Life Insurance is not Life Insurance

Sometimes effective marketing means misinterpreting words. Sometimes the truth doesn’t sell as well as misleading words.

Life Insurance is not life insurance. It is really death insurance. Fire insurance protects you against a fire. Accident insurance protects you against an accident. Theft insurance protects you against theft. And we could reassembly assume that flood and earthquake insurance would protect you against flood and earthquakes.

The truth would to be to say that you are selling death insurance to protect your survivors upon your death.

If they were truthful would my Dad have purchased Life Insurance when I was born? At the age of 18, I received a payment of about $1,800. During those 18 years he contributed much more than that amount. What was the purpose? If I died, he would have received a payment to pay for my funeral. I didn’t die so I got a modest payment.

By buying the “life insurance” he was betting that I would die young. It was not a profitable bet on his part. I appreciate the money I received at age 18. It could have been so much more if he simply put the monthly payments in a bank account at zero interest.

I’m sure that my Dad did not think about the investment in those cold terms. He was likely pressured by the emotional aspects of buying Life Insurance.

There is nothing wrong with buying Life Insurance – if you understand that it is really death insurance.

You buy fire insurance to protect you against the loss of fire. You buy life insurance to protect your loves ones against the loss of your death.

Death is the logical end of life – but let’s be clear on the difference and the intended deception.

Life insurance is really death insurance.


George Torok

Marketing Speaker

Business Speaker

Make Your Prospects Angry?

To Win People’s Hearts, Make Them Angry
on Forbes

That is the implication of a paper presented this past weekend at an annual Experimental Political Science Conference put on by New York University’s Center for Experimental Social Sciences. Timothy Ryan, of the University of Michigan, did “a new type of field experiment” in which “I induce feelings of anger and anxiety and passively measure the effects on information seeking. Across three studies, I find anger to increase information seeking, a result inconsistent with some standing theories. When anger is evoked along with anxiety, however, information seeking does not increase relative to an emotion-neutral control, a result at odds with past findings that anxiety motivates attention and interest.” In other words, make people angry and they’ll pay attention and want to know more. Make them anxious at the same time, though, and you won’t do nearly as well.

Read the rest of this article on Forbes
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We know that emotions move people and we know that anger pushes people to action. Have you considered using anger as a marketing tool?

If you make them angry at the clearly defined enemy, that might be an effective marketing strategy. It works for political campaigns.

But be careful. Make them angry and confuse them and you better duck.


I'm mad as hell and I'm not gonna take it anymore.


George Torok

Marketing Speaker

Business Speaker

Says Who? Not Anonymous Again

Anonymous gets credit for saying many things – both good and bad. But who really knows if any of it is true?

How much faith do you place in anonymous?

If you keep receiving adoring love notes from anonymous at some point you might question the truth of those welcome words.

If you receive customer service complaints from anonymous how serious will you take the complaint?

In a court of law a person must state their name and swear to tell the truth. So when the source is anonymous why would we even consider listening?

Customer testimonials are powerful marketing tools - but only powerful if we know the source. A testimonial from anonymous is highly suspicious. Initials for the name is just a small step above anonymous.

Use a real person's name and your message has personality and becomes more believable. If you want the words to count attach a name to the words. Identify the source or remain quiet.


George Torok

Marketing Author

Business Speaker

Secrets of Power Marketing - video

Follow systems in your marketing - and advice from Muhammud Ali




George Torok talking about Secrets of Power Marketing

Those darned customers!

Guest post from Jeff Mowatt

"It infuriates me." A manger, frustrated about boorish behavior of some employees, explained to me, "After a customer leaves the room or hangs up the phone, some employees ridicule how the customer looked or that they asked 'stupid' questions." He asked if I knew of a statement that he could post that would remind employees of the vital importance of customers. I sent him a version of a timeless manifesto by L.L.Bean that I condensed and edited slightly. Feel free to pass it to your team.

Who are Customers?
Customers are the most important people ever on these premises.
Customers are not dependent on us. We are dependent on them.
Customers are not interruptions to our work. They are the purpose of it.
Customers are not people to argue with, match wits with, or insult behind their backs. Nobody ever won an argument with a customer.
Customers bring us their needs. It is our job to handle them profitably for them and for ourselves.

Click here for a printer friendly version of this to post for your team


About award-winning speaker, Jeff Mowatt, BComm., CSPJeff Mowatt is the best selling author of the books, Becoming a Service Icon in 90 Minutes a Month (for mangers), and Influence with Ease (for professionals who interact with customers). As a customer service strategist, Jeff's Influence with Ease© column has been syndicated and featured in over 200 publications. To help professionals put ideas into action. Jeff heads his own training company and has produced 4 multimedia training kits. An award winning international speaker, Jeff is among the top 7% of professional speakers in the International Federation for Professional Speakers to achieve their highest designation - Certified Speaking Professionals (CSP). For more Influence with Ease tips, training resources, and information about engaging Jeff for your team, call 1-800-JMowatt (566-9288), or visit www.jeffmowatt.com.

CYA is Not Marketing

The letter from the association membership director stated “after all our efforts” it looks you are leaving us.

That phrase jumped out at me and the immediate question in my mind was “What efforts?”

I had been a member of this association for at least seven years and during at least the first four years quite active. I attended monthly events, contributed to the publication and completed surveys. Curious that no one noticed my diminshed participation.

And like every association membership at some point one measures the investment against the return and decides to leave. When the annual renewal invoice arrived I ignored it. I didn’t renew. As a marketer I was curious about their member retention program.

I expected to hear from someone about my renewal. I did, but not in the way I expected. The following month I received another invoice – and every month after that.

Finally after month six I received a phone call from the membership staff person. I immediately returned her call and advised her that I was not renewing because I was no longer seeing a return on my investment. She thanked me for my call.

Shortly after that call I received the “after all our efforts” letter. There was no acknowledgement of our phone conversation. There was no promise of a phone call or request to complete an exit survey. No invitation to meet for coffee or lunch.

So I wondered why this letter was so cold.

Then I saw the answer. This letter was copied to the Executive Director (chief of staff) of the association. This was a CYA letter. The purpose of this letter was not to retain me as a member. It was to suggest to her boss that she had exerted “all her efforts” to retain me as a member.

A month later I received another invoice.

No phone calls from satisfied members or board members. No reminder of benefits.

I guess they aren’t bleeding members fast enough.

What are you doing to retain members for your association?

CYA = Cover Your Ass.


George Torok

Former member of ....

How much do you charge?

Do you get that question often? It can seen like a silly question. Imagine walking into a restaurant and asking the doorman, “How much do you charge?”

The most likely response is,
“Do you want hamburger or steak?”

Would a person walk into a store and start the conversation with:

How much to buy a computer?
What does a TV cost?
How much for a vacation?

When a person is going in for open heart surgery they don’t ask, “How much is this going to cost?”

So, why would that question be part of an opening conversation?

Perhaps they don’t really want what you sell.

Perhaps they see your product as a commodity.

Perhaps they are simply collecting prices.

How can you respond?

You could ask, “What’s more important, fixing the problem or staying in budget?”

The answer is, “Both”.

You follow up with, “Okay, then tell me about both of them.”