Insurance Broker and Consultant Supporting Business Owners

The nicer way of saying "shut the hell up" is "please let consumers talk some at appointments." For the last 45 years, psychologists who study consumer behavior have extensive studies proving consumers are least likely to buy when salespeople dominate conversations at appointments.

This is a challenge for every salesperson…even me…but I know how to manage the anxiety and awkwardness of connecting with people on a B2B call, but especially face-to-face where people experience the most uneasiness. So what specifically is the awkwardness in the prospecting stage where you want to see if the person may be a good fit for your product or service? The challenge most salespeople have...

In contrast, if the salesperson owns the marketing system, he or she can leverage ownership for many, many years and control how fast or slow the business grows. So what does it mean “to own a marketing system?”  Owning a marketing system means the salesperson does not pay continuous high marketing expenses to add new clients. The salesperson can leverage marketing ownership privileges in sev...

We are excited to produce this episode about CPAs and my company working together to support small business owners. The easiest thing to do is what CPAs and 321 are already doing. It’s easier to just do the work along side CPAs and help small business owners. The hardest thing to do is to produce this episode and describe the background of why small business owners greatly benefit from working CPA...

This is a short podcast episode from Las Vegas, Nevada. It's about 107 degrees, so I had time to do this podcast before going to hang out. When new clients enjoy great sales experiences, business owners and salespersons have receive referrals. New clients can't help but tell their friends, families and colleagues about the nice time they had buying from professional salespeople.  Text (925) 2...

Speaking with a Tampa business owner today, I got this sincere question asked. This Tampa business owner was not embarrassed to ask me my definitions of sales training and business development. She had a good idea what business development was but admitted she had no idea what sales training is after owning a company for 20 years. I’m so ashamed of myself because this upcoming podcast episode to d...

After leaving corporate America in 2000, I began selling in the independent sales industry (insurance, mortgages, and real estate). It wasn't long before I realized something was dreadfully missing in how insurance, mortgage and real estate brokers trained their agents. It was a series of sales incidents and exposure to different people which led to understand exactly what I was missing in my inde...

Here’s a topic no one wants to discuss or, or that can’t provide a solution for salespeople looking to overcome fear of rejection and fear of failure challenges. These two fears stop salespeople in their tracks and are the number one reasons people quit the sales industry or never see careers take off. Whose fault is it 90% of salespeople struggle and are overcome by fears of rejection and failure...

The main advantage of using your phone to contact people or businesses is your can call to set appointments faster than any other methods. While on the phone, you will usually reach the decision maker or the office manager or the secretary or get voicemail. All of these are good outcomes. Don’t worry about not connecting with the individual or business owner on the first call. Particularly for cal...

Potential customers are seeking the marketing specialist’s expertise because business owners are looking for solutions. Marketing specialists often have college degrees and years of experience helping other business owners. What 321 Biz Developers listeners need to understand is business, in general, has a high failure rate. Stats say that most business fail in 2 to 5 years. There is always a risk...

Today’s topic is probably the least talked about in public but the most thought about subject my company hears when we individually meet with small business owners and salespeople. No. Sales professionals do not start consultations with “my looks are stopping me from being successful”. But when consultative sessions go deeper into how salespeople think about being in sales, the subject of looks in...

Social Media has never proven itself as a winning marketing strategy. In fact, the only people making money with social media are Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.  This podcast episode explains how salespeople were misled (not lied to) about the social media's marketing effectiveness. My company has been saying this for the last 8 years. Now that Facebook and Instagram have modified their alg...

Crappy 2 Happy Homes is a real estate investment firm which does three things:  1. Help home sellers looking for practical selling solutions when other options are limited or nonexistent. 2. Support general contractors by hiring them to renovate homes to bring properties back to “for sale” standards. And 3. Identify people and funding sources looking to diversify their portfolios by earning f...

My oh my have things changed so quickly. According to my business partner and technology confidant, Genie, President at SiteMarkit, that’s (spell it out), Instagram now has updated its algorithm to match the algorithm change Facebook made about one year ago. I’m not a tech genius. I’m a professional sales trainer and business development specialist. What I can share with 321 Biz Development podcas...

Before the fee, the majority of small business owners and salespersons I’ve spoken with were not making money posting their ads to social media sites when there was no fee. Now that the free option is no longer available, it is expected that business owners and salespersons, who decide to pay fees to get their content seen, will still make little to no money. Again, not Facebook’s, Instagram’s nor...

What I’m getting it, as I said earlier, is selling is an entrepreneurial activity to escape the need to be heavily dependent on external inputs to be successful. Buying leads is a major external input that removes the entrepreneurial component from being in business for yourself. Finding the customer or client IS THE entrepreneurial component. Just look at the many motivational speakers, sales gur...

I've known Samantha, a Toronto business owner, for almost 18 months and I am thrilled she's doing one of her first interviews with me to talk about her new book, "Cash is Queen". Samantha also talks about using past business skills to reaffirm what she has always known about creating multiple income streams. Samantha is advocate of business owners protecting their businesses from legal issues and...

This is a podcast from 2015 uploaded to this new platform. Realtors, Loan Officers and Insurance Agents can work together to build strong networks to generate new business, refer business to one another and get referrals from recently closed clients.

This Friday, July 5, 321 will conduct a free sales training session on Part 3 of a five-part insurance sales system. As if prospecting for insurance business was tough enough for agents, meeting with insurance prospects at their homes or at their businesses is a sales hurdle agents find themselves unable to cross. This is why the insurance industry has an 87% agent failure rate where agents either...

Today’s podcast segment features our guest, Catherine Smart, Manager, Blue Mountain Village Foundation, in the great nation of Canada. Catherine comes on the 321 Biz Development show to provide some details about the Damon Allen Celebrity Golf Tournament to be held on September 26-27 at the beautiful Blue Mountain Village Resort on southern Georgian Bay, about 2 hours northwest of downtown Toronto...

AJ Smith was gracious enough to be a guest to give listeners a peak into the Jive Communications audio/video/conferencing communication platform. My company has been a Jive customer for almost 5 months and we have had nothing but a great experience. Since 2004, I've used multiple vendors and experienced communication challenges that I just had to live with. If there is no other service provider th...

   Working your business as a technician is earning money but being close to the job you didn’t like. Operating your business as an entrepreneur has a lot more benefits. But developing and achieving the entrepreneurial experience has several distinctions and challenges. I will talk about three: Receiving mailbox income or earning money while you sleep. Real estate, insurance brokers and...

The definitions of these two words, productivity and performance, are mysteries to white collar salespeople based on our conversations with hundreds of business owners and salespersons. I think part of the explanation why productivity and performance are mysterious is the definitions have probably never been clarified. Selling for independent salespeople originate primarily from passing state exam...

I really mean Kawhi Leonard's basketball skills combined with his quiet calmness whether he is winning or losing. No doubt, Kawhi Leonard, a native of Compton California played an instrumental part of Toronto’s darling season. The whole team contributed to Toronto’s powerhouse play. But it is Kawhi who got most of the attention, not just because of his consistent play that won him a 2nd NBA Finals...

This podcast focuses on my walk with sales performance and how I got to get this point. An epiphany can happen in any aspect in your life. What’s important about an epiphany is will you recognize it and will you take action when you identify possibly the only thing in your life that might have the most meaning ever! Here’s the definition of epiphany from Wikipedia, which I think is a good definiti...