Russell, just wanted to put into writing how much I enjoyed your book. The messages and lessons for all of in the industry are awesome. Insurance underpins everything we do and I hope this book helps others protect families and businesses.
Hi Russell, how does this sound:
With 30 years experience as an insurance adviser I purchased Russell Collins’ ‘Skills that Sell’ with an expectation that it would be excellent and also reaffirm what I already know. I was only half correct; yes Skills that Sell is excellent, but it also taught me more about the business of offering insurance advice. ‘Skills that Sell’ should be compulsory reading for anyone new to advising on life insurance as well those you want to move up to the next level of insurance advice.
Good Luck
PS: You might be interested in the attached article that will be published in the September edition of Riskinfo. I have also attached an article that was published some time back on overcoming the ‘Optimism Bias’. Too many advisers don’t attack ‘she’ll be right’ and ‘it’s always blue skies’ for new clients. They walk out of the meeting just as cocky as when they walked in. That’s something that I focus on. I take away the family home.
I attended my first MDRT seminar in Philadelphia a few weeks back and was lucky enough to hear your presentation.Being relatively new to the industry and a young adviser, it was great to have the chance to absorb your knowledge, experience, and tips which have obviously allowed you to achieve amazing results for your clients and yourself.
Your focus on building relationships in the initial meeting, preparing for the initial meetings, asking penetrating questions etc were the game changes for me. I have since changed the structure of how I conduct the initial meetings which have produced solid results to date.
Great tips for sure and I left your presentation motivated. I know sometime down the track you will be a major reason for my successes. You will become a great mentor for me and I want to get to a position in the future where I can share my own MDRT experiences and how it helped me get to a level you have already reached and continue to strive for.
You don’t know me yet but I thought I would send a sincere thank you.
I was reading through your presentation from the MDRT 2013 conference today. The quote you provided by Jack Dulworth “The three stages of development in the life of a salesperson” really was an ah ha moment for me.
Being a people person, I intuitively know that the philosophy of simple is better and that is what sets great advisers from the mediocre. Being the one of the “new breed” of advisers (36 years old) unfortunately all our tertiary and “corporate” training teaches us otherwise.
The best advice I always got was from my Dad when I was growing up. He said “find an old fella who’s seen it all and ask him what he would do if he had his time again, as great advice is gained from years of experience”. Best advice ever!
I am proud to be part of an industry where the experienced (such as yourself) feel passionate and kind enough to pass on your years of hard earned lessons and to teach us “young blokes” who want to learn, what works. Isn’t is amazing how sometimes the old ideas becomes the new, new.
Again thank you Russell and hopefully I will meet you somewhere in our travels.
I just wanted to send you through an email to say thank you for your presentation last Friday in Brisbane.I really enjoyed the day and you have provided me with some really great tools and concepts, some of which I have started to use already, others that we will implement throughout our business in the very near future.
I would like you to know that in my experience this is the best 1 day sales (soft skill) workshop that I have ever attended. I have come from a family of Insurance advisers and you have always been spoken of in legend, the man to see, who up until now I hadn’t. Well it was worth the time invested and I have taken on board your advice to invest in myself and the improvement of my skills.
Just a quick email to thank you so much for sharing your knowledge with us in Brisbane on Friday! We really enjoyed your presentation which you delivered so well. You had mentioned that you were working with some advisers that were following your method, do you work with individuals as we may be interested in continuing if possible??
Your presentation today was awesome and very helpful – the best I’ve been too. I will definitely use your strategy on my clients.
Thank you for a fantastic session yesterday. I know our advisers really valued your ideas and we have had some great feedback.
I’m not sure that there will ever be words enough to “thank you” for the presentation you did in Perth yesterday. It was the most valuable workshop/seminar that I have ever been too in my 8 years as a Life Risk Adviser.
Yesterday you reinforced everything I have been working towards and reminded me to stop overcomplicating things and get back to basics, this itself has given me a new found confidence and drive, not to mention the wonderful new “sales” tips and skills which I know are going to prove invaluable to me in the future and have worked today already for me.
Your comment to me after the presentation that “I will go a long way” has given me more confidence and means more to me than anything I have ever heard or may hear in the future, to be recognised as it were by someone of your calibre who is in the business, it doesn’t get any better than that so thank you again.
I really hope that at some stage in the not too distant future I get the opportunity to listen and learn from you again.