Persevere to Prosper

Persevere to Prosper By Michael G. Nelson, CLF CLTC CMFC LUTCF
Managing Director
Prudential Financial
St. Louis Park, MN

Every New Year, people resolve to save money, reduce their debt, or lose weight. And in our business, we can wipe the previous year’s business off the books and start the New Year clean and fresh and develop new habits and new ideas. Agents can change their phoning habits and resolve to get more referrals.

Most people in our business, whether you’re a field leader or a rep, don’t give those ideas enough time to succeed—usually not even 30 days. They don’t stay with it long enough. Therefore, their goal is washed out before they ever see results. So the question that you have to ask is, why do most people or businesses take several weeks to plan and determine their respective goals, strategies, and plans for the upcoming year but continually fail in accomplishing those things? Based on my experience, it’s because most people lack the self-discipline to implement. They don’t persevere long enough to see the outcome of these action plans.

For people to succeed, their goals have to be accompanied by desire, focus, belief, passion, knowledge, and confidence. If they don’t attack with a strategy that has all of those components, they won’t stay with it long enough to be successful. They just give up—not purposely, maybe, but they go by the wayside, and things continue as they always have. If you believe in something and know it’s the right path for someone, you need to stay focused and help them stay focused. As leaders, we need to instill confidence in people and help them follow through with the commitments they have made for themselves.

Maybe I got it early in my life in athletics. When I get something in my mind, whether I’m competing in state championships in golf or succeeding in this business, I won’t stop until I accomplish it. I just don’t quit. I continue to visualize those results, that dream or goal, and I believe I will accomplish it. I continue to work and work and work to accomplish it. As a manager, I encourage my reps to do the same.

I became a producing rep at age 22 and did that for three years, then went into management. I enjoy helping other people be successful more than I enjoy seeing myself be successful. I think that’s a necessary quality of a good leader. I try to allow people the chance to fail. What I mean by that is that people in this business need to be able to do it on their own, long-term. Our job as leaders is to put them in an environment that fosters success. But we cannot do the business for them day in and day out. We have to give them a platform and help them grow their business by introducing them to more complex situations.

What I try to do with people is show them how to do the business and help them prepare for their business. On a daily basis, I give them a proper time-management focus to help them manage their priorities. I show them how, but I don’t do it for them. I’ve seen it a lot of times—someone will fail in this business because their manager carries them and performs the job for them. I will do some of the things for them initially, but ultimately they must do it on their own. And, if they do have problems along the way, my management team and I are there to help guide them and make sure they ultimately accomplish their goal.

In 2001, we hired an individual into our newer-rep program. He had been a business owner before he came to us but knew nothing about the insurance and financial services industry. He was very well connected, very intelligent. He was doing well. After about eight months, he wanted to go open an office of his own. Our office is about an hour and 20 minutes from his home, so he was commuting for three hours every day. I encouraged him to stay in our office for another year simply because he still had a lot of growing to do. I wanted him to be around successful people in the organization who are doing the job correctly and making a very nice living in the business. I knew that he could learn more from being around our more established reps than he could ever learn on his own. I also knew this exposure to different reps’ styles would make him a better leader in the long run. I didn’t have to do a lot of convincing. He realized it was the best thing, although he did give a little pushback because of his long commute.

After that year was up, he commented to me that he was very glad I had convinced him to stay in the office for that extra year because he ended up learning a lot by seeing his peers’ closing skills, etc. Since then, he has gone on to develop one of the better practices in the company. Has been with us about three and a half years and is one of the leaders in the organization.