Last week, I had a conversation with Les, a 25-year veteran CFP. He admitted that he’d struggled with Sales Call Reluctance for the first few years of his career. Because he kept taking action and doing his best to serve his clients well, Les slowly developed notoriety in his market and enjoyed a reputation as a trusted advisor.

In reviewing his goals for the next three to five years, Les finally allowed himself to admit that his clients were aging, their children had moved away, and he needed to get back into aggressive, proactive business-building mode in order to sustain and grow his business. He asked about the steps involved in getting into proactive prospecting mode because he was once again experiencing Sales Call Reluctance.

Before reviewing the individual steps, a couple points must be highlighted. First, the key to overcoming the fear of prospecting is to fully accept the fact that it is NOT prospecting that causes your anxiety – it is your thoughts about prospecting that cause your anxiety. Breathe and let that settle in.

Secondly, a shift in mindset is required to overcome Sales Call Reluctance and make consistent prospecting part of your daily success plan. This shift occurs through awareness, choice and trust.

Step 1. Awareness begins with answering some questions: What do you want? What are your performance goals? I’m sure everyone reading this article is acutely aware of their 2011 performance goals and has written them down. If you have not written your goals down and are not reading them every day, commit to making this part of your daily routine. You will thank me later!

Step 2. Now that you have written down your goals, it’s time to examine the “why” behind what you want to accomplish. If you truly want to achieve your goals this year, set aside some time this week for this next step. I recommend that you isolate yourself in a quiet, safe, warm place with a blank notebook. At the top of the first page, write “Why?” Then begin recording all the reasons you want to achieve your goals. What is important about each of them? Keep in mind that your first answer is rarely the real answer. Continue writing, and do not stop until you are in tears. Yes, I mean literal tears. That is what I recommend: write until you have evoked deep emotional response regarding what is important to you. This is one of the most powerful exercises you can perform.

Listen to all the excuses you that come up for you, e.g., “I’m not an emotional type,” or “I have taught myself to be emotionally disconnected from my production.” I hear different variations on these from time to time. However, distancing yourself from your emotions is merely a coping mechanism that disconnects you from what is most important to you. Top producers are deeply rooted in their “why.” Every day, FAs are subject to potentially discouraging events and relationship challenges. When you are emotionally rooted in your “why,” you will quickly bounce back, experiencing greater resilience. The only way you are going to shift out of Sales Call Reluctance mode is to get deeply committed and emotionally connected to your “why.”

When most people sit down to start this exercise, they are tempted to answer the wrong question. Rather than “Why?” they tend to focus on “How?” Resist the temptation to get caught up in the “how.” Put the “how” aside. The “how” is the easy part. Horsesmouth archives and current articles are full of the best answers to “how” that you can find anywhere. Ignore the “how,” for now.

Stay on track with identifying your “why” and be as specific as you can be. Whatever comes up for you is the right answer, as long as it’s emotionally honest. It’s perfectly fine to want to be recognized by your company, your broker and/or your peers as a top producer, to have your dream home, or to enjoy luxurious vacations. I recommend that you type up your “whys” and read them every day, along with your goals. From your list, make a book or poster of images that represent your goals. It is important that the pictures resonate with you and depict exactly what you want. If you are tempted to dismiss this as a silly exercise, you do not understand how your brain works. What you think about, you bring about; what you focus on, you create. A top producing FA revealed that he has a private book with pictures of everything he wants in it. He reviews it daily. He has a dream business that grows more and more profitable every year.

Timothy Gallwey, author of The Inner Game of Work, defines awareness as getting the clearest possible picture of current reality. FAs have empirical knowledge of this, because you cannot move forward with a prospect until they have fully disclosed their current financial situation. Now it’s time to admit your current reality. Where are you right now with respect to your mega-priority performance goal? Wherever you are is fine. Breathe and be ruthlessly honest.

Step 3. Write down all the good things you have in place, e.g., your current AUM, and be deeply grateful for clients who believe in you. What about your assistant? Write down all the reasons you appreciate your assistant. What about your manager? Your firm? Your office? Acknowledge your referral sources who generously introduce you to prospects. Write only the positive aspects and allow yourself to recognize the good. As Barbara Fredrickson states in her book, Positivity, “It is the sparkle of good things that awakens your motivation to change.”

Step 4. Write down your strengths. Why are you good at what you do? Are you an excellent communicator? How does your education benefit you? Your certifications? Do clients highly respect you and listen to your advice? Are you smart? Enjoy finance? Do you love the process of walking people through their financial goals and helping them design their financial futures?  Your confidence breeds confidence in your prospects and clients.

Step 5. What is your unique value proposition? Knowing it is not enough; you must write it down. This is absolutely vital. If you do not know how you are unique, stop everything else you are doing and immediately get busy on this. Excuses are unacceptable. Work at it until you arrive at the thing that makes you unique. If any other FA can say the same thing, you have more work to do. Your laser-sharp value proposition is as unique as your fingerprint. Get together with your manager, a friend, mentor, mastermind partner, a coach – someone who will assist you with this important exercise. You need to confidently believe this statement with every fiber of your body. Once again, your confidence will breed confidence in your prospects. Most pitches I hear from struggling FAs are nonspecific, vague, ambiguous – they aren’t landing clients because they do not know why their prospects should retain them.

Step 6. Get into action. The baseball game does not begin until the pitcher throws the first ball.  You must start pitching in order to get the hits.  You may pitch a few foul balls and strike out from time to time, but you will not be in the game unless you are consistently pitching.  The more you pitch the more chances of a home run.  Do not kid yourself on this step. The “how” will come to you. You have resources galore. Get moving and put your daily strategy into place. Does your past experience prove that seminar selling works? How many strategic alliances do you have in place? How many prospects do you have on your top 20 list? This article is not about the “how” of prospecting because you already know how. If you don’t think you do, go back to steps 2 through 5 and your “how” will come to you.

Step 7. Now it’s time for you to proactively prospect and self-promote. The fear of self-promotion is the fear that underlies Sales Call Reluctance. What is your relationship with self promotion? What immediately comes up when you read the words “self-promote?” What perspective do you hold about self-promoters? Is it positive or negative? If it is negative, how might you shift it? What are alternative ways to interpret self-promotion? There are 12 fears FAs experience when they start self-promoting. For example, some think that prospects do not like to be called on the telephone. They make excuses like, “The telephone doesn’t work. All I get is voicemail, and no one ever returns my call.” Others convince themselves that high net worth prospects are already dealing with another FA. Some believe that prospects are tired of being prospected. Just know that you are projecting your fears, prejudices and self-doubt onto your prospecting calls and the fear, prejudice and self-doubt is reflecting back on you.  It is important that you allow yourself to identify your perspective on self-promotion and your negative intruders so that you can stop the negative and develop new neuronets in your brain around self-promotion.

Are you willing to shift your perspective? Remember: It’s not prospecting that causes your anxiety, it’s your thoughts about it.

Let’s reexamine the perspective of “All I get is voicemail and no one ever returns my call.” Is that statement really true? Has anyone ever returned your voicemail? Oh, yes admittedly some people do. I wonder if you need some work on your voicemail messaging? What resources are available on voicemail messaging? When was the last time you listened to one of the messages you left? Would you return your call?  Remember 73% of a voice message is your tonality.  Maybe if you left a more compelling message that proves you have done your homework, along with a request that they call you back at their earliest convenience, it might work.

Eavesdrop on yourself and observe any contradictions. You are crystal clear on your “why,” you have a reason to prospect, you know you have a compelling solution for your prospects; however, your thoughts (negative intruders) are sandbagging your efforts. Identify your negative intruders and write them down.

Now it’s time to discuss choice. Can anyone choose a thought for you? On any given day, you have anywhere from 30,000 to 60,000 thoughts. When you are in prospecting mode, your habitual thoughts are like knee-jerk reactions – they come up automatically. The good news is that because habits are learned, you can unlearn them by becoming aware of them. Identify them, allow them to come forward, write them down. Now, what alternative perspective might you choose?

For example, a five-year CFP said to me today, “Nobody wants to talk to a financial planner. They don’t respect financial planners.” His negative perspective is costing him his career. He suffers from toxic role rejection Call Reluctance, meaning he is vastly uncomfortable in the role of a salesperson. He has some shifting to do, which might be difficult but is entirely possible for him as long as he’s willing to consider choosing alternative perspectives.

When you move through awareness, know you always have a choice, the most fantastic thing happens, you begin to trust the process and most important trusting yourself.  Self-trust is the foundation of any successful career.

The two CFPs referred to above are really no different from you. Each of you can have fantastic results if you work the steps, know your “why,” and deliberately challenge your negative interpretations/perspectives and choose alternative supportive thoughts that enable you to develop a positive perspective. The only shame in Sales Call Reluctance is living with it unnecessarily.

Connie Kadansky, MA, PCC is a coach, speaker and trainer specializing in Overcoming Sales Call Reluctance®.  She offers effective tools and training to diagnose call reluctance and assists salespeople in highly profitable prospecting.  Connie facilitates the Fear-Free Prospecting and Self-Promotion Workshop® globally.  For additional information, contact Connie at 602-997-1101 or visit her website at www.exceptionalsales.com.

1) Did you consider what your office says about you and your success?
2) Did you re-model or re-decorate?
3) Is it important that clients feel comfortable?
4) Is a nice, professional office important to building and maintaining professional relationships or will any type office do?
5) And if your office is professional and inviting, would it make sense for you to greet your cleints wearing a track suit?

While branding is not easy to measure, if even possible – it it easy to see that it is absolutely critical. Branding is you, your image, your value, your uniqueness and most importantly, what people remember about you.

A well articulated and nurtured brand will help people quantify who you are, what you do best and the difference working with you made it their life and business. How can you build a business without this level of identification and communication? You can, you’re just making it much more diffuclt fgor yourself and your company.

If you are experiencing Sales Call Reluctance, you have choices to solve your prospecting problem.
1) Hire someone else to make your prospecting calls. A small number of financial advisors have done this very successfully. They found the right person to make the calls. However, there are thousands of war stories about hiring one telemarketer after another that never produced any result.

2) Rely on your current clientele and network to refer business to you. A small number of savvy financial advisors have worked hard over the years and have been very successful. However, with the natural attrition of any business, most experienced veterans have found that this model is not enough to keep them ahead of the curve — especially in this current economic climate.

3) Settle for mediocre business and bump along the best you can.

4) Take on your Sales Call Reluctance issues intelligently, which starts with admitting that you are not prospecting. Then recognize that it is not prospecting that causes your anxiety and spins you into self-doubt. It’s your thought about prospecting that causes your anxiety that triggers self-doubt. Start watching your thoughts like a cat watches a mouse. Notice how you are projecting negativity onto the call before you even make it. This can be disconcerting to recognize at first. However, it is the start of disciplining your thoughts and can be absolutely transformational. For example, when you are ready to reach for the phone and you stop and start checking email for the 200th time for the day — immediately tune into what is it that you are choosing to think that is causing you to stop. Then immediately pivot to another thought, i.e. “I have clients who are confident in my abilities.” (you construct your own replacement thought) Sound a little complicated? It is and can be — however, it doesn’t have to be. It is entirely possible for you to overcome your Sales Call Reluctance and start earning what your are worth!

Connie Kadansky, MA, PCC

I help financial advisors get their “ask” in gear.

Obviously it wouldn’t be great marketing to put up a billboard that announced to the world: “Hey – deal with me – I’m the same as everyone else”.    Or would it?   Imagine a marketing campaign where the audience was told: “You may as well pick me because I’m just as good as the next guy so, why not?”

Okay – hang onto your chair – here’s some news you aren’t going to like.  The truth is, most service companies are pretty much exactly the same.  We can find a hundred lawyers or accountants or financial advisors in any small city and they all say the same thing.

We’re different and here’s how:
•    With us, it’s not all about the money.
•    We care about our clients.
•    We don’t take shortcuts
•    We are experts
•    We take the time to understand your needs
•    We make sure your needs are taken care of
•    We make the complex simple
•    We take the worry out of your decisions

If this sounds familiar, it’s because it IS familiar.

I did warn you that you wouldn’t like it.  Okay, I can hear it now; the denial.    It’s like the 5 stages of grief:  Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance.   Companies will not and cannot become truly different in the eyes of their clients until they accept the fact that there are hundreds, even thousands of similar service providers in the same market that are ALL telling their clients they are unique – for exactly the same reasons.

So what’s the point?  The point is that MOST businesses do indeed possess some degree of uniqueness. The important thing to remember is HOW to position that uniqueness to their best clients and prospects. Businesses can no longer afford to market themselves as unique the same way everyone else does – prospective clients simply won’t believe it.  Think about how many times in a day or week you see and hear marketing campaigns built on saving time and money.  It’s old, it’s worn out and it isn’t believable, even if it were true.

In general, all similar businesses are, well… similar.  All audiences believe that and telling them differently won’t convince them otherwise.  The proof of the pudding, as the saying goes, is in the tasting.

What is the answer then?  The answer is incredibly simple.  So simple in fact that it risks being scoffed at.

Each business has one or two things that will be ever-so-slightly different than their competitors when it comes to their target market.  You need to leverage that difference in a way that has both real and potential value to your best clients. The eureka moment comes when you integrate it as part of your brand.  Make sure you visit our articles on Branding for ideas on how to do that.

Here are some tips to help you right now:

1. Take a deep breath — it will slow down your mental processes that are overactive and chaotic, creating your anxiety. (Yes, it’s not prospecting calling that is causing your anxiety, it’s your thought about prospecting calling.)

2. Make sure that both of your feet are on the floor as you close your eyes and take a second deep breath.

3. Think of a current client who really believes in you and you are part of their inner circle. Keep thinking of them until a smile comes across your face.

4. What is the value you provide for this client? What do they say about your products/services? Be specific. Ease yourself into allowing yourself to recognize your value. Jot down the key points.

5. Pick up the phone with the thought of this client in your mind and that you are simply going to find your next client.
You can re-train your brain to prospect consistently.

Connie Kadansky, Exceptional Sales Performance, Sales Call Reluctance trainer/coach: 602-997-1101 www.exceptionalsales.com — connie@exceptionalsales.com

DO YOU HAVE THE RIGHT MAKEOVER MINDSET?

Making over your business is not for everyone, especially those who are timid or complacent. If you’re okay to continue doing what you’ve always done and getting what you’ve always gotten, you can stop reading right now. This article will not interest you or serve you. But, if you truly want to make a lasting change in your business, this article will be that wake-up-call you’ve been waiting for. It will challenge you and point you in the right direction.

A makeover should mean more than just dusting-off and tweaking what could be.  It should mean “If I could do this all over again the right way, what would I do?”

For most people, starting over can be exciting at best and intimidating at worst. It’s all a question of perspective.  To achieve greater results, by an order of magnitude, means taking risks and being passionate about the rewards.   It also means going through a mental makeover before the physical makeover starts. One thing is very clear, if you want to move forward to bigger and better, getting more of things you want and doing less of the things you don’t want, a positive mental attitude is the only answer that will serve you.

“Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.” -Thomas Jefferson

A Makeover Mindset (MM) is how we describe the frame of mind of someone who knows with clarity and certainty that the thinking that got them to where they are today is not the thinking that is needed to take them to the next level of success and happiness. MM is the “aha” moment when you know for certain that you need to STOP dusting-off and tweaking.  MM is only achieved when the understanding is clear that something very different needs to happen.  Something big.  Something worthy of being called a makeover.  Unfortunately,  “aha” moments are often fleeting inspirations for most of us unless there is focused and sustainable action.

A MM can only be achieved when there is a realization, a revelation if you will, that there is a third “M” – Madness.  Madness is the depletion of energy and expenditure of time and resources on repeating the same thing we’ve always done to just maintain the status quo.  Madness is working harder and longer just to maintain your current success – your plateau.   Most every successful business owner and entrepreneur has gone through long hours and heavy lifting, working hard and diligently to achieve that success. The Madness is continuing to do those same things just to maintain the current level.

It’s worth spending a moment on inspiration.  At some point, most successful business owners have been caught in a moment of inspiration to make a huge change, and yet, nothing came from it? Think about a great book you may have read where you were consumed by the storyline and potential, feeling like change was necessary and paramount.  Then what happened?  Many entrepreneurs sleep on it, consider it and move on to “more pressing matters”, the “day to day”.  The fleeting infatuation with MM ends and the Madness lives on.  To escape it, you need to seize the moment and take directed action.

In my career I’ve had many “aha” moments, many of which I’ve not been able to embrace and sustain. It’s a deflating experience when your next “aha” is that you haven’t been able to sustain the greatest “moments” for change in your business and your life.  I’m speaking from experience.

But I finally understand it, how to escape the Madness forever and never look back. It’s been one heck of a journey. The quest for magic solutions for achieving extraordinary success is a tiring, expensive journey. It’s a road paved with promises and compromises. Although there have been exhilarating moments, I wish I could have done it differently. Although I’ve gained incredible insights from my failures I’d much rather have know how to do it right many years ago.

I WANT TO SHARE THE FORMULA FOR SUCCESS WITH YOU

Success is about vision, focus, awareness, accountability, starting and quitting. Yes, I said quitting. Quitting the right things will free you to pursue only that which drives you towards achieving your vision.

Here’s my challenge to all of you who are either immersed in the Madness or have flirting relationships with the “aha” moment that will catapult you. Here’s the juice!

Define your Vision.  Then, quit anything or everything that doesn’t clearly move you in that direction. Embrace highly focused activities and your greatest leverage points. Seek new thinking. Take action. Begin with the end in mind. Find the right partners to help you focus and hold you accountable. Build momentum every day, every week, every month, and every year until your vision of success becomes your reality.

TAKING ACTION IS A DECISION ONLY YOU CAN MAKE.

Here’s what starting looks like:

1. Take the free SuQu Mindscan Assessment. Understand your thinking strengths, leverage points and areas for improvement. Take the MindScan at www.freedomarketing.com/MS.
2. Find a coach and/or mentor to help you find a sustainable mindset and someone to hold you accountable. We’ve worked with some amazing business coaches and tactical referral coaches who we’d be happy to introduce you to.
3. Create a SuQu Map with your business coach. Begin with the end in mind and work backwards so you know exactly what is needed to move towards success. Focus on sustainable momentum. The coaches we know will guide you through the SuQu process.
4. Make sure you have the right partners to help you build systems and processes, define your message (brand), identify your ideal client, develop your marketing, and generate an endless flow of ideal prospects through introductions.

If you need helping putting this all into perspective call me at (905) 579-7724. I’d be delighted to talk this through with you. But don’t call until you’ve taken the Mindscan.

Here’s to YOUR LIFE – BEYOND THE MADNESS!

My experience in working with hundreds of financial advisors is that many of them feel that articulating a clear vision is not warranted because it does not drive direct results. It’s unfortunate that many advisors may have experienced some form of a vision initiated business plan early in their careers that did not serve them well. A vision’s role is to provide greater focus and helps advisors align only those activities that move them towards their vision. And we all know focused activity drives results! At Freedomarketing, we’ve found the formula to help advisors truly leverage their potential and uniqueness, it’s called SuQu Mapping. In simpler terms it’s a highly relevant and concise business plan. And it all starts with a clear vision. You can learn more at www.tactibrand.com.

BELOW ARE SOME THOUGHTS FROM VARIOUS PROFESSIONALS.

———————————————-
Jim Cecil
Nurture Marketing

How do you say….PARAMOUNT? Perhaps even with multiple, clear visions .

Some questions, for example:
1. What is my vision for my personal career in financial advice services?
2. What is my vision for my identifying my ideal niche market?
3. What is my vision for discovering and dealing with my niche member’s chief pains, passions and preferences with regards to their financial issues?
4. What is my vision for actually ‘helping my clients succeed’, rather than just helping them deal with transactions?
5. What is my vision for nurturing relationships with my current clients, prospective ones and especially, my ‘centers of influence’?
6. What is my vision for automating the ‘stay in touch’ process?
7. What is my vision for seeking and cultivating niche mentors?

As does Dr. Tom Stanley, I believe that the affluent, when given a choice, invariably select a specialist over a general practitioner, virtually every time.
Why would it be different when it comes to their money?

Will you care enough for yourself, your practice, your family, your clients and your career, to spend the time to become and become known as an expert in your niche.

I can’t be more clear on this vision.

Good Nurturing
Jim
www.nurtureinstitute.com

———————————————-

Bill Eck
Certified Wealth Consultant

These thoughts on a shared vision from the Book: Fifth Discipline, enlightens what they are missing:

“A shared vision…is …a force in people’s hearts, a force of impressive power. Few, if any, forces in human affairs are as powerful as a shared vision.”

High performance teams have shared vision and purpose.

Maslow observed that in exceptional teams… “the task was no longer separate from self…but rather he identified with this task so strongly that you couldn’t define his real self without including that task.”

Shared vision comes from personal vision and personal mastery.

Visions that are truly shared take time to emerge. They grow as a by-product of interactions of individual visions.

Shared vision requires ongoing conversation where individuals not only express their dreams, but learn how to listen to each others’ dreams. Out of this listening, new insights into what is possible gradually emerge.

It is not what the vision says, it is what the vision does.

Vision becomes a living force only when people truly believe they can shape their future.

Senge, Peter M. The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of the Learning Organization. New York, NY: Doubleday, 1990, 2006. Chapter 10

Bill Eck

——————————————————–

So true Kirk. The problem is threefold:

• They don’t know what they want.
• They are not willing to do what it takes to get what they want.
• They are afraid of being disappointed if they fail (fear of failure).

Wishing you great success!!! in 2010

Michael Fastchi

This teaching tour always ends with a feeling of inspiration about the important work these highly informed and engaged people do. As an education company, we are privileged to spur on their enthusiasm for personal and corporate taxation matters, and then watch the lights go on throughout the room as both tax and financial advisors start thinking about how working together can help them get better results and ultimately, peace of mind, for their clients.

Today, many Canadians still worry about their money and whether they have enough—for now and in the future. Some of that worry certainly comes from poor choices: too much credit, too little savings. But there is much advisors can do
this month to help overcome the financial hurdles. Here is what we heard on the tour:

1 – Many Canadians are behind in filing their tax returns. This means they are likely missing out on tax refunds and refundable credits like the Child Tax Benefit and GST Credit. What to do about it?

• Advisors should ask whether prior returns are missing and if so, encourage their clients to file to recover missed refunds or avoid penalties and interest charges.
• Advisors should inform clients that they are not building RRSP or TFSA contribution room and that can have a big impact on their ability to build and grow family wealth.
• They are likely also missing out on reporting capital losses, which help average income taxes downward by offsetting capital gains of the current year, three years back and indefinitely into the future.

2 – Most Canadians are still underfunding their RRSP contribution room, giving up double-digit tax savings which could be leveraged into TFSAs or used to pay down non-deductible credit card debt. Show your clients the follow of missing these important opportunities.

3 – Many Canadians are not benefiting from pension and investment income splitting opportunities that come from filing tax returns as a family. Tax and financial advisors can show their clients the benefits, working together.

Peace of mind—my definition of “affluence”—occurs when you stop worrying about whether your money will cover the necessities plus emergencies, and focus instead on how to use your money as a tool to build wealth for future generations.

If advisors can continue their important work in February to get more people focused on the twin goals of filing annual tax returns and minimizing their tax bills with fully funded RRSP contribution room, we could be more impactful in helping families build sustainable wealth for the future.

Evelyn Jacks is President of The Knowledge Bureau. A complimentary of The Knowledge Bureau Report can be found at www.knowledgebureau.com.

Success in today’s online market absolutely depends on your entire Web presence, not just your website. Spreading your online presence as wide as possible helps you reach millions of potential clients you may not be able to reach otherwise. Below are four simple ways beginners can increase their web presence without breaking the bank or their back.

1. Create a Website

Websites don’t have to be expensive and elaborate, they just have to be visible to consumers, provide useful information and generate leads by allowing visitors to contact you for free offers or more information.

There are several option available when creating a website. For the more tech savvy agents, you can build your own (Top 10 Do-It-Yourself Website Builders) and for those who’d rather leave it to the experts, you can check out the below links to get started:

• Insurance Web Designs
• Insurance Broker Webmasters
• Free Insurance Agent Websites

Some companies even offer supplemental marketing material to help draw prospects to a website such as Insurance Help Centers, a company that specializes in lead generating website customization.

2. Use SEO to Increase your Website Ranking

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization,  is the process of adding keywords or phrases throughout your website to help search engine spiders properly rank your webpage in a Google search result. In other words, when someone searches for “Financial Advisors” the webpage results will be ordered by relevance of how well the title, description and keywords of the website match the users web search query.

Still confused? Google offers an extremely helpful and easy to follow Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide as well as basic information about a Google Search and how to increase your webpage rankings.

When using the Google AdWords Keyword Tool, agents are able to insert their webpage URL and Google will create a list of keyword ideas for you to use when adding or modifying content to your web pages.

Once you’ve created and optimized your website you want as many people to visit it as possible!

3. Start a Blog

Blogging is a great way to establish yourself as an expert while increasing your online presence at the same time. Also, by commenting on blogs written by others, it’s a great way to gain practice as well as increase your visibility by linking back to your website, blog or other social media profiles.

Setting up a blog is the easy part (Best Blogging Host Software) , it’s figuring out what to write about that can be the challenging (10 Business Blogging Best Practices).

Once you’ve started your own blog, you can drive people to it by promoting it on your website as well as social media profiles. Don’t have a social media profile? Keep reading to learn how to set one up in minutes!

4. Join Social Networking Sites

Social networking is one of the most powerful social media strategies you can implement. These sites are free and allow you to create a personal profile page to post information about you and your business, invite people to join your network, join groups with people interested in the same topic, blast messages and events, and drive people to your website or blog.

Getting Started

First, determine which social media outlet is best for you. Find out what platforms your prospects use most. Don’t be afraid to create a profile at different sites just so you can browse and check out how it works, who uses it and what other people are posting. Also, don’t underestimate your teenager or grandchild’s ability to help you set up a profile – believe me, they’ll have a full profile created with pictures posted in seconds flat!

For step-by-step instruction on how to set up a profile for various social media sites, click the links below:

• Facebook
• Twitter
• MySpace
• LinkedIn

Throughout my experience as a marketer, I’ve gathered several resources that were extremely helpful when getting started in the social media world.

Social Media Beginner Guides

• Facebook for Beginners
• Social Media Marketing Beginners Guide
• How to Effectively Use Twitter to Build Business Relationships

For additional sales and marketing tips exclusive to insurance agents, visit the new TWG Capital Agent Acceleration Center or follow the TWG Capital Blog.

Jon has been in sales for nearly 12 years.  He has great customers, but he wants more!  He knows what he needs to do:  commit to prospect consistently, build better strategic alliances, and buckle down and close more sales.

So what’s the problem?  By analyzing his prospecting activity, Jon has come to the conclusion that he’s spending an inordinate amount of time volunteering and building relationships.  But the activities haven’t added enough new clients to justify his time and financial expenditures.

Jon isn’t the only salesperson who has difficulty transitioning from relationship-building to solid business-building.  He isn’t aware of it, but he exhibits a form of Sales Call Reluctance, and it’s interfering with his closing new business.

This type of call reluctance has been identified as “yielder” call reluctance.  It is common among financial advisors, who rarely recognize it.  You see, financial advisors with yielder call reluctance are people pleasers.  They are approval seekers who lack assertiveness, often much to their own detriment.

People pleasers don’t move forward unless someone gives them a crystal clear signal to proceed.  They don’t control the process of moving a prospect along the pipeline to becoming a client.  They let the prospect maintain control, and hence they just can’t seem to close a deal. 

Perhaps these financial advisors:

• Feel that the prospect would be offended by sales efforts
• Leave appointments without getting a firm commitment from the prospect for the next step
• Have many unanswered questions they are afraid to ask
• String out closing the sale

Does this sound familiar?  Do you lack assertiveness?  (When you think about it, prospecting is contact initiation – and that’s an assertive act.)  Pause for a moment and think about the relationship that you want to take one step closer to a bona fide customer.  If you aren’t turning networking opportunities and qualified prospects into new clients, perhaps it’s time to look a little deeper.

A word about relationships

In the book Hard Truth about Soft Selling, author George Dudley says:  “You can’t depend on relationship-building skills alone to make the sale for you.  Hone those skills and make them work for you, but don’t confuse making friends with making sales.  When is the last time your firm sent you a check for a friendship bonus?”

You know value-added customer service can be the deciding factor when a prospect chooses you over a competitor.  But financial advisors get their wires crossed when they believe that the buyer-seller relationship is more important than the sale.  There must be a balance.  In the end, relationships and friendships do not pay the bills.  Selling products and services pay the bills.

Don’t get me wrong, relationships are important.  But buyers primarily want you to fulfill their needs and provide solutions.  They want you to know your product.  They want you to care about them.  You can do this by taking action and keeping them moving forward.  Trying to gain their approval is a misspent effort.  Keep working on yourself, developing your skills, and doing the activity that puts you in front of people.  Your confidence will escalate.  Here are a few thought-provoking questions to ask yourself:

• Can you close a sale without developing rapport?
• Can you develop a relationship without closing a sale?
• Can you strike a balance between these two concepts?

A successful salesperson finds the middle ground.  He’s clear on goals and understands that it is okay to sell his services to meet his production goals.

It should be noted that yielder call reluctance is the most common and the most costly.  It has become more prevalent as sales training programs within organizations that promote soft selling approaches.  In fact, in some companies and some industries there are toxic levels of call reluctance throughout their sales force.

That’s great news for some financial advisors – at least for the non-yielders – because it gives them a huge advantage.  Every once in a while you may meet a salesperson who isn’t any more knowledgeable than you, yet they have a better business.  They aren’t really all that experienced or even as competent as you are, but they seem to always get new business.  Why?  They win the business because they’re assertive and consistent in their prospecting and self-promotion, and they close the business.

Understanding yielder call reluctance

The first step in overcoming yielder call reluctance is to understand what it is and how it could be affecting you.  The following questions will help you determine if you have this costly form of call reluctance:

• Are you not prospecting consistently because you have difficulty asserting yourself?
• Are you afraid to incite conflict by asking qualifier questions?
• Are you afraid you will appear pushy or intrusive?
• Are you afraid to bother the busy, disturb the indisposed, or interrupt the otherwise engaged?
• Are you sociable but not necessarily outgoing?
• Are you building a number of relationships but not meeting your production goals?
• Are you paying for lunches, dinners, and golf games but not breaking even?

If you answered “Yes” to three or more of the above questions, you may be suffering from yielder sales call reluctance.  Here are five steps to get you moving forward:

Step 1:  Awareness

Be acutely aware of the behavior.  When you find yourself yielding, simply observe your actions without getting angry with yourself.  Your recognition of the problem is a positive step.  If you judge and berate your actions, you are doing more harm than good.  If this happens, you must stop the exercise because it will take you backward instead of forward.  You must learn to become a scientist of your behavior.  Self-reflection is the capacity to exercise introspection and the willingness to learn more about you.  It is one of the best ways to self-correct.  It’s particularly helpful to reflect on your actions through writing.  After a meeting, prospecting session, networking event or similar effort, ask yourself the following four questions.  Don’t just do it mentally, write your answers down in a notebook.

• What did I do well?  Whatever you did right, embellish it. You might write:  I showed up. I had plenty of business cards.  I had a great elevator speech when someone asked me what I do for a living.  I asked qualifying questions.  You get the picture, right?
• What would I do differently next time?  Think about different choices you could have made.  Your reflection could say:  I would ask for an appointment.  I would create a sense of urgency about getting together. I would ask for their contact information.
• What would I never do again?  Dig deep.  Is there anything you would never do again?  You might promise yourself:  I will never pay for another thing, unless I get concrete commitment for action.  I will never walk away without asking for referrals.  I will never again not have an answer to, “Let me think it over.”
• What did I learn about myself as a salesperson from this event?  This is a key question.  Don’t give it short shrift.  You could reflect:  I learned that there is a real need for my services.  I learned that I am pretty good at answering tough objections.  I learned that my confidence spirals downward when I walk away without asking for the sale.  Allow yourself to be honest and candid both about what’s improving in your approach and what’s not working.

Step 2:  Assessment

Pinpoint the extent of the problem.  Here’s a great tip:  Record your prospecting calls – there’s no better way to self-correct.  Athletes watch the video of their games to improve their plays.  If athletes are so interested in the subtleties and intricacies of performance improvement, couldn’t the same type of scrutiny help you?

For $112 you can purchase a telephone recorder that you plug into the wall and into the phone line.  Or talk with Ryan Pitts at  www.newcallsolutions.com.  He can set you up with a temporary or permanent account to record your calls for training purposes.   If you use it only for instructional purposes and nothing else, nondisclosure should be OK legally.  However, it’s a good idea to speak with your compliance department or an attorney before you begin recording. Depends on what state you are in also.

First of all, listen to the general impression your voice is making on the phone.  When you make the calls, 73% of the communication is your tonality.  How do you sound?  Would you talk to you?  Second, listen for the opportunities you missed.  Third, you can pinpoint what you said and how you said it on the call that landed you the appointment.

Step3:  Admission

The hardest part of changing behavior is admitting that the behavior is costing you big bucks, not to mention your self-esteem and confidence.  Here’s an exercise to help you see how different personality types handle sales situations.

• Look up the following words in a dictionary: “aggressive,” “assertive,” and “passive.”  Then, with real scenarios in your day-to-day business, write out how an aggressive salesperson would handle the situation.  Next, write down how an assertive salesperson would handle it, and then a passive salesperson.  Sometimes yielders believe that assertive behavior is actually aggressive.  A major key to success is to distinguish the difference between these behaviors.
• Look up the words “like” and “respect” in a dictionary.  What’s the difference?  Would you rather be respected or liked?  Have you ever done business with a professional whom you respected but really didn’t like?  Also notice that when you do not follow your process and you let prospects control the process, and when you walk away without getting firm commitments, you do not like yourself.

Step 4:  Application

Now you can begin to use proven techniques and overcome the behavior.  For example, notice when you don’t ask a question or don’t say something because you become afraid.  Top financial advisors ask the tough questions when they are in front of their prospects.  Mediocre financial advisors ask the tough questions as they are driving away in their cars.

Step 5:  Analysis

Continue to examine and analyze your behavior so that you don’t relapse.  One way to do this is to always make a note of what makes you speechless.  Then you can take steps to get the response you need.  Here are some suggestions:

• Look to the experts.  Consult your manager, review training material, and dig deep to find the proper responses to situation that stymie you.  The answers are out there.  If you are a financial advisor, highly recommend www.horsesmouth.com.  When you find the right ideas, new behaviors will come easier to you and old habits will be easier to break.
• Role-play.  Find a motivated, goal-oriented person who will role-play key scenarios with you.  It’s fun if you find someone who will courageously throw you curve balls.  You can record your role-plays and analyze them just as you would a phone call.

Some final tips

Decide that you will control the process early on with clients.  Think about other professionals, such as lawyers, doctors, or accountants – they all control their process and wouldn’t allow a patient/client to change their methods.  Like you, they are experts and they know what works and what doesn’t.

Give people freedom to think about you how they want to think about you.  Be confident, be honest, have a high regard for people, and create a sense of entitlement when you are prospecting and meeting with clients.  Some of you have put in years of study and work to understand your business.  Stop projecting your fears onto your prospects.  You are the qualified professional to help them develop achieve their goals.

Remember, this will take some real work.  The desire to be liked above all else has probably been with you for a long time.  With some effort, you can gently become more assertive and take charge of your sales.  People will still like you.  The most important thing is that you’ll learn to like yourself.  And when you self-manage these issues, you will finally be earning what you are worth.