Table of Contents
1. Ask challenging questions
This starts in the interview and continues right the way through. You have to challenge your boss, colleagues, suppliers, and clients.
You should want to understand why they’re recruiting (are they replacing someone, growing the team, etc.), what habits and beliefs they’re looking for, and always ask them to demonstrate how they’ve helped develop similarly experienced people’s potential.
When it comes to clients, they don’t care how much GWP your company wrote last year or how long the business has been going. Your objective is to ask questions so you can uncover what problems and issues they’re having, so you can match your offering to their set of problems. The more problems you solve for clients, the more valuable you become – For everyone.
2. The best people listen
It’s important to work alongside and learn from some great communicators. This sounds obvious and easy to do in theory, but in reality, when you’re talking to a client, you have a clear idea about the points you want to get across, and the desire to communicate your point often clouds your ability to listen to what’s happening. Once they understand what’s going on, what’s working, and what’s not, the best advisors will establish who the key stakeholders are in the decision-making process, how these things affect their world, and move forward by involving all of them.
3. You get more with sugar than you do with salt
Once everyone understands the insurance product and market and has a few deals under their belt, Ego kicks in.
Remember, you’ll get more with sugar than you ever will do with salt – So be nice; it will get you a lot further. This is particularly important in the new building warranty market space, which is a very small and niche market.
4. Fear is a liar
We always want something, but it looks a bit scary or just out of reach.
Fear can be one of those misused emotional triggers that stop us from pursuing what is meaningful and important to us professionally, be it: a promotion, a new job, learning a new skill or starting your own business. There’s something to be said for staying within the parameters.
Our survival brains think we can minimize anxiety and fear. The challenge with that is, we don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow, and we don’t know what other people are thinking – Don’t give time to worrying about elements like this – Things you can’t control!
