Tag Archives: FEATURED

Picture this. Your best clients are John and Jane Smith. One day, you are sitting in your office, and the phone rings. You pick up the phone and it’s Jane Smith, who says, “I have some terrible news. John died last night. He was in a terrible car accident.” After you express your sincere sympathies to Jane and her family, …

Now that the initial dust has settled on the first round of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) enrollment, and the “who won and lost” discussions have gotten their requisite belaboring by the punditry, the real answers (and additional questions begged by those answers) may lie in the more complicated details: How many have enrolled? The Obama administration …

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 …

Ours is a business full of twists and turns.  And it’s all a matter of how we handle those twists and turns that shape us.  I recently had an annuity case that put me to the test. And I wondered all through the entire process if I was man enough to complete it. Let me start from the beginning.  It …

Over the years, I have been fortunate enough to have had many people come into my life and take the time to mentor and guide me along my career path. Mentors, like bridge builders, help people go from where they are to where they want to be. Mentors build their bridges not with concrete and steel girders, but with words …

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 …

Four Words: Massive Rejection Equals Success. A top producer is the person who hears the most ‘No’s. To realize profitable weekly sales results, every customer ‘no’ should push you and get you closer to a sale. “Some people fold after making one timid request,” says Jack Canfield, “They quit too soon. In sales there are usually four or five ‘No’s …

In the first part of this series, we broke down the basics of health plans under the Affordable Care Act (ACA also known as ObamaCare). This time, we are going to focus on some of the terminology that is wreaking havoc on employers, employees, and agents alike in determining compliance under the ACA. Three definitions come up on a recurring …

The idea that marketing is something that companies “do” is so ingrained in the business mindset that it’s impossible to think otherwise. Yet, that’s exactly what needs to happen. It’s true that many marketers enthusiastically avoid the traditional marketing label with energetic efforts to recalibrate their careers. No matter what you call it, pull the curtain back and marketing largely …