Life & Health Sales Essentials Series

ISBN 978-1-939829-74-0

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About the National Underwriter Company

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About the Authors

Prof. William H. Byrnes, Esq., LL.M., CWM

William Byrnes, an attorney, law professor, and credentialed journalist, is the leader of Summit Professional Networks Financial Advisory Publications. He is an author of over thirty book volumes and one thousand articles. He was a Senior Manager, then Associate Director of international tax for Coopers and Lybrand practicing in Africa, Europe, Asia, and the Caribbean. His clients industries included financial services, mining, education, fashion, durable medical equipment, office furniture, and technology. He has been commissioned and consulted by a number of governments on their tax and fiscal policy.

In 1998, William Byrnes created the first online graduate program offered by an ABA accredited law school for non-legal professionals such as financial planners, wealth managers and accountants. Since 1994, he has served as a trainer for associations, government, banks, STEP and the AAFM. Before Associate Dean William Byrnes joined the administration of Thomas Jefferson School of Law, he was a tenured law faculty member at St. Thomas University School of Law.

Robert Bloink, Esq., LL.M.

Robert Bloink worked to put in force in excess of $2B of death benefit for the insurance industry’s producers in the past five years. His insurance practice incorporates sophisticated wealth transfer techniques, as well as counseling institutions in the context of their insurance portfolios and other mortality based exposures. Robert Bloink is a professor of tax for the Graduate Program of International Tax and Financial Services, Thomas Jefferson School of Law.

Previously, Robert Bloink served as Senior Attorney in the IRS Office of Chief Counsel, Large and Mid-Sized Business Division, where he litigated many cases in the U.S. Tax Court, served as Liaison Counsel for the Offshore Compliance Technical Assistance Program, coordinated examination programs audit teams on the development of issues for large corporate taxpayers, and taught continuing education seminars to Senior Revenue Agents involved in Large Case Exams. In his governmental capacity, Mr. Bloink became recognized as an expert in the taxation of financial structured products and was responsible for the IRS’ first FSA addressing variable forward contracts. Mr. Bloink’s core competencies led to his involvement in prosecuting some of the biggest corporate tax shelters in the history or our country.

About the Executive Editor

Kelly B. Maheu, J.D., is the Director of Product Development for the Professional Publishing Division at Summit Professional Networks. She is responsible for acquiring expert authored content and working closely with Summit’s editorial, sales, marketing, and technology teams to develop professional online and print reference libraries in the areas of taxation, insurance and financial planning.

Kelly began work at Summit in 2006 in editorial positions for Fire, Casualty and Surety Service (FC&S). A graduate of the University Of Cincinnati College Of Law, Kelly worked in the legal and insurance fields for LexisNexis, Progressive Insurance, and a Cincinnati insurance defense litigation firm prior to joining Summit. Kelly holds a BA from Miami University, graduating Cum Laude with a double major in English/Journalism and Psychology.

Kelly has edited and contributed to numerous books and publications including The Personal Auto Insurance Policy Coverage Guide, Cyberliability and Insurance, The D&O Coverage Guide, The Tools and Techniques of Risk Management for Financial Planners, Claims Magazine, PropertyCasualty360.com and ProducersWEB.com.

George Mentz, J.D., MBA, CWM

George Mentz is a premier, sought-after speaker and global management consultant. He is the founder of the Global Academy of Financial Management and has published extensively in the fields of law, e-business, entrepreneurship, international finance, and success strategy including The CWM Chartered Wealth Manager Guide, How to Master Abundance and Prosperity, Spiritual Wealth Management, and Wealth Management and Financial Planning. He has also consulted with the U.S. and international governments on financial and risk issues while helping people from around the world improve their education and careers. Mr. Mentz is a syndicated author, contributor, and expert for various news and media channels.

Mr. Mentz and his professional development companies have presented seminars and VIP courses in over thirty-five countries worldwide. His companies provide consulting and executive education for numerous institutions, associations, and universities in the United States. Mr. Mentz received his Doctor of Jurisprudence and MBA degrees after attending graduate coursework at Loyola University, Catholique University Belgium, William and Mary Law School, and Tulane University. He has undertaken international studies in Austria, Spain, Mexico, and Brazil. He is the recipient of national awards and honors for his contributions in the fields of management, excellence, teaching, charity, leadership, and speaking. He has served on the advisory boards of The Global Finance Forum in Switzerland, The World E-Commerce Forum in the UK, The Economist Association of Africa, the China Wealth Banking Institute, The Arab Academy Standards Council, and The International Project Management Commission. Mr. Mentz’s articles and publications have been featured or quoted in the NASDAQ News, Forbes, Reuters, Morningstar, Yahoo Finance, Wall Street Journal, The Hindu National, El Norte Latin America, the Financial Times, NYSSA New York Security Analysts News, The China Daily, The Department of Education ERIC Library, Black Enterprise, The US Department of Labor Brochures, & The Arab Times.

Mr. Mentz holds designations as a financial planner, wealth management trainer, and qualified financial consultant & planner and has passed the Series 7, 63, and 65 exams offered by FINRA.

Recognized for his work in education and professional training, Mr. Mentz frequently serves as a speaker and coach, helping teams or individuals achieve success through careful wealth management, financial planning, and proactive personal development. Mr. Mentz has written more than 200 books, essays, and articles on a broad variety of topics, including management science, finance, wealth management, and spirituality. He was honored with a Doctorate of Spiritual Studies by the Emerson Institute in 2007 for research, publications, and coursework in the field of metaphysics and philosophy. Highly active in philanthropy, George Mentz gives his time, energy, and resources whenever possible to individuals and families in need.

Table of Contents

Managing Your Agency

Chapter 1: Procrastinating

Chapter 2: Introduction to Time Management

Chapter 3: Time Management I—Log Your Time for One Week

Chapter 4: Time Management II—Using Your Working Time More Efficiently

Chapter 5: Time Management III—Breaks and How to Take Them

Chapter 6: Time Management IV—Top Tips for Office Efficiency

Chapter 7: Managing Your Documents: Conquer Your Desk Before It Conquers You!

Chapter 8: Holding a Meeting? Think Twice!

Prospecting

Chapter 1: Prospecting in the Twenty-First Century

Chapter 2: How to Clone Your Clients (Part 1)

Chapter 3: How to Clone Your Clients (Part 2)

Chapter 4: How to Clone Your Clients (Part 3)

Chapter 5: What’s your Point of Difference?

Chapter 6: Overcoming Objections

Chapter 7: 8 Ways Advisors Sabotage Their Sales Calls

Chapter 8: Sell on Friday Afternoons

Chapter 9: Why Breakfast Meetings Bring Sales

Chapter 10: The Ben Franklin Method For Winning People Over

Chapter 11: 40 Prospecting Tips

Chapter 12: High Net Worth Clients: How to Find Them, How to Service Them

Chapter 13: How to Cultivate A Network of Endless Referrals (Part 1)

Chapter 14: How to Cultivate A Network of Endless Referrals (Part 2)

Chapter 15: How to Cultivate A Network of Endless Referrals (Part 3)

Chapter 16: How to Cultivate A Network of Endless Referrals (Part 4)

Chapter 17: Marketing to the Millennials

The Edge: Managing Your Client’s Financial Well-being in Risky Times

Chapter 1: Risk Management in the Twenty-First Century

Chapter 2: Guide to Insurance, Risk and Financial Planning

Chapter 3: Credentials and Building Character

Chapter 4: 40 Prospecting Tips for Financial Professionals

Chapter 5: Your Internet Presence

Chapter 6: Estate Planning - Do I Need to Worry?

Chapter 7: The Basics of Personal Risk Management

Chapter 8: Disaster Risk Planning: Learning from Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy

Chapter 9: The Psychology of Success and Greatness: Success Techniques for Sales Professionals

Chapter 10: Timeless Relationship & Success Principles

Chapter 11: Risk Management Summary

Appendix A: The Garden – A Story of Planting Seeds and Sales Growth

Appendix B: The 12 Characteristics of Proactive People

Quotes on Prosperity and Abundance

Other Readings

Procrastinating

This article would have begun with the joke about how this book has always meant to deal with procrastination but never got around to it, but you heard that one before we could get around to telling it.

Procrastination can have other devastating effects, as with a failure to visit the doctor until it’s too late to do something. Less drastically, procrastination is all around us and has been for ages. Consider this from Edward Young, an 18th-century British poet and playwright:

Procrastination is defined as postponing the actions required to complete a task, attain a goal, or rise to the challenge of an opportunity. The required actions may be postponed to a time later than the present or to a time that never arrives. Often, important tasks go completely undone. At other times, opportunity knocks and it goes on begging.

Procrastination, then, is not just deferring an unpleasant task; it can take many forms, including:

•     being reluctant to take risks;

•     staying at home or in the same old job;

•     getting sick when faced with an unpleasant job;

•     avoiding confrontations or decisions;

•     blaming others or the situation to avoid doing something; and

•     making big plans but never carrying them out.

Yet pervasive though it may be, procrastination is still only a habit, a dysfunctional learned behavior that can be replaced by a functional learned behavior, though it might not be as easy as that makes it sound. It takes work because even though procrastination is a dysfunctional habit, it has some functional aspect for the procrastinator—otherwise it would never have been formed in the first place.

How much work and what kind? There’s an interesting division of opinion between business coaches and consultants, on one side, and psychologists, on the other. Time management coaches take a largely practical approach, offering tips to break you out of a procrastinative slump. At worst, this is Nike Therapy (the exhortation to Just Do It!); at best, they can be very helpful in replacing bad habits with good ones. Psychologists, as one would expect, insist that procrastination has underlying causes that need to be addressed if the habit is to be broken, and distinguish various kinds of procrastinators moved (or held in place) by different drives.

It’s clear that neither approach can do without the other. Nike Therapy gives the procrastinator no reason to change a style that seems to be working for him or her, after a fashion; it’s like telling a clinically depressed person to Just Cheer Up! You won’t make any lasting progress because you aren’t getting at the underlying causes. And the psychologists may be able to tell you the underlying cause of your procrastination, but you need practical measures to deal with it while you’re waiting for that lengthy, expensive therapy to kick in. Thus, this article will offer an overview of procrastinator psychology, and the sequel will present a sampling of tips for the procrastinator who wants to break the cycle. The important point, on which both approaches agree, is that procrastination is learned behavior, a habit that can be unlearned.

The Happy Procrastinator

Some psychologists distinguish two personality types