Let Go of the Past to Succeed in the Present and Future

What is keeping you from reaching your goals? If you have the “know how” and the “want to” it could be your past that is holding you back.

Many people spend a life time worrying about the future, especially if you have reached adulthood or middle age. In other words, with each new idea or each new goal, you become stymied by the WITCH hunt. The WITCH hunt pertains to those of us who are always asking, “What If This Could Happen?” Those of us who hunt WITCHES can become paralyzed by fear of the unknown.

However, too many of us prefer to use excuses from our past to keep us from success. Some of us had less than an idyllic childhood. We may have been criticized unduly by parents who expected more than we could — or would— deliver. Some of us may be products of a totally dysfunctional family. We blame them for our present day failures. In other words we use our bags full of guilt and blame from the past to prevent us from moving forward.

It is time to lose the luggage if you are going to succeed. It is imperative that we live in the present if we are going to accomplish our goals. We cannot foresee the future. All the worrying about the WITCHes lurking ahead of us is a waste of time. In fact, there may be no real WITCHes out there.

Or, we are carrying baggage from our past that is too heavy. We certainly do not need all that baggage. But, the secret of the baggage is that it allows us to see ourselves as victims. It allows us to make excuses for our failures. However, we must all remember that excuses only satisfy those who make them.

Once we realize that even with the advent of quantum physics we cannot travel back in time to repack our bags or change our histories, we can let go of the excess baggage. The events filling our bags is over. It has been done. No matter how hard we try or what we do, we cannot undo what happened when we were children, or what happened ten years ago, or last week, or even one minute ago. We only have now.

Deciding to loose the luggage is the only way to get out from under the burdens of the past and free ourselves to move successfully into the future. Success starts now.

Presentations – 7 Easy Ways for Creating a Powerful Presentation

Have you ever experienced the all too often death by PowerPoint? Or maybe, you were the guilty party during a presentation massacre. Guess what, it doesn’t have to be that way. You can prepare awesome presentations that will enhance and engage your audience. You just need to follow a few simple principles to create great PowerPoint presentations that even Tom Antion can enjoy. So, read and apply the following tips to your presentations to capture your audience’s attention every time.

#1 – Remember Who’s the Show

Your PowerPoint is not the show. Your audience came to hear you and that’s what they want. Don’t disappoint your audience give them what they want. Prepare your PowerPoint to enhance your presentation not replace it.

#2 – Limit Your Slide Text
The biggest problem with most slides is the content; there is way too much text. Don’t try to place all your information on your slides. It turns your presentation into a boring reading assignment. It turns you into a boring speaker and you will lose your audience. Keep the text on your slides to a minimum and deliver the message yourself.

#3 – Keep Your Slides Simple

PowerPoint is so amazing that you can become mesmerized by all the bells and whistles available to you. There are animations, sounds and special effects galore. But, you don’t need to use everything in one PowerPoint. Simple slides with few special effects are usually the best. A slide with only a picture (that relates to your message) and one keyword can be very engaging. Try it, you will be surprised.

#4 – Choose Your Fonts Wisely

It is very important that when you do use text that it be readable. It needs to be large, the right color and the right font. The size of your fonts should be large and bold. If you are using a small font to get everything on a slide you have too much text. The color of your font should contrast with your background color like black on white or white on blue. However, you should avoid colors like red, yellow, orange or black for backgrounds.

Also, you should avoid using too many fonts. Choose a serif font (like Arial) and a sans serif (like Times New Roman) that will complement each other. Save fancy fonts for the title slide or the ending slide.

#5 – Use Pictures and Graphics

Pictures and graphics must be colorful and large. Your pictures should be at least 50 percent of your slide with limited text. Your slide engage and attract your audience not bore them. Appropriate pictures and graphics (not clip art) are your most effective types of content, especially pictures of people your audience knows.

#6 – Use Video

Insert video into your PowerPoint for a change of pace, especially if your presentation is a long one. A good video from You Tube or a similar site can be used to add humor or relief from the usual routine. Or even better create some of your own videos.

#7 – Tell a Story

People enjoy stories and will be much more receptive to what you have to say if you have captured their attention with a story. Stories help you connect with your audience and get them to accept you and your message. So, make sure that your content, slides and pictures tell a story.

Sales Presentation Skills Tips – Selling Techniques to Increase Sales of Insurance

Sales presentation skills and selling techniques are only valuable to sales of insurance if the agent knows about them. Revealed will be some insurance sales presentation skills, and also tips and selling techniques on how they should be applied. Read on.

New insurance agents are given minimal training. The exception is learning how to attempt setting up an appointment and what the company wants them to say when they are on a presentation. Both are “century old” scripts that their sales manager requires agents to learn without any variation. Of course, because a few agents before them progressed using these same identical rehearsed techniques then old logic says they must be effective. That is fine if you have exactly the right type of people you are trying to make presentations with.

Unfortunately, this is the real world with all kinds of people with a wide variety of reactions.

Insurance sales presentation prospecting can be a career ending process without the necessary skills. If you learn selling techniques using a pre-set script for prospecting, you are setting yourself up for failure. Even though you have learned responses to almost every objection, you have not learned the key lesson for successful sales presentation making.

When to stop talking

Every person is a suspect, very few are potential prospects. Of the potential prospects, occasionally you will have a person to set up an appointment with. Therefore sales presentation skills become priceless.

Talking and talking will get you nowhere. You were instructed how to talk, but the best insurance sales representatives are very keen listeners. The majority of people do not want to suddenly agree to immediately consider buying more insurance. Look at a 20% closing rate by seeing 8 week prospects a week. That translates to about 34 presentations monthly and around 7 sales. An experienced agent chooses by careful listening, the correct style of prospect to meet. Therefore, maybe only 6 to 7 quality prospects are seen, but applying selling techniques 50% are closed. The final results are drastically different. 28 monthly presentations and 14 sales. Less time was exhausted by professional insurance presentation skills, and not being afraid to risk being fussy. Double the sales were made.

The easy solution.

First realize that everyone is not ready to make a commitment to listen to you give an insurance sales presentation. Next, understand that getting objections after objection means you are letting the person wear you down with excuses. Bad sales presentation appointments and long conversations will only lead to defeat. Keep remembering there are countless people who need your service. Listening carefully will quickly tell you, which ones.

Sales Techniques Advice: When to Close

So many lost insurance sales occur because the representative will not stop talking. Increase your sales of insurance by not feeling that you always have to give your entire presentation. This also goes for describing the 101 benefits people can derive from purchasing the plan you are presenting. Here again, the culprit is less talking and more listening and looking for buying signals. Go to the presentation with the idea that the prospect already wants to buy from you. You do not need to battle, over sell, or talk on and on.

Back when I was an insurance sales person in my prime, there were many times when I was finalizing a sales application within 10 minutes. There were also quite a few, when I decided to leave after 10 minutes. As a sales manager watching a newer agent attempt sales presentation skills, often I had to kick the agent’s foot. The person had already given the buying signs, it was time to quit talking and start writing out the application.

Best Sales Presentation Skills Advice: Convince your prospect that you are trustworthy and reasons how that prospect’s particular emotional needs will be filled. Then stop the presentation!

Adapt your prospecting and sales presentation skills to each individual person. Only say or ask what you need, and you will quickly know when you have spoken enough. In sales of insurance, remember that an 80% closing average beats a 20% closing ratio all the time.

Too much talk will get you balk. Listen, learn, and earn.