Acting with Intention

Chapter 5 – It’s Coffee Time! “It’s coffee time Kristine” Let’s go! We need to talk about our Income Generating Activities” Sally Said. “I’ll be right there, let me get my notebook,” she said heading back to her office. We left the office and went back to our favorite coffee shop. Sipping on her latte, Kristine says “Sally, everybody who gets involved in a selling career has the exact same opportunity for success. So why do some have more success than others? Are elite producers simply luckier than others advisors that come in and fail out? I often hear advisors talking about successful people with a little bit of jealousy or try to come up with a reason why that advisor is more successful than they are. Everybody comes in on an equal playing field with the same opportunity and environment. There really are no excuses.” “I notice that even advisors that aren’t getting the results appear to be working hard,” Sally Said. They are putting in a lot of time but are they focusing on the right things? I think we need to help them in determining what those right things are.” After a few more sips of green tea, Sally asks Kristine to share her thoughts. “Creating a Success Formula requires one to become intimate with their business activities. Often when I am coaching individuals they say, “I am so busy, I don’t understand why I’m not making sales.” “Being a good coach, I like to ask my advisors a lot of questions such as: What isn’t working? Tell me about your sales process? What is preventing you from having success? What would you be willing to do differently to get better results?” “Far too often advisors aren’t even able to tell me what they did last week, so they have trouble answering these questions. One guarantee we can make is that if other people have had success they can too! The truth is that everything can work when you work at it. I suggest that we start by analyzing the activities that an advisor is doing in a given day.” Sally Said. “We then broaden it to the week. Sometimes the advisor is so lost and distracted we must start them with an activity journal to log their activities every hour for five days. This is a great way to become accountable to your time and intimate with your activities. Once you know what activities are being done you can start to sort and classify them into larger categories. You may also suggest to completely remove some activities and put crucial activities in their place. Does that sound like a good starting point Kristine?” “Sally,” she replied, “How do we decide which activities to keep and lose?” We both thought for a moment, then Kristine interjected, “It’s simple, they must be activities that produce a pay check. When I am coaching I ask advisors to list all the activities that they do in a day then I ask them to tell me which ones are within two degrees of income generation. It may seem easy to decide which ones produce an income, surprisingly it’s not! I ask the question, “How long do you think it will be before you see some income from this activity?” I agree that all activities are important, but the one’s that must be completed first are the ones that are going to pay the bills this month.” “Perfect description Kristine.” Sally Said “By doing what is going to allow us to pay our bills this month is a great starting point. Let’s identify activities now as they relate to our advisors.” 1. Prospecting – leads to a sales presentation which then leads to a closing appointment 2. Fact Finding – leads to an opportunity to provide solutions, which leads to a closing appointment. 3. Booking appointments – leads to a sales presentation which leads to a closing appointment “Now it is easy to see how all these Income Generating Activities are within two degrees of income generation. Let’s review a few activities that are in our daily actions, but may not be within two degrees of income generation.” Sally Said. 1. Education – although essential in creating future opportunity it is not considered an income generating activity by itself 2. Meetings with the sales team – Meetings are essential in our business but managing time spent in meetings (and how effective they are) will impact the time you have to create new sales opportunities 3. Networking – Without an intent to follow up and take immediate action, network is a soft form of marketing. A specific outcome that can lead to a sale must be within two degrees of income generation. “So, the first element of our success formula is Income Generating Activities,” Sally exclaimed. “Yes! Absolutely!” Kristine agreed. Success Formula Income Generating Activities + ________________ = _________________ We would like to invite the reader to complete your list of Income Generating Activities on the worksheet at the end of this chapter. This will assist you in becoming focused on the activities that should take priority in your business.