims that he will give audience an extremely powerful idea at the end of the training which can bring them massive business ( this is to hold agents till the very end of the session).
A neutral observer can observe how the trainer is slowly getting into selling mode of his paid training.
Trainer now begins to emphasize the importance of attending trainings which can provide such useful ideas. He talks of how much investment he has done in himself by attending different trainings. He asks whether audience liked the ideas he provided and whether they would use these ideas to increase their business. Audience nod their heads in agreement.
Trainer then starts his sales pitch which goes something like this. “If ideas in a free training are so useful for your business, just imagine what you would get in a paid training. We are organising two days training at so and so hotel on so and so date. The training fees we charge for this training in Mumbai is Rs. 7000 but we are exclusively offering this training in Rs. 4000 for our agent friends in Nagpur. I assure you that these two days will be the turning point of your agency. I will tell you how to earn more than a Lac Rupees in a month. How many present here want to earn a Lac Rupees per month?” Poor agents raise their hands. “Successful people take quick decisions and to become successful you have to learn to take quick decisions. Take the decision of attending this training and I assure you that your business will be 10 times more than what it is today after this training”
After this sales pitch trainer then asks agents interested in attending his great training to raise their hand. Few hands go up who are then asked to come up on stage and share why they want to do this training. Agents come on stage and justify their decision of choosing to attend the training. At times trainer even manipulate them on stage to get them to speak what he wants them to say. In rare cases some agent gets emotional on stage because he took decision of attending the training in-spite of having no money to pay for fees. This emotional agent says that he wants to be a successful insurance agent and earn lot of money and he will arrange money to pay for the training from somewhere because it is an investment and not an expense(look whose words he is using). Trainer praises this agent and proclaim that he will be a successful agent one day because he has got right attitude. These words of encouragement leave this agent in tears. Looking this, other agents on stage also try to speak as well as they can; justifying their decision to attend this paid training. Trainer then requests these agents to fill the form and submit fees to his staff.
Couple of smart agents now try to escape training hall. Seeing them trainer says “Please wait for few more minutes for I am going to give you an idea at the end of the seminar which can massively increase your business.” Agents like me who are also thinking of escaping, decides to wait to hear this last idea.
Trainer gets back to his closing work. “How many people are there who want to attend training but deciding against it because of their financial problems?” Few hands go up. ” All of you can meet me after the training. We will find some way out. We can even arrange for credit card swapping at the venue. I genuinely don’t want any of you to miss this training. It took me 21 long years to learn how to do this business. I do not want my agent friends to take so long for success in this profession. Take decision today and book your seats. You have two more days to arrange for the fees. All you need is will, everything gets arranged where there is a will. We are offering discount to those who book their seats today. Many agents come directly to the venue and attend the training but they will have to pay Rs. 4500 instead of Rs. 4000. Book your seats by giving 500, 100 Rs. or whatever you have in your wallet right now and avail this discount. Please fill the forms provided to you and give it to our staff along with booking amount. Please do this quickly. We have the best idea of the evening yet to give you. I want you all to take something valuable home from this training.”
The whole audience now turns into a herd under the influence of successful manipulation of the trainer. You would see some of the agents paying complete fees of the training and trainer praising such quick decision takers and making others applaud for them. You would even see few agents who completed filling their forms, paid their advance and now joining trainer’s staff to help other agents fill the forms and collecting the advance.
Such a massive push selling. Untrained brains would almost always fall pray to this mass selling. Agents who are smart enough not to fall pray to this selling exercise, find it difficult to keep their chin high when almost everybody around them is joining the herd.
The elated trainer now rushes through his much hyped last idea (one more idea of manipulation to make sell). Trainer reassures that all people who opted for training will have a life changing experience (this last talk is for those who have still not decided to go for the training)
The training is then concluded with national anthem (what a hypocrisy). people start leaving training hall now but if you stay for some more time, you will observe many agents surrounding the trainer telling him how impressed they are with him and his training style and how some of them have opted to go for training again in-spite of attending it before. Trainer reassures them that his every training is different and more interesting than the previous.
This is how an agent who achieved his success through manipulation, misselling and through relationships build for the sole motive of selling more policies, successfully sells his training (which is his new and more sophisticated business) to more agents. Now he will train more agents in his tactics of manipulation, misselling and the story of misselling continues…….
AN IDEALIST PROFESSIONAL 