A revolution is not an apple that falls when it is ripe. You have to make it fall.
Fantastic week. We’re at $700,000 in ALP as of Tuesday and the Canadians are still loading. They had a long holiday this weekend in Canada. And still the numbers are moving up. Rather quickly at that. Will we hit a million dollar week this year? We have the talent, the resources and the tools. Maybe I’m just impatient. If we keep improving like we have the past couple months, I think we’ll blow past it.
I see some areas of opportunity. But nothing that Operation Field doesn’t address. If a manager hasn’t hit your office yet, don’t wait for the revolution to come to your area. Start the movement already. I’ve been going over the tools. We’ve learned the power of Drop-bys and how that’s just a numbers game. Booking appointments from the home. When you book appointments from the home, you present more referrals. When you resent more referrals, your closing ration goes way up. When your closing ration goes way up, you make way more money and your quality of work goes way up. I don’t want to sound like one of those advertisements for Direct TV, but that’s literally what happens
Lauren Coyne is one of our field trainers for Operation Field. Lauren was working in our hiring department this winter when she heard the challenge to be a part of leading this revolution. Last week, we sent her out to our Virginia Beach office to implement Operation Field in that area. She’s spent the past few weeks working alongside Bobby Hamilton, Troy Plummer, Todd Engelson and Stefan Johannsson and they’ve been putting together the “Best Practices.” She arrived back this morning from her trip so I asked her to come in for a few minutes and tell me how it went.
First of all. How many presentations did she do last week? 32. 32! We’re saying we want to move presentations to 4 or 5 a day; or 20 a week. Are we aiming to low? We’ll address that once we get everyone to 20. She must be Super Woman, right? Now Lauren is high energy and has an infectious smile but she started off: I am not Super Woman. In fact, I’m just your average girl that grew up on a farm and knows how you’re supposed to work. So ANYBODY can do this.
She went out and said, “I want one win a day,” so that at the end of the day she could say, “Today was successful because_______.” And be able to fill in the blank. Successful meant one of three things: Activity, referrals or personal recruiting. And because she DIDN’T focus on sales; she set 6 or 7 appointments a day so that the 4 or 5 presentations just naturally happened. She just relaxed and stayed busy, aiming at her objectives, she ended the week with 32 presentations and 15 sales!
So you want 32 presentations and 15 sales? I thought so. I dug further. Lauren started Sunday night and booked 7 appointments for Monday. By the book. And she was out in the field from 1:59 to 9:59 every day. So once she hit her first appointment, she went down the list. And the new script walked her through it. She showed the two or three videos, depending on the home. Asked for referrals. And here she applied a novel concept. She focused in on the first 5 local referrals. Why the first 5? Two reasons. Number 1: Your first five are your best; people always start at the top of the list. And secondly, she concentrated more on getting an appointment off of them than collecting them. And as she collected them, she paid close attention, sometimes asking questions. She was looking for the 2 or 3 that lived close by and preferably had kids. And then she would book those right there on the spot. Your Field Managers will show you how to do this with about a 90% success rate. It’s amazing. And the referrals are so much closer, more personal, such a stronger lead, that she closed 10 out of the 17 referrals she presented.
The new presentation is very focused and gets all the information out quickly. It gets to the closing questions within 35 minutes Even if she had a sale, she was done in an hour to an hour and a half. And of course, it was so effective and efficient, she left with four personal recruits. Don’t think that will grow your agency?
So that’s not 32 presentations. Where did the rest come from? Drop-by’s! As you perfect and fine-tune Operation Field, you will learn insights along the way that will make you continue to get better. Whenever there was even a quick break in the action, he went on to a drop-by in the area. She ended up doing 6 drop-by presentations on the spot. Lauren stopped by, the people were home, and they conducted business right then and there. Welcome to the 21st century. If they weren’t she dropped them a quick hand written note setting up an appointment later that evening. I heard one agent in Redmond refer to it as “Continuous Booking.” And I think they’re right. You don’t stop booking, presenting, and hiring. It makes you about 3X more efficient and effective than having a bunch of appointments separated by time and distance. It’s instant and ongoing.
So where did Lauren end up. Well, Monday she had 6 presentations. Tuesday, 7. Wednesday, 5 presentations. Stop right there. Think about that. By Wednesday night, she had her 18 presentations. If she wanted to, she could have taken off Thursday, Friday, AND Saturday, and Sunday except for a 90 minute booking. How’d you like that schedule? Be more effectual during the 8 hours you do work and you can. But she didn’t. Success is motivating. It is even a little addicting. She stayed in the field and ended the week with $9,000. And she was in my office this morning, looking well rested and enjoying the experience. Napoleon Bonaparte once said, “A revolution is an idea which has found its bayonets.” Booking from the home, drop-bys, recruiting from the presentation. The idea is a $1million week and those are our bayonets. This will revolutionize not only Altig but all of American Income Life in 2013.
#1 ranked this week: Hawaii. $30,523. 75% of all their new agent sales are off of referrals. With 1,568 referrals turned in, they can have unlimited growth. Ualena is charging for the top; they led everybody with $18,000. Pam Furuya led all agencies. Maui and Honolulu had $16,000 and $15,000 respectively. That’s Blake Higuchi, Jon Emura and Chris Clark.
#2. Nevada. $25,431. Agents in their first six months there closed exactly 33% of referral presentations and 33% off of POS, or Policy Owner Service. If you’re batting .333, keep swinging there. Vegas Central is gaining steam. All 13 of their agents wrote, closing one out of four. David Iriye and Ho Tran are driving that office. Operation Field will catapult them to the next level.
#3. Washington. $21,047. They were second with 1,463 referrals. $130,000 in Total ALP for the state, so they are flying. 51 writing agents, $2,566 ALP each. Activity is up 30% so ALP is up 30%. Those two always go hand-in-hand. 27% closing overall. Nick Lorence turns in over $50,000 in Redmond alone. Now that he’s back from his honeymoon, let’s see what happens to production. Lynnwood topped $23,000 led by Josh Olin and Hunter Houvener.
Honorable Mention. California. $19,852 from agents in their first six months. They missed by a $150, so it was a valiant effort. Santa Rosa grossed $26,500 total ALP by itself.
