I'm going to share what I do personally, that works for me. I hope that some of you will be able to use what I'm sharing with you.
My goal of using a living will as a prospecting tool is to get my foot in the door to start with. Half of the job of selling insurance is to get your foot in the door. The other half is talking them into buying it. I use the living will to get the client to talk about death, their families, and to talk about what if something happens to them. No one likes to think about death and the unknown. The living will gets the client in the right mind set, to talk about buying life insurance and thinking about their families. By, default, no person wants to buy anything when someone approaches them to do it. There is a real problem with most of the people I run into not having a living will, or not understanding why they need one. I can just say the name Terry Schiavo and start a conversation with just about anyone. We all saw her story on the news. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terri_Schiavo Most of us have an option on whether she should have been left on life support or unplugged. I believe that we should have done what ever her wishes would have been. The problem was she didn’t have a living will to tell us. If she had a living will, you never would have heard her name. I personally don’t want to be the next Terry Schiavo, so I have taken the simple steps in making my wishes known in a living will. You will be surprised that over 70% of Americans don’t have a living will. I have personally been affected in my own family, on this matter. I share my on personal story with my clients.
Let me take a break and share with you the story of my grandfather’s Gene Rosenthal Death. My grandfather was going through a red light when he had a massive heart attack, and went off the road and hit a tree. They didn’t get him out of the car in time, and his brain didn’t get the oxygen it needed in time. I’m not saying that he would have lived with oxygen, but this did make him have brain damage. He was rushed to the hospital where he was placed on life support. My grandfather had two children, my uncle Rod and my father Greg. My grandmother had died years earlier. So when we got to the hospital, it was not clear who was in charge of making medical decisions for my grandfather. The first day, he was on life support, they really didn’t know if he was brain dead or not and there was hope. They did some kind of test that told us that he had brain damage, but didn’t tell us to what degree the damage was. I asked the doctor if my grandfather was brain dead and he doctor looked at me and asked me, what brained dead meant to me. I guess I had never stopped and thought about what it meant. The doctor asked me if I was talking about him every waking up again, being a vegetable, or not have the same quality of life he used to have. The doctor did some more tests on my grandfather. The doctor told the family there was an 85% chance he would never wake up again, but still wanted to run some more test. Looking back on it, he had really good health insurance, and I now question if they were just running the bill up on him. It was not long before my family started fighting on what to do. Gene was Catholic, so my uncle said that he would have never wanted to be unplugged for any reason. He said that would be like suicide. My father and most of the family said that he would have not wanted to live like this and we needed to unplug him. To be honest with you, I was second guessing myself on what to do. Gene had 3 different doctors that could not agree on anything. His kidneys had stopped, so they placed him on dialysis on the fifth day. That was another family battle. My uncle wanted it, so it was done. My uncle had told the doctors that he was in charge, and that is what the doctors went by. On the 9th day, after searching my grandfather’s house, we found a living will dated in 1978 which gave my father Greg power of medical attorney. He had done this on his 1st heart surgery and we found it. We also found a letter that he had written to the family in case he didn’t make it through the surgery in 1978. It was clear in this letter, they he was ready to meet the Lord if something went wrong and he was clear that he does not wish to ever be on life support. On the 9th day, with Greg having the power, we unplugged my grandfather and watched him died. The 9 days was pure hell on the family, and he died two times. He died once in the car, and once on the 9th day. The story does not end here. When his estate finally made it to probate court, the hospital bills from him being on life support took most of his estate. He had life insurance to pay for his funeral and gave each grandchild $1000.00 each. That small amount of money meant the world to me. My grandfather was like Terry Schiavo for 9 days. I now know how her family felt. You don’t ever want to go through this.
Two more times, in my own personal family, this happened again. In 1998 my step brother Chuck Jackson died at age 26 years old from a car wreck. He made it to the hospital alive and was placed on life support. He had a living will. He clearly stated what his wishes were in great detail. He was in a coma, and the doctor told us he would never wake up. He was unplugged soon after showing the doctor his living will. The family didn’t have to second guess what he would have wanted to do, and we didn’t fight over it. He even had a donor card in his wallet, so we gave away his organs. He had life insurance and his family was taken care of at this time in need.
I am an average person, and at least 5 times I knew someone that could have used a living will. So when I hear that a person will never need to use one, I stop and almost get mad.
I share some these personal stories with my clients. They know that I personally believe in them and believe they need one to save their family members from grief.
I’m going to get back to using the living will now. I offer the free living wills to everyone. On my door hangers, website, business cards, in person, and cold calling. The first thing I do when a client calls me asking me for a living will is to ask them why they wanted a free living will. It will be the same answers to why they need to buy life insurance. They tell me that they wish to protect their families from something bad happening to them and the unknown. Remember how they answer this question later. I tell them that they have made the right decision and when I leave here today, that they family will be protected. Next I start explaining to them how a living will works. I tell them my personal stories about how living wills affected my family and how I think it can save their family from a lot of pain. I tell them that I’m going to have to get very personal with them and ask them some questions that they really need to think about before answering. http://www.caringinfo.org/stateaddownload is where you can get a free living will. It has instructions on it. We go over the several choices that the living will offers. I make them be very specific on their wishes. If they use words like brain dead then I make them tell me what brain dead means to them on the living will. After we have finished up completing the living will, we go back over the living will plans. We kind of role plan, and go over the clients wishes that were just written on the game plan. Here is an example. Ms. Sally, your driving down the road, and have a car wreck, and become brain dead and you are placed on life support. Your wishes are to be unplugged if you are ever on life support. Next you family member, uses you living will to honor your wishes.
Not all of my post will fit here, so I'm going to try and do it in 2 parts.
Mark Rosenthal
[email protected]
www.realfastservice.com
My goal of using a living will as a prospecting tool is to get my foot in the door to start with. Half of the job of selling insurance is to get your foot in the door. The other half is talking them into buying it. I use the living will to get the client to talk about death, their families, and to talk about what if something happens to them. No one likes to think about death and the unknown. The living will gets the client in the right mind set, to talk about buying life insurance and thinking about their families. By, default, no person wants to buy anything when someone approaches them to do it. There is a real problem with most of the people I run into not having a living will, or not understanding why they need one. I can just say the name Terry Schiavo and start a conversation with just about anyone. We all saw her story on the news. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terri_Schiavo Most of us have an option on whether she should have been left on life support or unplugged. I believe that we should have done what ever her wishes would have been. The problem was she didn’t have a living will to tell us. If she had a living will, you never would have heard her name. I personally don’t want to be the next Terry Schiavo, so I have taken the simple steps in making my wishes known in a living will. You will be surprised that over 70% of Americans don’t have a living will. I have personally been affected in my own family, on this matter. I share my on personal story with my clients.
Let me take a break and share with you the story of my grandfather’s Gene Rosenthal Death. My grandfather was going through a red light when he had a massive heart attack, and went off the road and hit a tree. They didn’t get him out of the car in time, and his brain didn’t get the oxygen it needed in time. I’m not saying that he would have lived with oxygen, but this did make him have brain damage. He was rushed to the hospital where he was placed on life support. My grandfather had two children, my uncle Rod and my father Greg. My grandmother had died years earlier. So when we got to the hospital, it was not clear who was in charge of making medical decisions for my grandfather. The first day, he was on life support, they really didn’t know if he was brain dead or not and there was hope. They did some kind of test that told us that he had brain damage, but didn’t tell us to what degree the damage was. I asked the doctor if my grandfather was brain dead and he doctor looked at me and asked me, what brained dead meant to me. I guess I had never stopped and thought about what it meant. The doctor asked me if I was talking about him every waking up again, being a vegetable, or not have the same quality of life he used to have. The doctor did some more tests on my grandfather. The doctor told the family there was an 85% chance he would never wake up again, but still wanted to run some more test. Looking back on it, he had really good health insurance, and I now question if they were just running the bill up on him. It was not long before my family started fighting on what to do. Gene was Catholic, so my uncle said that he would have never wanted to be unplugged for any reason. He said that would be like suicide. My father and most of the family said that he would have not wanted to live like this and we needed to unplug him. To be honest with you, I was second guessing myself on what to do. Gene had 3 different doctors that could not agree on anything. His kidneys had stopped, so they placed him on dialysis on the fifth day. That was another family battle. My uncle wanted it, so it was done. My uncle had told the doctors that he was in charge, and that is what the doctors went by. On the 9th day, after searching my grandfather’s house, we found a living will dated in 1978 which gave my father Greg power of medical attorney. He had done this on his 1st heart surgery and we found it. We also found a letter that he had written to the family in case he didn’t make it through the surgery in 1978. It was clear in this letter, they he was ready to meet the Lord if something went wrong and he was clear that he does not wish to ever be on life support. On the 9th day, with Greg having the power, we unplugged my grandfather and watched him died. The 9 days was pure hell on the family, and he died two times. He died once in the car, and once on the 9th day. The story does not end here. When his estate finally made it to probate court, the hospital bills from him being on life support took most of his estate. He had life insurance to pay for his funeral and gave each grandchild $1000.00 each. That small amount of money meant the world to me. My grandfather was like Terry Schiavo for 9 days. I now know how her family felt. You don’t ever want to go through this.
Two more times, in my own personal family, this happened again. In 1998 my step brother Chuck Jackson died at age 26 years old from a car wreck. He made it to the hospital alive and was placed on life support. He had a living will. He clearly stated what his wishes were in great detail. He was in a coma, and the doctor told us he would never wake up. He was unplugged soon after showing the doctor his living will. The family didn’t have to second guess what he would have wanted to do, and we didn’t fight over it. He even had a donor card in his wallet, so we gave away his organs. He had life insurance and his family was taken care of at this time in need.
I am an average person, and at least 5 times I knew someone that could have used a living will. So when I hear that a person will never need to use one, I stop and almost get mad.
I share some these personal stories with my clients. They know that I personally believe in them and believe they need one to save their family members from grief.
I’m going to get back to using the living will now. I offer the free living wills to everyone. On my door hangers, website, business cards, in person, and cold calling. The first thing I do when a client calls me asking me for a living will is to ask them why they wanted a free living will. It will be the same answers to why they need to buy life insurance. They tell me that they wish to protect their families from something bad happening to them and the unknown. Remember how they answer this question later. I tell them that they have made the right decision and when I leave here today, that they family will be protected. Next I start explaining to them how a living will works. I tell them my personal stories about how living wills affected my family and how I think it can save their family from a lot of pain. I tell them that I’m going to have to get very personal with them and ask them some questions that they really need to think about before answering. http://www.caringinfo.org/stateaddownload is where you can get a free living will. It has instructions on it. We go over the several choices that the living will offers. I make them be very specific on their wishes. If they use words like brain dead then I make them tell me what brain dead means to them on the living will. After we have finished up completing the living will, we go back over the living will plans. We kind of role plan, and go over the clients wishes that were just written on the game plan. Here is an example. Ms. Sally, your driving down the road, and have a car wreck, and become brain dead and you are placed on life support. Your wishes are to be unplugged if you are ever on life support. Next you family member, uses you living will to honor your wishes.
Not all of my post will fit here, so I'm going to try and do it in 2 parts.
Mark Rosenthal
[email protected]
www.realfastservice.com
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