Insurance Sales Success: Building Champions

Your insurance sales manager is on a mission to build champions. Make sure his or her mission is in your best interests. It’s not uncommon for insurance agents to be forced into master mind groups. I say forced because your attendance and participation is mandatory. Master minding can be an excellent idea if properly understood and applied, but when misapplied it’s potentially a very destructive experience. n nNapoleon Hill may have been the first person to write about the concept of a master mind group. According to Mr. Hill, “a master mind is a mind that is developed through the harmonious cooperation of two or more people who ally themselves for the purpose of accomplishing any given task”. As you read that definition there are a couple things you should notice. First, he talks about harmonious cooperation. Anytime something is a mandatory job requirement it defies the concept of harmonious cooperation. Second, the purpose is to assist each other in the accomplishment of any given task. Your objective is more sales yet your trying to master mind with your direct competition, and it’s only natural that the members of your group will have more vested in their own interests than yours. nnBuilding champions for insurance sales success, or indoctrination? What happens when a good idea is improperly applied? You know exactly what happens, you just aren’t talking about it? What should be a master mind opportunity for a group to help each other to generate more sales becomes almost abusive. Some are held up as super stars because they follow the company rules for achieving success: making tons of cold calls, pressuring people to give referrals they don’t want to give, and holding appointments with anyone who can fog a mirror. When someone doesn’t want to do things the company way they are pegged as a loser, and all “failures” are held up as an example for the rest. nnReal insurance sales success is earned through the development of a unique position in the market. Anyone trying to do anything different is frowned upon because everyone has to do the same thing. But those who succeed in spite of the enormous odds against them eventually do so by establishing a unique position in the market, and focusing on specific targets. So, what can you do to protect yourself from the mandatory sales master minding group? Remember you can’t change anyone else, and that your success isn’t determined by their opinions. Do what every disenfranchised employee does, quietly disengage. Above all your objective here is to protect yourself and stay under the radar. nnWhat’s the real key to driving your insurance sales success? Marketing. Marketing is the driver that puts qualified leads in your sales funnel, so you have real prospects to sell to, and you put real money in the bank. As you’ve known since you started in this business, if it is to be it is up to you. Seek outside help from those who really understand how to market you the person. Traditional marketing is a waste of your hard earned time and money because it doesn’t generate an immediate direct response, and you absolutely have to have an immediate direct response to put food on the table. If you want to form a real master mind group, focus on finding others who aren’t your direct competitors, who also want to learn how to effectively market themselves for immediate results.