The whole life banking advisory process follows a distinct path from first contact to active client. Understanding how each stage maps to Policy Stack's pipeline helps you track prospects accurately and identify where conversations stall.
The Seven Stages
1. Discovery
The prospect has expressed interest in learning about whole life banking. Your goal is to understand their situation and determine mutual fit.
In Policy Stack: Create a new deal in the Discovery stage. Add notes from your initial conversation. Record the source (referral, directory, event) for analytics.
2. Education
You are walking the prospect through the core concepts — how whole life policies work, the role of policy loans, and what building a banking system looks like in practice.
In Policy Stack: Use scenario tools to model concepts with the prospect's own numbers. Create them with Prospect context so they stay linked to the deal for follow-up conversations.
3. Fact-Find
Gathering specific financial details — existing obligations, cash flow, current insurance, goals. This is where you collect the data needed to design a policy structure.
In Policy Stack: Record notes from the fact-find conversation. If the prospect shares documents, note the details in the deal. This stage is typically brief — one or two meetings.
4. Illustration
You present a carrier illustration tailored to the prospect's situation. The conversation focuses on premium structure, projected cash value growth, and how the policy fits their banking system goals.
Attach the illustration details as a note on the deal. Approved scenario-preview accounts can create a Cash Value Projector scenario with Prospect context so it remains linked to the deal.