needs and wants strategies, like architecture, are more art than science. Helping people plan for financial security is like building a custom home. As an architect designs living space to fit a homeowner's needs and wants and budget, your job is to analyze your prospects' financial security needs and wants and objectives, and custom-design affordable plans to meet them.

But the analogy doesn't stop there.

Both a well-built home and a financial security plan are constructed in an orderly fashion, based on a creative design built upon a firm foundation. Both help to shelter the family from risks and hazards. Both help assure the quality of life, and, in both financial security planning and building houses, one size does not fit all!

Case analysis and plan design have taken a hard right turn into the computer age. Ohio National's sophisticated software is available for number crunching, plus sales illustrations and graphic point-of-sale support. Matching a prospect's needs and wants and solutions, and developing "client-friendly" proposals, are easier now than ever.

Try this! While the type of case you're working on and solution you recommend determine how you prepare casework and develop product suggestions, keep these principles in mind:

• Sell benefits, not features. People care more about what a product can do for them than how it works. Proposals should clearly link a prospect's needs and wants with corresponding benefits and product features.

Try this! To be sure you're putting the emphasis where it belongs, think — benefits, features, and proofs.

• Benefits are what a product can do for the prospect.


• Features produce specific benefits.


• Proofs are sales illustrations, visuals, or brochures that explain how features benefit the prospect.