Connelly Corner Archives - Don Connelly & Associates

Control Is Important for People Over 60

/ by Don Connelly / Best Practices, Connelly Corner / 0 comments

There’s a subtlety about getting old that really concerns people and we don’t talk about it enough. That’s loss of control, loss of being able to control their lives. I know I went through it with my mother when she became too old to drive.
She was driving years before myself and my two brothers were born. To her, her driver’s license was not a privilege. It was a right. And for us to say as her children, ‘You shouldn’t be driving’, it’s loss of control. She freaked out and it infuriated her. I don’t blame her. If someone does it to me someday, I’m going to go nutty also. But we’re all afraid of losing control.
I don’t care if someone has a million dollars or $1. Rich people are poor people with money. We’ve all got the same worries about losing control of our lives and letting other people make our decisions. Listen to this audio episode or read the transcript below to learn about losing control, Frank Luntz, the pollster, and one of his books.

The Inevitable Frustration of Success

/ by Diana Marinova / Best Practices, Connelly Corner / 0 comments

Let’s talk about the inevitable frustration of success, about building a business slowly. I have one piece of advice if you’re still building your business: Don’t be in a hurry to become a success. If you become impatient, the impatience will wear you down. I’m not suggesting we sit back and wait for success to […]

Presenting the Strategy Paper to Turn Prospects into Clients

/ by Russell Collins / Connelly Corner, Prospecting / 0 comments

In my previous guest blog post, I explained how I dissected the confirmed file note by dividing it into four separate quadrants in order to create a strategy to take to my next meeting – the Strategy Paper Meeting (SPM), It should lead to a “yes”, the prospect agreeing to do business with me.

In summary, the primary purpose of the SPM is to highlight a problem; get their agreement to the problem; that they want to solve it; and then involve them in the decision-making process. That way the decision becomes theirs and all I had to do was the numbers based on their ability to pay. In relation to the latter, I found the best time to do that was after I had proceeded through the strategy paper up to the point of discussing the shortfall with them. More on that later. Now let’s focus on the strategy paper itself.

Death of Common Sense

/ by Don Connelly / Connelly Corner, Storytelling, analogies and power phrases / 0 comments

I want to pass on to you an obituary, no pun intended, called ‘The Death of Common Sense’. You may have seen this. If you haven’t, it’s just extraordinary, and basically it said, “We’re mourning the passing of a beloved old friend, Common Sense, who has been with us for so many years. No one knew for sure how old he was. His birth records were lost long ago on bureaucratic red tape. He’ll be remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as, ‘knowing when to come in out of the rain’, ‘why the early bird gets the worm’, ‘life isn’t always fair’, and, of course, ‘maybe it was my fault’, that’s a great lesson.”

Watch the video or read the transcript below to hear the entire obituary of Common Sense and hopefully help you put things in perspective and think about the world we live in today.

Agenda for the Strategy Paper Meeting (SPM): What Is It and How to Prepare It

/ by Russell Collins / Connelly Corner, Prospecting / 0 comments

By now you should be familiar with the concept of the File Note and how it helped me increase my closing rate to 9 out of 10 in life insurance sales. I found that the reaction to my file notes was one of people looking forward to our next meeting and how I was planning to deal with their particular situation. I called that meeting my Strategy Paper Meeting (SPM.)

Within the file note that they had previously confirmed, were a number of answers to my questions that highlighted problems to which they were not even aware existed at that time. My dissection process was to draw attention to those questions and their answers in such a simple format that would allow for frank discussion.

So, generally, the format for the SPM would look like this:

How to Respond to the Comment ‘I Don’t Want to Lose Any Money’

/ by Don Connelly / Best Practices, Connelly Corner / 0 comments

A while ago I received an email from John in Texas and his email was very simple. He said, ‘Every time I go on an appointment, the first thing out of somebody’s mouth is, “I don’t want to lose any money.” And I’ve been saying, “I don’t know anyone that ever does.” as an ice breaker, but I don’t feel comfortable. Can you give me an idea on how to respond to that comment?”

Watch this video episode or read the transcript below to learn Don’s answer to this question.

The File Note: How to Increase Your Closing Rates to 9 out of 10 in Life Insurance Sales

/ by Russell Collins / Connelly Corner, Presentation Skills / 0 comments

At the conclusion of my previous guest post – “Making Every Initial Meeting with a Prospect Successful” – I mentioned that if I could point to one thing that increased my closing rate to 9 out of 10, it was the file note. This in effect acted as a pre-presentation vehicle and I believe it motivated people to really look forward to our next meeting and my eventual recommendations.

Here’s how to start using the file note to increase your life insurance sales.

How to Increase Your Life Insurance Sales Making Every Initial Meeting with a Prospect Successful

/ by Russell Collins / Best Practices, Connelly Corner / 0 comments

When people meet with you for the first time, subconsciously they have four questions that need to be answered. They haven’t thought about these questions in advance but they cross their mind during that meeting. If they are answered, this will ensure that there is not only a second follow-up meeting, but also presents the immediate opportunity to develop a long-term relationship:

Do I like you?
Do I trust you?
Are you competent?
Are you the sort of person who will put my best interests before your own?

In addition to these four questions, I believe that a person would also have to be thinking to themselves “this adviser makes sense!” if there is going to be an ongoing relationship.

How to make every fact-finding meeting a success

Put Success in Perspective, Be Humble and Believe in Yourself

/ by Don Connelly / Best Practices, Connelly Corner / 0 comments

One of the challenges we all face is staying humble in the face of success. We work very hard to attain success. Stay humble when you do, and you’re going to be successful. I have a story I love about being humble, about putting success into perspective. It’s a story about the Vancouver Winter Olympics.

Watch this video or read the transcript below to learn the story about two Alpine skiers who achieved their two, very different goals at the Olympics.

How to Increase Your Life Insurance Sales through Preparation

/ by Russell Collins / Best Practices, Connelly Corner / 0 comments

I am of the opinion that one of the major stumbling blocks for new (and, surprisingly, even more experienced) Financial Advisers in conducting successful initial meetings with prospective clients (as well as review meetings with existing clients) is the lack of proper preparation.

In recent years Dealer Groups have introduced a one-size-fits-all templated fact finder document to be used by their advisers in both initial and ongoing discussions with prospective or existing clients. In terms of compliance requirements, the dealer group needed to protect itself from possible future litigation down the road and therefore many participated in designing the questions that their advisers could ask.

From my experience, I believed that there were two problems with this approach.

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