You're Going To Be Great At This!

For the most part, selling insurance is a Monday through Friday job, with a few exceptions. There are those people who are only available on the weekends, and for those clients I make appointments. However, there was a time at the beginning of my sales career when a sales manager required us to cold call on a Saturday and it didn't always end up as planned.  Our sales crew had fallen behind in our production goals and apparently the sales manager was getting grief from his boss (or bosses). Either way, he announced to us during a Friday morning meeting that we would be working the following morning, which was a cool Saturday in the fall. No one was pleased to hear this since most of us had plans to sleep in or do something more enjoyable.  After we complained a bit the manager said we could ride in pairs, so I looked over at a guy I knew and got along with, Frank. We nodded at each other and after the meeting we came up with a game plan for our Saturday morning. Frank said he ...

While coaching youth sports at the local rec center years ago I met one of the parents on an opposing team. He gave me his business card and a few days later I met him and his business partner for an introductory meeting. Nothing much came from it as they were just starting out with little to no money to spend. I promised to keep in touch.  About a year went by when I ran into Jeff at a local networking function. He said he and his business partner had split up, as there were differences in business philosophies. However he implied that he was now running the business much more successfully by himself. I invited him for a lunch meeting at a local sandwich shop (my treat, of course!) and he accepted. The sandwich shop was in a strip mall. I liked taking people there to meet because it was quiet and reasonably priced. Over the years I've learned the chances of someone buying from me increase if I treat them to a meal or coffee.  Across the parking lot of the strip mall was a cha...

If you are like me and carve out time from your schedule to work the phones booking appointments, you know how frustrating it can be when people don't show up. I'm not sure what the statistics are but if I book five meetings, there's a good probability that only three or four will actually keep their appointment.  Yes, there are legitimate reasons why people don't always keep their appointments. Emergencies happen. Cars break down, people get sick and a litany of other reasons can keep your prospect from seeing you. However, the reason that most often prevents me from seeing someone is that they forgot about it. Apparently, these folks don't think that the appointment is important enough to put in their calendar. When you are "smiling and dialing" to fill your calendar, you can tell by their tone if someone is actually going to keep their appointment. If they say something like, "I may be busy but you can come by." In my opinion that doesn't ...

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...