The Dynamics of Sales

Paul Chong         Sunday 18 July 2021

Usually a fixed salary job like teaching provides virtually no incentive for striving to perform better. You work for years & years getting a small annual increment.  Finally you reach your superscale when you are almost retiring.Often teachers who are ambitious  switch career & opt to pursue law study. Few ever thought of taking up sales as a career.

Why not? Conditions & circumstances may be different in other countries, through my own personal experience, people treat sales as a lowly career. It’s a career not requiring any special education or training. 

On the other hand, you must have often heard it that the sky’s the limit. This one line where your income is commensurate to your time & effort. The harder you work the more money you get. You are literary writing your pay check. You are the master of your own destiny.

This kind of unlimited income is particularly true with life insurance sales. There is however one snack. Your earnings are strictly on a commission basis plus bonus. There is no fixed income like a salary. Everything is based upon your performance. Such is the nature of your income you just got to learn to manage your money well.

Few people are cut for this line of sales. Life insurance agents come & go with an abundant turn over. Recruiting agents is a never ending task. You’d be lucky to get one good agent out of every ten recruits. As the manager, I used the power of money to motivate & getting new recruits . . . thrilled & motivated with the sight of seeing the 4 or 5 figured photocopied income cheques. What do you want working full-time, part-time or part-past-time.

It is said that a good life insurance agent will be able to sell refrigerators to the Eskimos. As an agent, your status is raised when you truly sell on the basis of needs . . . a replacement income for food & clothing, roof over the head, education for the young ones in the unfortunate event when the bread-winner is taken away untimely. 

Be sincere, empathetic & your sales pitch simple, for simplicity sells, complexity repels.

A final word, God gave you one mouth & two ears, so you should listen twice as much as you say. Listen with your heart, mind & soul. Emotion & compassion set to play against human logics. 

Life insurance sales is by far the toughest in the world, it’s like being challenged to sell coal to Newcastle.

See You At The Top!