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Leadership Strategies

You Don't have to Experience the Revolving-door-of-Assistants Nightmare

John Elman recants his story about a number of assistants that just didn’t work out in the July issue of Advisor Today. While the story is amusing to read, all the antics and quirks, it isn’t amusing to experience. These assistants are frequently your customer’s first and last point of connection. You want to make sure that connection is positive, and if it can be so positive that it leads to a story about your office all the better.

So, how do you prevent this from happening to you and your business? Even though getting the right assistant the first time seems like mission impossible it really isn’t. There are some simple steps you can take to make sure you hire right and get what you expect.

Don’t hire based solely on your gut reaction or the opinion of others. Before you start looking be very clear about the results you want this person to achieve. Be so clear that these results are quantifiable and measurable so both you and your new assistant know exactly how they’re doing at all times. Use this information to develop a job description, and from the job description develop your ad or the information you share with a recruiting professional.

Resumes don’t even come close to telling the whole story about a candidate. Select your top 3-5 candidates and have them undergo assessments before you decide who to invite for an interview. Good assessments help you to eliminate some of what appeared to be top contenders before you ever even meet them, plus they provide questions for the interview that give you a much clearer picture of how the candidate will respond on the job. After you conduct the interview you can compare the experience with the assessment information and be assured you’re making a good choice. You may also discover that none of your top contenders seem like top contenders now that you’ve talked to them, but it’s better to learn that before you offer the job than after.

So you’ve made your choice, but that’s only the beginning. You understand there will be a training period required to help your new assistant understand how you like things done. But remember after the training phase you’re still responsible for managing your assistant. Managing is a responsibility that you can never abdicate. As the manager it’s your job to provide objectives and help your assistant to make a commitment for how they will meet those objectives. If the assistant is having trouble meeting the objectives you need to find out why, develop a plan together for how to correct the situation, and then follow-up and follow-through to make sure those objectives are met. This creates a positive work environment for both you and your assistant because you’re both clear on where you stand and what is expected.

Leadership Strategies

Are You Feeling Burned-out, Frustrated & Wondering if You're in the Wrong Business?

This is a clear sign you’re working harder instead of smarter. When you reach this point it’s time to step back and re-evaluate where you are, what you want, and what you’re doing. Trying to just keep going only leads to even higher levels of frustration because what you’re doing now isn’t working.

Step one- take a break. I know you’re probably thinking you don’t have time for a break, but you have to take one or you really will self-destruct. Even if it’s just for a few hours walk away from your business and do something out of your normal routine that you can enjoy. If you can include close friends or family all the better, but the important thing is get away and take your mind off your business for a few hours.

Step two- reality check. Ok, you’ve had a brief respite now it’s time to see where you really are. It’s so easy to start beating yourself up or to put your faith in pipe dreams, and neither really helps. Make a list of where you are now personally and professionally. Don’t pass any judgments or associate any opinions just list the facts.

Step three- future objectives. You now know where you are and the next step is to list where you want to be. Be realistic here. Just because someone else is 3 months into the business and they’re on track for MDRT that doesn’t have anything to do with you and your reality. Besides that may not even be an important future objective for you. Think longer term and what you want from your life, and how you want to build a business you can live in that helps you to live that life.

Step four- identify the gaps. Unless you’re dead no one is where they want to be. All of us have more things we want to accomplish or experience. So, specifically where and what are your gaps. Grow big by thinking small. You don’t wake up one morning with everything you want. You wake up every morning focused on accomplishing at least one thing that will close those gaps and bring you closer to success. Your confidence may be pretty low at this point and these small daily accomplishments are just what you need to get you back on track and moving forward once again without feeling so much pressure and stress.

Sales Strategy

People Hate to Buy Insurance & Make Investments, so Stop Trying to Sell them

In general, people hate to be sold. As soon as you sense someone is trying to sell you something you immediately put your defenses up. This is especially true when what you’re being sold seems like an unnecessary and costly expense for something you may never use, and that when you need it won’t provide the value you believed it would when you made the purchase.

General principle number two, people make purchasing decisions based on an emotional decision and back up their decision with a logical explanation. When you sell insurance and investments you’re asking people to make a logical decision without the required emotional want first. Can you imagine if a car salesperson took you through a needs analysis for the car that fulfills your needs, and asked you to purchase the car without you ever being able to look at or experience the car? Would you buy a car based on a fact sheet that demonstrated the cars ability to satisfy your needs? No, you wouldn’t. A car is a major highly emotional purchase that you would never make without being able to see it, touch it, and drive it.

General principle number three, all businesses exist to fulfill and emotional want. Think about it. Does anyone need Ray ban sunglasses or a Harley Davidson? Does anyone have to use a lawn service or have their windows washed? Products and services alike fulfill an emotional want.

General principle number four, those businesses who understand the emotional wants of their customers thrive while their competitor’s struggle. Harley Davidson doesn’t need to use traditional advertising, and neither do most service businesses. Why? Because they so clearly fulfill the emotional need of their buyers that word of mouth enables them to grow. Harley Davidson deliberately creates an imbalance in their engine that makes them sound louder and ride rougher than other motorcycles, yet their owners are willing to pay a premium to own one. Pure emotion at work.

So, why are you still selling insurance and investments? Because you don’t know how to communicate on the level of your clients in a way that shakes their emotional tree. Saying things like, “I help you manage your risk” doesn’t mean anything to your prospects. Understand your market, understand the fear that is resonating in their head, and talk to them in their language in a way that riles that fear into a feeding frenzy.

Strategic Planning

What Can You Do about Pay-Go?

This new budgeting rule threatens the preferential tax treatment provided the products you sell your clients. With $29 billion dollars at stake this is like the mother lode vein in a gold mine for congress. With that much money available it seems only logical that it’s not “if” congress will start to tap into this resource, but “when”. You can wonder what happened, watch what happens, or you can make things happen. It’s in your best interest to take control of the impact of potential legislative changes on your business.

So, what can you do? Being involved with and supporting industry associations is one proactive measure you can take. The power is in the numbers and when you join together you have a higher likelihood of being able to influence the right people to delay the process or lessen the impact.

Take charge of your own business. How you position yourself, and what you do in the market place is entirely up to you. Preferential tax advantages are an added bonus benefit. Identify and exploit benefits that are greater than the tax advantages, and no longer lead with tax advantages in your marketing or sales process.

How do you know how to position yourself, and the benefits of what you do? The one word simple answer is research. Not the research you’re given by the underwriters, that’s good information to have, but the research you conduct with your client base is far superior. Know what’s on your client’s minds. Know what they’re talking about and the top things they want.

Make gradual changes in your marketing and sales messages. You don’t want to make such a drastic change in your communications that your clients are confused, but you want to begin to take more control over your messages and put more emphasis on non-tax related benefits. The sooner you proactively make changes that position you away from the tax issue, the less impact you’ll face when those changes begin to occur. And what if they never change the tax code? Well, in the extremely unlikely event the tax code never changes, you’re no worse for the wear and you have a position in the market place that’s more unique than your competition.

Strategic Planning

Do You Have a Customer Retention Rate Below 87%?

Do you even know? According to Agency Consulting Group Inc. half of the agencies have retention rates below 87%. Part of this loss is uncontrollable due to death etc., but at least another 5% is controllable. If you have 1,000 clients in your agency and you lose 130 each year and the loss of 50-80 of those clients are within your control this should be a major concern. You should want to take immediate action to stop the client drain. Just to stay even you have to obtain 50-80 new clients each year with higher acquisition costs than the costs associated with maintaining a client.

What are the controllable factors you may need to improve in your agency? You may be losing clients because of your sales process, your customer service, or your customer relationship aka referral system. In all likelihood there are opportunities for improvement in all three areas.

The sales process. Are you getting off on the right foot? Do clients start out feeling really great about their decision to do business with you or are they a little more hesitant? You have to start right to end right. During the sales process your new client should be feeling like you’re a trusted advisor helping them to discover the information they need, to make a decision that is best for them. If they feel like they’ve been sold and/or manipulated you may get the one time sale, but you can count on a quick exit. What kind of a relationship do your producers have with your clients? Are you sure?

Customer Service. Customer service is all about making connections that further the relationship, and make the client feel important. Connections are far more than a fake smile and tone of voice. Connections come from really taking an interest in knowing a lot more about the clients than their financial records, and using that information to reinforce your relationship. Everyone treats them nice when they’re buying, but not everyone treats them nice after the sale, and almost no one makes a conscious effort to get to really know them.

Relationship building system aka referral system. A good referral system serves two purposes. It deepens your relationship, and it helps your clients to think of you and recommend you. That means that predominantly your referral system needs to be about the client and providing value to them. Because they get so much value from you it’s only natural that your name is on the tip of their tongue when anyone even mentions anything about the kind of need you help people with.

Take a moment and do some quick calculations to find out your real, not estimated customer retention rate. If you find your real retention rate is less than 95% you have some opportunities to increase your net profit. Plug the client drain so you get the real value of your new clients in addition to the value you obtain from your loyal clients who stay with you year after year.

You Need an Unfair Advantage if You Really Want to Succeed in Sales

An unfair advantage isn’t illegal, unethical, or immoral. An unfair advantage is something anyone who wants to can have. And it’s really not very hard to get. But it does require commitment and a little work on your part.

There are four parts to your unfair sales advantage. First, you need to develop a clear and focused marketing message. Anyone receiving this message clearly understands who you work with, and the ultimate benefit you help them to get. Getting this right requires enough research so that you understand exactly what the people you want to work with want.

The second part involves properly handling the appointment so that the majority of people you meet with choose to do business with you. I refer to this part as a fail-safe sales process. Throughout this process you place the focus on your prospect and strive to understand their needs so you can help them to uncover and discover their need to take immediate action on what you have to offer.

The third part follows up the great experience you enjoyed with the prospect now customer. This is a referral system based on your refer-ability. You have to earn the right to be referred by doing a good job, staying in contact, continuing to provide value, and helping prospects to refer people to you. I know many of you use a referral system where you ask them to give you the names of their friends and associates, or you ask who they know on a list of names that they think you should contact. That approach may produce somewhat ok results, but there are much better ways to get really great referrals that lead to huge junks of business fast.

The fourth part comes from approaching all sales as the first step in a very long relationship. If you want long-term relationships you have to treat your prospects right throughout the process. You do that by getting to know them and continuing to treat them right as customers. That goes with the golden rule, do unto others as you would have others do unto you. And following the golden rule means being yourself, being respectful and kind, and helping in ways that go beyond what you have to offer.

Are You in the Driver's Seat or are You Taking a Backseat to Your Suppliers?

Whether you’re independent or captive it’s your business, and you need to call the shots. Unless you work for a firm you’re an independent business owner. If you allow your BD or underwriters to decide how you’ll run your business you may find yourself in a business you don’t like trying to fulfill their demands. Quite simply these organizations are just the suppliers you elect to use to provide the underlying products you plan to use to fulfill the wants and needs of your customers

It’s your business, what do you want your business to be like to work on and in? Far too often as small business owner’s you create a business that isn’t sustainable for you over the long haul. Sometimes that happens because you feel forced to make recommendations that you don’t agree with, that may even go against your values. Sometimes you get so product focused trying to fulfill your supplier obligations you don’t learn how to market yourself, and you find yourself in a position where even though you’ve been in the business say 15-18 years it’s just as hard to fill your appointment calendar as it was when you were new. Sometimes you realize that you’ve built a business with customers who are so high maintenance requiring so much time that even if you worked 24/7 you’d never be able to get where you want to go financially. These are just a few examples of what happens when you don’t have a clear plan.

So, if you want to have a successful long-term business the best way to avoid waking up and discovering that you hate even thinking about going to your office or making one more call you need to plan for long-term. Start considering what you want a typical day/week/month to be like in your business. Identify what would have to be different, and start taking actions to make those changes.

Don’t forget the importance of taking care of yourself first. You have so many demands, so many people pulling you in different directions that you could easily end up feeling overwhelmed and burned-out. Align the actions you take today and the decisions you make today with the business you want tomorrow. Making each decision with careful consideration for how that decision will impact how you want to run your business.

Don’t discount your values or your time. Your values are important to you or you wouldn’t hold them. Don’t let anyone else pressure you into temporarily setting your values aside. Those seem to be the decisions you always regret. Remember that you can never get more time, repeat time, or get a redo on how you spend your time. Time is such a precious commodity that you want to make sure the time you’re investing to build your business is a good investment both financially and emotionally.

Are You Abdicating Your Management Responsibilities?

At some point as your business grow you will need to hire people. This has been a frustrating experience for many of my clients for several reasons: they don’t feel comfortable that they can hire the right people, past experience didn’t result in the desired outcomes they envisioned, and the emotional upheaval led to a tremendous decrease in their own productivity and profits. As the owner it’s your responsibility to make the right decisions for your business and then to manage those working with you to ensure the desired outcomes.

Anyone who has ever hired the wrong person has every reason to be gun shy about the entire hiring process. There are a few things you can do before you ever make that commitment that will make it easier for you to hire the person who is right not only for the tasks but for the culture you want to develop for your customers. Set yourself up for hiring success by: establishing the key accountabilities for the position before you ever talk to anyone, use those key accountabilities to draft a job description and job requirements, have your top applicants take assessments that will indicate if they have the behaviors and motivators required for the job, interview the top applicants, and then make your selection based on the full information you need to make the best choice possible. If you don’t find a good fit in the first group keep looking. You’re far better off waiting for the right match than trying to make due with a wrong match.

Leadership is all about achieving results through other people. As the owner, by default, you’re the leader. It’s up to you to help your employees to achieve their potential and to develop beyond where they are the day they joined your organization. You’ve set high expectations and standards for yourself and there isn’t anything wrong for doing the same with your employees.

Set standards for their performance and yours. If you find that you aren’t hitting your standards and it’s related to an employee it’s time for that employee to find a better place to work because you don’t have a good match. Do you feel uncomfortable having standards for employees and holding them accountable? As the leader you have to set the stakes for what your organization must achieve this year to be successful. Once you’ve established these standards work with each employee helping them to discover what they can personally do to help the company achieve those standards. These become the standard for each employee. Make sure they are quantifiable and measurable so both you and the employee can instantly measure their progress. Make sure all raises and bonuses are performance based so there’s no question for anyone as to whether an employee did or did not meet their standards.

Make growth a more enjoyable experience by having your ducks in a row before you make the leap. Money is always a big concern and consequently you may think that you’ll have to settle because you can’t afford to hire a qualified person. In reality you can’t afford to hire an unqualified person. The real underlying issue is whether you’ve determined the canting point where you have to have additional resources in order to grow and you’ve fulfilled the financial requirements to afford this additional resource.

Let’s Complete the Story

In the August issue of Advisor Today Ray Vendetti’s article “Standing Out” provides part of the story. His article basically recommends joining your local chamber, attending events, participating on committees, and using creativity to generate attention. This can be good advice for certain agents and advisors, but there’s much more to the story than perhaps Ray had space to share. Before you join a chamber you need to be able to clearly answer the question, “why are you joining the chamber”?

To the shock and horror of most small business owners if you belong to a couple of chambers your investment is easily around $30,000 a year. You may be thinking there’s no way it can cost that much. Well let’s do a quick run through on the math. There are your membership dues to join, the value of the time you invest in the chamber and travel costs, the cost of meals and events over and above your membership dues, and all the fundraisers and sponsorships you’re asked to contribute to. If you can’t get a direct return on that investment, the chamber is the wrong investment for you.

Why do you want to join a chamber? You need to be able to clearly answer that question. If the chamber membership represents a good percentage of the people in your target market this could be a great place to meet those people. If you’re new the chamber can be a good place for you to practice your core marketing message, aka 30 second elevator speech, so you’ll be comfortable saying it and know it works before you try it on your “A” and “B” prospects.

So, you’ve thought about it and you’ve decided the chamber is the place for you, or you already belong and you want to make the most of it. There are some key things you need to keep in mind. Your objective at chamber events is to introduce yourself and establish rapport, so you can open the door for an opportunity to establish a relationship. You want to use the chamber to develop and practice your core marketing message until you have a core marketing message that gets other people’s attention and gets them ask you to tell them more about that. Your there to learn about a variety of businesses so you can choose where you want to focus your energies, and find out what other organizations and associations the people you want to work with belong to. Never give out a business card unless someone specifically asks for one, and never try to sell anyone anything or push for an appointment at a chamber event. Be a good listener and help other people at the event to connect.

Giving first is always a good idea as it evokes the Law of Reciprocity. When you do something nice for me I’ll naturally want to do something nice for you. Relationships are the foundation of your business and you may develop some instrumental relationships through the chamber that may eventually lead to business, but recognize that most of the people attending chamber networking events are hunting for business for themselves rather than looking for an opportunity to do business with others. It’s always a good idea to come up with creative and imaginative ways to connect with people and make them feel good about you, but wouldn’t it be that much better to be doing that with people who are real prospects? Real prospects may or may not be at the chamber, for those of you who aspire to great success you probably won’t find the people you want to meet at chamber events, so you want to have as much information as possible before deciding to join this very expensive marketing option.

P.S. Thank you readers for the suggestions I’ve received to make my blog RSS feed friendly. I am working with my web developer right now to make that possible. It will require switching platforms and will take a little time, but I wanted you to know I am working on it and I appreciate your comments and feedback.

Where do You Find the Millionaires?

If you’re a financial advisor you dream of building a business around millionaire clients, right? These are the people who not only have money for you to manage, but they have lots of it and investing is a major priority for them. But are you looking for millionaires in all the wrong places? Let’s make sure you aren’t.

Please don’t confuse the symbols of wealth, or titles with actual dollars to invest. The truth is the symbols of wealth are typically exclusionary to wealth. Warren Buffet is a classic example demonstrating this truth. He lives in the same house he’s lived in for over 30 years. The neighborhood he lives in is a nice older neighborhood, but not a neighborhood associated with the up and coming. If you didn’t know what he looked like and had never heard his name, and you met him somewhere you probably wouldn’t peg him as one of the riches people in the world. The people working to have the trappings associated with wealth often have little, if any, liquid assets known as cash they can invest. This is also true with prestigious titles. A title has no correlation with wealth. Don’t fall into the trap of getting off-track by falling for these decoys.

Realize that true millionaires have a far different mind set than those who appear to be millionaires. In reality the bulk of the millionaires in this world are people who understand the value of money because they’ve worked hard to earn their money either as small business owners or dedicated workers. Some would call them frugal. They’re very good stewards with their money. They save first, they spend far below there true standard of living, and they tend to be quite and easily approachable people.

You won’t find these people on a leads list you’ve purchased. You will develop and guard your list of millionaires yourself through your own research and connections. Because these quite salt-of-the-earth people keep a low profile you won’t often find them among the apparent rich and famous. In all likelihood you’ll originally connect with these folks through your own research that helps you to know where they hang out, and you’ll be the only one who bothers to show up on their turf and interact with them as people first. The other way you’ll develop your list is by getting introduced to them through their most trusted advisors.

Who do millionaires turn to as their most trusted advisors? Hands down their number one trusted advisor is their accountant. Followed by their estate attorney, and perhaps their banker, but realize their banker isn’t Joe Smith the loan officer. Their banker is the bank owner or President. You may be surprised to learn that these silent millionaires often hold a seat on the bank’s board of directors. Their other most trusted advisor is their other millionaire friends. That means when you make a connection with them, and you do what you promise, and you act like the decent human being you are, and you treat them likewise, you’ll tap into a referral vein that will enable you to build a nice little business that will more than take care of all your needs.

Let’s Clear Up Some Marketing Terminology

Target Market. Your target market is the specific group of people or businesses you exist to serve. Having even a fairly broad target market is better than the world at large, but the more specific you can be in your focus the greater response rate your marketing messages will get. If you want to work with business owners you may want to segment that down to small business owners, women small business owners, women small business owners in retail, women small business owners in retail in Omaha, and then perhaps even women small business owners in Omaha in retail ages 35-55 with aging parents. The more clearly you can define your target market the easier it is for you to find them, and to know enough about them to know exactly what they want.

Niche. Your niche is the service you provide the people in your target market that fulfills their emotional wants or removes what they don’t want. This is where a lot of people get confused and think their niche is property & casualty insurance or health insurance or investments. Those are underlying products that your target market could care less about. No one wakes up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat thinking about getting insurance or making investments. Your niche is the emotion you provide. Going back to our small women retail business owner in Omaha age 35-55 with aging parents. In her case her aging parents may be quickly losing their ability to take care of themselves. She may very well wake up in the middle of the night wondering what she is going to do to help her parents, and what she will do if she is faced with this same situation herself someday. She may be feeling fear, helplessness, hopelessness, alone, and lost. Could you remove those unwanted emotions for her? Of course you could.

You can use the shotgun approach or the laser approach when preparing your marketing message. A lot of people fear that if they narrow their target market and niche they will lose out on a lot of business, so they take the shotgun approach to marketing. Their message is I am everything for everyone. Unfortunately, what you fear will happen if you narrow your target market and niche is exactly what happens when you don’t. The reason is simple, consistent and predictable. Because you want to be everything to everyone you end up being nothing special, unique, or interesting to anyone. The laser approach actually gets you more business faster with far less work than the shotgun approach. Because you spend your time in the right places, you have an attention grabbing marketing message, and your target market knows exactly who you work with and why. They reach out to you to find out about doing business with you. As you gain customers through your laser approach to marketing they have friends and associates and guess who they adamantly refer them to. Their referrals actually widen your net faster and more easily than you ever could trying to use a shotgun approach to marketing.

Your marketing message can serve the purpose of lead generation or direct response. In most circumstances service professionals will want to use their marketing message for lead generation. Direct response is a one step marketing system where you communicate your entire marketing and sales message and ask for an immediate buying decision. The purpose of lead generation is to provide a non-threatening way for your ideal prospects to raise their hand, so you can begin to develop a relationship with them. All too often insurance agents and financial advisors incorrectly use a direct response marketing message as a lead generation system. When you send a stranger a letter telling them you’ll call them to schedule an appointment you’re incorrectly using a direct response marketing message as a lead generation system. The reason it doesn’t work very well is because they don’t know anything about you, they don’t know why they should want to meet with you, and you have no relationship or connection with you at this point. Plus when you use that approach it’s all about you, and you’re asking them to give you something they don’t want to give you; an appointment. A lead generation system offers something of value first, and continues with a follow-up system that automatically builds a relationship. That way either they contact you, or by the time you contact them they feel like they know you and know something about you and they understand why they would or wouldn’t want to meet with you.

You can use your marketing messages to fill a big bucket or as a filtration system so you only ever meet with qualified prospects. The big bucket approach lumps everyone together and dumps everyone into an appointment. When you communicate the right marketing message to the right people they’re in one of four stages of awareness, according to marketing guru Michel Fortin. They are oblivious, apathetic, thinking, or hurting. You’ll never work with those who are oblivious because they don’t realize they have a need for your service and even if they do they’re consciously choosing not to do anything about it.

Here’s Why Your Calendar Isn’t Enough and You Need an Accompanying To Do List

What happens when you try to use your calendar as your main and only time management tool? When you have time based information you need to track that information requires: a time specific action (appointment), a day specific action, or it may be information that will require action at a later date. So, where and how does all the information get entered into your calendar? And how often are you re-writing and re-entering the same information onto the next day for several days? Does that make sense?

Use your calendar for it’s intended purpose to record time specific actions aka appointments. Your calendar isn’t intended to be an information archive. When you try to use your calendar as an information archive you’ll find it’s not easy to retrieve the information you need when you need it. Because six months from now it will be very difficult for you to remember the day and time of that very important appointment so you can view your notes or remember the actions you promised to take.

Here’s where the simple little To Do List shines as a simplification tool. Once a week you want to collect all your To Do’s on your list. In order to get on your To Do List what you write must be written in terms of the action you will need to take. So you wouldn’t just enter Bob Jones you would enter the actions you need to take in relation to Bob Jones. The actions you put on your To Do List don’t need to be prioritized or organized as you enter them on your list. They don’t need to be just things you have to take action on this week. The beauty of the tool is that it functions as a brain dump so you aren’t trying to store all this information in your head or cramming it into your calendar where it doesn’t belong.

Make a template of your To Do List that already has all the standing actions you have to take on a weekly basis. That way you aren’t unnecessarily re-writing them each week, and you don’t run the risk of forgetting them. You’ll have things with extended deadlines so for example, if you have something that has to be submitted a month from now you put it on the template with the submission date in parenthesis behind it and all the required actions broken out and listed beneath it. That way you can check things off as you go. And you add things as you think about them when you think about them immediately.

Uou reprioritize your To Do List on a daily basis. As you’re working on the things on your To Do List each day you’re checking things off so they no longer exist to have a priority. At the end of each day prioritize the things that absolutely must get done the next day. This will probably mean 3-6 things. Each day focus on accomplishing the things that if completed, would make that day a success.

At the end of the week when you set up your To Do List for the next week challenge each entry before you carry it over. Your To Do List will have things that you want to take action on this week, but you also use it to record things requiring future action and planning. This will help you to have everything in one place out of your head, and not scattered around your office in a myriad of different places and on different forms. As you evaluate each thing you carry over for the next week ask yourself if this is something that really doesn’t have to be done, or something you could have someone else do. The little To Do List is a critical companion tool to your calendar in your time management strategy.

Would it help if you had an example of a To Do List that I use and have shared with my clients? If so, just email me This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it

and say, “hey, I’d like that To Do List Template”. :-)

Sales Strategy

Are You Cut Out for Sales?

Have you ever just felt like you’re beating your head against a brick wall when it comes to sales? You begin to wonder if you’re in the wrong business, if maybe you don’t have what it takes to succeed in sales. There’s an easy impartial way for you to know beyond a doubt if you have what it takes to succeed in sales. The answer is assessments. In about 15 minutes you can know beyond a doubt if you’re in the right business or not, and why.

There are two aspects involved in having what it takes to succeed in sales. The first aspect is your natural behaviors. You’ve probably heard of this assessment referred to as DISC. Your natural behaviors represent who you are naturally. You also have adapted behaviors that you’ve adapted to perform in the world of work. When your natural behaviors are too adapted for the world of work you are in a very unhealthy situation, and you would benefit from finding another way to earn a living. Your natural behaviors help you to understand how you respond in relation to problems, work pace, procedures, and people. Your behaviors aren’t right or wrong it’s just that you’re better suited for different types of work because of your natural behaviors.

The second aspect in having what it takes to succeed in sales involves your natural motivators. There are just certain things that motivate you. You’ll take action to fulfill your need to have satisfaction in relation to your motivators. This assessment is called Personal Interest Attitudes and Values (PIAV) and you probably have never experienced this assessment, but it is critical to understanding whether you’re a match for sales or any other business/career. Understanding your motivators helped you to understand why some things are energizing and motivating to you, and some things are stressful and draining. Recently a lady came to me saying she just couldn’t sell and she didn’t know what she was going to do. I had her take both the behavior and motivators assessments. Much to her surprise both assessments came back indicating she is a natural sales person, so how or why was she having so much trouble in sales?

The final piece of the puzzle is an assessment of your selling skills. This assessment takes about 45 minutes to take, but when you’ve finished you’ll see exactly how you measure up against the best sales people in the world. Not only will you understand how you compare, but this assessment enables you to pinpoint exactly where in the sales process you’re tripping up. When you know exactly what to work on you make quick progress. Back to the lady who is a natural sales person but didn’t think she could sell. From this assessment we learned exactly what and where she was causing herself so much trouble. After a few coaching sessions you would never have known that she ever thought she couldn’t sell. She took off like a selling rocket.

There isn’t any need to struggle with sales or destroy your self-esteem beating yourself up about whether or not you can sell. In a few short minutes with the help of some inexpensive tools you can know beyond a doubt if you have what it takes, and if you have what it takes where you’re stuck. Get unstuck and end the guessing game so you have the confidence you need to get really good in sales.

If you or someone you know is wondering if they have what it takes to sell have them shoot me an email, and I can help them to get the information they need to end the guessing game. This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it

Success Strategy

You Have to Exist for a Reason

Michael E. Gerber in The E-Myth Revisited states, “without a clear picture of that customer, no business can succeed”. That statement is directly related to why most businesses fail. It’s definitely a prime reason most agents and advisors fail. You start your business as the worker bee, so without you there is no agency no practice. You start with a product/service, and try to find people to sell it to. But that’s the wrong approach, that’s an approach that will make you a slave to your business that will leave you deprived of time and cash.

Do you want to work smarter not harder do you want to create a business that provides for you financially, and allows you to have time to enjoy your life outside of the business? If you answered yes, then take heed to the statement I quoted from Mr. Gerber’s book. You need to immediately determine the customers you want, and position yourself to provide for their wants now and in the future. When you try to be everything to everyone you end up burned out and washed out. You have nothing more than the most miserable job you ever imagined because it consumes your every waking minute. You’re living in your own worst nightmare.

The reason you exist is to fulfill the wants of your customers. You must be able to define your customers in great detail. Not only the group(s) they belong to like senior citizens, doctors, small business owners, women, Nebraskans, etc. But you need to address the quality of the people within that group you want to attract, that you want to work with. You can build a business with “A”, “B”, “C”, and “D” clients, or you can build a business with mostly “A” and a few “B” clients. You know you want to build a business with mostly “A” clients.

”A” clients are the easiest people to work with. “A” clients appreciate your value, they aren’t demanding, they don’t shop you for price, they do repeat business with you, and they refer you. “A” clients are more profitable, and take far less time than the rest. So, you not only need to know who your customers are. This is your target market. But you need to be able to communicate the quality of customers within that target market you want. Here’s a personal example that demonstrates how you narrow your client base and become more successful. I (small business owner) recently needed a new computer. I was ordering the computer over the phone so I could have it customized for my needs. The representative asked me if I had a price I wanted to stay in. No, price wasn’t my concern my concern was getting exactly what I wanted. The representative helped me build the computer I wanted, and now it was time for the upsell. The representative asked me if I wanted service, absolutely I wanted the longest term fastest on-site service I could get. Then the representative asked me if I would ever need help with software problems, and if I would like to have someone virtually visit my desktop and resolve those issues as they arose. My response was absolutely. Now do you want customers who want the cheapest computer they can get with no service or support, or do you want a customer like me who appreciates all the service and support I can get and am willing to pay for it because price isn’t my concern? Duh.

You can build a business with “A” customers once you know who they are, what they want, the qualities they have; and you can communicate that to current customers and prospects. I know this is a scary idea for some of you because you’re thinking you don’t have enough customers period let alone cream of the crops, but have faith your long-term success depends on it. Look at your existing clients, and start writing down the names of your favorite customers. The ones you just love working with, and you’d love to have a whole lot more of. Once you’ve got your full list start writing the things you know about each customer behind their name. When you’re done look over your list and identify the commonalities. You may just have pegged your target market(s). Then begin to list the characteristics and qualities that make these people so great to work with. Aha, you’ve just reached a starting point for changing the make-up of your business, and building a business that will be both successful and enjoyable.

Have you signed up for the Success Model yet? ====================================================================== Sales Strategies

Insurance Sales Success: Number 2 Reason You Can’t Sell

The second reason you can’t sell is because you don’t understand why your prospects don’t want what you have. You have exactly what they need it’s as plain as day yet they just don’t get it. How can that be? Are they just stupid or lazy or what? None of the above, you are approaching things the wrong way.

Your prospects don’t want what you have because you haven’t taken the time to learn about them and their wants. It’s that simple. If you want to be a sales super star do your homework before you ever approach anyone. You need to identify very specific groups of people, these groups are called your target market, and you need to know them and their wants and needs. People buy to fulfill their wants before their needs so place your main focus on learning what they want.

How do you find these specific groups of people?. Start with your existing affiliations. Unless you’re a hermit you already belong to groups of people. People naturally group themselves based on the type of work they do, how they like to recreate, and how they want to support their values and beliefs. So, what groups do you already belong to or what groups could you belong to because they are part of what you like to do or believe in naturally. When you belong you’re one of them, you know their language, you know what they care about, and you can learn what they want.

Figure out how to match what you have to what they want. Let’s use an example to demonstrate how understanding your target market’s wants will increase your sales. Let’s say you absolutely love golf. You play golf absolutely every minute you can. You attend tournaments. You belong to a club and participate in club activities. People associate you with golf, and they may not even know what you do to earn a living. Now let’s say you know that most of the people that also play golf and that you see on a regular basis really want to retire to a golf community. These folks already know you it’s your job to move them from that phase to knowing something about you. So when the opportunity arises as someone asks what you do you might respond that you’re the person who helps people have the financial wherewithal to retire in a golf community. Can you see how that might get their attention? How they might ask you how you do that? Isn’t that exactly what you want, attention?

Your confusion about why your prospects don’t want what you have stems from you having a product or service and trying to find someone to sell it to. That, my friend, is the wrong approach. That is an approach that will lead to lots of hard work, extreme frustration, and very little reward to show for your efforts. Change your thinking and start getting the return on your investment you deserve. Know what your market wants and then give them exactly what they want the exact way they want it. It works like magic.

Insurance Sales Success: Reason Number 1 You Can't Sell

You think your failures and lack of success is someone else’s fault. Ok: your sales manager’s a jerk, the underwriters just ruined a perfectly good product, no one is providing you with good marketing materials, everybody already has an agent, you haven’t got a great presentation or all the gizmos the competition does, you can’t get compliance to approve anything, etc. So what, all that may be true and more, but if you want to succeed it’s entirely up to you and no one else. If you want insurance sales success your first biggest step is to accept that no matter what isn’t working, no matter what you don’t have, no matter who’s a jerk, you and only you can change all that and make it work in spite of all your obstacles.

When you can’t sell or you’re just a little stuck it feels rotten, and it’s easy to lose your confidence and feel down on yourself. To overcome reason number 1 you have to change the way you think. It will take a conscious effort on your part to change the way you think because what you think is an ingrained habit that formed early in your life when things didn’t work out for you, and as you experience troubles in your sales career you automatically think a certain way about the experience based on your past experiences.

There are really two parts to overcoming reason number 1 and neither are about rah-rah motivation. Overcoming reason number 1 requires self-leadership and opportunity expectation. You can have the most positive outlook and mindset around, and still be an absolute sales flop. Having a positive attitude and mindset is good because it makes you a pleasant person, and if you’re not a pleasant person you aren’t going to sell anything to anyone. But thinking happy thoughts alone will not put money in the bank in the form of sales.

Self-leadership is essential for insurance sales success. Leadership isn’t about a set of characteristics or traits that someone is born with. Leadership is a developable skill set. Leadership is all about achieving results through yourself and others. A leader sees the world as it is and accepts it. A leader takes responsibility for their own results and never places blame on others. A leader does the things others won’t to get results others don’t. A leader is totally responsible for their sales successes and their sales flops.

Opportunity expectation comes from accepting every situation and acknowledging there is an opportunity. The opportunity that exists in situations that outwardly appear poor is potentially your greatest opportunity of all. Be glad you may be struggling to sell anything or to get unstuck now because when you figure out what you need to do to change that you will learn a valuable lesson that will serve you over and over again. I’ve had clients that were terrifically successful their first couple years and then all of a sudden there success came to a screeching halt. They came to realize and related to me that during that time of great success they were accidentally successful, and that now they needed to learn how to be intentionally successful. Learn how to be intentionally successful by: learning how to turn failures into successes, learning the lesson to be learned in every temporary defeat, finding creative ways to turn temporary defeats into future successes, and using your imagination to make connections no one else has thought of. You have more opportunities in front of you at this very moment than you could ever handle use your self-leadership to start turning those opportunities into results.

Insurance Sales Success: Top 25 Reasons You Can't Sell

Identify the top 25 reasons you can’t sell now, and start your path to insurance sales success. You can’t fix what you don’t know is broken and you can’t solve problems you don’t understand. This article will help you to identify the things within you that are holding you back. Unfortunately, everything on this list is your fault, and it’s all your fault. Accept that and determine what you’ll do to correct your mistakes.

Only the top 3% in your industry have mega insurance sales success. Statistically 10% of you are great people in the wrong career. If you suspect you may be in the wrong career or want to prove to yourself that you’re in the right career there’s a quick way to do that. Take assessments that reveal your natural behaviors and motivators. Another 10% of you are barely surviving. 77% of you get most of the things you need to do right, but you can’t make forward progress until you get unstuck by removing your remaining barriers. If you’re in the top 3% who get it, you really get it. You make sales look effortless and your peers are green with envy. Even though you are the super star everyone else wants to be, you don’t know how to help other people to have the kind of success you enjoy.

So what are the top 25 reasons you don’t have insurance sales success:

1. You think your failures and lack of success are someone else’s fault.
2. You don’t understand why your prospects don’t want what you have.
3. You think you need a killer presentation.
4. Your own fear has a strangle hold on you.
5. You don’t know how to gain the interest of your prospects.
6. You think everyone is your prospect.
7. You think you have to have all the latest gizmos to succeed in sales.
8. You don’t know how to get a commitment.
9. You don’t know what to say.
10. You talk too much even though you think you don’t.
11. You don’t know how to listen even though you think you do.
12. You’re trying to persuade.
13. You don’t set appointments for the right reason.
14. You prejudge yourself and others.
15. You haven’t earned referral rights.
16. You don’t get what your prospects need.
17. You don’t earn their trust.
18. You don’t understand the Law of Attraction.
19. You’re trying to succeed by being someone else.
20. You don’t work on being the best.
21. You want the quick fix instant solution.
22. You forget sales boils down to people liking you because you’re real.
23. You’re thinking about what you need not about what the prospect needs.
24. You don’t give first.
25. You don’t understand you need to aim small miss small and fail forward to succeed fast.

Long list, no easy fixes, or instant solutions just important truths about sales success. Your biggest obstacle to your sales success is you and that’s why it’s all your fault. Getting you out of your own way isn’t an easy or quick thing to do, but when you have your moments of revelation everything will change for you almost instantly.

Until you get yourself past these things you just feel stuck and frustrated, but once you overcome these things you have a fail safe sales process that will get you moving far and fast. Now this article provides a list for you to identify your areas for improvement but you need a lot more. You need to know what and where you’re mistakes are, and what you need to do to fix those mistakes. This is the first article in a series with follow-up articles going more in-depth about each reason on the list. If you’re ready to get unstuck check back for the next article, or just the one that really speaks to the reason you’re stuck.

When You Lack Integrity and Try to Short Circuit the System You're Not Going to Achieve Success

Build your path to success on strong values and integrity. Even though you may not think about your values every day, you have values that you feel very strongly about. You know exactly when someone or something is rubbing your values the wrong way. You get that lump in your throat, or maybe a sick feeling, or maybe your little inner voice is screaming run!

When you get these warning signs stop, listen, and react immediately. It helps to take a few minutes and really define what your values are now and why they are important to you. As you work to build your ideal future check your plans against your list of values, and make sure you have a value match. That way you won’t achieve success only to find that the success you’ve achieved makes you miserable.

You’ve known people whose values didn’t match yours. You also know people who want to find a way to cheat hard work and dedication, and achieve success the quick and easy way at some one else’s expense. At first it may appear there approach is working, but in due time everything blows up in there face.

When you intentionally take a wrong action at some point it will come to everyone’s attention when you least expect it. It just isn’t worth the embarrassment or damage to your personal character. Integrity may not get you there faster, but when you get there you can look back without regrets.

When you suspect a client, associate, friend, or even family member lacks integrity you may want to disassociate yourself as much as possible. When you were a little kid your parents worried about your friends because they said you are who you associate with. Well, Mom and Dad were right. In the beginning as you recognize those integrity issues you try to explain them away, or discount them because so and so didn’t mean any harm. The longer you do that the more you’re undermining your own integrity until you come to accept so and so’s lack of integrity as acceptable. It’s a slippery path I strongly recommend you avoid if you have your eye on success. You don’t want to reach the crest of your mountain called success only to be suddenly ripped backward off the mountain because your integrity breeches have come to light. Hold fast to your values, honor your integrity, and achieve a level of success that is fulfilling and satisfying.

Want to Increase Sales Today?

The telephone may be the quickest way to fill your sales funnel provided you know what to do. If you’re like most people the thought of picking up the phone and calling a complete stranger makes you break out in a cold sweat, and generates a feeling of intestinal distress. What can you do to actually feel comfortable making the calls in the first place, and get positive results from your efforts?

Why does the thought of cold calling make you feel so uncomfortable? You have many very valid reasons you react so negatively toward cold calling beginning with your early conditioning, and ending with the fact that you haven’t properly prepared to make the call in the first place. When you were little you were told not to talk to strangers, to speak when you were spoken to, and not to go where you’re not wanted all great advice for anyone in sales. Now you’re all grown up and you’re terrified to use an instrument you’ve been using for years. When you get past early conditioning and everything else, it really comes down to not being prepared to make the calls. Because you aren’t prepared you get negative responses which fuels your negative feelings about making the calls.

There are several parts to preparing for the call. First, you must really understand what you have to offer in terms of an ultimate result or benefit from the solution you have for the problem or want the people you are calling have. This is called a message to market match. But you won’t or can’t know that unless you’ve done your research on your target market, and then only contact the people in your target market with your message to market match.

You have to know how to properly handle the call itself. Hello you’re calling them it’s up to you to prepare an agenda and objective for the call otherwise you’ve wasted their time, and yours and potentially blown the opportunity to ever work with this person. When you make a call you have to start the call with an attention and interest getting statement related to the ultimate result they want. That’s the only way you’re going to get them to give you even 10 seconds of their time. This phone call provides a means for you to qualify or exclude the person you’ve called, and the whole point is to establish an agreed upon commitment that places this person in your sales funnel.

The most important thing for you to remember when making calls is that your job is to listen not to talk. Get there attention, quickly qualify or exclude them, and then let them do the talking. Engage, interact and respond like you would with any other person as you in a normal conversation. Remember though that you want them to do the talking. When it’s obvious to both of you that they have an interest in your solution schedule an agreed upon next step. With proper planning and a little practice you can make the cold call jitters go away and start filling your sales funnel.

Time Management Tip

Time Management Isn't about Turning Yourself into a Workaholic

Sometimes people are really turned off by the idea of time management. Sometimes they have a very good reason for feeling that way because to them time management just means figuring out how to do more work than they’re already doing. They already feel overtaxed, so why would they want to improve their time management enabling them to do even more work?

Actually time management is about freeing yourself up for more of the pleasures in life. You don’t want to learn and use time management ideas so you can do the work of two or three people. You want to improve your time management so you have more time for planning, more time to do the work load you already have better without all the unnecessary stress, and most importantly it’s about giving yourself time to spend as you choose.

Time management should really be about giving yourself more balance and freedom. Each day should be divided up in the way you want it to be. So there should be time each day for work, time each day for yourself, and time each day for each aspect of your life. You don’t want to live the same life that someone else wants to live, so how you choose to divvy up your day will be unique to you. Some people need 9 hours of sleep each night and others function very well on 6 by their own choice. Neither is right or wrong it’s just what’s best for you.

There isn’t a right or wrong when it comes to time management in general. Time management is only right when it gives you the outcome you want. It really begins with your values and integrity. Thinking about your values, how do you want to spend your time? If you aren’t servicing your values in how you spend your time now start blocking out time to fulfill your values, and then hold yourself to it. You’ll feel much more satisfied and fulfilled, and a whole lot less stressed. Because you’re feeling so much better about yourself, you’ll handle your daily stressors better.

Time management gives you back control. When you’re time management is out of control it’s an external expression of the lack of control that is going on within you internally. As you choose how you spend your time each day you’re making decisions that are either in integrity with yourself, or out of integrity with yourself. Making decisions that are out of integrity with yourself makes you feel stressed, strained, and out of control. But when your decisions are in integrity with yourself you feel energized, relaxed, and fulfilled. If you feel time stressed and time strapped, you may want to check to see if you are out of alignment with your values and if you’re lacking integrity with yourself as you make your time related decisions.