Troy, a financial advisor in Ohio, claimed to be making constant prospecting calls, but he barely earned $50,000 last year.
“I’ve taken several sales training courses and am always reading sales books,” Troy told me during our initial coaching conversation. “I’m not sure why none of it is working for me,” he concluded.
When I questioned him about his activity, it was clear that his calls were sporadic and unscripted and that his appointments resulted in a very low closing ratio.
Troy was suffering from the same fate as many advisors. “If I don’t have enough clients,” they think, “I need to take another course [or read another book or listen to another audio].”
But if this sounds like you…
the truth is that you probably already know enough to have the success you want. You don’t need to obtain more information. You need to take massive, persistent action using the information you already have.
In his book, Straight-Line Leadership, my colleague, Dusan Djukich identifies this issue as having the wrong “inner stance”. If your inner stance about why you’re not moving forward is a belief that you don’t know how to get ahead, instead of a belief that you haven’t yet chosen to get ahead, you’ll keep going to seminars and reading books, and trying out shiny new prospecting ideas only to be disappointed, instead of taking the action you already know how to take, and that you need to take.
If, on the other hand, your stance is one of taking action—choosing to act on the knowledge you already have— your practice will flourish.
In a previous article, I wrote about the difference between “wanting” to succeed and “choosing” to succeed. Troy has spent years studying everything there is to study about selling services, but he hasn’t chosen to put that knowledge into action. So, while he may be working hard, he keeps doing the wrong work.
What’s your inner stance? If it’s a choose to, action-based stance, not knowing enough is an easily fixable condition. You will learn as you move forward, finding and applying the information you really need as you go along. Even being afraid falls by the wayside, because you’re on a mission to make things happen.
If you’re not constantly taking necessary required actions, it’s because you see your world as a place where it can’t be done. If that’s where you are, or you’re somewhere in the middle, join me this Friday at 1 pm EDT for my exclusive InsuranceWebX insider webinar, 4 Ways to Identify and Overcome Your Personal Challenges.
And in the meantime, Keep REACHING…
