~ ?NbL II TIVi S[ ll ING IS THE BROKER 5 EDGE\"
I，n-;，. I，ul il ~ Ilw I)nsh ~. rnlher Ihan the ~razzle-(lazzte， \" thai determine jusl
lib)v， su， c， ssI\"l the real slurs are in any prot~ssion. Ask yourself one simple
CHAPTER question， and he completely honest with yourself when you answer: \"What
are you doing in this t)usiness?\" Or \"Why did you decide to become a bro-
ker?\" Was it the money? The challenge? Perhaps the excitement? Or to help
people achieve their financial goals/dreams? If you re like most financial
professionals， you had several reasons for becoming a broker， including，
COiin~l.]-- I~! ve ?lliggl! e ~ reasons.perhaps all nf the above. There is nothing ，~ong with that. They re all good
Edg However， take a moment， now， and prioritize those reasons. Without
the Broker s e realizing it， you will communicate the reason most important to you in every-
thing you do or say (or fail to do or say) in your relationship with your cus-
tomer. That is， if your first priority is to help your customers achieve their fi-
nancial goals， you will unconsciously communicate that to your customers，
and they will quickly trust you. However， if your first priority is making
money for yourself， you will also communicate that， and you will find your-
self facing increased resistance， stalls， and objections both when you
prospect for new customers and when you try to sell something to existing
customers. This is true no matter how polished and professional your com-
munications and sales skills.
Consultative selling is the new standard of the brokerage industry. Various Thousands of experienced brokers， to whom we have provided ad-
regulatory agencies as well as the leading firms are endorsing the consuha- vanced training in consultative selling techniques， have told us that they
live males approach. It s interesting to note that the leading producers within often waste up to 80 percent of their presentation time trying to overcome
the financial services industry have been employing variations of this ap- customer resistance. Once they finished our course， they told us that they
proaeh for years. As you will discover， the fact that they have been using finally realized that not only was most of that resistance unnecessary， but
these techniques is one of the reasons that they have achieved \"stardom\" also that they had caused it， themselves， when they made their goal the in-
and the material of most of this book. This chapter presents h)ur critical as- dividual \"sale，\" instead of their customer s need. At that moment， they had
pecta of eormult~，tive selling that will determine your success as a financial unwittingly identified themselves as salespeople whose agenda was to sell a
professional. Those critical aspects are: financial product instead of a professional whose sole agenda was to help
their client. The result---stalls， suspicion， and instant sales resistance.
1. Your attitude toward your customer and your work Both our own experience as brokers， as well as that of thousands of
2. Your praf~sional knowledge professionals whom we have trained， has been that when you put the needs
3. Your ability to effectively communicate your attitude and knowledge of your customer (rather than the sale/commission) first; not only will you
earn more commissions， but you will also gain several other very positive
4， Continuous personal and profet， sional development side effects， such as:
#l : THE ATTITUDE THAT YOU WANT TO HELP
YOUR ~，]$TOM~R$ s Being given a greater percentage of you，\" clients investment assets to
By malta lhtla troy ~er tfingle ftwtor， the broker s \"edge\" can be defined us manage
yottr ~ talvard your customer dhd yottr work. That may sound pl lqly ~ Making more sales， ultimately， to each client