Advice for New Agents Part II

Previously, I had outlined the first of several recommendations to help new agents start their careers on the right track and to realize longterm success. They are:

1.) Be Urgent
2.) Don't be Patient with Your Needs
3.) Keep Your Focus

My recommendations continue with the following:

4.) If you Think It; Ink It. Years ago, author, businessman and sales expert, Ron Willingham, taught me the value & power of writing goals and benchmarks down on paper. Writing down your plans, goals, and strategies for success does something positive for you. For one, it makes the goal tangible and "more" real. Your ambitions become codified to a degree when they are written down; they become part of a record or public document that others can possibly see and note. Whatever the driving force or "magic" that is found with writing down your goals happens to be, the fact that it helps you to accomplish what you set out to do is undeniable. So, if you think it, ink it in order to be successful.

(Mark McCormick in his book, What They Don’t Teach You at Harvard Business School, tells of a Harvard study conducted between 1979 and 1989. In 1979, graduates of the MBA program were asked to set clear written goals for their future and their plans to accomplish them. It turned out only 3 percent of the graduates had written goals, 13 percent had goals but they were not in writing and 84 percent had no specific goals at all aside from getting out of school and enjoying the summer.Ten years later, in 1989, the researchers again interviewed the members of that same graduating class. They found that the 13 percent who had goals that were not in writing were earning, on average, twice as much as the 84 percent of students who had no goals at all. Most surprisingly, they found that the 3 percent of graduates who had clear, written goals were earning, on average, 10 times more than 97 percent of their graduating class. The only difference between the groups was the clarity of goals they had set (and spelled out) for themselves when they graduated.)

5.) The Will to Win is Not as Important as the Will to Plan to Win. If ever I had an adopted mantra, it would be those words. I cannot overstate the importance preparation and planning is to being successful. The assumption that success "just happens" to a person is all too often an accepted viewpoint. Success is a deliberate act. I encourage everyone to be deliberate with their goals, ambitions, and their lives as much as is possible for them. If you want to be successful in business and in sales, then plan on success. Write down your goals and measures for success. Give those goals a time-line to be followed. Plan out a path to success one step at a time. Regularly review your plan...adjust your methods...And for goodness sake, act on your plan. Nothing gets done until someone does something. So plan your success and act upon it. The will to win is not as important as the will to plan to win. Plenty of people with strong wills, exceptional talent, and enviable privilege fail in life. Why? They fail because they relied on their will, talents and privilege to make them successful. They never thought to plan out their success. Be deliberate. Plan to be successful.

6.) Control Your Calendar...or someone else will. A challenge that faces everyone who is working, employee and employer alike, is time management. For the new agent that is busy with marketing & sales activities, controlling your calendar and utilizing the limited resource of time as efficiently as possible is a critical element to success and happiness. Get a calendar, use it, plan out your days and weeks with activities that are marketing & sales related. Develop regular habit patterns in your work schedule that are targeted at getting people in front of you (marketing) and in holding sales conversations with as many people as possible. Push to the periphery of your work day those tasks that are not marketing & sales oriented. Confirm appointments and reschedule them as appropriate. If you have a 5:00 pm sales appointment and 7:00 pm sales appointment on the same day, call the 7:00 pm appointment and see if they will move up to the open 6:00pm slot. Be accommodating with your schedule...But don't be at the mercy of everyone else's whim & calendar as well. Strike a balance with your available work time that is reasonable. If you allow others to control your calendar, you run the risk of becoming gradually frustrated and embittered as a sales professional.

Copyright © 2010 - Tony Cefalu

Advice for New Agents Part I

Every sales organization has its own unique system of recruiting, training, and installing their sales force into the marketplace. In my current line of work, I deal with a lot of newly hired agents in the insurance and financial services industry that sell under a "captive" arrangement. Their challenges are many.

They must learn to navigate the organizational maze of a large corporate structure while concurrently starting their own small business organization that is geared to market & sell. It is a daunting challenge for them, to say the least; especially during those first several years as a new agency owner.

Given the opportunity, I share with new agents the following keys to success:

1. Be Urgent.Too often, new agent trainees look at their production requirements without the requisite urgency needed to be successful. For some reason, a false sense of security develops in the new agent and they get off to a slow or mediocre start when it comes to sales results. I can only theorize that one of several things are causing this phenomenon. First, they think their production requirements are not that difficult to achieve. Secondly, they feel that they have plenty of time to reach their production goals and do not need to be in any hurry. And lastly, it may just simply be a matter of laziness. Whatever the explanation is for the lack of urgency on the part of the new agent, it is not a mind-set conducive for the start of a successful sales career.

I am not trying to add to the stress that new agents are challenged with early in their careers. But the reality is this; time is not a new agent's ally and falling behind on production requirements is a very easy thing to let happen...and a very difficult thing to have to overcome. Be urgent.

2. Don't Be Patient with Your Needs. The home office of many sales organizations are there, ultimately, to support the marketing & sales efforts of their agents. As a new agent, your "needs" are many, particularly at the onset of your sales career. When a "need" arises and assistance is requested, do not patient to your own detriment. Specifically, if there is a marketing or sales need for support such as the need for sales materials, sales ideas, or marketing support...get it somehow, someway...right away. Don't let the procrastination or the overburdened workload of others be the reason your sale is delayed or lost.

More narrowly defined, I wouldn't be patient with needs that are: 1.) commonly provided in support of the new agent, 2.) are time sensitive, 3.) and are marketing & sales in nature. I also would be as professional and considerate as possible in how I got that need fulfilled. I am not suggesting a new agent be rude and bully their way around an organization to get what they need. Just don't let your success as a sales professional fall victim to the whims or schedules of other people or the machinations of an organization's many different layers. If you are ever going to fail at an endeavor; I would suggest that it is much nobler and mature to own your failure. Don't excuse away success by reasons of someone else and their inability to provide or do what is needed for your benefit. Nor would I want to fault circumstances that are within my control for why I failed to accomplish something. Don't be patient with your needs.

3. Keep Your Focus. There are three distinct functions that any agent must manage as a sales professional; 1.) The Organization, 2.) Marketing Activities, 3.) Selling Activities. Marketing is all those things an agent does to get & keep people (customers). Selling is what we do in front of people while the organization is defined as all those things an agent does to support the marketing and selling functions of the agency. Put in their proper order, marketing & sales should be paramount among the duties of a sales professional; the organization is secondary. Please do not misunderstand me. Maintaining the function of a healthy and efficient agency (organization) is important. But when given a choice on what to invest time on, I recommend the investment be made in marketing & selling activities first...all others are secondary.

A sales professional's time is precious. Because of that fact, it is wise for an agent to make the best use of the time provided each work day in order to maximize the revenue generating capability of the agency. What better use of an agent's time is there than to use it on those activities which will directly impact revenues into the agency. Therefore, endeavor to push all activities that are not directly related to marketing & selling functions to the periphery of the work day as much as is possible. Use those premium hours in the work day to generate appointments & opportunities to speak and meet with people (marketing) and to conduct sales conversations (selling). Work on the organization before, after, and in-between marketing & selling time when you are able. Being busy doesn't mean you are being productive. It simply means...you are busy. Focus your time on marketing & selling first...and be busy about all the other things afterward. (Part II to follow)

Copyright © 2010 - Tony Cefalu

Innocently Insulting

Language is important. What people say, and how they say things, matters. Words have meaning beyond their dictionary definitions. Words convey emotion, nuance, information and subtleties about a circumstance or story that go beyond their literal meaning. By what someone says, they can betray a thought, a bias and either endear an individual to themselves or alienate them in the most innocent fashion.

In sales, developing a sensitivity to how our words are perceived by others is a key element to success and to being understood as an individual. As I have remarked often in the past in regard to the immortal words of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; "To be understood is a luxury;" it is time for sales professionals to get into the luxury business and to be understood as best as possible when speaking to people.

Are You the Insulting Type?

One area in which sales professionals often lose momentum and weaken their sales presentations is by way of "insult." Yes; I said "insult," those innocent remarks we can make to people that are never meant to be hurtful or "cutting," but in the end, are hurtful and cutting.

They are quietly demeaning remarks that often imply disparaging overtones heard quite loudly by the person being spoken to. The following are some example remarks along with a translation of how the listener can interpret what is being said to them:


Remark: "Yes, but...or...Yes, however...or...Nonetheless, I think..."
Translation: "I hear what you are saying, but I don't care what you said."

Remark: "Do you understand...or...What you don't understand..."
Translation: "Is this concept too hard for you to figure out?"


Remark: "What you need to realize...or...What you fail to recognize..."
Translation: "What you haven't a clue about is..."

Remark: "Why would you...or...Why do you..."
Translation: "What were you thinking?"

How you say something has a tremendous impact on the message being transmitted. Therefore, to say that some of the above examples can be used in a sales conversation without any negative consequence is correct. How a person says something can completely change, or soften, a remark that may otherwise be construed as harsh in most other circumstances.

Just consider the above remarks the kind of words you may want to avoid for fear of being misunderstood and of innocently insulting someone in conversation.

"Do you see what I mean?" (Just kidding. No insult intended!)



Copyright © 2010 - Tony Cefalu