You're Going To Be Great At This!

We all want to land that one big prospect that can make our month or year. But how do we work on that "whale" while working our usual market? In this episode of our podcast, I discuss how to recognize which ones of these "whales" we are targeting and how to turn them from prospect to client. As always, I appreciate your support. Please follow/subscribe to the podcast. Thanks! 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 conversation with Bill Whitaker, realtor and owner of RawtapeRPM.com. Bill talks about his time in the real estate business, and his journey that led to running a business as a consultant and coach for real estate agents all over the country.  Below is the footage of the conversation. Please subscribe to our YouTube channel. Ch ris Castane s is a humorous speaker and former comedian who helps sales people succeed through workshops and humorous presentations. His newest book, "Nearly Motivated", is yet another humorous look at sales. For booking information,  click here.  As president of  Surf Financial Brokers  ,  he sells life and disability insurance in several states.

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...

Several years ago I was arriving to a networking event a bit late.  I parked my vehicle near the back of the lot and walked past all of the other attendees' cars with their wraps and sign magnets. I noticed a few realtors had attached business card holders to their cars. For some reason I kept thinking about how smart it was to let people grab a card while I could be doing other things, like shop. A few years later I bought one of these card holders from a local office supply store. I measured out how much room I had on the back of my car as well as the size of the card holder. Next I went to Vistaprint and designed a sign magnet with enough room for the card holder to stick on without blocking my message. You can see the results below.   I quickly realized that the sun and rain would make my cards look "weathered" after a while so I learned to only leave 2 cards in there at a time. (Cards costs too much to throw out a dozen at a time because they got soggy.) This also ma...

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 talk to sales organizations I give my definition of sales, which is a bit different than the one you would find in a dictionary.  A sale is the actual transaction, where "sales" and "selling" are the steps that lead up to that transaction. You see, sales is trying to convince, cajole or urge someone to take action now , not later. Also, there does not need to be a monetary goal at the end of the process.  Think of a college basketball team. The freshmen, who have come from different high schools with different coaches, are now playing for their new coach, who has a specific game plan in mind. He has to convince his new players (we're assuming that the upperclassmen have been convinced) to "buy in" to this plan so they are all on the same page.  Anyone who has tried to talk a co-worker into trying a new way of doing things or tried to convince a toddler to eat their vegetables is "selling". In other words, we all sell.  But the part of ...

For those of us who work on a "commission only" basis, it can be difficult to make a budget for household expenses or other personal financial decisions. Not knowing from one month to the next what your income will be can be tough. With this in mind, many sales professionals have decided to supplement their income with extra income, by either working a part-time job, starting a business on the side, or working as a "gig" employee. Years ago when I was just getting started selling insurance, I would work a part-time job in a retail store. This extra income helped to pay some of my expenses, which helped out tremendously until I could get my career off the ground. As soon as it looked like I may be okay, I turned in my notice. The funny part was that my retail manager asked if she could keep me on the payroll in case one of the other employees called in sick. I worked about once a month for them for another 2 years. A friend of mine who is also an insurance agent, has...

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...

When one is hired as a new sales rep for a company, they may be required to attend a sales training course as part of the onboarding process. Recently some coworkers and I were discussing the various companies we have worked for over the years and how these training sessions differed from one employer to the next.  My first job in sales had a required two week sales class. As I have mentioned in previous posts, this company was so shady that we were in the third day of the training when one of our classmates finally realized that we were hired for door-to-door sales. "When were you going to tell us?" the angry young man screamed at the instructor.  It had been previously suggested to us that we would have clients ready to see and that referrals and leads would be served up on a silver platter. None of these things were true, as were most of the other things they told us while hiring us. This was my first experience dealing with a company being less than truthful with me, but ...

There is a family in a nearby town that is pretty affluent and owns multiple businesses. These folks have been involved in an array of organizations, from the chamber of commerce to local government and anywhere in between. The third generation of this family is now in the process of running their operations, with the adult children taking over some of the responsibilities.  Over the years I met a few of these people at various functions and I felt I had built some sort of rapport, as I had worked alongside them at cookouts and fundraisers. My relationship with them was friendly but not personal. However, I had become a bit closer with the one young lady, who I will call Ann. Ann was married to one of the adult children (we'll call him Frank) who was starting to take over the business.  Ann was also involved, in an ancillary way, with some networking groups I attended. She and I, along with a few others, would sometimes grab a bite to eat or discuss businesses that were refera...

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...

For those of us who do a lot of B2C (and some B2B) sales, keeping files on those clients is important. I like to take notes during my initial meetings about the client's wants and needs, but at the same time, I write down a lot of personal information, like dates of birth, addresses and other vital information that I can refer to later. Making sure you keep that information safe and secure is of utmost importance. The news is rife with stories of security breaches involving millions of people's personal information. Most of those kinds of lapses are caused by hackers who break into large financial institutions, but there are those times when a smaller business becomes a victim of a cyber attack.  On the flipside are those instances when hard copies of personal information fall into the wrong hands. There are no hackers to blame here, just plain old carelessness.  A few years ago I was working with someone who left her work computer in her car in a restaurant parking lot, but i...

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...

We all have a specific market that we would like to aim our attention to, be it business owners, single moms, realtors, or some other group of people. For me, as an example, I prefer working with small business owners, but I also do a lot of work with realtors. I didn't go looking for them, but we just have so many realtors in my area that it couldn't be helped. There are times, however, when you find yourself working in a totally different market, That's fine because in the end a sale is a sale. I'm not going to turn away business because the client was not in my business plan. And neither should you. When you do have someone approach you that you had not planned on helping, it's important to remember they may have different needs and budgets than what you are used to. Your usual banter may not be applicable or appropriate when talking to a new group of clients either. A good example of this is when I recently found myself getting referred to several school employe...

One of the most important life lessons I've shared with people is to know when to shut up. Seriously, people talk entirely too much. They want to share their opinions, political beliefs, recipes and personal drama because they either think that others want to hear this or that we need their valuable information.  This happens in sales also. There are sales people who give out all kinds of information about their product or service, from the features of the product to the long list of names of satisfied customers. But there comes a point in the sales process when you have to stop selling and close. And when you close you need to stop talking.  When it comes to closing, there's an old sales adage that says, "The one who talks first loses." For example, let's say you have been working on a customer for about twenty minutes. Now it's time to close and you go with something like, "So what do you think? Would you like to start filling out the paperwork?" (...

Let's face it, when it comes to selling products and services to people, not everyone is going to be happy. Our job is to make sure that people are satisfied with their purchase, but there are those people out there who, know matter what you do for them, will never be pleased. The root of all of this is the adage that says "The customer is always right." We know that this is not the case. Telling people they are wrong or "misinformed" is hard to do, especially when the customer sincerely believes they are right. When I sell insurance I go over a lot of information, maybe too much. That is part of the job because the majority of my clients really are not insurance experts. They know what they have been told by their family or friends.  For instance, I had a grown man, probably in his 40's, who only bought whole life insurance because "that's what my father bought". We did the math and figured out how much coverage he needed. When I looked at his...

This past weekend I had a conversation with my sister. We hadn't spoken in a few weeks and she likes to check in on me because I'm still her "little brother". As usual, my work came up and I told her about a mutual friend of ours who has been jerking me around lately on some insurance policies. At first the lady wanted policies, now she won't return my phone calls. "I didn't know she was like that," my sister said. "She always seemed to have her act together." Then my sister asked, "Do you get that often?" "Often enough," I said. People can be great, but there are so many that are just complete flakes.  I have never understood why people do things. For instance, I told my sister how I will meet people who ask what I do for a living. About a third of the time, when I let them know that I am an insurance agent their response is "Give me your card. I have been looking to get more insurance." I hand them a card and...

On the last couple of posts I discussed how difficult it can be dealing with co-workers and management. However this time I want to take a look at the clients we deal with each and every day. In my book I had an entire chapter on "How To Be A Good Customer", but apparently it went unread. Before I get started I want to acknowledge that a vast majority of my clients are awesome people. Many have become friends of mine as well, especially the ones that are local to me. This helps tremendously when there is an issue as they know the kind of person I am and can trust that I'm not out to screw them over.  But as we all know it only takes one grouchy, irritable jerk to ruin your day or week. Anyone in sales, self-employed or otherwise depends on their customers to earn a living and can share a multitude of stories about these people. Here are a few of my stories.   1. The drunk guy. Back in my retail days I managed a music store. We opened at 10am (mall schedule) and usually f...