Testimonials from Advocis Sudbury
November 27, 2009 by Simon · Leave a Comment
Testimonials from Advocis Sudbury – Sudbury, ON – November 18, 2009
“What energy and passion. I didn’t expect this feeling of inspiration.”
Dennis Peroni
HP Solutions Ltd.
“The whole presentation was very good and insightful. I learned a very different approach on how to grow my business.”
Robert Hétu
HP Solutions Ltd.
“I enjoyed Simon’ enthusiasm in the presentation as well as the acknowledgement and recognition we should give ourselves and others. “
Roland Lavoie
Investment Planning Counsel
“Simon touched exactly the type of negative chatter that I expose myself to. I have a new commitment to developing me.”
Scott Nairn
Sun Life Financial
“I liked the concept of ‘awareness’ and believe you are absolutely right in this direction. I wasn’t expecting this theme of awareness in your presentation. I’ve seen many presentations on business building that clearly miss this key point, you hit it right on.”
Debbie Slywchuk
Sawyer & Associates Financial Services
“Real eye opener, positive energy and very inspiring for my business.”
Heather Taropolsky
Sun Life Financial
“Very well organized, and well presented. Clear and concise. Simple ideas – yet often overlooked, great presentation.”
Rick Van Oort
Regent Financial Services Ltd.
Clear Your Roadblocks eNewsletter | November 2009
November 25, 2009 by Simon · Leave a Comment
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In Advance;
The Workshop;
Clear Your Roadblocks 1 Day Workshop / 60 Day Program Mississauga, ON Courtyard by Marriott Mississauga Airport Corporate Centre West Limited to 25 Seats
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Please visit www.LeadingAdvisor.com for more Financial Advisor Resources and Training |
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Hats Off To Daryl Clegg Of Canada Life
November 9, 2009 by Simon · Leave a Comment
Congratulations to Daryl Clegg, Regional Marketing Consultant for Canada Life and the team of people that he assembled to produce A Taste Of Britain in Victoria, BC on Saturday evening, November 7th, 2009 to benefit Our Place Society.
Our Place is a non-profit society formed to help those in need in Victoria’s inner city providing transitional housing, meals, support and advocacy, hygiene facilities, training and more. They strive to give people a hand up, not just a hand out.
A Taste Of Britain was an enormous commitment on Daryl’s part with over three hundred attending a gala charity auction, dinner and dance that raised thousands for Our Place Society.
It’s 5pm on Sunday night and I’m finally home after being away for 8 days, 202 hours, 4 financial advisor speaking presentations with 4 separate titles, 8000 km and one advantageous travel detour at the end of the trip.
As I was standing at the WestJet check in Kelowna on Friday afternoon to catch my flight home to Comox, BC via Calgary, AB (go figure), I found out that I was going to have to overnight in Calgary because all the planes were delayed by bad weather in Ontario and I would miss my connector.
That would really suck after being away for almost a week. So instead of Laura, driving 60 minutes North to Comox to pick me up, she drove 120 minutes South to Victoria and we lucked out and stayed with Laura’s Mom Helen for the weekend.
This all worked out for the best because we had planned to drive to Victoria on Saturday for A Taste Of Britain.
So my Empty My Head List is completed, categorized and prioritized for the week which is a full coaching week starting on Tuesday.
I’ll invest Monday in some AA Priority items and one of them is completing an upgrade for The Free Digital Coaching Program that we are re-launching on Monday, November 16th, 2009.
The significant thing about Monday, November 16th, 2009 is I am hitting the road again for three more financial advisor speaking presentations in Ottawa, Sudbury and Thunder Bay.
It all seems worth it after receiving this comment from Wayne Olafson on Friday after presenting The Six Degrees Of Life Insurance Connection at the Advocis Thompson Okanagan Chapter; “That was an excellent presentation, I can see why you are speaking at The MDRT.”
I Quit
November 6, 2009 by Simon · Leave a Comment
It’s 11:48am ET on Thursday, November 5th and I’m nearly 3 hours into a 4 ½ hour flight to Calgary from Toronto on my way to Kelowna to speak on Friday morning.
The fourth financial advisor speaking presentation powerpoint for the week is ready to go for tomorrow.
I delivered the third financial advisor speaking presentation yesterday and I really enjoyed putting together the PowerPoint.
One of the slides was entitled; What Can I Quit?
Here is my list;
• Doing Weekly Reviews – create a time block and do them daily
• Type Setting Client Follow Up Calls – Time Block to Learn Voice Recognition Software or better yet have Tiffany set up Voice Recognition Software, Tiffany can then edit / proof read transcriptions and send to clients – OR – I can dictate Client Follow Up Instructions and send to Tiffany for type setting
• Thinking and shoulding about Making Sales Calls. Brace yourself folks, we don’t do sales calls unless asked – Send an invitation to have a conversation about coaching to the readers of the Blog, Book, E-Newsletter and the prospects that have seen me speak. Time block and act.
• Thinking and shoulding about Contacting Centers Of Influence via E-Mail and LinkedIn. – Time block and act.
• Speaking Update E-Mails – meet with Laura to discuss ideas and have Laura complete
• Daily blogging – create a time block and write five blogs for the upcoming week. While this blog looks like I am breaking my rules, the core of the first four blogs for this week were written in advance.
• Daily Twittering – same thing, create a time block to create a list of Tweets and forward to Tiffany to post from time to time over the course of the week.
• Research Financial Advisor / Investment Advisor Personal & Professional Development / non Product Related Articles that I can Blog about – Delegate to Tiffany
• Visiting FaceBook & LinkedIn over the course of the week – Time block for weekly action.
• Write The Monthly E-Newsletter Free Hand – Instead, create a time block to go back to all the client communications that I have written for the month and create / edit the articles for the E-Newsletter from there. Better yet, over the course of the month, copy articles / communications to Tiffany that I believe will be great E-Newsletter material and have Tiffany save them to one file ready for my time block and action … move toward Tiffany editing the articles for publication in the E-Newsletter and I will write the Introduction.
• Building The Digital Coaching GYM and Workshop Private Web Site – Time block to write instructions for completion and delegate to Kim Black
• Thinking and shoulding about new Web Site Product & Sales Pages – Time block to write instructions for completion and delegate to Kim Black
• Creating PowerPoints – research the top three leading edge things that will be on advisors minds for 2010. Ask Tiffany to research content and assemble raw material. Review raw material for the best. Create a Table Of Contents for the PowerPoint. Ask Tiffany to build the PowerPoint.
• Upgrade Maximizer / Interface with Outlook – Delegate to Tiffany
• Show Reel Creation – send Video Files to Tiffany to clip segments from and title, post to our site and U-Tube
• Cleaning My Office myself – Delegate
We Have Definitely Outsmarted Ourselves Now – Jim Ruta
October 14, 2009 by Simon · Leave a Comment
Seems to me that the unmet needs that some non-values based financial advisors and investment advisors are trying to fulfill through money are not doing it and this is what I suspect is contributing to the problems that Jim Ruta is talking about in is October 6th, 2009 Blog – We Have Definitely Outsmarted Ourselves Now.
Financial advisors and investment advisors need to switch to becoming values based financial advisors and values based investment advisors.
Here are a few of Jim’s thoughts from his Blog;
- The average number of insurance sales per agent in Canada has dropped to fifteen (15). Yep, just 15. This used to be what you had to hand on the first day of a sales campaign to stay in the top five. 1.25 sales per month?
- Even then, more than 50% of life insurance sales are still replacements of existing business. So, just how much new “human life value” are we really protecting anymore?
To read all of Jim’s Blog, click We Have Definitely Outsmarted Ourselves Now.
Maslow’s identified the concept of unmet needs theory back in 1955.
This was right at the time of the advent of the electronic babysitter. 1955 was the advent of the electronic babysitter where children were put in front of this device and it took care of getting all their needs met instead of the parents. What am I talking about? TV. Now, to a certain extent, these same baby boomers have grown to adulthood and sometimes they, along with their generation X & Y offspring can’t put down their new electronic baby sitter, the Blackberry, iPhone, iPod or MP3 player.
The baby boomers’ parents were the Traditionalists born between 1927 and 1945 who went through a world war or two and the great depression. It’s my guess that they had no idea how to deal with their emotions and just stuffed them below the surface so they could go through the pain that they were going through.
When the boom of post world war two came along with the onslaught of the baby boomers, baby boomers were told, you are never going to have it as tough as I had it, you can have everything, but you may not deserve it while today’s generation X & Y children were told you can have everything that you deserve and have it all right now.
The electronic baby sitter and you can have set the stage for the lack of fulfillment that many baby boomers are starting to feel because while they have the art, boats, cars, clothes, cottages, homes, money, motorcycles, relationships, wine and travel an emptiness prevails along with; “is this all there is?”, and “what am I doing this for?”, and “what is the use?”. What’s worse, some of their offspring generation X & Y children lack ambition because they live an even more instant gratification world with the attention span off a nat.
This helps to explain why a lot of generation X & Y are not joining the ranks of the financial advisors where the average age of today’s financial advisor is 59 years old.
Why should generation X & Y want to be a financial advisor? The answer might lie in their observation of their parents chasing the dream of you can have it all, medicating their unmet needs outside of themselves, chasing art, boats, cars, clothes, cottages, homes, money, motorcycles, relationships, wine and travel while leaving their families behind to emotionally fend for themselves. You can’t give what you don’t have.
This explains the advent of the coaching movement, people might even want to hire a coach or a “fulfillment planner” rather than a financial advisor because they have got the money and it does not mean a lot to them.
This also explains the lack luster performance of a lot of financial advisors and investment advisors because they unconsciously thought that they could get their unmet needs met from money and possessions and when the reality of money and possessions don’t buy you happiness sets in with “is this all there is?”, and “what am I doing this for?”, and “what is the use?”, they have a total lack of inspiration.
Perhaps this ties in the concept of Affluenza.
Affluenza is what people go through when they get instant money through an inheritance or through winning a lottery.
They believe all along that if they could just get this money along with the art, boats, cars, clothes, cottages, homes, motorcycles, relationships, wine and travel that went along with it, then they would truly be happy.
Problem is, once the feeling of the windfall is over they are right back where they started except they now have the negative belief of “what is wrong with me” combined with the negative emotions of despair and sadness all fueled by the granddaddy of all unmet needs; worthiness.
What is really sad here is The Laws OF Attraction Are Absolute; you create what you focus on. If you keep asking “what is wrong with me” you will find the answer.
Be careful what you wish for.
Writing Is Like A Box Of Chocolates
October 13, 2009 by Simon · Leave a Comment
8:00am Saturday, October 10, 2009
It’s one of a few forthcoming Saturday’s ahead where I’m in front of my computer to write the 20 page manuscript for Breakthrough! – How To Breakthrough “The Plateauing Out Syndrome”!
This is the last place that I would like to be on a Saturday but I am reminded of two sayings that Teresia LaRocque used to say back in our days at Anthony Robbins & Associates; “if it is going to be, it is up to me” and “what you practice in private, you will be rewarded in public”.
I’m using this blog as a journaling to get me going or find my voice so to speak which is the number one benefit of blogging. It also gives one the vehicle to get over their unmet needs of approval, recognition, safety and worthiness.
This manuscript is the foundation for a PowerPoint presentation and a book which I am thinking is going to go a lot deeper than Curing The Unmet Needs Disease. “Writing is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you are going to get”. – Forest Gump
This process is also deepening the roots of niche marketing;
Mass marketing is inventing your own words or concept and going out and marketing it to anyone and everyone. Curing The Unmet Needs Disease is an example of inventing your own words or concept but I did not market it to anyone and everyone. I am marketing it to the niches of; financial advisor coaching, insurance advisor coaching and investment advisor coaching.
Niche marketing is taking the words of the niche like “The Plateauing Out Syndrome” and creating a solution for that niche and marketing it to that niche which in this case is the niche of; insurance advisor coaching
So … from time to time … I may do a play by play as I go along.
10:00am Saturday, October 10, 2009
Success! I have a rough draft of the table of contents and I am well on my way with the writing. Parts of the writing will go easy as I can borrow copy from past articles, audio transcriptions of speaking presentations, blogs and my book.
12:30pm Saturday, October 10, 2009
I have 16 ½ pages of 20 pages completed and I’m taking a break for lunch and going to Starbies. I’m thinking that I am going to run over to 25 pages. I suspect the writing will be a little slower this afternoon as the table of contents that I created is going to take me into a lot of new material that I have not written about. The bottom line is I just want to confirm that the biggest writing lesson that I got from writing a book and PowerPoints is write the table of contents first. Too bad I didn’t figure this out with the first go around with my book. 
2:00pm Saturday, October 10, 2009
I have a quick trip to Starbies for a Chai Tea Soy Latte, a Simon Sandwich and I took Shadow for a walk (while people are well meaning, they sure lack common sense as Shadow is crouched taking a poop, and with me with a poop bag ready to go, the neighbor is going “come on Shadow, come on Shadow, come and say hello! ); I am back at it with 18 pages.
2:20pm Saturday, October 10, 2009
I am just taking a break heading into page 20. How many words are in this document compared to my book? My book has 34, 600 words and the manuscript I am working on has 4,800 words … I’m nearly 14% of the way there to a new book … it will not be a book, it will be a booklet.
3:10pm Saturday, October 10, 2009
Just finishing page 22 and I’m on the home stretch. Of course this manuscript is going to have to go out for editing but I am almost there.
3:35pm Saturday, October 10, 2009
I’ve just finished the 26th page and I can say this rough draft is finished. Pages 1 – 23 are ready to go for editing and I have work to do on pages 24 – 27 which might take the document to 30 pages and that is OK.
I’ll finish this up on Sunday morning.
Ha Ha. When I started this writing this AM, a part of me, perhaps my fear based ego mind was convinced that I was going to be investing three Saturday’s in a row to get this done.
Not so fast … I still have the following Creative Projects to complete by October 31, 2009;
- Proof Manuscript - Breakthrough! – How To Breakthrough “The Plateauing Out Syndrome”!
- Write Coaching Program – One On One Coaching Silver Program
- Workshop & GYM Sales Pages – The Clear Your Roadblocks One Day Workshop and The Clear Your Roadblocks Coaching GYM Program
- Create PowerPoint – Breakthrough! – How To Breakthrough “The Plateauing Out Syndrome”!
- Research PowerPoint – There Is Nothing New! – How To Use Old Ideas In “The New Normal”
- Create PowerPoint – There Is Nothing New! – How To Use Old Ideas In “The New Normal”
And plug away at the these projects that are a work-in-progress;
- Sales Plan for Coaching & Speaking
- Centers Of Influence / Strategic Alliance List
- Update Classmates, Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Twitter
- Write New Operating Instructions – The Clear Your Roadblocks Coaching GYM
- Show Reel Editing
8:00am Sunday, October 11, 2009
Back at in with enthusiasm as yesterday’s writing went very well and all I have to do is;
- Develop pages 24 – 27 which might take the document to 30 pages
- Review my list of miscellaneous ideas that came to me as I was doing the writing and either add them or delete them from the writing
- Proof the manuscript which I can do on Tuesday / Wednesday as I will be flying to and from Trail, BC next week
8:30am, Sunday, October 11, 2009
Pages 24 – 27 are developed and the manuscript is 28 pages. Next step is review the miscellaneous list of things to add or proof.
10:00am, Sunday, October 11, 2009
Draft is finished and I’ll proof it next week.
Thrive, Deny or Survive
October 1, 2009 by Simon · Leave a Comment
Those that Thrive have a vision, business plan and goals. They treat their clients like clients, communicate their service offering, do what they say they are going to do, under promise and over deliver, have boundaries with their clients and leverage the relationships that they have. They have a strong sense of self and they are able to develop new and different pipelines and relationships.
Those that try to Survive do so by living each day just trying to get to the end of it almost hoping that the phone doesn’t ring because it could be another angry client which would compound their lack of approval, recognition and worthiness. Many get caught up trying to get their needs met through their clients … as in trying to save the client from the rigors of the market because the personal unmet needs of the financial advisor like approval, recognition and worthiness, are at stake.
To address the ones that Deny, I’m offering the Hebrew Proverb; Ten percent of the people make things happen, eighty percent watch things happen and ten percent don’t have a clue that anything happened at all.
Those that Deny are held captive by the unmet need of safety just getting by trying to survive. While it is good that they take the time to service their clients, they do little or nothing to attract new business which kills their inspiration.
Unmet needs also contribute to a crisis in confidence and the following challenges that senior advisors face.
- Approval – not asking for referrals
- Control – failing to delegate causing time management problems
- Recognition – failing to hire a junior advisor or planning for succession because the advisor lacks an identity via their values and vision for the future … their clients, even the C & D clients are their identity and they will not let go
- Safety – contributing to the belief that I have too much to do and I will never get it all done
- Worthiness – having a should list of high net worth clients and never calling them
- Worthiness – the plateauing out syndrome brought on by trying to get ones’ unmet needs met through the business and a lack of structure to their long term values and vision. An unmet need cannot be met from the outside, it must be met from within and when unmet needs are not met after years of trying, one eventually adopts the belief of; “is this all there is?” When this happens, one starts to question; “why am I doing this?” – It is not about the financial advisor getting something for their efforts; it is about adding value to those that they serve.
The junior and intermediate advisors can experience issues that are similar and these are the issues that I am noticing;
- Entitlement – Gen X & Y having been sold that they can have it all and do it by working eight hours per day. I believe this correlates to the misuse of the unmet need of power.
- Failing to call their warm market and starting with the cold – this dovetails into the unmet need of worthiness that generates the limiting belief of “I am not good enough” which fuels anxiety and fear … so they go and practice on someone they don’t know … problem is, they are projecting the worthiness and everything that goes along with it to the prospect.
- Poor time management and overwhelm – this is a result of the unmet need of safety.
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Dates for 2012 TBA - stay tuned!
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Now Reading
Planned books:
- Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
- The Book Of Air And Shadows: A Novel by Michael Gruber
Current books:
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Onward: How Starbucks Fought for Its Life without Losing Its Soul by Howard Schultz, Joanne Gordon
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Paulo Coelho: A Warrior’s Life: The Authorized Biography by Fernando Morais
Recent books:
- The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway
- The Angel’s Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
- Shadow Of The Wind by Carlos Zafon
- The Outlander by Gil Adamson
- The Book Of Negroes by Lawrence Hill
