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“The Measure of a Man” by Martin Greenfield – An Autobiography of Achievement

Martin GreenfieldI’ve just finished my cousin, Martin Greenfield’s book “The Measure of a Man.” It is the story of an amazing life. From surviving Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps to becoming suit maker to world leaders. American Presidents including Truman, Eisenhower,  Busch, Clinton and Obama are all dressed by Martin.  Presidential hopefuls  including Bloomberg, Collin Powell and The Donald are among his customers.

As a selling professional, “Salesmanship in Action” would be my subtitle.

Martin is a great story teller — and an amazing salesman.  Written from the most personal perspective, you won’t be able to put it down.
Growing up on Long Island in NY, my Dad would take me to Brooklyn when he had his suits made by Martin.

As a young American boy, I remember the rows of workers in the factory. Many of the workers had numbers tattooed on their arms from the concentration camps.

Martin would stop at the workstations of the hundreds of workers. He’d make small talk in Yiddush and introduce my Dad to them.

Every Passover Seder we would go to Martin and Arlene’s home.

We all knew the story of how Martin, the orphan, had arrived in the US after the Second World War.  And Martin and familyhow he had become a master clothier for some of the world’s most successful men. Yet, we were forbidden to ask Martin about the number on his arm.

I was with Martin in Jerusalem two years ago. I saw how Martin, at 83, is still a vigorous and persuasive salesman. We went to the Great Synagogue together on Saturday morning. Within 20 minutes, Martin had met and was invited to a meal with some of Jerusalem’s most successful men. No pressure, just pure charm and warmth — and never having met any of them. Of course, he told me later, some of those men ended up wearing Martin Greenfield suits.

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Why the Average Age of a Top Performing Financial Advisor is Too High

If the data is correct, the average age of a top-performing Financial Advisor is 62. For those of you who’ve taken a statistics course, that is about as bad as things get. The insurance industry is going to find its back against the wall within two years.

Every week I personally make a series of client service calls. My team thinks I’m crazy for doing it because it takes time. But I’ve been doing it for 16 years now and every week I learn something. (Besides, deep down, I’m a sales guys who likes talking with my clients.)

I was talking with a General Agent client, Harry, last week. He was telling me that the average age of a top-performing Financial Advisor at his agency is 32. He’s got two agents who’ve won his company’s top performer awards.

Harry is MDRT and he told me that at least 4 of his agents will end up MDRT.

I asked him why his agents are so young compared to the industry average. Without a pause, he said, “Your Advanced Hiring System is the key. It helps me spot the best talent without any prejudice. Before we used Advanced Hiring we did what every other insurance agency does. Their standardized testing sucks compared to AHS. Plus they start out looking for the wrong things.”

If you’re an insurance agency looking for talented applicants for the key Financial Advisor role, click here

Insurance companies have whole teams of analysts who know better than anyone why an aging sales team spells trouble. The key to recruiting younger team members is to start with a proposition that interests them.

Take a look here for some fast answers

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How to Compensate Salespeople to Succeed

Video Rant #9

A Big Reason Why Your Company Struggles
To Hire Salespeople Who Can REALLY Sell

One of my best friends sold for me 20 years ago at Radio Profits Corporation. AMAZING salesperson. Once he gets the prospect in his crosshairs, they may as well just hand over their wallet. The beauty is, they don’t know they’re being sold. Everything Bruce says is just totally logical. No pressure. No emotion. Just comfortable as hell.

People love him. His prospects become his customers and his friends.

So then we sold Radio Profits. Bruce went to work for a company selling environmental testing and construction testing. It’s a BIG market. Companies need a lot of scientific tests to comply with government regulations. For instance, companies have to satisfy a long list of health regulations, to keep things safe for consumers and avoid problems with the government.

So testing is a monster business. Bruce sold for one of the biggest companies that do this testing. One day he showed me that company’s compensation strategy. It was like a maze. Every paragraph had something you couldn’t figure out. It was so convoluted, the company sales team used to joke about it.

Bruce sold more of this testing than anybody else on the East Coast, double or triple the #2 guy. And he’d only been with them a year or two. He was stomping it. BUT he wasn’t the top earner. And THAT was extremely de-motivating to him. Company eventually went broke. They just weren’t very profitable, because the sales team wasn’t being paid very well for the deals they brought in.

It’s not that unusual. A LOT of compensation strategies are not well-engineered. Too complicated. BIG mistake.

A star salesperson who’s considering joining your sales team sees it as a very bad indicator if your compensation plan is hard to understand. A good salesperson looks at that and thinks, “These are smart guys. They could make it easy to understand. But they didn’t. If they make it tough for me to figure out how I’m being paid, then THAT makes it easier for them to screw me.”

That type of compensation plan will NOT result in a strong bottom line for your company.

This is Alan Fendrich. I’d be happy to give you my thoughts on your company sales compensation plan. Give me a call.

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