Ninety-Two Percent of All Agents Fail - Why?

[stan.luke]

I think a lot of it is "whether you think you can or think you can't, you are probably right".

Also, successful people do what others don't, which is mainly activity or prospecting followed by product knowledge as it is always something you are learning as it changes.

Allowing personal problems or activities to interfere with what you should be treating like a business.

Lack of good training or someone or a team to take you under their wing. Not all need it but I'm one of those guys who likes and appreciates it and I feel it is rewarding on both ends. I feel that helping others to get what they want will help you to get what you want works in a lot of mysterious ways.

Lastly besides attitude and other items I listed would be work ethic. Your results are highly relative to the amount of time you 'buy' out of your life to transfer into your career. I'm speaking of quality time not oh I did this or that with no results. Refer to above points to see what quality time involves.

The lack of goals with a reasonable time frame. I'm guilty of this big time.

Good time management skills which BTW there is a few good threads on here about the subject.

Not being happy with what you do. If you aren't happy, you won't look forward to learning and honing your skills let alone with doing all the other thing I mentioned.

My .02 cents

I love your two Cents worth. I agree with you wholeheartedly. Especially the part about being happy with what you do.

 

[CHUMPS FROM OXFORD]

"long hours" does help. And you get used to it.

WebNanny was not used in this post
WebSuccess was used in this post

 

[vanquishV12]

How do you quickly develop deep personal relationships..?

[

Most Importantly -
They don't know how to quickly develop deep personal relationships of mutual trust and respect.

 

[YouGotMyMoney]

How do you quickly develop deep personal relationships..?

S

E

X

 

[vanquishV12]

MyMoney,

I see your point...I dont think it works well with seniour market??(are you into 65 old's)

S

E

X

 

[YouGotMyMoney]

MyMoney,

I see your point...I dont think it works well with seniour market??(are you into 65 old's)

Depends on how rich she is.

 

[shumpa]

I would like to bring something to bear in this discussion that especially revelant now with the ecomomic conditions the country is facing now. Many who are in the business now are here due to the fact that Jobs are few and far between and this is the only thing they can find and many companies are willing to hire you because there really isn't any investment other than time and some resources. I am finding that making it in this business depends on who brings you and who are willing to invest the time to make you sucessful. Many times, finding the right company is a factor also. I was fortunate to partner with a sucessful agent, who didn't pull any punches with me. You must put the time in and you must do what it takes to get in front of qualified people and close the sale. If this were easy, everyone would be involved.

 

[Suis]

Good observation and thanks for sharing your point of view.

 

[JacquesWerth]

How do you quickly develop deep personal relationships..?

The Relationship Inquiry process -

Prospects who want what you offer have two primary concerns. Is the person who is offering a solution to my financial situation trustworthy, and does that person care about me? No amount of needs, benefits, testimonials, credentials or logic makes a difference until those two questions are answered. Both of those concerns are decided intuitively and emotionally.

The process is described in our book, High Probability Selling, with a true-to-life example. You can get the eBook at our website and read it for ten dollars. Print it out if you want to, either the whole book or selected sections.

You can get a complete refund – if you request one within 90 days – with no questions asked. We do that because ninety-six percent of the people that take our courses have read the book first.

 

[jjack50004u]

The problem is that new agents have no game plan. They just show up and want you to do everything for them.

Example: Today I had an agent call me at a client's house needing some help. The problem is that the agent waited until he got to the clients house, before he thought about learning the products or needing/doing a quote on anything. They guy didn't even know what a whole life was and he was out on an appointment and didn't have anything with him. He was just calling to see what he should sell to his client and what would the price be and if the client some how decided to use him, he needed some quotes.

I think I hurt the guy's feelings when I told him, that he would not last long in this business. I asked him is this a job or career to him? He said a job. That is the problem. This has to be a career and something you spend a lot of time on learning how to do what we do.

You should never try to sell anything to someone that you know nothing about. 1st thing you do is learn your companies and your products. When you get a starter kit from your company, read every word of it. If you have questions, call the IMO, manager and ask questions until you learn everything about the product that you need to know.
When you go out to an appointment have everything that will need. Be able to do quotes and have the applications with you. DON'T WAIT UNTIL YOU ARE AT A CLIENTS HOUSE BEFORE YOU DO YOUR WORK.

Make sure you have a good message on your answering machine.

Make sure you have some business cards.

Own a suit and tie. Read as much as you can on everything having to do with insurance.

Have a game plan. Don't just show up thinking this is easy and that someone is going to do all the work for you and pay you lots of money.

I had another agent tell me that he just can't sell any insurance. So I ask him the following, how many prospects did you call this month? NONE. How many prospects did you ask do they need to buy insurance? NONE. How many mailers did you send out this month? NONE. How many leads did you buy. NONE. So my response was " How is that working for you". Duh!!!

I told him it is like a garden. If you don't plant anything, nothing will come up.

A big problem is that agent think that they don't have to ever prospect and can only buy leads forever. Prospecting is a big part of this business. So are referrals.

The biggest thing is never give up. Don't be at home right now, not knowing what you are going to do for the rest of the week to sell some insurance. Have someone in your "prospecting book" that you are going to talk to about buying some insurance. If nothing else, go get the newspaper and go after people that just had a baby, or people that just lost someone they love. Newspapers are full of prospects. At least give out 10 business cards a day to someone. I don't care who. No one is ever going to know on your door wanting to buy insurance. You have to approach them. Cold calling sucks, but if you have nothing else to do, then call some business owners or someone. Doing something is better then doing nothing.

There are a ton of resources out there for new agents and people willing to help you, if you are willing to do the work. No one is the world is going to make you a successful agent, if you are not willing to work.

Sit down tonight and make a game plan.
Example: Hmm. What if I placed plastic bags in people's driveways about insurance. Hmm it may or may not work, but I'm willing to try it.
Example,I know there are a ton of business owners in the yellow pages, I think I will try to call some of them this week.
Example, I'm going to spend some time on google looking for ways to sell more insurance or find list of prospects.
Example, I will find someone to train and teach me this business.
Come up with something. Write down everything that you can think of and you can then later mark off what you want to try.

This is a career that you have to work you butt off doing. This is not for everyone. But for some of us, that learn the business, it is rewarding and we love it.

Okay, I will shut up now before I write a book on this.

This guy tells it how it is. I am a NYL salesman (I don't have the position yet, still interviewing) and I am learning a lot from this board. Thank you all.