You're Going To Be Great At This!

I met Carl Willis a few years ago through LinkedIn and I immediately was struck by his generosity. He is always happy to get on a Zoom call or accept my invitation to appear on my podcast. He has even invited me on his podcast, as well as other online events like his webinar.  In this episode, Carl and I discuss working on skillset, and more specifically, communicating your business' mission online. Listen in and let me know what you think. And please subscribe/follow the podcast! Chris Castane s is a humorous speaker who helps sales people succeed through workshops and humorous presentations. His new book, "Nearly Motivated" is available on Amazon. For booking information,  click here . His new podcast,  "You're Going To Be Great At This!"  is available on most platforms.   He's also the president of  Surf Financial Brokers  selling life and disability insurance in several states.

I recently had a great talk with Dave Campbell from True Media Solutions and host of 9 (!) podcasts. We discussed how people don't take action and delay their goals because they are waiting to learn more and their desire to make it "right the first time".  If you are in the process of starting a business, a podcast or any other project, and you keep putting it off until you think the time is right, now is a great time to listen. And please subscribe or follow. Chris Castane s is a humorous speaker who helps sales people succeed through workshops and humorous presentations. His new book, "Nearly Motivated" is available on Amazon. For booking information,  click here . His new podcast,  "You're Going To Be Great At This!"  is available on most platforms.   He's also the president of  Surf Financial Brokers  selling life and disability insurance in several states.

I was pretty surprised when I saw that my last blog post was several months ago. Time really does fly when you're having fun, or in my case, just having a busy workload. In the last few months I've been on the road for an approximate total of 9 weeks. Needless to say I get less than motivated to work in a hotel room after selling insurance for 8 hours, so blogging isn't on my "to do" list. While driving in my car during these trips I try to make my time productive my listening to podcasts on business and marketing. I'm not sure if someone was trying to tell me something but over the course of a week or so, I heard 4 episodes on how starting a podcast can help boost your business. After mulling this over and considering my options, I decided to take the plunge and start one myself. I've had a YouTube channel for a while which is fine, but I wanted to do something a little different. So I decided to start the "You're Going To Be Great At This!"...

A friend of mine recently did some contract work for a company. The project took several weeks and the work was much more detailed than my friend anticipated. Not only was the work itself difficult, but so were the other people who he had to deal with while completing the designs and other specifications.  When he was done he did something very important. He waited a few days and then took an objective look at the entire process, where he discovered what worked well, what didn't work well and the lessons he learned in the process. He even posted all of this information in a "bullet point" style on social media. With that information, his future projects will be somewhat easier if he runs into the same issues. Many people in sales and marketing fail to do this. If something works well, they just move on to the next deal. But if they hit a snag and fail to get the sale, they complain about something, usually the client or the working conditions, without having an honest ass...

Let me start with saying that there are only two times when someone is okay using profanities. The first is if the "curser" is under 3 years of age. There's something oddly adorable about a toddler dropping f-bombs, especially when the parents of said child feign any knowledge of "where she heard that". Fun and cute at the same time. The other situation would be if the person using blue language is over the age of 85 and female. Hearing grandma threaten to "stomp a mudhole in your ass!" would make every kid laugh because they knew she wasn't that serious. This example is only made better by memories of my Greek grandmother watching professional wrestling and yelling at the TV.  Get your copy of "Nearly Motivated" here  https://tinyurl.com/3tp37psa In other than these two situations, keep the cursing to yourself, or your friend group. And maybe that group of guys from church you hang out with. But definitely keep it away from work and prof...

Are you leveraging social media to help your business? Are you posting daily and creating content like the "experts" say to do? Most importantly, are you getting results? I've tried using most of the more popular platforms for my insurance business, as well as my writing and speaking business. To say the results are "mixed" would be generous. This may be because I really haven't invested much into advertising on these platforms.  The way I see it, when Facebook, for example, allows me to set up a free page for my business, that is like a "free trial" to see if I can get any interest in my product or service. After nearly 15 years of this trial period, I have garnered little to no business.  One can come up with two arguments here. The first is why would you throw money at advertising when you haven't seen any returns. The other side is that "you could have done better if you had quit being a tight ass penny pincher." Fair enough. But ...

Analogies are everywhere in business these days, but the sales profession has some of the best ones. One I have used for years is that when prospecting and marketing for clients, you should be leaving landmines everywhere, because sooner or later, someone will "step on it" and your sales will blow up. Recently, Davan Johnson, a coworker and friend of mine, appeared on my YouTube channel and we discussed prospecting for clients. He used the analogy of "planting seeds" while "preparing for a harvest". I chuckled as I explained that I preferred my more violent analogy. "I'm attaching life insurance applications to the landmine," I said. Feel free to use either analogy when you consider your prospecting plans. Both have the same principle, which is to always look for opportunities to meet people and tell your story.  You never know when one will blossom or explode. Ch ris Castane s is a professional speaker who helps sales people succeed through...

In my first book I told the story of going on a call with my sales manager, Tom, who was obligated to observe each of the people on our crew every few weeks or so. Fortunately for me, the manager was pretty cool, even though he was a couple of years younger than myself. He had apparently gone to work for the insurance company not long after getting out of high school and had done well enough to get a small promotion. With that being said, these "ride alongs" weren't as horrible as I expected them to be. We'd usually take his car, which saved me gas money, because driving around in the middle of nowhere doing door-to-door sales could rack up a lot of miles and waste fuel. On our first stop Tom taught me an important lessons in sales. When making a sales call with a coworker, make sure that only one of you is doing the talking . The best way for this to succeed is to decide before going into through the door who will make the presentation.  If we decided that I was to g...

A few years ago I was working with an insurance company that provided a "book of business", which consisted of clients who already had our insurance policies. These "orphaned" policies were written by agents who had left the company (which is not unusual in the least as the industry is rife with turnover). The hiring managers would try to attract new sales reps by offering up these clients as "people who need to be serviced", which was to mean that we could call these people and set appointments to try to sell more insurance to them. I learned quickly that my time was better spent prospecting locally, mainly because the vast majority of this book of business was over an hour away. Apparently an office had closed in another city and these clients were from those accounts.  One of my co-workers had, on the other hand, been working the phones and trying to see these people. He would try to set appointments to make his driving time as efficient as possible whi...

When I graduated from college, the idea of a career in sales was not scary, as much as it was just strange. In my head, sales people were pushy, manipulative and a bit underhanded. There was no way I was going to be the stereotypical sales guy.  However, I was in need of a job, so I used some sort of twisted logic to believe that if I could do well selling crappy accident insurance plans, I could move up in the organization. I apparently was incorrect on several parts of that argument.  It didn't work out that way at all. But I did get some basic sales training, which helped me in my next career move, which was at an office supply company.  The owners of the company had decided that they needed to add an outside sales person to the mix, something their competitors had been doing for years. They took one of their employees, Ed, who worked part-time in the retail store, and moved him to a newly created outside sales position for a summer. With no training, Ed managed to get...

It doesn't matter what you sell, or whether it's a product or a service, we all deal with people who just will not commit to buy, much less keeping an appointment. Some people would say that these people are not ready to buy or they are on the fence. One of my co-workers would just call them "flakes". And as she says, "No one likes a flake." When I lead a sales training session I mention that my definition of sales is a bit different than most people's. To me, sales isn't a transaction, but an attempt to convince someone to do something that may or may not want to do, but do it as soon as possible.  Let's use the example of a family that needs a new car. The old one is on its last legs, high mileage and needs to be serviced quite frequently. The purchase of a new vehicle keeps getting put off for several reasons, but more than likely this family just doesn't want to spend the money on a car.  Or we could use the example of a young family that...

A few weeks ago I joined an online meeting sponsored from a LinkedIn group. This group usually has a presenter or speaker who gives advice to the group, which is mostly made up of small business owners and other entrepreneurs.  As the presenter talked about sales and ways to improve the bottom line, someone in the group asked a question about how to manage others when sales drop. The speaker made a comment that hit me in the gut. "As sales decrease, there is an increase of micromanaging." Words had never been truer.  I immediately thought back on all of the times when my own production had taken a dive. On those occasions when I was working in an agency with managers, the micromanaging would begin. There was much hand-wringing. "What are we going to do to get you out of this slump?" I would hear.  My first thought was to ask, "Where were you when I was doing well?" I thought better of asking, because I knew the answer already. And the answer to getting out...

In the previous two posts I discussed a couple of company sponsored sales courses that I was required to take as part of my onboarding. One was focused on memorizing a sales pitch word for word with some extra emphasis on keeping a positive mental attitude. The other was nothing more than product training. Both of these companies had a lot of turnover, which meant that they needed to constantly hire new agents as the previous agents would quit just as quickly.  With this in mind, I would be remiss if I did not discuss one of the better sales courses. This sales class was with a very large life insurance company (I'll call them ABC) and was more comprehensive than the others. In my mind, the larger the class, the more turnover the company had. And as we have seen, more turnover means less successful sales people. Our class at ABC only had about a dozen of us, so that seemed promising.  One of the first things they mentioned was that only about 15% of the applicants had made it ...

As mentioned in the previous post I have worked with a lot of different companies over the years, and a few had a sales training course which I was required to attend. The one I discussed earlier focused on memorizing a sales pitch word for word and indoctrinating the class into a "cult" of positive mental attitude (PMA). I think the latter was because their product was so horrible we had to keep a plastered smile on our faces while trying to sell it. About 15 years later I went to work for another insurance company which had a completely different approach to their training. All they taught us for a solid week was their products, which were okay, but made the training meaningless since we weren't given much other pertinent information.  Imagine I gave you a toolbox and said, "This is all you need. Now get out there and build me a house!" If you had no construction experience, you wouldn't know which tools were appropriate, how to plumb pipes, saw wood, when...

As I have mentioned in my book, we all are selling something. Whether you are selling cars, books, workshops, financial services, real estate, or even yourself (see: applying for a job), we are at some point trying to sell something. My definition of sales is trying to get someone to do something, right now, that they could do later or don't want to do at all.  That all sounds pretty opaque, so let me give an example. Let's say that Mary needs a new car, but she's been putting off the purchase for various reasons. She shows up at your lot "just to see what prices are like these days". Mary honestly has no intention of purchasing a vehicle, but thinks she is doing research.  First off, Mary could be doing this on the internet, but Mary is old school. By showing up on the lot, we can assume that she is interested in a car, even though she says that "now isn't a good time." Sorry Mary, but you should know that you have walked into a den full of closers....

A few weeks back I touched on the subject of coworkers who were trouble in a post titled " What Can I Do To Succeed? " This time I thought I would give a few more true stories of these toxic people and how they operate. First off, let me say that I have probably been one of these people at some point in my career in sales. It's a hard job and especially tough when one is not succeeding. As I have said many times, people who do not do well in sales are, in many cases, not given an honest assessment of the job when they are brought on board. Too many hiring managers and recruiters will only tell new hires the good parts of the job and leave out the bad.  For instance, a few years ago I interviewed with a very large life insurance agency in Charleston, SC. The manager showed me a leaderboard with all of the top producers' names and production. There were about a dozen names on the list. I had seen this kind of pitch before, so I asked how many agents were in the agency. ...

A few months back I ran into a nice lady who had purchased a life insurance policy from me many years ago. We had stayed in touch for a few years but I lost touch with her. Needless to say I was a bit surprised when she responded to one of my posts on Facebook regarding some new policies my agency was offering.  After speaking to her for a while I realized that a lot of things in her life had changed since we had last spoken. She had made several career changes and was currently working for a non-profit organization. Her personal situation had changed as well, as she had a new beau who seemed to be a good guy. During our conversation she mentioned that the life insurance policy she had purchased from me years ago had lapsed and now she was in the market for a new policy. Her concerns had also changed a bit over the years. Her parents were now deceased, but before they died she had been one of the principle caregivers in their later years. With that experience she had come to realiz...

Years ago when I worked for a large life insurance company we were encouraged, and sometimes badgered, to buy their products. The manager of the office would say, "I can't tell you how it works, but if you own it, you'll sell more." Apparently there was some magical force in the universe that we were all unaware of. At the same time, there was a huge increase in credibility when I would talk to a client about disability insurance, for example, and they would ask, "Do you have a policy?" Of course I did, but if I had said that I didn't, it could be a deal breaker.  "Why should I buy it if you don't think it's good enough for you to buy?" Awkward. When I left that company and went to another company the new manager said, "We sell on need. If you don't need it, don't buy it." He was right. Of course, he would lie and tell his clients he owned everything. Needless to say, I left that company after a few months.  But does o...

If you are in sales you are either a W-2 employee, with a nice benefits package and salary. On the other hand, you may be like myself and countless others who are independent contractors, which means we are on our own when it comes to benefits, wages and overhead. In other words, we are self-employed. With any situation like this there are advantages and disadvantages. A few of the advantages are: You work when you want . You are not bound to a schedule, generally speaking. But if you want or need a vacation, you can do so whenever you care to. Personally, I like to work late at night or early in the morning when I don't have a lot of interruptions. If my work is finished I can "clock out" when everyone else is starting their day.  Lots of tax deductions . I write off everything I can because I'm self-employed. If I take a client out for coffee or a meal, I write it off. Travel expenses, including gas and lodging, are also written off. Work from home? I have a home of...