You're Going To Be Great At This!

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...

Covid is starting to show a steady decrease in cases, hospitalizations and deaths, which I hope continues. Of course, the Debby Downer in me sees the cold weather and holiday gatherings around the corner, which can mean that people are gathering indoors again. Let's continue to think positive thoughts though. With that in mind, I have been considering in-person networking events that have begun again or will soon. I have attended a few online events that really didn't give me an opportunity to really network, as we had to wait for our turn to speak, which can dampen a spontaneous conversation. One of my concerns is that for those who have not done any networking in person, this skill set can be rusty. Also, there are those who haven't gotten into a field during the pandemic and have never even been to an event before.  There will be those people who will jump right back into networking and say "It's just like riding a bike!" Bless their hearts! For the rest of...

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 ...

Over the years I have moved around a bit working for several companies. The reasons for doing this have varied, but mostly it came down to a couple of factors. The first one being money.  For example, I went to work with a very large insurance company years ago. They offered me a base salary and a commission based on my sales. My job was to contact current clients and have them come by the office to purchase life insurance. When these people would come into the office the other staff members would write the policies seeing notes I had already put into the client's file. I didn't get my commissions and brought this up to my superior, who didn't care. After seeing this happen again and again I left with no explanation.  Another reason I have left jobs is because the recruiting manager was less than truthful about the job. As I have mentioned in my book, when I interviewed for my first sales job (I was right out of college) the recruiter said all kinds of things that weren...

Sales people know that one of the hardest parts of the job is prospecting. As a former colleague of mine used to say, "I spent most of my day just trying to find someone to talk to." Prospecting is what keeps the sales pipeline full. An empty pipeline can mean trouble.  Of course, there are different ways to solve the issue of the pipeline. One is to cold call, which can work for some people. I spent the early years of my sales career calling on people at their homes, which was a horrible way to work. Putting yourself in the prospect's shoes, you probably wouldn't want someone to come to your home unexpectedly while you were relaxing after a hard day at work, much less someone trying to sell you something. Personally speaking, I have no problem whatsoever with cold calling businesses. As a matter of fact, after calling on people at their homes for a year of so (and having guns pulled on me), any fear of cold calling an office building was non-existent. The battle was ...

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...

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...