Pretend you’re a customer and do some searches on Google. See where you’re showing up, and if you’re showing up. If you’re showing up, what’s there? If you are not, why not? Doing this is easy and there may be some really easy, fundamental changes you can do to your website to perform a lot better and get a lot more free traffic.
It amazes me how many years go by before the average client gets an annual review. Sometimes, it’s many years, and that’s not good for anyone.
While you may think that clients don’t want to see you for a full review every year, you may be wrong. They at least need the option to say no. And, with the ISN PAR program, a review can be done easily over the phone after emailing the client a detailed insurance portfolio review. This can be looked at together over any geographical distance and within almost anyone’s limited schedules. They want to know that you are on the job and available to help, so make that effort.
This is a big part of building loyalty and trust. It is also a big part of making financial planning practical; every plan needs adjustment regardless of the talent of the planner. The only way to make those adjustments practical and valuable is to do a review regularly and according to life needs. Coverage could go up – but it could also need to go down. Both options will improve your persistency and build rapport.
To keep this short, there are three necessary goals in an annual review:
To be most effective, make this meeting more formal. Inject importance to their ongoing plan and use an agenda to stay on track. It’s that last key to making your clients’ financial plans more practical. Yopu can also use our handy “STAMP TOOL” to make it a part of your process.
When you make financial planning practical you have become essential to your clients. You are relevant to their ongoing lives and become someone they need. This is a potent combination for them and for you. Plus, relevance in their lives produces referability, which drives your business. It’s time to make financial planning practical.
Read a great book on the plane last week. Martin Limbeck is a sales trainer and author of “No Is Short For Next Opportunity.” His ideas reminded me of what I learned from one of my mentors. The most powerful words a great salesmen has in his repertoire is “next.” Don’t let the “no’s” get you down. If you are doing the right thing the next opportunity is right around the corner.
Limbeck has some other great ideas to share. Here are three of his tips for sealing the deal:
I am one of the lucky ones in our business. ISN Network was a thriving entity when I took it over in 1999. Through the years there have been a lot of ups and downs- a bit of a roller coaster ride- but mostly my business plans each year built on themselves. Each year we take time to map out our plan of action for the coming year. And while it is always impossible to predict the future, the fact that we plan has helped us make it through all obstacles we have faced.
Last week I had a breakfast with one of our partners. He has been a successful producer for many years. Now he wants to use our Synergy Program to help him start his own IMO. A brand new venture for him but something he has wanted to do for a long time. We spent most of the day talking about the who, what, when and why’s and then we got down to business- the business of making a plan.
If you are considering starting your own business, then you will need to also come up with a good plan for that business. A business plan is necessary for several reasons, including outlining your goals, expected costs, marketing plans and an exit strategy. It is basically a road map to help your new business know how to operate and how you will measure your success or failure at it.
Between the two of us we came up with these keys to developing a successful business plan. Now we have to see if we can implement the plan.
1. List your goals and objectives in an executive summary plan. This is one of the most important steps in the process of setting up a business, and it’s the one banks and other lenders use to decide if they want to loan you money. If you don’t have a proper executive summary plan put together, then you aren’t likely to be able to get the funds you need to run your company.
2. List how your business got started. Put together a short and concise paragraph or two that clearly explains how and why you started your business.
3. List the business goals. Make a list of the short term and long term goals that you want to complete in the next few years. You need to list things like how fast the business is likely to grow and who is your target audience.
4. Make biographies of your management team. Your plan should include a management section with the names and backgrounds of the head members of your business’s management team and their respective duties and responsibilities.
5. Talk about your products and services. Put together the reasons why your product or services are better than the rest and why this will help your company to succeed and prosper.
6. What are the market possibilities of your business? A new business has to convince banks, potential employees, and everyone else that the market you’re going for is viable and will keep on growing and prospering. Especially if you are entering a very competitive arena- you have to differentiate yourself and know your strengths and weaknesses.
7. Have a marketing strategy. Next, you need to add in how you plan to let everyone know you are open for business and ready to provide your services or products. List things like how you will advertise, how much you plan to spend on advertising, where you will list your company, will you also use word of mouth, etc.
8. Have a 3-5 year plan. You must think about both the long and short of things like a summary of the possible financial outcomes with balance sheets, income statements, and cash flow predictions. You also need to list how much money you need to borrow to get started. This is a very important section as it can make or break you depending on what is listed here.
9. Have an exit strategy. Every great company has a part of their business plan that includes a section that shows exactly what you will do if you decide to close the business. It should list benchmarks such as dollar figures, revenue growth, how your business is received by the world, and what type of consensus your top management agrees on in order to close it.
Some people give up too easily. They hit even a small road bump, and they just don’t go on. Yet others keep trying too hard and too long, way beyond the time when quitting makes more sense. When it comes to being a successful entrepreneur or small business owner, the trick is to know your sweet spot, the place when it makes the most sense to quit or when to keep on plugging away.
It would be great if there was an app to tell when to keep working on something and when to simply accept that you failed and let go. No such luck (but it’s a good bet that someone is working on one).
Every experience is different and each situation is unique. There’s no measurement device for persistence or clear-cut guidelines to let you know when to give up or push through. You must know your own “Rubicon,” defined as the point when “to take a decisive, irrevocable step.” You have to find your own point of “no return.”
Don’t give up (well, most of the time).
Sometimes it’s a good idea to stop. Sometimes not. The choice is up to you. But, here are a few questions I ask myself when I am making the decision to go on or not:
A friend told me about the physical therapy sessions she had a while ago, after she was recovering from a broken leg. The therapy often made her ache. But she kept on going, because she wanted to get back to her normal routine. The advice that the therapist told her stuck with me, “If it’s just uncomfortable, it’s a good idea to keep going. But if it’s painful, you should stop.”
The decision to continue in any business situation is much the same. If you’re going hard and too fast, it may cause temporary discomfort or even a minor setback. But, if you’re doing something wrong or injurious to you or your business, it’s time to stop. It all comes down to risk versus reward.
Studies show that public speaking is #1 on the list of fears of the average person. If this is true for you, it’s time to confront your fear of speaking and make this critical skill a valuable part of who you are as a professional. Here are some ideas to help you become more effective at public speaking.
The Bottom-Line for Now
Don’t let a common and irrational fear of speaking in large groups stand in the way of your success. Developing the confidence to stand, deliver and engage is liberating and professionally profitable.
“More realistic” guidelines for the illustrations insurers, agents and brokers can use in marketing indexed universal life insurance (IUL) products go into effect September 1st, 2015.
Existing regulations allow companies to determine the maximum illustrated rate of return for IUL products, which in some cases have been as high as 10 percent. The new guideline, known as Actuarial Guideline (AG) 49, will be implemented in two phases with the first going into effect on September 1 and will result in what are being called more reasonable illustrated rates.
To help you prepare, ISN has put together some resources for your review. At the first link below you’ll find a consolidated listing of the major insurance carriers’ individual announcements, including their new maximum illustrated rates. At the second link you’ll find an informational article at Insurance News Net on the new IUL guidelines.
Let me know if you have any questions! Thanks!
We are going to make mistakes when dealing with and serving our clients. Who among us has not made a mistake? A mistake, especially with an important person like a client, requires an apology. In our world when we have to make an apology for an error that we made, we first try to come up with some solutions to the error so we have some positive ideas to deliver along with the bad news. We call this the “positive, negative, positive” approach. This works effectively when you are dealing with a reasonable client. But it is not always successful. I’m defining a successful apology as one that is received by the receiver as intended by the sender.
In an article written by fellow blogger Kevin Eikenberry – Kevin defines the 4+2 strategy — the four things you do during the apology conversation and the two things you do afterward. Good ideas for all of us to use.
Six Keys to Successful Apologies by Kevin Eikenberry
During the Apology Itself
1. Admit it. Too often people want to shade the situation or side step it in some way. A mistake was made. An oversight occurred. Or perhaps you did something with unintended consequences (or was unexpectedly perceived by others). Whatever the case, how the other person feels is how the other person feels. If you want the apology to be successful, you must hear their concern/anger/worry (or other emotion) and admit your role in it.
2. Own it. An apology with a “but” in it, isn’t very successful is it? “I understand what you are saying, but that wasn’t my fault.” Not much ownership here! Even worse is when we try to switch the blame back to the other party! “Well if you would have … then we wouldn’t have this problem. There is no room for blame in a successful apology.
Maybe someone else played a role in it too. Maybe another department messed something up too. If part of the outcome was your responsibility, or you could have influenced it, own it. In an organizational setting, remember that you are the face of the organization to the Customer in that moment. Even if it wasn’t “you” personally, it was the collective “we” of the organization. When you take ownership, it changes the perception of the other person instantly and significantly.
3. Mean it. If you don’t get this part right, you have very little hope for your apology. A successful apology requires you to be genuine and authentic. “I’m sorry” may be the words, but they must be true. Be very clear in your own mind about this before you even start.
4. Fix it. Sometimes there is no next step, but there will always be the chance to ask the other person what the resolution is. So whether there is a next step after the apology or not, there is always the question to ask to find out. The question itself will vary based on the context and the situation, but it all comes down to this — now that we are here, what can I do to make it right to fix it or what can I do differently next time?
Remember that the fix will be most effective when the other person has input into it. Find out what they want now. If you can deliver that, great (if you can deliver even more, make a mental note of that and deliver it — this is called creating delight!). If you can’t deliver that exactly, work with the other party through conversation to determine what you can do and how that will work for them.
Remember too that this “fix it” part of the conversation might be the most important part. Your earnestness in wanting to find a solution or resolution is very powerful (and “proves” that you mean all the words).
After the Conversation
1. Deliver on it. Once you have determined with the help of the other person what to do next, the apology conversation is over. Now the rubber meets the road. If a fix has been determined, now it is time to deliver on that fix. Send the new product. Write the letter. Refund the money. Whatever the fix is, the apology can’t be successful until you have done what you have promised.
2. Learn from it. We all say we have learned from our mistakes. So, remember to do that in these cases. What does this situation teach you to do or not do in the future? What steps could you put in place to keep this situation from occurring again? What processes might need to be changed? While these insights may come to you through this process, make sure you take action on these too.
Mistakes will happen. The apology is critical to the long term cost of those mistakes.
Is it troubling when you read financial magazines or the Wall Street Journal and all the pundits are dismissing annuities as a “bad investment”? Do advertisements from the likes of Suzy Orman or Ken Fisher give you angst? Well you are not alone. For years we have been fighting an uphill battle- we know the truth and the power and the safety provided by the annuities we represent. David Scranton is one of us. I have known Dave for 10 years. Dave is knowledgeable, straight forward and a real advocate for telling it like it is. In this article he explains the why- why we must continue the struggle to bring the truth to our clients. Enjoy.
BY DAVID SCRANTON
Everyone is well aware that the mass media has changed drastically in the last 10-to-15 years. Not so long ago, we relied on daily newspapers, TV and radio for all the information we needed to help us make informed decisions and stay abreast of current events. But in the Internet age, we seem to be bombarded with headlines, updates, and “breaking news” constantly from our laptops, desktops and cell phones, not to mention— still—our TVs and radios!
One thing that hasn’t changed, however, as the mass media has become so omnipresent in our lives, is the existence of “spin.” In fact, the explosion of media outlets in the past decade has dramatically increased the pervasiveness of spin, and made it harder to find truly objective reporting. With competition to “get the story” fierce and the line between news, advertising and “infotainment” increasingly thin, modern journalists are under more pressure than ever to cut corners and put “pleasing their bosses” ahead of “serving the public” on their priority lists. The result—more often than not—is reporting “spun” to someone’s liking or advantage, and lacking objectivity.
I often remind clients of this fact because I’m well aware that, amid this daily bombardment of mass media, it is likely that they will come across news and information about annuities that has a negative “spin.” I point out that financial news is particularly susceptible to being “spun” in a certain way because of a fundamental flaw in the financial system. This flaw is no one’s fault; it’s just a fact that no system is perfect, and this one is no exception.
The crux of the problem is that the heads of major financial firms on Wall Street are financially obligated to their shareholders first, to their customers and clients second. They have a legal obligation to maximize shareholder value, in part by keeping customers invested in the markets as much as possible. Now, obviously people are more likely to invest and stay invested when they’re optimistic about the markets and believe they’re trending upward. Thus, Wall Street CEOs and the people who work for them have an inherent need to sell optimism and to always speak optimistically about the markets—often regardless of economic realities or how the markets might really be trending.
Now, keep in mind there are two sides to every coin. That means that this need to speak optimistically about the markets and market-based financial products can create an accompanying need to speak negatively about alternative, non-stock market based types of investments. And what are those, exactly? Well, I explain to clients that there are basically there are three types of institutions vying for an investor’s money: The first type includes brokerage houses and mutual funds—which are both basically stock market-based. The second is insurance companies, and the third is banks.
Obviously, with the Fed holding interest rates near zero and likely to do so for a long time to come, it would be difficult for anyone to put any kind of positive “spin” on banks right now. So that leaves brokerage houses (i.e. stocks) and insurance companies (i.e. annuities). And if a Wall Street source is inherently obligated to put a positive spin on the former, what kind of spin is he likely to put on the latter?
But then why does the media, which is supposed to be objective, dutifully serve this spin to the public? Well, as I said at the start, today’s competitive, 24/7 media makes lazy, subjective reporting more pervasive than ever, but the bigger issue is that this “flaw in the system” has always made finding honest, objective financial news and information challenging.
The reality is that most articles written on financial topics and in financial publications aren’t written by financial advisors or money experts; they’re contributed by professional writers—and in this day and age, sometimes not so “professional” writers.
But even if the writer is a true pro, he is not likely to have one particular area of expertise. His resume may include everything from athlete interviews for Sports Illustrated to travel articles for National Geographic. This month, however, he’s writing a feature on annuities for a top financial magazine or website. Of course, not being an expert, he has to write his story with the help of a lot of outside research. Now, he could do basic research on his own, or he could turn to a more convenient source.
Naturally he’s going to take the easy road, and who might be the easiest source to work with? Well, probably someone who advertises with the magazine or website he’s writing for. And just who are those advertisers? Very often they’re Wall Street brokerage firms and mutual funds! So when the writer calls one of these friendly sources, of course they’re going to be more than happy to put their spin on the subject of annuities. And given their inherent need to sell optimism, it will most likely be a spin more favorable to the sale of their products and the markets in general, and one that casts a negative light on annuities.
I think it’s important for all investors to understand how this inherent “flaw” in the system makes the prevalence of “spin” especially common in the financial media. I encourage my own clients to stay informed, of course, but to also be aware that much of the media that bombards them in the Internet age is just so much spin, rhetoric and disguised advertising – not really news. I tell everyone that to get the real story on annuities or any other type of investment, always consult a trusted, accredited financial expert or advisor.
David Scranton is Founder/CEO of Advisors’ Academy
The Department of Labor needs to hear your voice. Annuities are and always will be a great solution for people who want safety within their IRA’s.
Spread the word. Here is a link for you to sign the petition.
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My "Bersonal" View 