10 Principles of Communication

1.    In elementary school, I was taught that I should communicate in a fashion such that I could be understood.  For over 50 years, I’ve felt that is an insufficient criterion.  We should strive to communicate so that we cannot be misunderstood, a much stricter standard.  Just because someone could understand you is not sufficient.  We need to try to avoid any miscommunication.  Especially today with tweets and texts and emails, messaging is fast and short, leading to ambiguity, poorly-chosen words, etc.

2.    I queue many emails and blogs for future delivery.  Thus, if I realize a comment was vague or omitted, I can improve the message before it is published.

3.    I use "Quick Text" in Outlook to store preferred wording so that I can be consistent in using optimal language.  It is easy to modify such wording for a specific application and to continuously improve it: you click it into text, modify it and, if appropriate, re-save.

4.    It amazes me how easily people can be offended by, and distrust, long-time friends.  Lifelong bonds can be destroyed so quickly.  Once I trust someone, it is very hard for them to cause me to distrust them.  I figure I must have misunderstood what they said or what they wanted to say.  Or they might have misunderstood me.  Or something happened that day that caused them to say something out of character, etc.  Why should one incident overturn years of evidence?

5.    If you’re selling a product, you must disclose all the negatives, but you don’t have to disclose all the positives.  Disclosing all the positives can be problematic:

a.    Minor details may bore or annoy your client because their time is valuable.

b.    It distracts from the main point.  Your client might start day-dreaming, hence not hear the main point.

c.    The positive might have some exceptions, limitations, etc.  So if you mention those positives, you must now mention all those negatives, even if minor.

d.    Mentioning some positives may damage your relationship.  If my financial advisor describes a product feature which will save me money if I go on Medicaid (common in the long-term care insurance industry), I’m thinking I should get a new advisor who will help me avoid being on Medicaid?

e.    You can inform the client about additional favorable features after the sale.

6.    I don’t like “fluff” features that sound better than they are (i.e., Restoration of Benefits or Return of Premium on Death prior to age 75).  I don’t mention them because I want to focus on the key issues and don’t want to feel obligated to explain why such features are not as good as they sound.  I certainly don’t want people to buy based on thinking something is better than it is.

7.    Clients also have a right to rely upon you, hence not have to make every decision.  I tell people "I recommend x or y for the following reason", making it clear that there are other choices.  If the client wants to know about those other choices, they can ask me.  So I don’t need to waste their time presenting those alternatives.

8.    We use sloppy terminology that can lead to misunderstanding and could cause lawsuits.  Amazingly, insurers encourage such sloppy wording.  For example, we sell "long-term care insurance", not “long-term care”.  Supposed “inflation protection” does not protect against all inflation (hence i refer to it as "benefit increase options intended to try to maintain purchasing power in the face of inflation"), etc.

9.    Suitability is part of sales, rather than compliance.  If you attend to suitability, you’ll have happier clients and more referrals.  Insurers put “suitability” in the Compliance sections of their broker guides.  What message does that send to brokers?  (That we don’t really believe in suitability, hence support it only because the regulators make us do it?)  What message does it send to regulators?  (That we support suitability only because they make us do so?  Such an approaches encourages them to wonder what else they should be requiring.)

10. Audiences are ADHD and distracted by their iPhones, thoughts, etc.  In a presentation, they may hear something that suddenly piques their interest, but you may have completed that thought and they can’t recover it.  That’s why I like to have "meat" on slides.  Someone can look up and recover the missed pearl of wisdom by reviewing the text of the slide.