Let’s start off by giving 2016 a big warm welcome! I love the New Year for a variety of reasons. Alll the new people at the gym who won’t be there the following month, the look of relief on the faces of every retail employee ever, and starting over with our professional ambitions. We get to reflect on what we did the previous year, examine our accomplishments and plan for what we would like to do this year.
We are always looking at the year ahead and in most cases this is great and we should but are we giving ourselves enough of a look ahead? I recently developed a 6 week sales training course for one of the agencies we work with as they had added some new team members to their sales staff. The team members were all new to insurance and had recently got licensed but needed to understand the sales process of insurance for both personal and commercial.
Over the course of the 6 weeks, we touched upon everything from lead generation, building rapport, taking the application, quote delivery, asking for the business and goal setting. When I spoke to them on their goals they came prepared with goals that they wanted to achieve on a weekly, monthly, and quarterly basis. This was great that they came prepared with clear, attainable and challenging goals but I had one complaint.
My complaint was that while they were great at looking at the here and now they didn’t have the thought of looking further ahead. I asked one agent where they wanted to be in five years and their answer was that they hadn’t thought that far ahead. I understood this because if you had asked me two years ago where I wanted to be in five years I would’ve either have told you I’m not sure or I would have said happily employed somewhere!
My life has changed since then and as a result it has caused me to really think ahead and outline my goals; not just for the quarter or the year but for the next five years. I considered the following when developing my five year plan.
- Income(How much money I want to be making)
- Position within my current company
- Personal goals(buy a house, pay off student loans etc..)
- Community involvement
From there I wrote my five year plan and saved it on my personal drive. I dated it when I wrote it and committed to looking at it again at the beginning of the following year. From there I started jotting out my year one strategy because my five year goals were not going to happen by accident. I outlined the steps that I would need to take to effectively dictate that I was moving towards my five year plan. I broke down my student loan debt into how I could pay it off in five years and committed to budgeting myself so I could put more towards it. I outlined the projects I would take on at work to help excel my position within the company while keeping my normal responsibilities in check and began researching all of the things I would need in order to make my first home purchase as seamless as possible.
At the end of that year I took a look at my five year plan and looked at what I had accomplished and determined whether I would need to re-adjust. I found that I needed to re-adjust my work position as the reality set in that there was not a great shot to reach my income goals even in five years. They were too unrealistic given the industry I was in at the time. I then made my year 2 strategy to make the changes that would be necessary to keep me on track towards my goals.
My advice to everyone is to allow yourself the opportunity to plan ahead to where you want to be in five years. The most successful people I’ve ever met or worked with will plan that far ahead. It will motivate you to sharpen and hone your insurance selling skills!
If you’re interested in learning more about the sales training discussed in this blog, feel free to give us a call or download or Free Goals E-Book here https://www.agencyperformancepartners.com/workbook-performance-through-goal-tracking/
