I had my typical office hours last week and I was kinda dreading it! It was my last appointment on Wed. before the long 4th of July holiday. I only had one slot filled, I assumed it was because of the holiday, so I just wanted the long weekend to start. I’m glad it didn’t.
Enter Mark
Mark is a commercial insurance broker who was successful and had been successful for sometime. Despite his success he had this nagging feeling he could do more, that there was more out their for him to get. With this nagging feeling plaguing him, Mark signed up for office hours to get my help in figuring out how he could get that “more.”
My first question to Mark was; “Why do you feel there is more to get? If you’ve been successful, why do you think you need to change? Is there even a problem?”
Mark answered my questions by sharing what his prospects and clients looked like and some of the objections he was getting. From this dialog it didn’t take long for us to identify a different way for Mark to engage his prospects, particularly those he hadn’t been able to close in the past.
The biggest objection Mark struggled with was the, “not interested, I already use someone I like and I have all the insurance I need” objection. Mark’s company’s primary competitive advantage is price. Mark knows it and accepts that he sells on price and that’s how his company competes. With that said, Mark spent little time on his target companies business and too much time on the dollars and cents. It wasn’t compelling enough to get his prospects to give him a look.
Mark needed to be more customized in his calls and his message. He needed to focus on the value of a lower price. We discussed the impact of a lower price on his target businesses. In many cases the savings was as much as 20k. I asked Mark what could his clients do with an additional 20k a year? How would that affect cash-flow? Could it buy a new piece of equipment? Could it get a new employee on the line? I pushed Mark to think in terms of the entire business, not just lower price.
Mark quickly took the reigns and could see numerous ways his target customers could use 20k and more importantly how the lower cost of insurance from his company could positively affect them. Mark was excited and instantly committed to engaging his prospects in a different way.
Office hours are only 20 minutes long and designed that way to inorder to solve a critical problem quickly and it worked perfectly for Mark.
I’m sharing this story not because of the success we had and the benefits it’s going to have on Mark’s business but because of Mark’s attitude. He was a successful sales person. He’d been successful for a while. There was no compelling NEED to do anything, yet Mark didn’t accept that. He believed he could go even higher and accomplish more. He saw an opportunity to do just that and took it.
Unlike Mark, too many of us wait till the shit hits the fan before we look to improve. We discard outside help until things are broken then scramble to try and fix them. Here is the irony in that approach, those who are fixated on improvement while things are good, rarely have anything break.
Mike is one of those rare people who are always looking to improve, not avoid failure after something breaks. He signed up for office hours and in just 20 minutes he had more arrows in his quiver and was ready to take his game up a notch.
It’s not enough to focus on self-improvement. Knowing when to focus on it matters too. Do you look for help regularly? Are you looking to grow or fix? It makes a huge difference!
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As far as office hours are concerned. I make myself available EVERY Wednesday from 12:00 to 1:00 MST. free of charge for anyone who wants to solve a problem or pick my brain on sales, sales leadership, pipeline, hiring and firing, etc. You name it, it’s your time. Go on, don’t be shy. Be like Mark and sign up. Where else ya gonna go? Sign up here: Keenan Office Hours