"We shall have no better conditions in the future if we are satisfied with all those which we have at present."

- Thomas Edison

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     The alarm goes off on Monday and we are excited about going to work! Are you?  I know very few people who as children wanted to be insurance producers, and yet here we all are striving to be the best and brightest product specialist in our local marketplace. Today, being the best and the brightest in our business also requires us to be entrepreneurial in our thinking and our actions. As Edison stated above, we can’t accept the status quo like an employee or manager if we want something different or better. It is up to us as entrepreneurs to look at the status quo and determine how we need to change it so as to influence the desired future outcome. Our industry continues to evolve with new product, new underwriting, new pricing, and the need to market our message differently as well. If you are serious about your business, we believe that this book will both shorten and accelerate your learning curve and propel your practice to new heights.

     Have you thought about what your current career is all about and the degree of difference you make in the lives of your clients? As Joe Jordan has noted in his own work, we have the opportunity to truly live a life of significance as we serve our clients and their families. Take a minute and think about the number of clients and their families that you have assisted either with a death benefit check on a life insurance policy you may have sold to a young couple “just in case” something happens, or the phone call you receive from the spouse or a child of a long term care policyholder when they are overwhelmed by the enormity of having to become a caregiver to a loved one. We make a huge difference in their lives! However, we can’t make this difference in their lives unless we first meet with them. Why should you read this book? Simple: so that you get in front of more people. We have spent the majority of our adult lives working to this single goal and want to share the secrets that have made us modestly successful at what we do. We don’t profess to know all the answers or how to walk on water, but we have been doing this long enough to figure out where the rocks are located.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------"The key to this business is being in front of more people. Some of these people will become clients while others will become professional associates that will put you in front of people with whom they have a relationship, while others will become centers of influence providing you with the right combination to unlock and open even more doors." -- Don Levin

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     Still not convinced that you should continue reading? As previously stated, this book is all about how to get in front of more people. Some of these people will become clients while others will become professional associates that will put you in front of people with whom they have a relationship, while others will become centers of influence providing you with the right combination to unlock and open even more doors.

     For this reason, this book presents our unique experiences book in marketing and branding your business. It can’t be because the world has changed so much, and continues to change on an accelerating basis. The reality of selling long term care insurance and ancillary products has changed significantly with the ending of the direct mail and mass lead generation systems. Think about all the changes you have witnessed in your own life thus far. Computers, personal computers, lap top computers, the iPad. The brick phone, the flip phone, the Smart phone. From the flip phones that greatly resemble the then-fictional communicators of Star Trek to the smart phones and iPads that would even have Mr. Spock marveling at them, all of which that harness more memory and energy than some of the largest computers ever previously constructed, it is all about the change that is coming at us faster and faster and in ever growing waves. Further evidence of this would be how going to the local movie theater was replaced with the ability and option of staying home through the utilization of Blockbuster, which in turn was replaced by Netfix, and certainly there will come a time when Netflix goes by the wayside.

     It is about instant communications and gratification. Snail mail has yielded to e-mail. Texting is the new wave of the advertiser. How often do we hear someone say, “How did we ever exist without a cell phone?” Easy, you carried a roll of dimes and used the pay phone when that new-fangled pager went off indicating that someone needed to communicate with you immediately.

     Change is something to be embraced if we are to thrive in this new world. For us, it is imperative that we change along with the world around us if we are going to continue to service the clients who so badly need what we have to offer. If you are reading this book and have clients who rely on your advice, then you will find the answers of how to re-tool your business going forward. For many years, the reigning school of thought for sales leaders was to insure that you were taking care of that 20% of the sales force that was accounting for 80% of the business. We believe that if you are reading this book, particularly as a new member of the industry, then you are part of the other 80% that will virtually change the world of sales. If as you read this book you should agree that it is what you need to be doing, and set your mind to doing it, you will be part of the industry’s top tier of producers.

     Many years ago Robert F. Kennedy said, “Some men see things as they are and say why, I dream of things that never were and say why not.” While he was speaking of life in this country on a far grander scale, the same can be said for us in our chosen careers as well. Think big, Dream Big, and don’t be afraid of doing something different. Get out of your comfort zone and embrace the idea of being uncomfortable in the short term.

     For those who may be too young to remember RFK, let us express it in the words of Disney’s Aladdin, when he said it’s “a whole new world.” This whole new world is full of selling opportunities on a scale that we have never yet experienced; a marketplace growing faster than we can service it. 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------"Success is not final, failure is not fatal, it's the courage to continue that counts." -- Winston Churchill

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     This is not Marketing for Dummies, or a general ‘how to’ book, but rather the best practices of fifty plus years of specific experience of two sales leaders committed to the success of their agents, who have also been on the street just like you, attempting to become known as product experts in their local market. Our combined experiences allow us to share with a high degree of confidence what is in the minds of the advisors that you will be meeting with in hopes of making them your strategic partners. We know what will cause them to shrink back from the relationship ranging from fear of losing clients to looking incompetent or lacking in the eyes of their clients. We will share with you how to overcome these as well as many other objections. We have lived in many different markets around the country and have discovered many universal truths that we will also share with you. We are rainmakers dedicated to working hard on behalf of our agents in an effort to penetrate these various and sundry markets. We know that the old adage that you learn more from your failures rather than your successes is true, and suffice to say that we have learned a whole lot in those fifty years, and there is no need for you to earn your degree at the school of Hard Knocks as we have done.  Just as parents want their children to learn from their mistakes rather than experiencing their own, we know that you are all going to have to experience your own series of trials and errors. And while it is sometimes good for the child to fall and skin their knee, we also know that we can’t allow them to touch the hot stove or walk into traffic with the associated dire consequences. For this reason we hope that you will want to work smarter and not harder, while growing your individual practices.  What we offer you in these pages is a blueprint of how to build lasting fruitful relationships that in fact get you in front of more people.

     Marketing to us is pretty simple. Do it, do it right, and do it right now. It is not easy, but it is a simple process. It requires us to possess a certain mindset and embracing that marketing is a lifestyle and not merely an event.  It is not easy to work tirelessly in this endeavor day in and day out, but we know the sweet taste of success that accompanies the formation of a relationship that really works to the betterment of everyone, most notably the clients. We have an associate who is now semi-retired from our industry and has a retirement income in excess of a quarter million dollars per annum. To meet him is to talk with a very unassuming person who in his own estimation is very boring. Why is he now retired and enjoying the fruits of his labors? Marketing. Our friend discovered very early on in his career that the key to his future success was to turn all of his clients and their circles of influence into his personal marketers. While others continued to view our business as a transactional-based system, he fostered his own personal relationship-based system, and the rest we say is History. As evidenced by our friend, proper marketing will in fact provide you the right combination to your own future success.

     Unlocking the door of your success begins right now if you turn the page…

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Chapter Tumblers - Take A-ways:

 

Marketing will unlock your future

 

There is an infinite market of professionals with whom to partner.

 

Been there, done that… it’s all about getting out there and doing it!