“Don’t wish it was easier, wish you were better.” - Jim Rohn

When Jim Rhon made his famous statement, “Don’t wish it was easier, wish you were better.” he wasn’t speaking about selling Voluntary Benefits. He could have been.

Yesterday I wrote about the fact that this business is simple, but it’s not easy.  (Read it here.)  I heard from several agents that basically said, “Life would be much better if our prospects could just ‘get it.’ If people really understood why they need these products, they would beat a path to our door.” If this is your thought process, I want to challenge you to carry that line of thinking out to its natural conclusion. Our products would become a commodity.

When products become commodities, the companies that produce those products begin to have only one way to differentiate themselves from their competitors….price. Once the price is the differentiator, it quickly becomes a race to the bottom. Profit margins begin to shrink. Service levels tend to drop. Because of this drop in the margin, the company must recoup those profits somewhere. Guess where they tend to turn to first? Your commission check!

Not convinced?  Let me ask you this:  Pretend your car needs new tires.  If you are like most people, you either go online or look in the ads in Sunday’s newspaper (Are there still newspapers?) for the best deal you can find.  You will probably see ads for Michelin, Good Year, Bridgestone, Cooper, Yokohama, Pirelli, and on, and on, and on…..  If you can purchase basically the same tire from Bridgestone as you can from Michelin, why would you pay significantly more for one over the other?  You wouldn’t.

One more example: What do you think the closing ratio is for a cashier at McDonald’s? In other words, how many times does someone go into McDonald’s, approach the counter, ask a few questions and then decide not to buy? I haven’t seen any studies, but I’m guessing that our Mickey D’s cashier has a much better closing ratio than you do  Why? She is selling hamburgers and French fries. These are commodities that you can get there or across the street at Wendy’s.

What do you think the profit margin is on Big Mac’s or even Pirelli tires? Not much. You have to sell a LOT of hamburgers to make money. Consequently, the cashier’s commission structure is dramatically different than yours.

Thank God this business is hard! If this business was actually easy, the carriers could probably figure out a way to sell our products over the phone, or the Internet, or by mail, or through stuffers in people’s credit card statements, or whatever. If it were easy, they would pay us eight bucks an hour and everyone would do it.  (Tweetable)

Conclusion: The day that people “get it” and understand why they need our coverage (without your help in explaining it to them) is the day you better polish up your resume.

Question: When was the last time you attempted the impossible?

“The difficult we do immediately; the impossible takes a little longer.” – Charles Alexandre de Calonne (1734-1802)