https://completemarkets.com/Article/article-post/1422/PROSPECTING-MOTIVATION/
Prospecting Motivation
PROSPECTING MOTIVATION Successful prospecting relies upon motivational discipline; it's the single most important contributing factor to it. Prospecting requires discipline, not as in punishment, but rather as a systematic approach and a desire to push forward. This internal drive is motivation. Some people consider super-charged emotional hype seminars to be the epitome of motivation. In reality, there isn't much merit to this kind of motivation; if it worked, people could experience it one time and never have to repeat seminars. Every person possesses motivation; it's what inspires individuals to carry out tasks. It impacts how the task is done, if at all. And, like any decision, motivation is greatly influenced by pain avoidance. An unmotivated person is avoiding pain. For a more in-depth look at motivation and how it influences prospecting activities, Edwards Holliday, President, Creative Achievement Concepts, was interviewed. Holliday's interesting perspective on motivation directly conflicts with the concepts of Eaglemark Consulting Group, but the viewpoint is viable, credible, and worthwhile. However different Holliday's message is, study it carefully to firmly implant the concepts and realities. Do You Have What It Takes? by Edwards A. Holliday Creative Achievement Concepts What is the common denominator of success; a trait or quality that all of the following people possess: Abraham Lincoln, Alex Haley, Helen Keller, Hank Aaron, Amelia Earhart, Florence Chadwick, Gregory Peck, Bill Cosby, Bob Hope, Sir Winston Churchill, Thomas Edison, Joe Frazier, W. Clement Stone, Lee Iacocca, and Vince Lombardi? Why are these people, and other famous individuals, so well-known for their accomplishments? What was the driving force behind each that compelled them to achieve greatness? Simply stated, these individuals were self-motivated. From the moment of birth, individuals are exposed to others' likes, prejudices, preferences, attitudes, and behaviors through the long process of conditioning. However, while humans are products of their environment, the power of choice always exists. Individuals can't always control the environment, but they can control their thoughts. As William James said in the book, As A Man Thinketh, 'As a being of power, intelligence and love, and Lord of his own thoughts, man holds the key to every situation and contains within himself that transforming and regenerative agency by which he may make himself what he wills.' This is called personal responsibility for one's motivation. Self-motivation is a reason to move, a reason to take action. Motivation vs inspiration Motivation should not be confused with inspiration. Inspiration is temporary, it wears off. Inspiration is like perspiration, it evaporates quickly. A person who is truly self-motivated generates an aura of energy and enthusiasm for life; it comes from within. Relatively few individuals are truly self-motivated-that's why those who are self-motivated stand out from the crowd-that's why their qualities are so highly desirable and sought. Self-motivated people know who they are, where they've been, where they're going, and how to get there. They know their strengths and their weaknesses, their assets and liabilities. Self-motivated people forget the past and press forward into the future. They focus on their powers and not their problems. Self-motivated people don't watch things happen or wait for things to happen, they make them happen. If self-motivation comes from within and can be generated by anyone, at anytime, in any place, and in any environment, then why are so few individuals examples of supreme self-motivation? The answer is simple, but the solution is difficult. It's hard work! Individuals are complex. They have egos, needs, desires, emotions, problems, limitations, influences, and so on. These obstacles prevent individuals from tapping their full potential, -- their self-motivation. Path to Motivation Some people think that motivation is just bells and whistles, something that is obtained overnight by going to a seminar or reading a book. That may be the start of it, but it's certainly only an outline of the whole picture. The path each person walks in life is a process in learning and growth which can be changed, accelerated, and improved upon to deliver better results. For instance, an acorn is about the size of a quarter and weighs about an ounce, but it has the potential of becoming a towering oak, 100 feet high, weighing thousands of pounds, able to withstand the elements of wind, sleet, and freezing weather. The acorn does not become an oak overnight. As a seed, it will either use its resources of earth, sun, and water, and live to grow, or it will rot and die. Use resources: talents, abilities, other people, institutions, nature, time, etc. to live and grow-or choose to remain unchanged, stagnant, and apathetic. As the acorn grows, it becomes a sapling, the sapling becomes a mature tree, and the tree produces! The tree is always in the process of change, growing and dying, as it loses its leaves in the fall, and grows new buds in the spring. The great oak will continue to live and grow until the day that the sap refuses to travel up the trunk, starving the branches. It declines and dies. Likewise, people are in a process of change, physically and mentally. On the outside, they are always growing new skin, hair, and nails. On the inside, people are always assimilating new information and experiences; they are continuously modifying attitudes and behaviors. The sap that fuels production is self-motivation. Without it, humans die, not physically, but emotionally, and shortly thereafter, mentally. The light at the end of the tunnel Some people walk around with a pulse, but without an emotional heartbeat: Nothing stirs them inside. Nothing excites them, except the coming of the weekend and simple pleasures. They're living for two days a week, instead of seven. Why do they dread the other five? They have no purpose, no goals or ambition. It's a chore for them to rise in the morning. Listen to many of the excuses that are verbalized: 'It's not my fault. I didn't do it. I don't have a college education. My parents didn't love me. The economy is down. No one is buying. I can't do it. I was born into a poor environment. People just price shop, what's the use?' Self-motivation comes from a need to express oneself by means of activity, creation, and emotion. It's a burning desire in a person's gut that acts as a compelling force to take determined action again and again and again until the desired goal has been achieved. When a person begins to see the light at the end of the tunnel, when turning on instead of turning off begins, something amazing happens. The vision of the end result makes the benefits and pleasures that can be gained real. The losses or pains that you will avoid also become tangible. These are the only two reasons any person chooses to take action on any matter: anticipation of gain or pain avoidance. The more a person focuses, the clearer this becomes. The clearer the goal, the more believable the benefits. Benefits and losses from goals motivate people. People either create benefits and losses for themselves for their own reasons, or someone else creates them for their reasons. If people create their own results, and have a clearer understanding of what will be gained or avoided, then they will be motivated by their own attitudes. When individuals know what's in it for them, they know why they want something, what's important to them, and how they're going to feel when they have it. Figuring out what a person wants, why it is wanted, and the feeling of getting it should all be relatively simple; but it's not. In today's society, people are surrounded with so many options, opportunities, information, and influences that it makes choosing difficult and confusing. The challenge, as author Paul J. Meyer states is, 'If you're not making the progress you would like to make and are capable of making, it's simply because your goals are not clearly defined.' Goal setting is the strongest human force in the process of developing self-motivation. If you take action on the ideas presented, chances are that will become a champion. You can achieve if you think you can. As coach Bear Bryant said, 'If you think you're better, you are; if you think you dare not, you won't; if you like to win, but don't think you can, it's almost a cinch that you won't.' Just being involved in this continuing-improvement program guarantees the special opportunity to excel. What a person does with that opportunity will, in a large part, reflect the quantity and quality of self motivation. As asked in the title of this article, 'Do You Have What It Takes?'
https://completemarkets.com/Article/article-post/2432/%E2%80%98The-King-Of-Broadway%E2%80%99/
‘The King Of Broadway’
For 12 years and 150 articles, Richard Weber wrote a monthly series on 'Due Care' for Life Insurance Selling magazine. Because of his love for the theatre, he identified his articles with show tunes or show titles. This is the second of four 'swan song' articles in which Weber summarizes and integrates what he learned during those 12 years.
Until the early 1980s, the Life insurance industry had a well-deserved reputation for being conservative and, let’s admit it, dull! Not to mention profitable. Whether a mutual insurer formed for the benefit of its policyholders, or a stock company formed for the benefit of its shareholders, Life insurers prospered mightily from the post-WWII boom of 1946 until the end of the 1970s. The staple products of the industry were Whole Life, endowments, and Term insurance. These products generated 80% of the industry’s premium revenue.
The underlying investments of the Life insurance industry were in fixed-return securities. Securities were a primary source of long-term capital in the economy, which by 1990 accounted for almost $1.5 trillion invested in mortgages, corporate bonds, and U.S. bonds. Although interest rates could vary, they did so in a relatively narrow band until the stagnant inflation of the mid-1970s. Since the underlying policy reserve rate guarantees were a relatively conservative 3% or 4%, there was little critical stress on Life companies. As each year passed, dividends paid by the mutual carriers continued to grow, reflecting the profits and prosperity of a 'book' of business that was predominantly Whole Life.
The Life industry also had a perfect franchise: Only a 'legal reserve Life insurance company' could manufacture the unique financial product called Life insurance. Typically you could only buy Life insurance through several distribution systems controlled largely by those manufacturers. So-called 'career agents' predominated, but a growing group of independent agents or 'brokers' began to emerge as product competition began to heat up in the 1970s.
The combination of an emerging group of independent agents, high inflation that transformed product design, and the shift away from death benefit products to investment-oriented products resulted in a profound shift in premium revenue. Through the end of the 1980s, the industry’s traditional products dropped from 80% to barely 25% of premium flow, replaced primarily by annuity sales. The transformation also changed the way the industry’s profit margins were earned since Whole Life products were extremely profitable, but investment-oriented and current assumption products generated earnings measured in mere basis points.
Two key events in the past 20 or so years mark profound shifts for the entire Life insurance industry. As referenced in last month’s article, the first event was the 1979 report from the Federal Trade Commission declaring that '… cash value Life insurance is an extremely poor investment, yielding barely a 1%-2% return on the premium …'
The FTC report and the subsequent run-up in interest rates in the economy caused the almost overnight adoption of current assumption products. These products were so popular that by 1984, 40% of new cash value product sales were Universal Life. Since these products were better characterized as 'indeterminate premium' — meaning that there was no specified premium — agents and consumers began to take advantage of the choice of how much premium to pay. After all, why pay more than you have to for Life insurance? As it turned out, the courts rendered the answer during the latter half of the 1990s, when the Life insurance industry would settle more than $6 billion in lawsuits for unfulfilled promises.
The second major event was the failure of Mutual Benefit in July 1991. Although the industry — and to some extent the economy — was rocked by the April 1991 failure of Executive Life, it was easily dismissed as just desserts for an industry maverick. But nothing could explain the loss of the 146-year-old, old-line Eastern mutual company. Intense media coverage, rating downgrades, lack of early action by regulators, arcane accounting practices, and inexperience of agents in dealing with carrier insolvencies culminated in a shock wave that would dominate the industry for the remainder of the decade.
Agents and consumers became aware of Guarantee Associations that served as a financial form of 'reinsurance.' Carriers that were admitted to a state with a Guarantee Association were required by regulation to absorb policyholder losses up to certain limits. Not all states had Guarantee Association agreements in 1991, and there was only modest coverage for the protection of policy owners. At best, holders of Life and annuity policies were covered for not more than $100,000 of cash value and $300,000 of death benefits. Although many policies might be protected by these limits, retirement annuities were much more vulnerable to loss — and these losses were an intense source of confusion and feelings of betrayal by agents and consumers alike.
Ironically the financial salvation for the industry came from the same source that had caused such agony a decade earlier: the general level of inflation and interest rates in the economy. As inflation subsided in the middle to late 1980s and as bond (especially junk bond) and fixed mortgage portfolio values recovered, the means were at hand to achieve stability. Unfortunately, this economic benefit did not help policy owners of Executive Life products, as the California Commissioner negotiated a sale of the company’s assets at a substantial discount over what those assets would be worth within a year of their disposition.
As the industry began to repair its finances, dignity, and reputation, the various agents organizations were under intense pressure to do something to regain consumer confidence. Perhaps the most proactive association was the Society of Financial Service Professionals (then the American Society of CLU & ChFC). Its groundbreaking Illustration Questionnaire helped tens of thousands of agents to better understand the basis on which policy illustrations are calculated. It also encouraged agents and home offices to be aware of the true nature of the current assumptions — and the projection of those assumptions over 30, 40, 50, and sometimes even 60 years in the future — that underlie all illustrations. The 'IQ,' as it came to be known, was introduced in the spring of 1993 and was a largely educational process focused on agents. Soon afterwards, the Society developed a Replacement Questionnaire to help agents make ethical and professional decisions about whether an intended replacement was indeed in the best interests of the client.
Regulators were also at work in the aftermath of carrier insolvencies. The National Association of Insurance Commissioners took two significant actions in the mid-90s: Model Regulations for Risk-Based Capital, and policy illustration reform. Illustration reform, however, became a mixed blessing. The NAICs process of reform began in earnest in 1993, yet wasn’t transformed into a Model Regulation until December 1996. At one point, the NAIC taskforce for reform responsibility actually considered a guarantees-only approach to policy illustrations. In this proposal, which was considered for almost a year, illustrations could only portray the values that would be guaranteed for a particular death benefit and paid premium. With pressure from the industry, however, policy illustrations were ultimately allowed to portray projected values, although with requirements for substantially greater narrative and tabular disclosure. As enacted by most states in the latter part of the 1990s, policy illustrations now span 12 – 20 pages (compared with the typical three-page, pre-reform illustration).
The greatest dilemma of illustration reform is that a methodology that didn’t work well was retained and made more elaborate, rather than providing a better model to help customers understand how a policy works (the goal of the NAIC Working Committee on illustration reform). In fact, at the December 1997 meeting of the NAIC in Seattle, regulators complained that illustration reform would have to be revisited yet again, since it hadn’t met regulators’ expectations — even just 12 months after initial promulgation!
The American Council on Life Insurance started the last phase of repairing the industry’s image by launching the Insurance Marketplace Standards Association (IMSA) in 1996. The creators of this membership organization (virtually a self-regulating body) created six principles of ethical market behavior to which all members are expected to adhere through self-examination followed by independent examination. As of September 2001, a total of 232 Life insurance companies had achieved and maintained current membership in IMSA. Similar to the 'Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval,' the members of IMSA hope to regain the trust and confidence of consumers and the press in ethical sales practices by companies and their agents and brokers.
Unfortunately, some Life insurers have questioned the value of continuing their membership in IMSA. Still others have questioned whether it’s possible for consumers to become aware of the value of IMSA without massive advertising. Finally, although agents and brokers must implement the principles of ethical market conduct, few are aware of IMSA and its standards. The 'top-down' process adopted by most insurance companies hasn’t taken into account the needs or collaboration of sales professionals — and this might prove to be the ultimate problem.
Although a booming economy and stock market largely characterized the 1990s, the Life insurance industry underwent profound changes. The career system of distribution has shrunk. At the same time there are many new sources of distribution that many in the industry wouldn’t have guessed as recently as 1990. As we entered the early 21st century, Life insurance sold by CPAs, attorneys, banks, and at worksites has challenged this most traditional of all businesses. A substantial and as yet unanswered question is whether these non-traditional distributors will be able to render the same level of quality service as the trained Life insurance professional.
The next article will focus on that most perplexing of all sales tools: the policy illustration and the likely direction it will take in the future.