Good morning to all of you powerful agents and businesspeople! Here we are again … faced with amazing potential, multiple opportunities, and all the ingredients necessary to build an amazing business and life—but ONLY if you make the choice to go after what is possible. Chances are, it’s coming to look for you.
As I’m sure all of you have experienced, one of the most powerful forces in the universe is the strength of a habit. It seems that once a particular thought or behavior is ‘wired’ into us it becomes extremely difficult, sometimes nearly impossible, to ‘rewire’ … to create a new path.
What we need to focus on if we’re going to do this mental ‘rewiring’ is creating different associations between activity and results. This takes time … generally a LOT more time, and effort, than we might think-which is why most agents either don’t begin the process or stick with the process.
For example, if an agent thinks about prospecting and immediately associates that with rejection, hard work, boredom, or stress because they don’t know what to say, what are the chances that they’ll ever really get consistent with prospecting? If, when you hear the concept of ‘closing’ mentioned, you immediately think about sleazy used car salesmen, being perceived as too aggressive, or some other negative response, how willing are you going to be to ‘close’ when you have the opportunity?
I had a good conversation with several agents this past week where I helped them to see that they absolutely HAD to change the way that they looked at certain things that were going on in their businesses and their daily routines. One agent talked about how consistent they were at ‘creative avoidance’ … you know, that crazy mental state we get in when we suddenly find a deep need to do nearly ~anything~ other than get on the phones and do the lead generation that is necessary? I told them to write down the following equation/association:
Creative avoidance = poverty.
From now on, whenever they started to get almost giddy thinking about what they COULD do instead of what they were SUPPOSED to do, I wanted them to start thinking about the pain and stress of simply not being able to pay their bills. On the positive side of these equations, it is critical that we create associations that make us want to TAKE action, not just avoid doing things. While it’s true that we must stop connecting the process of closing for an appointment with being a high pressure nuisance, what if at the same time we began connecting ‘closing’ with successfully helping people … with achieving our goals … with being able to do things for our own families that we simply wouldn’t be able to do if we don’t ‘close more deals’? For example:
Not closing for the signature = failure to hit my goals, AND
Closing for the signature = making a huge, positive difference in people’s lives
Isn’t it time that you figure out what associations YOU have that are limiting your ability to move forward? Work to create strong links that will help you to quit doing what is holding you back and see the necessity of doing what you have been avoiding.
New thinking = new results. Make today count!