I Carry The Bag • Spring 2011

www.icarrythebag.com

Issue 4 | Spring 2011

2nd Quarter | SPRING 2011 ISSUE FOUR

Editor-in-Chief/Publisher Rob Shore

Art Director Lynn Lee

Table of Contents

www.lynnleedesign.com

04

Contributing Writers Mary Allen Paul Bednar Stephanie Bogan Natalie Doss Kathy Freeman Kip Gregory Lou Heckler Claire Hyman S. Anthony Iannarino Sara Keagle Ivy Naistadt Kara Newman Godfrey Everett Presley Art Sobczak Laura Stack Bruce Tulgan DeeAnne White

Zen and the Art of Wholesaling

05

What is Your Career Brand?

By Kathy Freeman Godfrey

18

06

How To Overcome Call Avoidance

By Mary Allen CPCC, MCC

08

Why Most of the Leading Advice About Managing Your Boss is Wrong

Please visit www.icarrythebag.com or call us at: 949-891-1117

For address changes, bulk subscriptions, media inquiries, general questions or comments call 949-891-1117 or email icarrythebag@gmail.com

514 San Bernadino Avenue Newport Beach, CA 92663 tel 949-891-1117 I Carry The Bag is a registered trademark of Rob Shore dba shorespeak®. All content in this publication ©2011 shorespeak® and is protected by international copyright law. All rights reserved.

Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.

By Sara Keagle

Brand Your Own Fitness Plan

12

More Effective Marketing: 5 Ways to Free Up Your Time

By Paul Bednar

By Ivy Naistadt

30

Fight Above Weight Class: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kwdesigns/734124559/

Break the Rules: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cluefree/3731186478/

By S. Anthony Iannarino

Inside the Bag: Interview with Aaron Cook

of Steadfast Capital Markets Group

Why the Next Thing in Your Bag Should be an iPad

By Kip Gregory

Food and Wine Pairings: Breaking the Rules

Brand Your Fitness: http://www.flickr.com/photos/twicepix/3044118740/

How To Fight Above Your Weight Class

26

Rule Your World.

Face to Face Still Matters

Free up time: http://www.flickr.com/photos/breatheindigital/4972420374/

By Stephanie Bogan & Natalie Doss

Profiles of Great Wholesalers:

13

Some photos appear under Creative Commons Attribution License:

Help Your Advisors Build a Marketing Masterpiece

25

28

Library of Congress ISSN 2157-1155 (print) ISSN 2157-1155 (online)

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By Laura Stack

20

11

I CARRY THE BAG® is published quarterly

17 Travel Tips for the Business Flyer

22

By Bruce Tulgan

10

www.icarrythebag.com

Interested in advertising?

By Art Sobczak

To subsctribe, visit:

14

Yvette Dubajic

By Claire Hyman & Everett Presley

Making Advisors VIPS Using V-I-P

By Lou Heckler

Your Next Life: It’s a Brand New Day

By DeeAnne White

letter from editor

I have distinct memories from my childhood of brands that, due to their marketing and their products, are indelibly etched in my brain 40 years later.

“I can’t believe I ate the whole thing” – Alka-Seltzer “Please don’t squeeze the Charmin” – Charmin “Ring around the collar” - Wisk laundry detergent As I began my career there were people that also left indelible marks: • The first manager at Coast Federal Savings • The CEO of Harvard Agency • The program manager at HomeFed Investments And the second wholesaler I ever met when I was a broker.

Bruce and I had so many personal similarities that it was frightening (wives’ names, wedding anniversary dates, ages, etc.) In addition, he embodied what I wanted at that point in my career: deeper knowledge of the capital markets and the lifestyle that came with financial success.

He and his team were also adept marketers of both the firm’s product and their own value proposition.

So for this Spring 2011 issue of I Carry The Bag, we are asking you to think about the way in which you brand and market yourselves as professional wholesalers and how you provide marketing assistance (beyond your expense account) to the advisors you serve.

and they will share ideas to help you assist advisors to do just that.

How To Fight Above Your Weight Class by Anthony Iannarino offers an important lesson for wholesalers that are not working for one of the 1000 pound gorillas of their product category.

And, if you are going to find the time to be a more effective marketer of the brand that is you, you also need to be efficient with your time. To address that, Laura Stack offers More Effective Marketing: 5 Ways to Free Up Your Time.

Those three articles just scratch the surface of what might be our most comprehensive issue to date.

We hope you enjoy it – and if you do, we welcome you to tell your colleagues!

To help you do that we have assembled, in addition to our remarkable regular columnists, an all-star line-up of experts to get you thinking about these important topics.

Our feature story, Help Your Advisors Build a Marketing Masterpiece, is written by the folks at Quantivus Consulting.

Their company has become a recognized leader in helping financial advisors build better, more profitable businesses,

I CARRY THE BAG | SPRING 2011 | 33

Zen and the Art of Wholesaling

By Mary Allen CPCC, MCC Could a calm inner core become the secret ingredient behind your brand?

If you want to maximize your success and bottom line, consider this unique marketing and branding strategy.

Most of your clients, co-workers and bosses are busy, stressed and overwhelmed, right?

It’s epidemic these days.

What is it like for you to be around someone who is uptight, over-caffeinated and running on fumes? Does it add to your stress or diffuse it?

Here’s a little secret. “Whoever is more committed to their emotional state ultimately influences the other.”

That means if you’re more committed to a calm inner core than your clients’ stress, you’ll ultimately influence their state of being, while you’re closing the sale.

One of my clients is a tax accountant. For nearly a decade, he experienced what most accountants do during tax season…“no life.”

It was stressful, intense and all consuming.

Then he hired me as his personal coach to help him find greater inner peace during tax season. He affectionately named this objective “Zen and the Art of Tax Season.”

The more he relaxed into his own sense of inner peace, the more his clients commented on how they enjoyed their “tax time meeting” with him. Clients receiving unexpected news of a large tax bill left with smiles on their faces –astonished at their positive response to seemingly “bad news.” My client’s sense of well-being impacted everyone with whom he did business. He made it part of his brand!

From this greater sense of inner peace, he let go of his “high hassle – low return” clients

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and raised his rates. He also manages money for clients, and he quickly found his portfolio naturally growing through referrals! He’s now had his “best year ever” for the last 3 years in a row - tripling his income!

The economy has compounded the stress most people experience, so it’s refreshing when a professional embodies inner peace.

Could “inner peace” really be the secret ingredient for your brand and marketing success in 2011?

When your clients know they’ll feel great about themselves after meeting with you, they’ll be more likely to do more business with you.

So how did my client incorporate inner peace into his brand during his busiest work days?

It’s actually quite simple.

1. Make exercise a priority. In prior years, he let work consume him and workouts went by the wayside. However, during “Zen and the Art of Tax Season” he consistently set aside time for exercise before work. He’s now in the best shape of his life, dropping 35 pounds. Taking time for yourself pays dividends!

2. Be 100% present. Give 100% of your attention to each client in front of you.

Listen intently. Be available. Whatever happened prior to your time with this client is irrelevant. Whatever commitments you have after this client can wait. Give 100% of your attention and focus. Your client will feel more heard, understood and more connected to you. You’ll be more efficient, and ultimately you’ll be more successful.

3. Allow time for fun. Instead of foregoing time on the golf course, social engagements with friends, and nourishing

activities, allocate time away from work for fun. Those three to four times at the golfing range or enjoying an evening out will give you added energy and inner peace. It seems counter-intuitive, but if you’re feeling nourished, you’ll have more to give to your clients. What a fun way to support your brand!

4. Focus on Expanding Inner Peace. When you start looking for it, you may surprise yourself to find you’re experiencing inner peace more than you thought. Whatever you put your attention on -- grows. My client focused on expanding inner peace during his morning meditation and periodically throughout the day. He noticed when he felt more anxious and less present, like during his drive to and from work. Then, with a little coaching he consciously practiced expanding inner peace during those sticky times.

Inner Peace comes when we allow ourselves to rest squarely in the present moment, without resisting it. It’s here and available in any time, place or circumstance.

As you’re re-evaluating your brand and marketing, allow inner peace to be your greatest asset, as it became for my client. The bonus? You’ll feel great, too!

Mary Allen, CPCC, MCC is author of The Power of Inner Choice, host of Conversations with the Masters, and leader for workshops and retreats, including the Inner Peace Immersion Retreat (4 days) and Awakening Beyond Achievement (1-day events in five cities). Mary is available for one-on-one coaching – mary@lifecoachmary.com.

What is Your Career Brand?

By Kathy Freeman Godfrey What is the concept of a career brand and how do you market yourself effectively among your industry colleagues? Having just completed a Chief Marketing Officer search for one of my asset management clients, the concept of brand is fresh in my mind. I thought it might be an interesting exercise to draw a parallel between how our firms approach branding and how that can be correlated into our own careers. Let’s look at three key components that have applicability to building your career brand: Strategy –– Communications – PR. Strategy – When it comes to strategic

marketing for an asset management firm, the focus is on identifying new markets for penetration or new audiences with an appetite for a particular product, all with an eye towards growing the firm. As it relates to an individual’s career, marketing strategy is about calculating your approach to increase your personal success and, as a result, to enhance your image in the market among your senior management and among your colleagues.

How can you set yourself apart from your peers through a more thoughtful and strategy-based approach? If you are part of a national team of 30 wholesalers, reporting up to two divisional managers and one national sales manager, how do you stand out from the crowd? Is it by being the most successful? The most successful players certainly merit attention from their leadership, but it isn’t success alone which drives attention. Those that stand out in the crowd in sales organization, large or small, are the ones that take the time to look at the macro landscape of their markets in order to craft new ideas, identify new pockets of potential buyers, or discover methodologies on how to better penetrate their existing target markets. From there, it is critical to share these ideas first with senior management and subsequently with the team. Measure your results on these initiatives prior to talking about them. Present your findings as an objective business case and enhance your team’s success through sharing your thoughtful concepts.

Communication – Communication in firms

has to do with how the story is told about their products or services in order to make it relevant to their target clientele, whether through a prospectus or a brochure. In order to build up the brand for your own career, think about how you’d like to be perceived.

Write down some key words, descriptors that you’d like to have your colleagues or the executive team associate with you. Do you want to be perceived as articulate, bright and forward thinking? Pay attention that your communications go out with messages that embody those descriptors. Once you’ve identified your priorities for your career brand, message yourself with purpose to others within your company. Read journals or publications that are outside of the mainstream investment media.

Uncover perspectives that might stimulate meaningful and thought-provoking insights into your own businesses, then craft an e-mail and share your discovery. Pull out 3 key points which are easily digestible to those who won’t take the time to read your entire message. Be subtle yet proactive to continue on page 7…

I CARRY THE BAG | SPRING 2011 | 55

By Art Sobczak

How to Overcome Phone Call Sure, everyone knows that picking up the phone and calling someone is the quickest way to potentially begin a sales relationship with a new prospect. Why, then, when someone just knows that an advisor, broker, or agent could be a big producer, do they avoid calling them? WHY is it so darned difficult?

Several reasons, most involving fear. Fear of getting a no. Fear of feeling or being rejected. Fear of not knowing what to say and sounding like a blabbering doofus.

We’ve all been there. Unfortunately, some wholesalers live there. It doesn’t need to be that way. Let me help you ease these fears if you have them, and launch you into a confident calling zone.

Fear of Getting No’s Baseball players swing and miss. Scientists attempt formulas that don’t accomplish their goal. Accountants’ numbers sometimes don’t add up. Salespeople get no’s. All professions feature some aspect of their activity that sometimes just doesn’t work. I wish there was a sugarcoated way to put this, but you’ve picked a profession where, if you are putting in the activity, you will get some no’s. Big deal!

So what? If a mechanic tries one method that doesn’t work to fix an engine, does he avoid working on what’s broken?

Really, the fact is that you need to look at a no for what it is: something that didn’t work, at that time, with that person. Instead of fearing the no, look at it as a decision. Decisions are good, since they give you a course of action.

They save your valuable time. “No” means you do not need to pursue this person or firm—at least not now — and of course you know what you will do with yes. To get yes’s, you need to go through no’s. If you must attach

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fear to anything, associate it with a “maybe,” or not knowing where you stand.

Fear of Feeling/Being Rejected I remember one of my first sales jobs, over 30 years ago while in high school… the grizzled sales manager in the telephone boiler room I worked in constantly bellowed, “You gotta love rejection. Embrace it.”

“Huh?” I thought at the time (and still do).

Love it? If I love something, I want more of it.

I’m no Dr. Phil, but I’m pretty sure you can’t love rejection unless there’s something quite twisted about you. I wanted to figure out how to avoid rejection. And I did. Here’s how.

Let’s first look at what rejection really is.

Many people feel it’s when you get a no, or when you hear that the firm you are calling is happy with the funds they now sell, or any of the other negatively perceived things that happen to you on calls. The fact is, rejection is NOT what happens TO you, it’s how you define what happens to you.

As I already mentioned, stuff happening to you is inevitable. The rejection is always optional, and totally in your control. Eleanor Roosevelt said, “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” Let’s modify that slightly to, “No one can reject you without your consent.” This does involve playing some mind games and self talk, but is not difficult. Simply take a win of any type from every call.

Instead of thinking, “I got rejected,” say, “At least I received a decision.”

Instead of thinking, “They criticized my products,” say, “I learned something about how some people view our products.”

Instead of thinking, “I lost the big producer I

was working so hard to get,” say, “What can I do next time to ensure this doesn’t happen again?”

Instead of thinking, “This is devastating,” say, “What positive can I take out of this?”

Fear of Not Knowing What to Say It’s natural. No one wants to appear the fool, and if you’ve been in sales any length of time, you and I could both share stories of how our minds had a hard drive crash when we had a prospect on the phone and consequently mumbled gibberish that sounded like an alien language. How do we get over the fear of this? No easy path here either. It’s simple, but it requires work.

Never in our lifetime has more information been available on anything, including self improvement, and what to say and do in order to plan for, craft, and execute a successful phone call or face-to-face visit.

When you are prepared, you are confident.

Remember that feeling of getting off a call and saying to yourself, “I rocked. I was gooood on that call!” Why were you good? Because you smoothly and seamlessly handled everything thrown at you, and you were prepared. The words flowed. I’ve even felt unaware and surprised at times at the brilliance that came out of my mouth. This happens because you had either experienced a similar situation, or had simulated the situation, which means preparing for it.

I’m shocked at how many salespeople invest so little time and money in the very

What is Your Career Brand continued from page 5… control and communicate the message of your career brand.

Avoidance skills required to put food on their table.

The “what to say” part. The strategy and tactics of talking to people. Sure, technology is a great tool, but it does not replace one-on-one conversation.

Every extremely successful (and wealthy) salesperson I’ve ever known realizes they will never graduate from the school of sales. They regularly read sales literature (online and off ), listen to sales audios, attend seminars and webinars, and they practice.

Picking up the phone is the quickest and cheapest way to initiate a sales conversation and relationship, when done the right way. Follow these guidelines and you’ll do it more often, confidently, and with success.

For over 28 years Art Sobczak has helped sales pros say the right things by phone to get success in their prospecting and sales.

His newest book, Smart Calling-Eliminate the Fear, Failure, and Rejection from Cold Calling, was awarded Top Sales Book of 2010. For a copy of the free report, “The Top 10 Dumb Cold Calling Mistakes That Ensure Rejection,” go to www.SmartCalling.com

Public Relations – This is the most delicate

of the career branding components because it requires finesse in order not to look self-serving. Public relations at the firm level is all about visibility with the end user. In our careers, whether we are seeking promotions or simply trying to drive credibility for our brand, selectively creating visibility is prudent. Ideas may include leading an internal workshop at the sales meeting or delivering a product presentation at an offsite. You may offer to connect your boss to a speaking engagement with a client firm when compliance dictates that you can’t get the prime podium position. Providing a forum for the firm’s success builds up your brand among your leadership.

Addressing your own career brand, through the identification of tangible adjectives that you’d like to have your name and image correlated with in the industry and among your colleagues, is a concept worthy of your consideration.

Invest some time to be proactive, creating a game plan which encompasses strategy, communication and public relations, and see for yourself how you can actually manage people’s perceptions of your personal brand.

Kathy Freeman Godfrey founded her retained executive search firm (www. kathyfreemanco.com) in 1992. For nearly two decades, she has served the investment industry nationwide, working in partnership with her clients to attract and assess senior sales and marketing executives who bring vision and leadership, to act as a catalyst for their continued growth.

I CARRY THE BAG | SPRING 2011 | 77

WHY MOST OF THE LEADING

ADVICE

ABOUT MANAGING

YOU R

BOSS IS WRONG

In the financial services industry, there is a shocking and profound epidemic of what I call “undermanagement”—the opposite of micromanagement—in organizations of all shapes and sizes.

Look at your own situation. If you are a manager with employees directly reporting to you, do you spend enough time engaging sufficiently with your direct-reports? On a day-to-day basis do you consistently provide the basics these employees need in order to succeed? Those basics include: • clear expectations for what they do and how they do it; • discussion about how to obtain the resources necessary to meet those expectations; • accurate real-time performance tracking; and • fair recognition for the contributions they make.

What about your own boss? Do you get those basics from your boss regularly and consistently?

In fact, most people working in the financial services sector say that two-way communication with their immediate boss is sorely deficient; they rarely get the daily guidance, resources, and feedback they need…unless of course something goes wrong. In financial services, too often managers figure people-management is an afterthought…or a “nice to have”…or only for the weak. Many just figure that employees will sink-or-swim/reinvent the wheel/struggle and do lots of rework in the hopes of reaping the giant rewards that might be available. “Nobody held my hand,” many senior people in the industry have told me. “So why should I hold anybody else’s hand?”

If your boss isn’t managing you properly, then you will simply have to turn it around and start managing your boss. I know, easier said than done.

Look at the hard realities of trying to manage your boss: • You cannot always find a “great boss.”

Most bosses are somewhere in the middle of the spectrum. All bosses have strengths and weaknesses when it comes to managing YOU. • Even if you have a “great” boss, great bosses have bad days, bad weeks, and even bad months where they drop the ball when it comes to attending to their management responsibilities to YOU. Even great bosses make mistakes in managing you that can have a huge impact on YOU if you are not sharing the responsibility for practicing the basics in your management relationship.

• Often bosses think expectations have been made clear, even though you might not understand them.

However, YOU are the only one who really knows if YOU understand those expectations.

• No matter how clear the expectations may be at the outset, sometimes circumstances change, things go wrong, and course corrections are necessary.

• YOU can’t always work in your areas of strength because there is a lot of work to be done, and YOU are hired to do what needs to be done. On top of that, necessary resources are not always available and sometimes YOU need to get the job done anyway.

Given these hard realities, it is not so easy to develop a strategy for managing your boss (or bosses), and dealing with the highly complex authority relationships in today’s financial services environment. The good news is that there are zillions of so-called experts out there who will be happy to provide you with advice on the matter.

The bad news is that most of that advice is incomplete…or just plain wrong.

The most common advice for managing your boss is aimed at dealing with the worst

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By Bruce Tulgan kinds of bosses: incompetents and bullies. Of course, this sort of advice might be helpful if your boss really is incompetent or a bully.

The problem is, if you are not rigorously and consistently engaging in a regular management dialogue with your boss, then you don’t really know whether your boss is truly the problem. Maybe YOU are the problem. Anyway, if it DOES turn out that your boss is a buffoon or he is abusive, there is no strategy that will help you other than finding a new boss A.S.A.P. The second most common sort of advice for managing your boss is very old-fashioned (and obsolete). Experts in this vein advise you to hitch your wagon to the star of your boss, cater as much as humanly possible to that boss, and then follow him or her up the corporate ladder. This strategy might still work for some people in very rare circumstances. Nowadays, however, how many people are really going to pursue a fixed, long-term and hierarchical career path in tandem with a boss who is also pursuing a fixed, long-term, and hierarchical career path?

Most careers today are constantly shifting and most supervisory relationships are complex.

That means most people need to be prepared to adapt to many bosses over the course of a successful career.

The third most common sort of advice is focused on showing you how to manipulate your boss to meet your personal needs— playing the boss and the system in order to squeeze out as much benefit for yourself as you possibly can in exchange for the least effort on your part. This advice is deceptive and dishonorable, and it might result in short-term benefits for you, but ultimately it does you, your boss, and your organization a terrible disservice. When you constantly take advantage of your boss, you are in a deadend relationship.

Finally, the most sophisticated “experts” suggest that you try to “partner” with your boss. This approach is rather theoretical (some would say Ivory Tower) and offers more of an ideal of what “managing your boss” should be about, rather than tactical advice about dealing with the very real everyday challenges of managing relationships

with authority figures in the workplace.

Additionally, the partnership approach fails to acknowledge the profound importance of the power differential in a “boss-employee” relationship. Your boss is your boss precisely because he or she has authority, influence, and control of resources that directly affect you.

So then what’s the best way to tackle the real challenge of managing your boss today?

Whenever an employee seems like a selfstarting high-performer, it is almost always the case that the employee seems so precisely because he is doing the hard work necessary to get the four basics that ANYONE WITH A BOSS absolutely needs in order to succeed: 1. Clearly spelled out and reasonable expectations, including specific guidelines and a concrete timetable.

2. The skills, tools, and resources necessary to meet those expectations, or else an acknowledgement that you are being asked to meet those expectations without them.

4. The fair quid pro quo--recognition and rewards--in exchange for your performance.

The result of these “back to basics” solutions will include getting more work done better and faster, running into fewer problems, solving problems more quickly, wasting fewer resources, achieving greater success, and earning more credit and rewards.

Bruce Tulgan is an adviser to business leaders all over the world and a sought-after speaker and seminar leader. He is also the founder of RainmakerThinking, Inc., a management training firm. Bruce is the author of the classic Managing Generation X, as well as the best seller It’s Okay to be the Boss, and many other books. His work has been the subject of thousands of news stories around the world. He has written pieces for numerous publications, including the New York Times, USA Today, the Harvard Business Review, and Human Resources. His free weekly workplace video is available at www.rainmakerthinking.com.

3. Accurate and honest feedback about your performance as well as course-correcting direction when necessary.

I CARRY THE BAG | SPRING 2011 | 99

PACK YOUR BAG

17 Travel Tips for the Business Fly I am a flight attendant and I love people...some more than others.

You may or may not know this but you, the business traveler, are the flight attendants’ favorite passenger. You usually fly as much or more than we do so you have the routine down. There are no shocking surprises for you.

Mechanical? Weather delays? You know the drill! I’m sure it helps that many times you’ve been upgraded to first class and you can order another gin and tonic while you wait. You don’t bother us with questions; you just go with the flow and that’s why you’re our favorite!

I have a lot of great travel advice, but I will skip the obvious since you travel for a living.

Hopefully I have a few new tips that you can use on your next trip.

Prepare for departure: • Pack the day before. I find that if I have packing out of the way, my stress level is much lower the day of travel and I’m less likely to forget important things...like undergarments.

• Since you are a frequent traveler, make a pre-departure list and then laminate it. It’s a great way to have peace of mind before you walk out the door.

• Make sure your luggage tags only have your cell phone and email address. More

101 0 | SPRING 2011 | I CARRY THE BAG

and more stories are popping up about luggage handlers finding home addresses on luggage tags. Knowing the property is empty makes it the perfect target for theft.

Packing: • Roll your clothes. It works and you fit more! Although clothes still may not arrive completely wrinkle free, it does helps.

• As a frequent traveler, invest in two of everything: one for home and one for the road. You should have a toiletry bag in your suitcase that never leaves your suitcase. Ditto for your electronic chargers and clothes. The only thing you should have to take out of your suitcase when you come home is your laundry. Wash it and put it back in the suitcase.

• Invest in a couple of space bags for winter travel and laundry. They work well when packing sweaters and coats. I use one of these instead of a laundry bag so my laundry doesn’t take up too much space.

The Airport: • If you are getting dropped off or picked up during peak hours, have your driver drop you off or pick you up opposite of the heavy traffic. For example, late afternoon and evenings are the busiest

time for arrivals. I head out to departures for my pick up.

• Invest in and carry an empty water bottle.

Sigg and Thermos make good ones. Once through security you can fill it up at a water bubbler.

The Plane: • Rollerboard not fitting? Sticking out into the aisle just a bit too much for the bin to close? Try turning it so the wheels face out. Not sure why, but this usually does the trick.

• Would you like to make the flight attendants’ day and get a little extra special treatment? Bring a gift. Just a small gesture like chocolates brightens our day!

• Hope for your upgrade, prepare for coach!

Bring snacks and a small blanket in your carry on.

• Have any medical issues? Print them on an index card along with any meds you currently take and leave it accessible in your carry on. This will help us greatly in case of an emergency!

The Hotel: • Lysol makes a 1 ounce spray bottle, so you can carry it through security. I always spray the door handles and remotes.

By Sara Keagle

By Paul Bednar

yer • Bring a power strip from home. Hotels never seem to have enough outlets and the ones they do have always seem to be behind the heavy furniture.

• Avoid bed bugs by keeping your luggage on the luggage rack, instead of the bed.

Also, check your sheets for any obvious signs.

• Stay in shape by carrying exercise bands with you. They are easy to pack, don’t take up much space, and you won’t have to leave your room to get a workout.

• Make your hotel room feel homey. Bring music, a candle and a picture from home (even if it’s one of your dog).

Happy flying!

Sara Keagle is a Flight Attendant for a major U.S. Airline with over twenty years experience in the travel industry. Through her blog The Flying Pinto she shares her experiences and offers you a glimpse behind the galley curtain. She also created and co-hosts a popular podcast, The Crew Lounge, offering listeners a unique look into the life and career of a flight attendant. Sara has freelanced for publications such as The Wall Street Journal’s Speak Easy Blog and serves as a resource of various national media outlets including USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, MSNBC, The New York Times, Budget Travel, and The Washington Post. Visit Sara at www.TheFlyingPinto.com

I’ve written before about the powerful narrative of fitness as two-dimensional: fiscal and physical. And that the payoff after years of hard work is the daily double: abundant wealth and health. However, with the pressure of meeting numbers always on our back, we need to constantly motivate and re-motivate ourselves to stay ahead of the pack on all fronts.

First quarter is over. Quick gut check. Literally.

Have you been loyal to your New Year’s resolutions? Or have you moved to the next notch on your belt and ordered the latest style of Spanx®?

The good news is – just like in sales – every day is a new day in fitness, too. A good fitness plan, such as a smart, all-weather, six-week rotation, works post-holiday in the dead of winter and at the long awaited first signs of spring.

Sometimes all we need to do is update the packaging, upgrade the tools, or reframe the picture. And sometimes we just need to make something our own.

In today’s world we can customize almost everything to meet our needs. From our music to our cars, from entertainment to phones, we have the ability to imprint everything we own with our own personalized stamp.

Why not customize your fitness plan, too?

What about a plan that is built on who you are - not what the latest diet book says will work for us; not what the latest reality show tells us to do; and not the torturous (starvation) cleanse the celebrity bloggers tell us to follow. continue on page 23…

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I CARRY THE BAG | SPRING 2011 11 | 11

By Laura Stack

More Effective Marketing: 5 Ways to Free Up Your Time As a wholesaler, there will always be more things to do than time to do them. Working longer isn’t going to save you. (I bet you’ve never gone to sleep at the end of a long day with everything on your to-do list completed.)

To counter this never-ending battle, you’ll need to learn to be more efficient and get your work done in less time.

Always keep in mind that it doesn’t matter if you worked a 12-hour day if 10 of those hours didn’t involve tasks that translate into revenue.

To free up more time for client acquisition such as asking for referrals, calling prospects, networking, etc., you must decrease time spent on administrivia and increase time spent on the selling function. If you can figure out how to be more productive during the day and achieve greater results in less time, you can leave the office earlier and have a life.

The Inbox is not a to-do list.

Pull the action from the email and move it to the correct location. Do NOT simply flag the email, which simply leaves it in the Inbox.

In Outlook: 1. Right-click on the email.

2. Select “Move to Folder” from the short cut menu.

3. Select Tasks from the list if it’s a “to-do” item or Calendar if it has a specific time.

4. Click OK. 5. This will activate a task properties window.

6. Update all of the information accordingly.

Use the “Start Date” to indicate when you want the task to appear on your To-Do Bar. 7. Click the “Save and Close” button.

8. Make sure your TaskPad (2003) or To-Do Bar (2007/2010) sorts by Start Date, not Due Date.

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Keep your notes in your CRM up to date.

Keep relationship manager notes for every client contact in your company’s proprietary system, ACT, Salesforce.com, or Outlook. If you have Outlook, this feature is called the Journal, which is a little-known, powerful feature rarely used but immensely helpful for salespeople to document client history: conversations, phone calls, and meetings. Create a New Journal Entry, tag it to the Contact, and type out the contents of the meeting. You can now view a Contact’s Journal entries from years ago. If you share your Journal and Contacts, anyone can see your notes and client activity if you’re out.

Create a travel plan. When you have to fly for business, you’ll usually have a pretty good idea of how much downtime you’ll have during your trip, so set some goals for your travel time before you leave. How long is the flight each way? How long will you be alone in your hotel room in the evening? Know what you want to accomplish during various parts of your trip. It isn’t set in stone—it’s just a guide. When you sit down in your airplane seat, you should know exactly what to do next. Maybe there’s a report you want to read or a proposal you want to write. Be ready to dive right in. Until I can turn on my computer, I generally do light reading as I catch my breath and get settled. I might even do a Sudoku puzzle. Then I get right to it.

I never turn on the television in my hotel, since a quiet hotel room is a great place to bang out work.

Embrace the Smartphone. You don’t need to become a full-fledged Crackberry addict to enjoy the benefits of a smartphone. It shouldn’t hijack your life, but it can be a useful tool while you’re riding in a taxi or sitting at the gate.

Use your downtime to keep up with e-mail; it’s comforting to know it isn’t piling up while you’re away. A smartphone can also help you

stay on top of things back at the office without playing phone tag and leaving voicemails all over the place.

Hold an efficiency meeting. We all know we can be more productive. When I ask, “What would you need to change about yourself in order to be more productive and increase sales?” everyone knows the answer. When I ask, “What would need to change in the office in order for you to be more productive?” everyone knows the answer. However, most wholesalers and their teams rarely take the time to discuss these issues and formulate solutions. If you haven’t had an “efficiency meeting” in a while, get it on your schedule.

Vent your frustrations. Try different methods.

Blow up a process. Get help when you need it.

All of this effort will pay off handsomely in the way of increased client acquisition.

Since 1992, Laura Stack has presented keynotes and seminars that help leaders, teams, and individuals achieve Maximum Results in Minimum Time®. As the President of The Productivity Pro®, Inc., she has implemented productivity-improvement programs at companies such as Wal-Mart, Cisco Systems, and Bank of America, as well as government agencies and national associations. She is the bestselling author of four books and has been a spokesperson for Microsoft, 3M, Xerox, and Office Depot. Laura is the 2011-2012 president of the National Speakers Association and the creator of The Productivity Pro® planner by Day-Timer. To have Laura speak at your next event, visit www.TheProductivityPro.com.

By Ivy Naistadt

Rule Your World Face to Face Still Matters

I just spoke with a potential customer who sought me out for help working with his company. There was a significant eye-opener which came to light during our conversation, a principal I’ve been touting these days which affects our way of doing and engaging business in our fast changing world.

As I give you an inside peek into a candid conversation, I would like you to consider why you need to be the best possible presenter you can be in today’s marketplace.

The first part of the conversation addressed his company’s speaking requirements and went something like this:

Ivy: “So, you are in the business of connecting people online and strengthening those relationships?”

releases that your innovative approach is making a huge impact in the marketplace and in such a short time!”

living helping companies and business professionals take their speaking skills to the next level - this was music to my ears.

Customer: “Yes we are. What we do is connect people online in a unique way, and we are one of the fastest growing businesses in this area.” (I knew they were and he wasn’t exaggerating.)

And you know what? I hear a lot of that lately.

Ivy: “You stated earlier that you are interested in using my guidance to help your employees become better presenters. Since your business is online, can you tell me why this is so important?”

Customer: “Exactly.”

Customer: “Because although our entire business is online, the way we get our business is face to face. We are constantly selling in person and our team is terrible!

Great online, but terrible in person - and that’s where it counts!”

Ivy: “And I see by your website and press

Wow, given the fact that I make my

At a recent event for the financial services industry in NYC where I was the keynote speaker, there was no question that presenting face to face was on their minds.

In the early part of my remarks that evening, I asked the audience the following: “How many of you are on Twitter or Facebook or participate on LinkedIn?” (Not surprisingly, they all raised their hands.)

I continued, “Today, we’re all used to communicating in short pithy phrases and yet, when you get up to speak with a group of customers face to face, it’s a different story. There are no abbreviations, no smiley faces and no bad spelling! You have to be continue on page 19…

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SPRING 2011 1| 313

Help Your Advisors Build a Mark

By Stephanie Bogan and Natalie Doss Johann Sebastian Bach may have been a musical genius, but his secret was simple, powerful and something wholesalers can use to create their own marketing masterpiece: “There is nothing remarkable about it. All one has to do is hit the right keys at the right time and the instrument plays itself.”

Where in this changing landscape do opportunities exist not only for advisors, but for the wholesalers that support them?

As with Bach’s suggestion, the answer is strikingly simple.

The struggle many advisors face is that, after nearly a decade of marketing that meant little more than servicing clients and waiting for the phone to ring, active marketing can seem as daunting and complex as a piano concerto by Bach. Much like the difference between a student who aspires to become a great pianist and the master composer, the difference between ‘wanting’ and ‘knowing how’ to grow their practice are very different things indeed.

Wholesalers that can help advisors identify the gap between what drove their growth in the past (hold the bucket and wait for the rain to fall) and what will work to grow their practices in the future will better be able to position themselves as a valueadded partner, rather than a product distributor. Our 15 years of experience suggests that “partners” sell more product than “distributors,” more easily and by a wide margin.

A Broader View

As with our initial study in the Best Practices Study Series, we look to 1QA firms, or top quartile advisors (based on Total Owner(s) Income). What becomes apparent is that getting to the top is less about the business development tactics used by an advisor and more about having the right strategy and laying a strong foundation, as well as systematic execution.

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The Business Development Landscape

Advisors clearly recognize that growth in the future will require more than the past; however, there are gaps that wholesalers can use to highlight the opportunity and, in turn, create a deeper more partner-oriented relationship. Some common gaps include: • Failing to plan: Less than one-third of advisors indicate that they have a written marketing plan in place, and fewer still have fully implemented that plan.

• Lack of focus: While a majority of advisors say they have some way to identify their target clients, 1QA firms indicate that only half of their clients fit the bill.

• An ad hoc approach: Only a few advisors indicate they have systematized their business development process.

• Inadequate measurement: While the ability to measure results is critical to success, a small minority of advisors have a process in place to assess the success of their marketing initiatives.

Advisors are aware of these challenges and understand that their ability to capitalize on current opportunities is largely an issue of planning and commitment. This understanding is shown in strategies that advisors identify as having the greatest potential for driving future growth: 1. Have a plan and invest the time and money to execute that plan.

2. Buy growth by acquiring another practice or hiring another advisor.

3. Leverage existing resources by hiring additional business development staff.

It Starts with a Plan

Marketing is much more than an activity or event; it is an organized business system that consistently creates and drives growth.

An effective marketing plan is the link between your growth goals for the future and your daily “to do” list. While a vast majority of advisors accept that this is true and believe that creating a plan will drive growth, only 32% of the best firms have created such a plan.

keting Masterpiece Composing a plan can, and should, result in changes to the way you run your business, which requires commitment on a level that is still a resistance point for advisors.

Of the 32% of advisors with a clear plan, only about half say they have mostly or fully implemented it. Even among the most successful firms, only 11% have a fully implemented plan.

Failure to effectively market is more about successfully implementing a marketing strategy and less about the tactics chosen.

Through our work with advisors, we have identified three basic scenarios for marketing implementation: event-driven, cycle-driven and process-driven.

For the event-driven advisor, a single event happens and the advisor responds. For example, a referral calls in or the advisor

is asked to speak at an event. Regardless of the activity, the opportunity arose in isolation, driven by an outside source or an idea of the advisor, but not in relation to any broader strategy or effort. For these advisors, marketing is driven largely by intuition instead of intention.

The cycle-driven advisor seems to represent a good number of today’s practicing advisors. These advisors are focused on business development, though sporadically.

The result is that the advisor engages in series of silo-style events, which are not connected by a cohesive strategy. For example, an advisor decides to host an event or have lunch with centers of influence. This is generally done for intense but relatively brief periods, and then repeated when needed again. Once new business comes, one of two things happens. A burst of

activity generates new business, occupying the advisor’s time and preventing him or her from continuing marketing, or the results are not immediate and the advisor stops engaging in marketing.

Both of the above models fall prey to a “YoYo Effect” – or the ups and downs in new business activity that are derived from the sporadic attention paid to it.

By contrast, the process-driven advisor operates under the true definition of marketing by developing and consistently implementing a marketing plan. In particular, a good marketing plan is predictable and built on a series of simple, consistently implemented activities that elevates your position, enhances your reputation, and expands your client base over time.

IN PRACTICE – BUILDING A SIMPLE, SMART MARKETING PLAN What’s the key to a good marketing plan? It should be simple, systematic and sustainable. In fact, a good plan is not sexy and does not sizzle. The more boring reality is that marketing is a carefully crafted exercise consisting of three basic elements:

1. Simple – Effective marketing does not have to be complicated or flashy. If you’re focusing on professional referrals, a simple plan might be to develop monthly value-added communications and weekly lunch meetings with your referral sources or prospective referrals sources.

2. Systematic – Many advisors fall victim to “yo-yo marketing,” but this approach does not sustain consistent and long-term growth. Developing a simple and systematic plan is a key driver for building sustainable and scalable growth.

3. Sustainable – This feeds from both the simple and the systematic. Often flashy and complicated marketing ideas are not sustainable in the long-term. Creating a simple plan that you can implement with reasonable frequency (and time commitment) is much more sustainable.

For more information on how Quantuvis can help you, and your advisors, build marketing plans that work, contact us at begreat@quantuvis.com.

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Finding the Right Audience

Even with every note in place, a masterpiece is nothing without the right audience. Just as different styles of music are appropriate for difference audiences, the development of a marketing plan and its activities can and should differ from firm to firm based on an advisor’s Target Client profile.

Targeting a specific profile may not drive firms into the 1QA category, but data suggests it is a contributing factor. Sixtyeight percent of 1QAs have a defined client profile, compared to only half for the remainder of the advisor population.

Based on the data and our consulting experience, there does not seem to be any one best target client. The data suggests that “what” profile an advisor chooses is less important than “if” they choose one. Simply put, those advisors with a higher percentage of target clients were considerably more profitable.

The Conductor of Growth

Developing a plan and focusing on an audience are key components of sustainable marketing, but what are the components and activities that drive growth? While no one tactic is a universal silver bullet, referrals come close. In fact, 1QAs indicated that 60% of new business came from client referrals and, though that number dropped to 50% for <1QAs, client referrals still drive the majority of new business. Though not as great a contributor to new business, professional referrals represent 20% and 10% of new business for 1QAs and <1QAs respectively.

While advisors see a direct approach to asking for referrals as the best option, a majority indicate they only address referrals occasionally, with 20% of advisors asking for referrals systematically. The apparent discomfort of asking for referrals is so dramatic that advisors – knowing full well what works – do not tap into the power of this opportunity. Additionally, the majority of advisors have a process in place to thank clients for referrals. The data shows that nearly half of advisors place a call or send a

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thank you note for every referral.

These findings suggest that 50% of advisors do little or nothing in response to a referral.

Beyond basic business etiquette, we cannot logically explain why half of the advisor population would not have a response to the event that drives the majority of their growth. Our advice to wholesalers is to assist advisors with focusing on reinforcing referral behavior within the advisor’s client base.

The Return on Marketing

Honing in on the comparison between top performing firms and their peers, it should be no surprise that 1QAs spend more on business development than <1QAs; as the

old saying goes, it takes money to make money. The median 1QA dollars spent are running at three times what <1QAs typically spend. Even during the market downturn, 1QAs spent considerably more, in absolute terms, than their <1QA counterparts. On average, firms indicated that they invested a median of 2% of revenue in marketing activities, with budgets ranging from less than 1% to about 4% of revenue.

Looking beyond the cost of marketing, one should ask as a whole how much marketing is worth – or what is the Return on Marketing (ROM)? As with all investments, advisors should demand a clear return on their investment.

This does not have to be a daunting task.

We don’t believe, and experience has shown us, that the unduly complex 25-page plan that maps out a mountain of activities in infinite detail is necessary. Even the simplest marketing plan or referral program can do wonders for an advisor, as long as the plan is consistently executed and accountability is part of the process – this is equally true for wholesalers.

A simple way to measure ROM is to compare new revenue generated to the amount advisors spend on marketing. ROM is a tangible performance measurement that will help advisors evaluate their performance.

Looking at 2008, return on marketing for 1QAs was $1.63. That is, for every dollar spent in marketing, $1.63 was generated in new revenue. For <1QAs, ROM is one to one; for every dollar spent in marketing, $1.00 in new revenue was generated.

marketing, but we must also consider their focus on a wealth management offering and higher net worth clients, as we learned in our 2009 Business Performance Study.

Keep in mind we aren’t implying that if you throw money at marketing it will translate into new revenue. Marketing is less about “what” advisors do and more about “how” they do it.

A Word of Advice

The result of spending more on marketing not only affects ROM, but also affects highlevel performance measurements. At the end of Q2 2009, the median new revenue generated by 1QA firms was $20,000, twice that of <1QAs. At the same time, they generated a median of four new clients compared to five for <1QAs. In part, this may be attributed to their greater focus on target clients and a slight preference for systematic

We have learned that while advisors have yet to focus on systematic marketing, they see it as a key component of future growth.

The most difficult step is looking inward and taking the information learned about what improvements can be made, such as developing a marketing plan, and then implementing the changes needed to drive growth.

To help your advisors build their own marketing masterpiece, you need to help them understand how this applies to them.

Partner with them to help them see they need to bring a disciplined approach to their marketing – focused on a simple plan - and from there, as Bach suggests, it’s simply a matter of hitting the right key at the right time.

Equally as important, and hopefully not overlooked, is that the very same strategies and lessons that apply to advisors apply to wholesalers as well. A simple, systematic, and disciplined approach to creating deeper relationships is driven by adding value. Start by understanding what your advisors are facing as they seek to market, share this information in ways that position you as a trusted, knowledgeable business partner, and step in to support them in meeting these needs. By doing so, you can become the maestro of your very own marketing masterpiece.

Stephanie Bogan is the CEO of Quantuvis Consulting, and a recognized leader and speaker in practice management consulting for advisors, wholesalers and institutions.

Natalie Doss is the firm’s Research Manager. To receive a complimentary copy of the Business Development Study Findings, email allison@ quantuvis.com. To learn more about how Quantuvis can help you, or your firm, develop deeper sales relationships, contact dana@ quantuvis.com.

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By S. Anthony Iannarino

How To Fight Above Your

WEIGHT CLASS Many of the companies that you compete against are bigger than yours. They have more locations, they employ more people, they have greater resources, and they have more money.

Their salespeople know that they are bigger.

Worse still, your dream client knows that they are bigger.

If you want to target and win your dream client, you have to compete against bigger, better-financed competitors.

You Must Believe You Can Win . . . Even When It Is Unlikely The first rule to fighting above your weight class is the hardest rule to adopt and to practice. The first enabling rule of fighting above your weight class requires that you believe that you can win.

You have to believe that you can win and that you can and will execute the fundamentals of sales more effectively than your behemoth competitors. You have to believe that you can win because you want the deal more than they do, and that you care more about ensuring that the client achieves the results that they need.

You have to believe that you belong in the contest because you have something to offer, something better. You have to believe that you are part of the decision and that you can—and will—make a difference in the contest.

You have to believe that size doesn’t matter.

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You have to believe that bigger doesn’t equal better. Better equals better.

Believing that you can beat larger competitors doesn’t defy logic or the facts; smaller companies beat larger companies for their dream clients every day. In a real contest with five competitors, where your company is the smallest, at least three of the larger competitors are certain to lose the deal too.

You Must Act Like You Can Win The reason that it is critical that you believe you can win is that you will only take the actions necessary if you believe. If you don’t believe that winning is possible you may go through the motions, but your passion for the deal will never be known or felt by your dream clients. You will fail to act as aggressively and as certainly as you need to.

First you have to believe, and then you have to act.

It’s About Ideas Your prospective clients are dissatisfied. They have business problems, challenges, and opportunities with which they need help, and they are trying to choose the right partner to get results.

The biggest competitors in your space don’t have a monopoly on ideas. They don’t have an exclusive right to being creative in solving problems. It’s more likely that the opposite is true. You both have solutions that create

value for your clients, but making adjustments across a leviathan bureaucracy isn’t easy—or likely.

Your biggest competitors are like a big ship with a small rudder. Your ship is a little smaller, but you possess a giant rudder. You can be nimble; you can skip the bureaucracy and get straight to executing your ideas to produce results.

The right ideas win deals.

It’s About People Executing those ideas and producing results is about people. Your largest competitor has plenty of people. They have plenty of really good and smart people. But you have plenty of good and smart people, too.

You don’t need to have the same number of people or more people to win deals. You need to have the right people, with the right skills, and with all of the passion necessary to produce the outsized results your clients have grown to expect from you.

Your biggest dream clients want your best ideas, and they want your best and most passionate people on their team. Deals are given to the salespeople with the ideas and the team with the passion to execute.

The right people win deals.

Rule Your World. Face to Face Still Matters. continued from page 13… concise, get to the point, and articulate your message in the most engaging and informative way you can – while keeping within a time limit!” (They all nodded in agreement.)

My thought for those of you in the fast-paced world of wholesaling is to take this aspect of your professional development even more seriously, making sure that you are the best possible presenter or speaker you can be. The landscape of how we sell, buy, and live is changing at breakneck speed, but the power of people sharing a human experience in person still matters. Don’t wait until you are thrust into the limelight and risk losing an opportunity or find yourself in a position where you are unable to make the most of it.

It’s About Producing Results Your largest competitor produces results for their clients—and so do you. But when it is all said and done, your dream client is going to choose the ideas, the passionate people, and the best verifiable vision of their future results.

Beating Goliath means that you have to prove that you can produce results that are as big or bigger than your rivals. You have to show that, despite your relatively diminutive stature, you produce outsized results. Your ideas and your vision have to be something that can be demonstrated and proven; your dream client has to believe that they are more likely to achieve their desired results with you.

For many of your dream clients, the larger competitor will seem like the safest bet. While your larger competitors fight to differentiate and distinguish themselves based on size, fighting above your weight class means believing you can win, taking actions based on that belief, and competing on what matters: ideas, people, and delivering results. This is what makes you and your company the safest choice, and your dream clients will know it.

S. Anthony Iannarino is the President and Chief Sales Officer of SOLUTIONS Staffing, the Managing Director of B2B Sales Coach & Consultancy, the President of Future Selling Institute, and an Adjunct Faculty member in Capital University’s School of Management and Leadership. He blogs daily at www.thesalesblog.com.

In the movie The King’s Speech, Bertie, the character played by Colin Firth, suffers the demons of a debilitating stutter throughout his life. When he is suddenly crowned King George VI of England, he needs to overcome his speech impediment to deliver a radio address to his kingdom on the brink of World War II. With the help of a speech coach, he steps up to the task and delivers an inspiring speech that unites the country.

The movie is positioned as a tale of the king finding his own voice.

Here’s a question to ask yourself: Have you found your voice? And, are you prepared now to give powerful presentations no matter what the setting?

The most successful presenters continually hone their speaking skills, and they also seek out opportunities to speak often. Assess your skills. To improve, work with someone in your company who is a strong speaker, or consider hiring a professional speaking coach. Strengthen yourself so that when the time comes for you to take center stage, you will come face to face with your audiences and rule your world!

Ivy Naistadt is known worldwide as an expert in helping clients reach their professional communication potential. As the author of the highly acclaimed book, “Speak Without Fear” (Harper Collins), nationally recognized speech coach and speaker, Ivy has helped business professionals and others deliver successful public presentations for over 20 years. Her diverse client list includes such leading organizations as IBM, Pitney Bowes, The New York Times, Merrill Lynch and Princeton University. She is frequently interviewed on radio, television and has been featured in numerous publications including, The New York Times, USA Today and The Daily News. To learn more about working with Ivy or to hear a sample of her new audio book, go to:www.JoinTheIvyLeague.com, or email: Ivy@jointheivyleague.com.

Copyright 2011 by Ivy Naistadt - All rights reserved

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Aaron Cook is the Chief Operating Officer and the founder of Steadfast Capital Markets Group. Aaron’s prior experience included roles as a National Sales Manager, wholesaler and advisor. wholesalers by the beginning of second quarter.

We’re looking at maybe being 12-16 wholesalers by the end of 2011.

ICTB: What’s your most popular channel for distribution?

Aaron Cook: It’s definitely the independent

tier independent broker-dealer firms, such as Cambridge Investment Research, Ameritas, Centaurus, American Portfolios and Investors Capital, to name a few.

ICTB: You personally have a rich history in

ICTB: Talk about the unique challenges that

ICTB: What are the largest platforms that you’re on today?

services, specifically on the distribution side of the business?

Aaron Cook: I’ve served in financial services

for a little over 15 years in various capacities, from an advisor to a wholesaler to a national sales manager. This is my second go-around with heading up distribution for a company.

ICTB: Tell us a little bit about Steadfast. What do you want readers to know about what Steadfast does?

Aaron Cook: Steadfast is a 17-year-old

vertically integrated real estate investment services and management company that has a long history with institutional real estate investments with companies like BlackRock, J.P.Morgan, GE Capital, etc.

Over the last few years, Steadfast has made the strategic decision to take that institutional track record and history, leverage their 450 current employees, and bring investment opportunities to retail investors through real estate based investments.

ICTB: How many wholesalers do you have in your shop?

Aaron Cook: We’ve got seven territories. We run a 1:1 model; seven internals, seven externals. Our expansion plan for 2011 calls us to move to 12

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especially in the alternative investment space today. The post-Madoff era has really caused the regulatory pendulum to swing 180 degrees in the other direction. The scrutiny from the brokerdealers has become greater than I’ve ever seen it before on alternative investments.

Unfortunately there have been a number of providers in the alternative investment space that had substantial challenges: dividends being cut, shares being re-priced, even allegations of fraud and misappropriation of funds. As a result, firms that I’ve had a relationship with for 10 years have taken three to six months just to get us in the queue for review, and then sometimes it can take another three to six months to get us through the entire review and due diligence process, as those processes have changed pretty substantially from the 2007 timeframe.

financial advisors and broker-dealers, or the planners’ side of the business.

ICTB: How long have you been in financial

Aaron Cook: It’s tougher than it’s ever been,

Aaron Cook: At present we are in the mid-

the alternative space and the distribution of alternative products. What do you recognize as being one of the most difficult challenges around the distribution of alternative planners channel?

Aaron Cook: An alternative investment strategy

is never going to be good for 100 percent or even 50 percent of a person’s portfolio. What we’re looking for in distribution is just a portion of the allocation as part of the overall investment strategy.

Unlike a mutual fund company, we don’t have a fund that meets every need of different investors.

Given that, we’re looking at 5 to15 percent of an advisor’s overall allocation to typically meet income needs and requirements for those investors.

One of our challenges is getting advisors to understand the product and how it really fits into the overall allocation strategy.

ICTB: What unique challenges do you face when you’re telling the story, in an attempt to secure shelf space, to the distribution behemoths in the planner space such as the Raymond James or the LPL’s?

your wholesalers have working at a smaller distributor. A lot of our readers are employed by larger distributors, and I think it’s time to talk about, recognize, and appreciate the business that is driven by the smaller distributor, and also acknowledge what their unique challenges are.

Aaron Cook: As I mentioned, getting in and

through the due diligence process is really one of the biggest issues. Up until July we were effective with 19 agreements and we are just now (December 2010) approaching the 50 agreement mark, so it’s taken that long to get some sizable firms on board. Then, in order to get up to the plate and take a swing with some of the bigger firms, they want to see funds raised in this type of space. They need to see us getting to the $5 to $10 million a month run rate. For a brand new sponsor out of the gate, it takes a little while to get there, it really does.

We’ll probably be hitting those run rates in the January/February/March timeframe, and then we’ll get some of those larger firms -- we’ll get in the queue and we’ll get reviewed by those larger firms. That will take till mid-year or the third quarter of 2011.

ICTB: What are the unique challenges at the

point of inflection - wholesaler to advisor - that your folks face?

Aaron Cook: With smaller number of

agreements, we’ve got 11,000 to 12,000 desktops that we can call on. It’s really managing our wholesaling team to get us to that $5 to $7+ million a month run rate. Managing our people to know and understand that that’s the point which is really going to get us to the next level.

The challenge for the wholesalers is identifying the advisors that can sell our products and do so effectively to help us get to that next level. Then we can call on the firms [national in scope] that my entire wholesaling team wants to call on.

The other challenge that our wholesalers have is the sheer size and breadth of the territories. We may have a territory that’s got 2000 desktops in it that can sell our product, and that’s over a fivestate territory. In some instances it might be a 13 or 14-state territory.

Managing the territory effectively, having relatively tight zones and rotations in that territory, having the internal and external communication work effectively so that your internal is an extension of you and the home office are all important components.

Finally, in a smaller shop like Steadfast that is a new entrant into the space, it really is a lot of branding. Once you’re approved on the platform, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the registered rep has the utmost confidence that this investment strategy is going to work.

Not only do we need to get approved by the broker-dealer, but we also have to have a value statement and a story that the advisors understand and can identify with so that they will look at us as part of an allocation for their investment strategy.

The overall vision is that we are a small startup shop today, but the opportunity is tremendous.

We’re not always going to be seven wholesalers.

We’re going to be 12, then 16, and we’ll probably get into the 20 plus wholesaler range over time.

Understanding that and knowing that you’re really getting in on the ground floor of this distribution is part of the vision.

It’s also understanding that a startup for distribution is a lot more difficult than taking on an already developed territory with an already developed product. However, the caveat to that is that the economic payoffs are tremendously greater if you are on the ground floor of a startup distribution company.

ICTB: Who has been your mentor, or mentors, in distribution and wholesaling?

Aaron Cook: One person that has been really

influential on me from a distribution perspective has been a guy named David Ford, who’s also now in the alternative investment space. He was the guy that gave me my first shot in wholesaling, and he had a hands-off management style if you were performing. I was one of those fortunate guys that performed.

At the same time he really helped me understand the business and understand how important it was to develop a plan and how important it was to review that plan regularly. This included setting different types of goals, setting individual goals with individual advisors, and being part of the advisor’s business plan.

I have always bounced ideas for improving distribution off of Greg Brakovich and really kept an eye on how he and his team have done things over the years.

challenges. We weren’t investing for retail clients when prices were astronomical in 2006 through 2008.

Although my current boss hasn’t been in the distribution space, he is one of the guys that is just wildly successful in this world. Yet he’s very humble and he’s very much the ‘guy next door.’

He listens, and it’s been refreshing to me, and he takes the advice of the people that he hires because his goal is to hire good people and listen to those people. He really values that. It’s also taught me to be a little bit more humble and to be thankful for where I’m at and the opportunity to continue to move it forward.

ICTB: What about on the wholesaler side of

ICTB: What’s your overarching philosophy when

ICTB: If you had to flip the question around,

what would you say is the “one” defining strength of being your size?

Aaron Cook: We don’t have legacy issues or

the equation? If you were making the pitch to a wholesaler and saying, “Here’s the benefit of working for Steadfast, a smaller shop,” what would one or two of those opportunities be for the wholesaler?

Aaron Cook: It’s really about living in the vision.

it comes to managing wholesalers?

Aaron Cook: My goal is to hire the absolute

best athlete for the specific position that he or she is trying out for, and then clear out all of the obstacles and give them an opportunity to succeed. Making it as easy as humanly possible

for them to go out and showcase the product and make it as easy as possible for advisors to do business with us.

The other thing that I think is hugely important -and this is managing wholesalers and managing your managers -- is really to make it a point to understand the career goals for each of your individual people. You’ve got to understand that up front. Give them an opportunity to achieve those goals through the right career development path or opportunity.

Lastly, one of the key things, especially with managing salespeople, is to always be honest and straightforward. If you commit to something with somebody, you’ve got to deliver on that.

There’s no way to lose confidence faster than not doing what you say you’re going to do. If you don’t have confidence from your salespeople, they won’t have confidence in representing you out in the field.

ICTB: When you look out 5 to10 years, how do

you think the wholesaling landscape, specifically for Alternative products, will evolve and change?

Aaron Cook: That’s a tough question. In

some ways it is analogous to what we saw in the ‘80s with the evolution of the mutual fund distribution, and how focused consistent distribution and growth in that distribution over time led mutual funds to be one of the largest inflows of any financial product around.

Next came variable annuity products. That was in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s when VA’s came into the mainstream, when the annuity business really blew up and became enormous, with very focused and methodical, almost scientific, type of distribution.

As a result of that, you saw migration of wholesalers from the mutual fund business to the annuity business, and I think the alternative investment business is really kind of in the beginning of that. The distribution is in the third inning, and I think the evolution of the alternative investment space is going to get into that arena, similar to the variable annuity side of the business.

Some distributors, Steadfast and others, are going to figure out how to get multichannel distribution of their alternative investments.

They’re either going to structure a product specifically for a Merrill Lynch or they’re going to put together a product that is very palatable for the registered investment advisor community, and that distribution is going to grow tremendously.

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By Kip Gregory

Why the Next Thing in Your Bag Should be an iPad In 25 years in this business, rarely have I seen a new technology so quickly captivate the industry’s imagination and catapult to the top of so many “wish lists” as Apple’s iPad. After seeing firsthand its utility as a wholesaling tool, I’m convinced the iPad—used correctly—can propel you faster and further from the ranks of product-pusher into the realm of highly-responsive business partner.

Innovative firms like Dreyfus have already recognized that potential, and they have outfitted their entire sales teams with the device. They have also set up a cloud-based library of marketing materials on Dropbox (www.dropbox.com), giving their field sales force instant access to every brochure and one sheet the company publishes.

Practically speaking, that means lower printing costs and wholesalers not having to lug a briefcase or trunk stuffed with product kits everywhere they go… and that’s before you even get to the “wow” factor benefits.

Product providers aren’t the only ones getting into the act. An increasing number of the advisory firms we work with have invested in iPads as replacements for 3-ring binder materials traditionally used in client meetings and sales calls. Using apps like Conference Pad (www. regularrateandrhythm.com/conference-pad/), those advisors are able to open, share, and control electronic versions of their meeting materials on each participant’s iPad screen, highlighting relevant content via virtual laser pointer. When done, they simply leave behind a PDF of the documents for attendees to keep, either via flash drive or by e-mail.

One firm calculated the ROI of purchasing ten iPads compared to continuing to print documents for each client/prospect meeting, and they were floored to discover the breakeven was just over 90 days! How many of the top teams that you are

22

vying to get in front of would take a meeting if you said the purpose was to share how they could improve their closing rate and simultaneously reduce their selling costs? That’s exactly the kind of value-added insight seasoned producers are seeking but by and large aren’t getting today.

Suppose at that same meeting you could immediately e-mail the handwritten list of action steps you noted to both the advisors you had met with and your own internal at the close of the meeting. Sound farfetched? It’s not. Noteshelf (www.fluidtouch.biz/noteshelf/), and a variety of other handwriting apps on Apple’s App Store, will let you do just that. All you need is your finger, or you can purchase a stylus to write with, which Amazon sells for $15 plus shipping. The cost for those apps? Under six dollars each.

Or how about you leave that appointment for a lunch-and-learn session elsewhere, and you realize as you are pulling into the branch that you haven’t met some of the advisors who will be attending? Knowing who you know in common with them would be a huge plus and an easy way to establish rapport, but how can you uncover that information at the last minute while sitting in your car? Tap on your iPad’s built-in browser, Safari, go to LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com), and search on

advisors at that firm in that city. LinkedIn will prioritize the list of results indicating which of those advisors are most closely connected to you, how many acquaintances you share, and even who those mutual friends are.

The list goes on… your best advisor calls and says he is sitting across from his best client, who is ready to allocate a chunk of a big IRA rollover to your top product, and they would really appreciate help in walking through the paperwork. Your internal is out sick and you are on the road 500 miles away. No problem! Simply fire up FuzeMeeting (www. fuzemeeting.com) on your iPad and invite them to join you, and in under a minute you will be leading them through what they need to do on a shared screen.

Hopefully you are getting a sense of the possibilities. With thousands of iPad apps already available at the App Store and more added every day, “There’s an app for that!” has never rung more true. (By the way, it will be much easier to keep all those apps straight if you download AppAdvice (www.appadvice. com) and AppShopper (www.appshopper. com).

Finally, do not overlook perhaps the biggest personal branding opportunity working with an iPad affords: the chance to help advisors you work with climb the learning curve more quickly in mastering their own iPad, once they buy one. Show them how they can save time, make money, and get closer to clients using the ideas outlined here, and I promise they will not forget you.

Brand Your Own Fitness Plan continued from page 11…

Imagine a fitness plan that you build based on your needs, your goals, and your schedule. Let’s start where you are. If you had to choose a brand for your current physical state – what would it be?

Just Do It!? or…Supersize it!?

Where’s the Beef? or…Let’s Move!?

If where you are right now is where you want to be then quit reading. But if it’s not what can you do to rebrand your approach to fitness? Actually, it’s pretty simple.

Who are you?

• Are you a fat cat roadie living high on the hog with the waistline to prove it?

• Are you a lean machine pushing through the tough times with a commitment to self?

• Are you the constant in-betweener – thinking lean but living fat?

Who do you want to be?

The key to success is making fitness a lifestyle, not a temporary change of pace.

Yes that means hard work, but it also means that you don’t have to get everything right every time. It means that you’ve decided to get it right more than you get it wrong, so let’s apply this thinking to your next 4 weeks.

Good luck. Let me know how you make out.

Look at your calendar for the next month. If you had to brand your month in one word – what would it be?

Kip Gregory is the founder of The Gregory Group, a Washington, D.C.-based consulting firm that helps wholesaling organizations and their distribution partners improve sales productivity and profitability by unleashing the power of resources they already own. You can reach him at kip@gregory-group.com or connect with him via LinkedIn at www.tinyurl. com/link-to-kip.

Hectic? Chaotic? High-Pressure?

© 2011 Kip Gregory, The Gregory Group. All Rights Reserved. Used with permission.

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You’ve just branded your fitness plan – and you’ve based it on your business plan.

But what about the 4 weeks after that?

What if you branded your fitness plan based on your personal goals and not just your business goals?

Where does the fitness fit? Here are three simple ideas: 1. Choose the hotel gym over the hotel bar at least 2 nights a week.

2. Pack some veggies, fruit or macadamia nuts in your briefcase instead of wolfing down a greasy burger as you run to catch your connection.

3. Sip a bottle of water instead of a dessert disguised as coffee.

These are common sense ideas and you can choose or create ones that make sense to you. I guarantee you that the more you allow a fitness plan to fit your life, the more fitness becomes who you are and what you do – not just a dream goal.

E-mail me and tell me your personal fitness brand for 2011 and what it’s helped you accomplish; I’ll share my favorites in the next column!

Paul Bednar is President of 2ndWindWealth, an Independent Team BeachBody Coaching company. Email him at 2ndwindwealth@ beachbodycoach.com.

Where does the fitness fit?

• Chaotic Fitness: Do something whenever /however you can!

• Hectic Fitness: Do a different form of exercise every day!

• High-Pressure Fitness: Do 15 minutes of some physical activity every other day by 9pm - no matter what!

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Just another great tip I picked up at Wholesaler Mastermindsâ&#x20AC;Ś

Sweet new laptop, Johnson!

Wholesaler Masterminds specializes in peer group and individual coaching for wholesalers and managers. Our laser focus is on practice management ideas that allow our clients to realize their career, income and personal goals.

Contact us today for a complimentary discussion: 949-722-7771

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www.wholesalermasterminds.com

What’s in Your Bag?

Profiles of Great Wholesalers

Yvette Dubajic works for Dynamic Funds, a division of Goodman & Company, Investment Counsel Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary of DundeeWealth Inc. Goodman & Company offers a wide range of wealth management solutions through financial advisors.

ICTB: How many financial advisors do you cover?

Yvette: About 1,000 in the database. My core

is about 250.

Yvette: A balanced lifestyle. It means that

when I’m working, I’m fully engaged and I maximize my hours at work. But then when I’m not working, I focus on my family. I have to have that balance or I would not last in this business.

ICTB: Who was your mentor in the business?

Yvette: Another female wholesaler, Christine.

I liked watching how she engaged in a meeting, which I thought was different than a male wholesaler. I liked her process and the structure around how she did it.

ICTB: What do you like to do when you’re not working?

Yvette: Cooking, gardening, skiing, and I like

working out.

ICTB: Most recent read?

ICTB: Where did you go to college?

Yvette: Ryerson University in Toronto.

ICTB: With what degree did you graduate?

ICTB: What’s the best advice that you would give newer wholesalers?

Yvette: Born To Run, it’s a running book.

Yvette: Be organized and have a strong work

ICTB: What cuisine is your favorite?

ethic.

Yvette: Italian. I’m Italian.

ICTB: What drives you nuts?

Yvette: Disorganization. In a house, in a

business, I need order.

Yvette: Frank Sinatra.

Yvette: Bachelor of Commerce.

ICTB: Favorite industry publications?

ICTB: What led you to wholesaling?

Yvette: The Economist, Investment Executive,

Yvette: I started on the retail side of the

business. When it was time for a change, the advisor that I was working with suggested that my direct experience with retail investors would make me a good wholesaler because I would be able to relate to my clients.

ICTB: How long have you been carrying the bag?

Yvette: Thirteen years.

ICTB: What’s the most played music you have on your iPod right now?

ICTB: Final meal request?

The Globe and Mail

Yvette: Linguini alle vongole.

ICTB: Family 411?

ICTB: Life after wholesaling?

Yvette: Two boys, an11 year old and a 6

Yvette: Is there life after wholesaling? I’m

year old. They both play hockey. They both take Italian classes. They’re both in French immersion. Languages are very big in my family. My husband of 14 years is Darko.

passionate about the business so I won’t be going anywhere anytime soon.

ICTB: The secret to your longevity and success?

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By Claire Hyman and Everett Presley

Food and wine pairing can be a magical thing. The food will make the wine taste better and the wine can make the food taste better. There are several basic considerations which should be taken into account when matching wine with food. By trying to balance out the main components in both the wine and the food, neither overpowers the other, but instead they enhance one another.

The main elements of consideration should be to: • Match weight/richness of the food to the body of the wine • Match flavor intensities • Match acidity levels • Match sweetness • Avoid oily or salty foods with high-tannin red wines • Pair chewy meat with tannin wines • Pair salty foods with sweet or high-acid wines • Pair fatty and oily food with highacid wines • Match or contrast flavor characteristics of the food and the wine

For example, the 2008 Michel Gros Bourgogne Rouge and the Il Caprino Tartufo (a pasteurized goat’s cheese which is soft, creamy, and moderately funky) was a mouth-watering and truly decadent pairing. A relatively young Pinot Noir, the 2008 Michel Gros has a bright fruitiness on the nose which is deepened on the palate by a mellow degree of soft earth and minerality.

The Michel Gros accentuated the creaminess of the Tartufo cheese and the two played off of each other beautifully throughout the duration of an evening. Using this as a

model, goat’s cheese paired with red burgundy is highly recommended.

There are plenty more impeccable pairings where that came from. When white burgundy is paired with aged Gouda, such as the Orgouda Gold Organic Gouda, the two highlight the nuttiness in each other, while the white burgundy brings out the sharp crystals of the 12 month old aged Gouda and the Gouda brings out the vibrant acidity of the white burgundy.

Let’s address some fairly unusual food and wine pairings.

First, a question that has been asked time and time again – what red wine goes with fish?

Structurally speaking, you want to pair your fish dish with a red wine that has low tannin and vibrant acidity.

Beaujolais, especially the 2009 vintage, is a go-to region for fish pairings, and with its many Crus, actually opens up the realm of pairings to include many diverse styles of wine. Located just south of the Burgundy proper, wines of Beaujolais are comprised of the Gamay grape and are generally fruity, slightly spicy, and brightly structured on the palate.

Two good choices: 2009 Domaine Cheysson Chiroubles – Ripe raspberry, tea leaf, acidity and a hint of spice mingle well to provide a fresh, easy drinking wine.

2009 Pierre Durdilly Moulin A Vent – Dark fruit, floral notes, structurally balanced.

ripening and therefore can produce a rich, luscious wine capable of pairing with heartier fare. Regardless of whether it’s a dry Riesling from Australia or off-dry from Germany, the acid will cut through meat without a problem, and it will not weigh you down by the end of the meal.

A couple of suggestions from both styles mentioned: 2010 Grosset Riesling Polish Hill – Dry, but bursting with fruit. Vibrant acidity that allows wine to age for quite some time.

2008 Von Kesselstatt Kabinett Piesporter – Wine Spectator describes this wine as, “A mix of mineral and spice as much as apple and black currant flavors, this white rides a beam of acidity to a lingering finish.”

Now that you have an idea of the rules that can be broken when it comes to food and wine pairings, keep in mind that the cycle only continues from here!

GourmetLibrary.com specializes not only in hand-crafted cheeses, but also charcuterie, preserved goods, and rare ingredients. With over 5000 different wines in stock and available online at WineLibrary.com, the choices are beyond ample, yet potentially overwhelming.

That is where the very knowledgeable and energetic staff bequeaths great value, always on hand to help discover the perfect wine with which one can couple a gourmet selection. Both companies can be found at: 586 Morris Ave. Springfield NJ 07081 – 973-376-0005

For white wine fans, consider choosing a wine with slightly more depth and pairing diversities, like Riesling. Riesling is a complex, acidic, aromatic, fruity and floral grape that experiences early

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By Lou Heckler

Making Advisors VIPs Using V-I-P Some years ago I had the good fortune of speaking to a financial services group at their annual meeting.

The bad news? I had to leave my home in Florida in the dead of winter and fly to Minneapolis for the meeting.

The good news? The man who hired me – a friend of some standing with a good sense of humor – sent a stretch limousine to take me from the airport to the meeting. The driver held the door for me, made sure I got situated and seat-belted, and then leaned into the back seat and punched a button on what looked to be a VCR. On the little television screen just above it an image appeared – a recording of a beautiful fire in a stone fireplace. The driver winked, “Garry thought this might keep you warm!”

I loved it! It made me feel like a VIP. Isn’t that what advisors want to feel like?

Based on my experience over 40-plus years in business, there are three simple ways to make advisors feel like VIPs: Vision – How do you see the business that you provide your clients? Is it all bottomline stuff…charts, numbers, products?

Or, can you take a broader view and think of their end customers…the people whose financial futures will

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be assured because you helped your advisors find just the right solution?

I was in a local grocery store the other day and heard the woman in the next line say to the check-out girl, “Oh, I am so disappointed!”

I cocked an ear to hear what had happened. Here it was: this elderly lady had ordered a complete precooked meal for a dinner party she was having that evening and it had not come in. The manager was called over and I loved how he handled the problem. He listened to what had happened, thought a minute and said, “I can fix this. You will get your meal. Do you live right here in this community?” (The store is actually in our subdivision.) “I will have it here by two o’clock. Would you permit me to bring it to your home? And, ma’am, there will be no charge since we are the ones who made the mistake.”

How much money will she spend with that store over the next year because he took the long view? That’s what vision means to me.

Innovation – Fast Company magazine asked business owners in 2010 what the number one trait was that they were looking for in up-and-coming leaders.

Their top answer: people who can be innovators…people who can look at old problems in fresh ways. After the past couple of years in a stagnant economy, innovation is more important

than ever to you and to the people to whom you sell. Here are four ways to think more innovatively about your business: • Suspend judgment – Be more open to new ways of packaging what you offer.

• Suspend rank – Ask every member of your team for ideas. This includes not only your internal, but your sales assistants too.

• Go for volume – Get lots of ideas on the table before reaching a decision.

• Cross-fertilize – Start a mastermind group with friends NOT in your business and work together to brainstorm ways to grow each other’s business. You may be surprised what good ideas come from those who “don’t (fully) understand” what you do.

Passion -It is so easy to let the fire die out when times are tough or simply when you’ve been in this business for a long period of time. What are you doing to rekindle your passion? Are you getting away enough to see new things and to experience new foods, new people, new geography? Have you taken a class lately – a “just for fun” class? Have you gone to a concert? A rodeo? A monster truck rally?!

The biggest enemy of passion is inertia…doing the same things the continue on page 27…

same way day after day. Break out!

Schedule something fresh and exciting at least every quarter and see how it affects your spirit and your desire.

Show your clients what itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s like to be your VIP. Make them feel as warm as a blazing fire in a stretch limo on a cold Minneapolis day!

Lou Heckler is a motivational speaker and humorist who has inspired and entertained audiences all over the world for more than 30 years. He speaks on Peak Performance, Leadership, and Employee Engagement to associations, corporations, and universities. Lou is a U.S. Army veteran, a former adjunct faculty member at the University of Michigan, and a member of the National

Speakers Associationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Speaker Hall of Fame. Readers of Meetings & Conventions magazine voted Lou one of their favorite keynote speakers in the fall of 2010.

Contact Lou at www.louheckler.com.

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Your Next Life: It’s a Brand What type of new career would you build if you were to put down the bag today?

The first question to ask yourself in determining where you might want to begin is, “What is my brand?” Are you known for your public speaking genius, for your business consulting prowess, for being a gracious host, for being a brilliant trainer, or are you known as a golf, wine, or style aficionado? These are quite often memorable skills in the corporate world. They can also help you craft a second career that you’ll be excited to jump out of bed for every morning because these skills are also probably the part of your job that you most enjoy doing.

Many of the corporate renegades that I’ve met have used the same skills that made them successful in their first career to help them achieve their dream lifestyle. It’s also interesting that just as wholesaling is seen as a lifestyle career, most of my clients have said that they’re leaving their industry to create a business that will also be the lifestyle that they’ve envisioned for themselves and their families. They’ve opened bed and breakfasts, they’ve bought wineries, they’ve opened financial planning firms, they’ve started training organizations, they’ve become independent management consultants, they’ve planned corporate golf tours, they’ve opened boutiques and websites catering to their own interests, they’ve become highly sought after public speakers, they’ve opened cooking schools, and they’ve become authors. The choices are so numerous, and so varied, that the question for most executives wanting to make a change often becomes,

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By DeeAnne White

New Day “How will I choose?” rather than “Can it be done?”

However, wholesalers are uniquely qualified to walk away to do something different because they’re already blessed with many of the qualities required of a business owner.

They’re natural entrepreneurs, innovative thinkers, easily adaptable, skilled with people, brilliant salespeople, and imaginative marketers, and they often have a specific brand that they already know how to leverage in their business. Wholesalers also generally have a genuine love of challenge. All of these qualities are invaluable in striking out on your own when it’s time to redesign your lifestyle and your career, whether that’s out of personal choice or whether it’s due to corporate downsizing. The typical number of hours that a wholesaler works per week also prepares you for the commitment that a startup business would require, and you’ll probably have a vast network of potential clients for your new business, as well.

The next step is to create a business plan, just like the ones you’ve become so familiar with as a wholesaler. There are free templates to use on several small business sites, and they can help you sort out whether your brand or idea can become a viable business at some point. Your plan will also be invaluable in helping you to secure financing if you apply for any type of business loan. You’ll also use your plan to map out your short and long-term goals for the business, and to plan income needs for you and your family until the business is up and running.

All in all, being a wholesaler seems to be the perfect training ground for striking out on your own. You’ve built a brand and honed important business skills, and you’ve been exposed to a wide variety of possible business ideas, lifestyle interests, and beautiful places to call home.

So it’s time to let your imagination run away with you.

What would your new business and your new life look like if today was a brand new day?

DeeAnne White is a girl adventurer, entrepreneur, writer, traveller, American expatriate and lover of cricket, golf, wine, Jimmy Choos and life. Her website is http://livethecharmedlife.com/ I CARRY THE BAG | SPRING 2011 3| 131

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