You're Going To Be Great At This!

Imagine having to stand up in a room full of prospects and give a sales talk. For many people, public speaking is unbearable and, as we all know, one of the biggest fears of a large number of people. Now consider giving that same talk to a group of people, but this time you are with your coworkers next to you waiting to present as well. It doesn't matter if there are five of you giving a presentation to a large group or just two of you in the home of client, you have to be prepared ahead of time. Determining who is going to do most of the talking, the order in which you speak and where you will sit when others are talking are important in keeping the audience engaged. Years ago when I first got into the selling professionally, my sales manager would take me with him (or ride along with me to my clients' homes) to critique each other's talks. Mostly he was there to make sure I didn't say something stupid. Before we would go inside a home we would discuss the plan of atta...

After speaking to a co-worker today, I've got mixed feelings on the whole pandemic thing. Yes, hundreds of thousands of people are dead and even more have gotten sick. People are tired of having to isolate and stay in their homes. I get all of that.  Like others, I've had to make some major adjustments in my practice and have had to find new ways to market ourselves. My insurance agency, Surf Financial Brokers, is no different. Social media and a web presence are one of the many ways we are trying to get the word out about the products we sell and the services we provide.  Actually, we were already changing the way we were marketing pre-Covid. The traditional way of selling insurance, by asking for referrals and mingling at networking events, was still working for us, but only in a limited capacity. And to be honest, agents can get burnt out quickly that way. My agents and I had some conversations as to what changes we could make to expand our messaging. We also asked for feed...

Marketing yourself and figuring out how to do it efficiently are two of the hardest things for sales professionals to wrap their heads around. The actual "selling", where you sit down with a prospect and pitch your product or service, is difficult enough. But all the work that goes into getting that meeting with the prospect can take up the bulk of your time. It's like my former co-worker you say, "The hardest part of the job is finding someone to talk to." Someone gave me a great analogy one time. Imagine a very good professional golfer playing a round of 18 holes. For a good player, a round takes around three hours. But the actual playing of golf, teeing up the ball, a couple of practice swings, and hitting the ball only takes about 20 seconds. Multiply that 20 seconds times 18 holes and our golfer has spent 360 seconds, or six minutes actually playing the game.  What is happening in that other 2 hours and 54 minutes? After the golfer hits the ball, he or she ...

Last week I ran into an old colleague of mine whom I worked with back in the 1980's (yes, I'm that old). "Frank" and I talked about our brief stint selling accident plans in rural North Carolina and how much we hated the job. We got caught up on each other's personal lives. He had been married, gotten a divorce, has a couple of kids and so on. I mentioned that I had gotten out of the insurance business, went into retail and gotten back into the insurance business against my better judgement.  I also mentioned that I had been doing some speaking and blogging and how people seemed to enjoy the stories from those good old days. He asked me, "Do you remember that time we had to work on a Saturday and met those hunters on the side of the road?" Immediately I laughed. Yes, I did remember that horrible day in the fall of 1985. Our manager, a gruff man with a gin blossom for a nose, blew up at the entire sales crew one Friday because our numbers were low. "...

Do you work for a company or does a company work for you? Do you have a boss or manager? Are you on straight commission or are you getting a salary too? These are reasonable questions to consider when you think about working in sales.  Currently, I'm a 100% bona fide self-employed person who works on a 1099 status. That means I am contracted through several companies to sell their products on a 100% commission basis. As such, I set my own hours, I pay my own operating expenses and am, in a nutshell, accountable to no one but myself. It hasn't always been like that though.  Back in the 1980's I sold office supplies on a B2B basis. I enjoyed it because I didn't have to call on people in there homes as I had done previously selling insurance. The nice part about calling on businesses is that you get to work during "business hours", which means I was usually home in time for dinner.  That job gave me a small salary as a cushion for the slow weeks, which was great ...

In my book, "You're Going To Be Great At This!" I discuss joining networking groups and civic organizations. To be clear, these are two separate kinds of organizations. Networking groups can be broken into several categories, including exclusive, non-exclusive, online and in-person, with their main focus on you getting to know and create relationships with others in your business community.  As an insurance agent, it's imperative that I have colleagues at arm's length to work with, bounce ideas off of, and generally can relate to when it comes to our industry. This is important for each industry, whether  you sell cars, homes or pottery from your own kiln. Networking is the lifeblood.  When it comes to civic organizations, on the other hand, it can be more complicated in that each group has a main focus which isn't necessarily about your success. Their goals may be more altruistic, like helping kids in need get scholarships. Yes, you can network in one of thes...

Every once in a while I get called on to be perform one of my civic duties and serve on jury duty. Of course, no one wants to take the time off from work and sit in a courtroom watching a trial. In this case, it was a municipal court where most of the offenses are things like drunk driving or violations of city ordinances. As my luck would have it on this occasion, the offense was fighting.  The defendant, a cab driver , had picked up an irate fare who had been drinking and had quite a buzz going. The passenger, who had previously been convicted on the fighting charge a few weeks earlier, was there to testify against the defendant. He was a large man with a geri curl and was still angry about his conviction.  According to both men, the cab driver pulled up in a minivan and the passenger got in the vehicle, immediately berating the driver for "being late". He got in a seat directly behind the cabbie and began slapping his head once they were en route to the rider's destina...

Sales is hard. From finding a prospect to closing the sale, the entire process is tough. Add the stereotypes of sleazy people using high pressure techniques and you can immediately see why the deck is stacked against your success. With all of this negativity working toward your inevitable failure, how can you push through? Depending on who you ask, the answer is usually has something to do with your motivation, or how you can stay motivated. We all want to succeed, but when your success rate is low and you are exhausted, it can be tough to keep going.  When I wrote "You're Going To Great At This!" I made a point of mentioning at the outset that it was not a motivational book. I wanted it to be more about what sales is really like, which potential landmines to look out for and offer real world tools you can use. In other words, I wanted it to be the book that I wish someone had given me when I first got started in the business.  Even though I had done some sales in high s...

It's been said that one of the biggest fears in life is speaking in public. My first attempts speaking to groups of people were horrible, for me and the audience. I could feel my nervous lips begin to quiver as I mumbled my way through a presentation, all the while trying to remember the order my presentation was supposed to be in.  Trying to work through this, I took a stab at stand-up comedy. People have always told me that I was funny (I have to agree sometimes) so I put together a few jokes and went for it at an open mic night. Quickly I realized that the expectations from the crowd were higher than I expected. With arms folded and a look that said "entertain me", I did get a few laughs. It was tough but when I finished I felt accomplished. A couple of years went by and I decided to join my local Toastmasters group. It was one of the best moves I ever made. Learning to speak in a "safe environment" with constructive criticism and encouragement, I picked up t...