December 4, 2019 | Comments Closed |
“A team is only as strong as its weakest link” Mark Gray Do you remember The Weakest Link? It was a television quiz show featuring a team of nine contestants. They would take turns to answer general knowledge questions, within a time limit, to create a ‘chain’ of nine correct answers in a row. At…
Read MoreNovember 5, 2019 | Comments Closed |
I live on a busy street in East Melbourne near the CBD (downtown area). To make sure the traffic flows smoothly during peak hours there are clearway zones; cars are prohibited from parking between 7:00 am and 9:30 am, Monday to Friday. Between 4:30 pm and 6:30 pm, the same restriction applies to the other…
Read MoreOctober 4, 2019 | Comments Closed |
It’s often said that great athletes don’t always make the best coaches and managers. They know what to do, but they cannot communicate how to do it. I often see this in small- to mid-sized financial services firms. The owners, partners or directors, who are effective sales professionals in their own right, are having difficulty…
Read MoreSeptember 20, 2019 | Comments Closed |
“The purpose of a business is to create a customer.” Peter Drucker Some financial service professionals seem to believe that they are paid for what they know. This is a big mistake. The reality is that you are paid for persuading people to buy from you. You may understand the technical details of your product; you…
Read MoreSeptember 12, 2019 | Comments Closed |
There are basically two ways to build a successful financial services business: the hard way as a hunter or the easy way as a trapper. What’s the difference? Hunters are product centered; they concentrate on anything that moves. In the process, they invest a lot of time and energy but get little return on their…
Read MoreSeptember 5, 2019 | Comments Closed |
NBA team, the San Antonio Spurs is one of the most successful sporting franchises in the world. Since 1999 they have claimed five NBA titles and 22 overall division titles; they have won at least 50 games in 18 consecutive seasons. The Spurs’ staple is the concept of ‘pounding the rock’. The adage refers…
Read MoreAugust 22, 2019 | Comments Closed |
Building a successful financial service business is not complicated, but then again, I won’t pretend that it’s easy. If it were, there would be a lot more top producing professionals. In the 20 years I’ve been advising, coaching and training professionals I have identified the biggest challenge for many professionals: getting meetings with qualified…
Read MoreAugust 21, 2019 | Comments Closed |
“It never ceases to amaze me that companies spend millions to attract new customers (people they don’t know) and spend next to nothing to keep the ones they’ve got! Seems to me the budgets should be reversed!” – Tom Peters My clients often ask me whether there’s a quick and effective way to achieve…
Read MoreAugust 20, 2019 | Comments Closed |
The Talladega Insurance Agency in Talladega Alabama was founded in 1858. It is the third oldest insurance agency in the United States and probably one of the oldest in the world. There are few financial services firms anywhere that can claim to have operated prior to the American Civil War. That’s what I call a…
Read MoreAugust 20, 2019 | Comments Closed |
There’s more than one way to eat a frog. Learn how to do the hard things first and your business will thrive. Eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day. Mark Twain Several mornings each week I wake up at…
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