Changing the rules: if agents are to be successful, they may have to redefine their goals.

Our business is intensely competitive. Hundreds of insurance companies and thousands of advisers stand ready to sell their products, which begs the question: By competing for sales, are we hurting sales?

Normal, healthy, psychologically well-adjusted human beings are in denial about their mortality. Their denial tells them they're not going to die, at least not anytime soon.Therefore, we sell a product nobody wants.

If you embrace the notion that you can't compete with a product nobody wants, your prospecting and sales process will change and your results will improve.

The next time a prospect questions the competitiveness of the product you recommend, resist the impulse to compare product prices and features to prove that yours is better. Instead, tell the prospect that all the products are the same! You must always be completely honest with a prospect, and you must always disclose all pertinent information concerning the product. But with respect to all current assumption policies, the underlying formula is the same from company to company and policy to policy: premiums minus charges equals cash value. Period.

When I start comparing prices and features, I validate my prospect's stereotype of me as a salesperson and he questions my motivation in trying to sell him something he doesn't need.

Telling him that all products are the same defuses that and puts the emphasis where it belongs--not on a product or a company, but an adviser. Current assumption policies change over time as does the prospect's situation. Who will help the client manage all that change? The adviser. The client's most important decision is not the product or company, it's the adviser.

I call this process "Kobayashi Maru" after a story from Star Trek about changing the rules of the game. Potential starship commanders had to complete the computer-simulated Kobayashi Maru exercise as a test of character. It was unwinnable until James T. Kirk took the test. He reprogrammed the computer to change the rules of the game and was the first cadet to solve the problem.

You can reprogram the prospecting and sales process. Disengage from prospects who will never use your help to put protection in place and spend your energy on finding new people who want your help.

Imagine you have a supply of a vaccine. You are placed in a room and given two hours to innoculate 40 children.You inject the first two kids easily enough, but the third proves to be more of a challenge. You coax, plead and bargain, but he just won't let you vaccinate him. You finally give up only to discover that the two hours are gone and there are still 37 children who never got the vaccine.

Is your competitive nature causing you to focus too narrowly on a few prospects and miss the larger number of people who need you? Virtually no one sits down and addresses their life insurance planning without first being prompted to do it by someone like you. The more people we expose to our help, the better off our entire society will be. Understanding the hidden dangers of competing with a product no one wants is a good place to start.

Contributor Bill Girone is regional vice president, external life sales, Securian Financial Group. He can be reached at [e-mail].