DAILY ROADBLOCKS TO WEEKLY SUCCESS

 These are 7 roadblocks to daily success that I overcame to become a National Top Producer in Final Expense sales, closing 10+ sales each week as a personal producer. See if any these sound familiar to you. 

 1.   TECHNICAL ISSUES.

In the starting blocks a runner shakes his legs, adjusts his clothing, crouches down inside his lane, positions his fingers with precision on the start line, THEN springs forward at the crack of a gun to begin the race. Starting Final Expense (FE) sales involves getting several technical items lined up first, before an agent can take off into sales success. Ex: During the first 5 months of FE phone sales, my internet suffered a slow death, until I HIRED SOMEONE to fix it on a 30 day billing statement. Because, my internet was working fine after it was fixed, I was able to close sale after sale each day, and easily pay the $100 service charge 30 days later. Point is, get your technical issues fixed. So that you can earn income, then pay bills comfortably. Many sales agents simply do not get technical problems FIXED.

2.   LOW SALES GOAL.

If a sales professional closes 1-3 sales per week, and one cancels later, this may create a chargeback that will blow an agent out of the water financially. Set You Sights HIGHER. A sales professional must to do ethically whatever it takes to close 7-12 sales per week. Then, if you have one cancel, which creates a chargeback, it’s no big deal, because you have several others sales to make up for it. It all washes out very profitably for an agent who is closing high sales volume consistently each week. THIS IS WHERE YOU NEED TO BE ASAP. S  t  r  e  t  c  h  yourself. Stop the habit of setting your sights on a low number of sales.

3.   QUITTING EARLY.

Agents who are not seeing the results they want to see are usually working as they always have. Average work ethic = average results. If you work 7-8 solid, uninterrupted hours on the phone until 5pm without closing a sale, what do you choose to do – Quit, or Keep Working? Winners average NO LESS than one sale per day (9am-9pm). If a phone sales agent stays on the phone only 2-4-6 hours without a sale, then gives up or goes away to do something different – we have a word for this choice – POOR. Get ready for some “tough love” from a sales pro: As a self employed individual, if you stay poor, it’s because you want to be.

4.   INTERRUPTIONS.

What you choose not to do is equally as important as what you choose to do.  Only an extreme “family crisis emergency” would take me out of the “sales seat”, or away from my selling schedule. This is how serious I am about closing sales: I DID NOTHING ELSE, nor did I take care of ANYTHING else…until I closed my first sale of the day. While I am selling, if World War III is going on outside, I wouldn’t know it. Nothing else gets done, until I close the first sale TODAY. The end. Are you focused on closing your next sale, or being distracted by the next interruption?

5.   ISOLATION.  

The sooner an agent knows how to overcome an inevitable learning curve; the sooner sales will begin to click off one-right-after-the-next. MOST agents can’t figure out FE sales on their own – including me! As an entry-level FE phone sales agent years ago, I sent several LIVE sales presentation recordings to my manager to critique, and benefited greatly from several individual coaching sessions with my manager. Too, I faithfully attended bi-weekly sales workshops conducted by Top Producers in our company during the infancy of my FE phone sales career, until I became the #1 Producer. If you are struggling to close sales, are you reaching out for help? Top Producers like Wendy in Louisiana, who closed 22 sales in one week, stayed involved with her manager, until she became very good at selling on her own. The surest way a struggling agent can FAIL is to become an island.

6.   DISORGANIZATION.

1)      All items an agent needs to close one sale should be at your fingertips (ie: Rate Calculator, whitepages.com, Med Chart, Agent Guide, Product Knowledge, Rider Information, FE Carrier Contact Directory, Sales Script, Referral Script, Burial Expenses Chart,  insurance applications.com, etc..)  Sales tools need to be accessed in an instant during a live Sales Presentation with a customer TO CLOSE A SALE TODAY. The best place to store most of these items is at the very bottom of your computer screen called the “task bar”. A disorganized agent who wastes precious moments searching-n-fumbling for these, while a customer is on the phone waiting, will be interpreted by the customer as something “fishy” going on. A lull in your sales presentation delivery creates doubt in the mind of an interested customer. Without saying it, this becomes the reason why a customer refuses to purchase coverage at the close.

2)      An agent without a daily written out schedule is trying to handle a thousand different stressors spinning around in the mind, while talking to customers on the phone and selling. It doesn’t work. Liberate Your Mind. Put all of your responsibilities/obligations down on paper to be handled one at a time in due course within your Daily-Weekly SCHEDULE. This takes everything off of your mind, so that you can actually enjoy what you are doing. When an agent is enjoying him/herself, the customer will know it, and sales will be closed sooner than later.

7.   PERSONAL DISCOURAGMENT.

If I reach my daily goal of closing one sale after giving 5 separate sales presentations, this means I was not able to close 4 opportunities. It is in the moments after an agent loses or misses a sale which defines future success or failure. ACT, don’t react. While experiencing the inevitable learning curve of FE sales, you will get disappointed along the way by a number of circumstances (personal or business). Decide at the beginning of your day that for the next 8 hours, you will ONLY focus on puting your energy into that which gains profit (ie: sales presentations, dialing the phone, talking to customers, closing closing closing closing closing), until you make your sale. Refuse to take it personal when a sale does not exactly work out. Mature agents realize the nature of sales is a “numbers game” and find positive reason to dial-n-smile within the next lead opportunity. Combat emotions to truth. Because it is not a perfect world, lucrative growth means a price tag of overcoming daily roadblocks. At week’s end, winners are average people who were not stopped in reaching their goal.