Be Coachable

Listen. If you’re going to make it in this game, you have got to be coachable. And today I’m going to give you three Ps that you should consider every time you’re given advice by somebody you seek to coach you.

I’ve got a couple of pet peeves when I coach people. And so I’m going to tell you guys, I see these things happen all the time, consistently, and it’s from the people who aren’t being successful. So I’m sharing three things today that you can do to be coachable because that’s the number one thing you have to do to be successful really in any industry. After all, you can’t be an expert at it all. You got to find those mentors that are, that can take your game to another level.

Pay Attention

So the first thing I’m going to tell you you have to do is you have to pay attention. I can’t tell you the number of times that somebody will reach out to me, book time, get on a coaching call, and I’ll give them advice. And I can hear keyboards clicking in the background. I can hear them doing other things, not paying attention to what I’m saying. And inevitably, they ask a question directly answered by the advice I had given to them. Pay, attention people. If somebody’s going to carve time out of their day to help you, provide them with the courtesy of your full attention and do yourself a favor. You’re going to miss things if you don’t.

Practice

The second thing I’m going to advise you to do is to practice. When I give somebody a technique of using a phone script or getting past a gatekeeper or whatever else, I don’t expect you to take my conversation and immediately run out and try and use it. It would be best if you practiced that. Practice your cadence, practice your inflection, practice your facial expression so that people can see that you’re happy and you’re not tense, and you’re desperate for the sale. Practice the techniques that are new to you.

Put it to Use

And then the third thing you need to do, number three, is put them to use. I give advice when people reach out to me for coaching because I know the things I’m talking about work. They don’t work if you don’t use them. You shouldn’t use them, if you don’t practice. You can’t practice, if you don’t pay attention.

But don’t come to me and say, “I can’t book appointments,” or, “Man, I’m having a tough time getting past the gatekeeper.” And I rattle off three or four different things that we had talked about prior, and you’ve not tried any of them. You’re just not competent. Your problem’s up here, and it’s not with the actual techniques. And you got to get it through your head that if you’re seeking advice from people who know, that have been there, done that, and things have worked for them, then if you can replicate it, you’re going to kill it in commercial insurance. But you can’t do that unless you pay attention, you practice, and then you put the stuff to use.