41. Practicing what I preach, my quest for MDRT

August of 2019 I was licensed as a financial advisor, ever since I heard boss rex talked about MDRT during our PAMI agency rounds, becoming one has become one very important item in my bucket list. so after decades of corporate work, I took the challenge

there are 2 lessons I re-learned early on as a financial advisor that I would like to share to those who are still aspiring to become one

1. its not how much we know, its about how much we understand the client's needs

as a person who is quite familiar with investment concepts, my first few "calls" was centered on topics on how I can make more money for clients using my "investment acumen" (kuno ha ha ha) in creating a market responsive portfolio of VUL funds (naks!), unfortunately none of the people I talked to showed any interest even if I am doing the best presentation of my life!  got a big fat ZERO production for August

Reviewing these calls, I realized that during the client meeting I was the one talking most of the time, at times it seems I am lecturing my prospects, there could also be moments that I may have sounded condescending, I wanted to impress my clients by rattling off an encyclopedia worth of information to prove I am an "expert" and that they should entrust their money to me.

Big Mistake! 

I remembered one of my agency training modules -  "Sell what the client needs!" 

80% of the time during a client's meeting should be focused on understanding what the client need and the remaining 20% of the time on how we can help address those needs, shifting focus from what I think I need to say to the client's circumstances bought me my first case in September

2. Clients (especially the rich ones) are more interested in protecting what they already have than making more

Health insurance products are my bestsellers considering that my prospect base is in my age group (young once ha ha ha), products that focused on investing for capital growth have little appeal to them, I will share some highlights of my most memorable meetings in a separate post

while most of them can afford the cost of expensive medical treatments, a health insurance makes sense to them as it gives them a way to pass on these costs to an insurance company in case it is needed saving them a lot of money

Solutions protecting their wealth like estate planning also are quite of interest to them, the assurance of an insurance policy taking care of estate taxes obligations far outweighs the actual amount of taxes to be paid, they want to ensure that their heirs get the maximum value of their wealth in a most tax efficient manner (least leakage)

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