Life insurance agent Van Mueller of Wisconsin has qualified for the Million Dollar Round Table’s Top of The Table membership for the last 30 years. 

For 2020, MDRT’s production requirements for a U.S. based agent to achieve Top of the Table (TOT) standing are: US$582,000 in commission, or $1,008,000 in income or $1,164,000 in premium (For Canadians it takes CDN$727,200 commission, $1,259,400 in income or $1,454,400 in premium to qualify at this level). Mueller says he has usually achieved the TOT qualification requirement by the end of March each year. 

Speaking at the Life Insurance Convention held in Montreal last November, Mueller shared some of the secrets of his outstanding success.

“I’m an agent. I knock on doors, I sit at the kitchen tables of small business owners and I don’t sell them anything…I inspire them to take action.” 

It’s not about me proving how smart I am, it’s about me proving to the prospect or customer how smart they are. — Van Mueller 

Mueller told the audience that for the first several years of his career he was anything but a success. When did his career take a change for the better? When he stopped focusing on himself and learned, “It’s not about me, it’s about my prospects and customers.” 

To win business, an agent must show that they are interested in the client or prospect. How? By asking questions, says Mueller.

Help them clarify what they need to do 

“It’s not about me proving how smart I am, it’s about me proving to the prospect or customer how smart they are...” During his sales presentations he does this by asking the prospect a series of questions that helps them clarify in their own minds exactly what they want to do. 

He adds that in his 47 years in the business he has met thousands and thousands of people, but he has not yet met anyone who has organized thinking about insurance, taxes, retirement and protection. “So what you’re doing is helping them clarify what they need to do so they can be in control of their financial future.” 

Empowering clients in this way – through asking questions – inspires people to take action, says Mueller, as opposed to telling them what to do. 

“I no longer tell anybody anything because I don’t know anything,” he says. “I don’t know what the interest rates are going to be, I don’t know what the stock markets are going to do …I don’t have a clue. So why should I go and tell anyone anything? Shouldn’t we be asking them what they know and what they understand and how can we make what they’re trying to accomplish come to fruition? That’s what I do.”

Mueller says key to his own transformation from an underperforming agent to the Top of the Table was learning from the best in the industry and practicing what they taught. “I learned from Bruce Etherington, John Savage, Ben Feldman, Marv Feldman – all of the greats of the industry. I asked, ‘How did you do this?’ They all said ask great questions.” 

Learn and practice, practice, practice! 

Mueller says this was not easy for him since he is shy by nature. Constant practice allowed him to improve. “I practice and I practice and I practice so that my questions are conversational … You don’t want to sit next to me on an airplane – you’re going to buy insurance…You don’t want to sit next to me in a bar, you’re toast. I don’t tell them anything, I start a conversation.” 

Mueller offered the audience some examples of questions that help him get conversations started about life insurance: 

• Is there someone at Revenue Canada that you’re so madly in love with that you want to leave them a whole bunch of your money? 

• Do you want to be rich, or do you want an absolute positive guarantee that you’ll never be poor? 

• If you lost your job for 30 years, would that harm you and your family? Then he asks, Isn’t that retirement? 

• Do you think it is fair that if one parent dies there is not enough money and the children end up losing both parents? When the children are grieving, do you want them to grieve with the babysitter or with the parent that’s still alive? 

Mueller says his most powerful question is one that he has asked grandparents thousands of times: “If I can show you a way to stay in complete control of your money until you take your last breath, but instead of giving that money to the government, a nursing home or a hospital, you could keep that money in your family for generations to come…Wouldn’t that be worth 45 minutes of your time?”

He says he has never received a negative response. 

Such questions enable Mueller to overcome the challenge that faces most advisers in the industry – getting enough appointments. “I run 30 to 50 appointments a week…I’m busy…I’m in front of people. That’s what I get paid to do.” 

He says other advisors can learn how to do this the same way he did. “You can be Top of the Table in a very quick amount of time if you’ll learn the questions and take the time to ask everyone you know the questions. You can do it.”

For more examples of questions to ask prospects, read Jim Ruta’s column on page 50 entitled The 15 minute sales interview.