Have you ever said to yourself, "I wish someone had told me that a long time ago"?
If so, you know what it's like to discover something that radically changes your life in a split second.
And, if you're like most of the other agents out there, then you've tried all kinds of hare-brained and time-wasting methods to build your business.
I'm talking about things like buying deadbeat leads, cold calling for hours on end, sending out oceans of emails or fax blasting (to angry people who don't want to hear from you), using the "3-foot" rule, making out your "Project 100," and hounding your family and friends, etc.
By the way, if you've ever had the 'pleasure' of cold calling leads, you know how utterly brutal it is. You end up with a big ol' lump in your stomach, a bruised ego, wasted time, tons of disconnected numbers, and pissed off, negative people that are tired of listening to high pressure salespeople.
(Related: How to Sell More Cash Value Life Insurance)
If any of this sounds familiar, it should, because it's the same outdated stuff that is being drilled into 90% of the people who enter this business. It's why most of them are continually struggling, and why many of them are out of the business, within a year.
Cold calling, using life insurance lead lists, or using Internet leads and then doing a sales pitch over the phone just doesn't cut it anymore. Most people are screening their calls, using their caller ID, and won't even pick up the phone due to the tremendous amount of sales calls that they get from telemarketers about all sorts of junk. The so-called qualified lead that you paid for probably won't even pick up the phone, let alone book an appointment with you.
There are much better, easier ways to build your business, once you discover some little-known strategies for generating your own qualified prospects. And you can do it right in your local community and become the trusted advisor your friends, family and neighbors want to see.
The good news is there are better and more cost-effective ways to get the qualified prospects you need and want.
Becoming a master prospector seems hard, but it is surprisingly simple if you know where to start. The key is to know who to target. Next, value every point of contact and touch point. Care about how your prospects see you through every form of correspondence. That way you always put your best foot forward.
For a three-step strategy for becoming a prospecting pro, read on.
(Image: Thinkstock)
1. Recognize that it's time for you to become an information resource.
Now, what if you were given the option to set yourself up as a point of valuable information, the go-to guy or gal where people get advice regularly about the financial problems people are facing? It almost sounds like a dream doesn't it? It doesn't have to be.
With information being one of the major shifts the business world has experienced, using the information super-highway (the Internet) is one strategy to help to make your presence known in a much better, much quicker, and much cheaper way.
If you're not on the Internet, you're losing out big time! But if you are there, your website and email address, which should appear in all your business literature, should be made available to everybody you come in contact with, even as part of your signature on any other form of correspondence.
Email helps prospects come forward in the privacy and convenience of their own homes or offices, and it also gives you a chance to respond to them immediately. It's truly a dynamic form of communication that, to this day, is still often overlooked. 2. Create a website, or improve the website you have.
More and more individuals are turning their TV's off, and are turning to the web. The reason is they are tired of being advertised to.
Attracting qualified prospects is not just about Sell, Sell, Sell. It's about providing valuable information and establishing yourself as the individual who does not have a sales pitch, but rather someone who is out there to help others with their financial problems.
Whenever you search the web, do you pay for the information you want, or do you continue to search for as much free information as you can get? Of course, your prospects are just like you.
Jeremy Nason 
