Prospecting

Here are a couple simple tips to become more productive and successful at the most important thing a salesperson is required to do: Selling! If you’re not investing your time in selling as much as you possibly can each day, then you may not be making the most of your opportunities. Sounds obvious, doesn’t it? Well, sometimes we can get …

Have you ever had a sale that didn’t close, and you weren’t sure why? Chances are you lost the sale because you didn’t establish sufficient trust and rapport with your prospect. Once you have developed that trust and rapport, you’ve actually got the most difficult part behind you, and you’re probably going to make a sale! You see, it really …

The difference between entrepreneurs who fail and entrepreneurs who wildly succeed can be summed up by their appetite for one, five-syllable adjective: UNCOMFORTABLE.  Let me tell you a story to illustrate this point. When I was 24 years old, I agreed to accompany a broker on a sales call with an important prospect. We introduced ourselves and gave him our …

Some advisors hold onto clients that they consciously know are bad for them instead of taking one bold step that could improve the quality of their business. The challenge of letting go is tough for some people especially if they see their business situation as less-than-ideal but are more afraid of the unknown. It’s been said that the unknown is …

It was an early morning meeting chaired by the Senior Vice President. There wasn’t any reason to anticipate fireworks on that particular day so the atmosphere was rather relaxed. A sales manager was the last to arrive, and as he sat down, he whispered to the person next to him, “All I want to do is sell.” The meaning was …

These days, so much of our everyday exchanges happen online. Sure, it’s convenient, but not always the most appropriate venue for an insurance sale to take place. I happen to work with Medicare Supplements, and I find that phone calls are vastly underrated in terms of a way to close those sales. Initiating applications by phone actually makes great sense …

Why is it that some sales reps consistently earn a six-figure annual income while other reps, putting in the same hours, selling the same products, and trained by the same sales manager struggle each month financially to make ends meet? The answer to this question is painfully simple: The six-figure sales reps understand the importance of business development and never …

So how do you approach friends and others about the work you do with the goal of getting referrals? One of the major challenges is that they haven’t directly experienced the value of your work. So basically, you are not yet “referable” in their eyes. How do you become referable with them? Obviously, it would be great if they became …

When we hear the word “negotiating,” we often think of closing a big sale or making a big purchase, but negotiating is something that can happen every day with family, co-workers and clients. You are negotiating any time you tell someone that what you want is different from what they are trying to give you. The common goal of negotiation …

Americans spend more than $12 billion per year on the nation’s most pervasive addiction—self-help and the seemingly insatiable desire to be more successful. Like other compulsions, we can’t get enough to satisfy our longing. Every couple of weeks, there’s a new self-help book, video or seminar. Malcolm Gladwell’s latest addition to his shelf of self-help books is totally enticing. It’s …