You know what month I like least? January. It's cold. It gets dark at four in the afternoon. Everyone gets sick. And you keep re-making the same resolutions even though it's time to face facts: that home office is never getting organized.
And the only thing you have to look forward to is February, which is basically January all over again but with Valentine's Day, a holiday so awful even couples — the people the holiday is supposed to celebrate — hate it.
So how do I make it through this time of year without turning into one of the people on those Depression Hurts commercials? Basically, I play pretend. I crank sunny music on the radio and sing along so loudly people stare at me at stoplights. I browse tropical resort websites and pretend I'm going on luxurious hot-weather vacations I can't actually afford. I bake like a flour-covered mad woman until my kitchen reaches the temperature of a Puerto Rican beach.
And you know what? For the most part, it works. Fake fun starts to feel like real fun, and before I know it, the leaves are turning green and I'm wearing shorts again.
It's a technique I think most agents could benefit from — not to ward off the winter blues, necessarily, but to get through sales call jitters.
We run a lot of articles with advice on preparing for cold calls or major sales presentations, but it's up to you to supply the courage. Maybe you don't have it. I wouldn't blame you if you didn't. When I interviewed insurance guru Joe Jordan last year, he spent a good deal of our conversation talking about the confidence damage agents can suffer during their careers. And he would know; on his very first sales call, he was called names and thrown out of the house — by a relative, no less.
