this assumes you can sell. although there is a lot of rejection in sales - that could help toughen the mentality for a trading career, i think the skills required for trading v sales are very different sales is like trading in that 20% are very successful, 80% struggle before throwing the towel in. to be successful at either, i believe you have to be 100% comitted. in sales one tries to control the environment and the options open to the prospect. in trading you simply can not do this - control the market i have heared (and couldnt comment on its validity) that most successful SCREEN traders tend to be introverts and loners. this trait can be a death wish in sales. just my thoughts - appreciate you are trying to help here, but i disagree (fwiw) and just putting a different perspective here
Perhaps I should not have made the suggestion. My view of selling is that all appointments made have a presumed close orientation. I approach getting an appointment from the viewpoint that I am "going to go to work for you" as the first words. "I am preparing a decision making document for you since you are so busy and this is what I do over and over". Usually I have call backs when I just leave a message. A typical week of effort is 25 calls 18 appointments and 30 closes. Well made, 25 calls and appointments could get a max of 50 closes. I have seen and deeply reviewed videos of champion sales people who make 125 calls for 25 appointments and then only close about 7 or so deals. I believe this to be a numbers game by a person who is very committed and a real seller. I just prepare comparisons of declining term, six kinds of flat term and universal life (showing the range from minimum premium to MEC level). For any family, there are two sales (both spouses) Most all can conclude that insurance is free and it is also a tax free wealth building effort; so it is purchased usually. I would never sell a policy where an intial premium was allowed to be collected at the time of signing. There is always a document that the person signs saying that he understands that he is not protected during the underwrithing process. This is because I would not be selling at face values that were low ones; the higher face values are not at risk during underwriting. Young people can only sell to those of their life style, so I suggested first home owners. for decling term it all just goes away and is unapealing. most term insurance has premiums that step higher and higher until they are unafordable. I just have the client draw a line where it is unaffordable and start the universal at that level for the present age. Then I have the person put a portion of his next raise into the premium to raise it to the MEC level. This means the policy is free after 3 or four years and out of pocket breakeven occurs less than 10 years out. By 65 a college freshman, (one of the families children, as follow on for example) can have, at 65, a million dollars cash available for about 88 buck a month. The appointment getting turns out to be a cash cow sort of thing. The average referral rate is about 3:1. The above actual sales week shown (25,18,30) was calculated to be annualized commissions at 2.1/yr. I know nothing about personality types and sales nor do I know about the differences between traders and sales staffing. What I mentioned here is just related to persons who are expert traders as well as corporate sales record setters. I prefer to not do my own sales prep but to have it done by a young person who loves being on a computer and doing detailed prep that will help rational decision makers. I haven't run into any people who could not sell the stuff we were doing. We just ambled along presuming all appointments were closes. I know there are many advocates of term insurance and that term insurance owners do not collect any benefits (94% do not). Others who follow the non term path, just happen to have another assortment of goals like free insurance and enforced non taxed savings and profits. I commonly use 10 to 20 pay annuities to bridge the penalty gap before 59 1/2 for paying the annual premiums when the insurred is young. I thought it may have been a good idea to put a young person in a setting where people do a lot of financial stuff and he could work after hours to make sales to others just ahead of him in their life styles and such.
interesting. here in the uk, insurace sales is seen as the hardest thing to sell. a successful insurance sales person is said to be able to sell anything with ease. a lot of this i believe is cultural between the limeys and the yanks. it is hard in the uk to get an appointment, but once in front of people, they will give you their attention. not to say the sell will be easy. brits are probably too conservative and risk adverse for their (or the economies) own good. i am told that in the usa, getting the appointment is easy - the yanks will see anyone, but in the meeting, you had better cut to the chase.
I kick it at Sbux and Hollister at nights and weekends. Its nice getting to see retail trends developing from the inside. When teen clothing sss reports hit I'm never surpised and so far its paid for a year at my UC. -Jamaal