Chapter 5 of Final Expense Boot Camp. Your First Day: " D-Day "?

“Revelee….. Revelee… Get your gear and get online… 10…..8...5..3….2….1 ZEEEEEEEROOOOOOO!”

“Freeze recruits, FREEEEEZE!”

“AYE, SIR!”

“COOOOUNNNNT OFFFFFF!”

“1..2...3...67...78...99”

“Sir the count on deck is… 99 Highly Motivated, truly dedicated United States Marine Corps Recruits, sir.”

“Scuzz Brushes to the order…. SCUZZ BRUSHES TO THE ORDER!”

“AYEEE, SIR!”

“REEAAADY! SWEEEEEEP!”

“Harder and faster…. RECRUIT GIFFORD, YOU GOTTA BE KIDDING ME. YOU CAN'T EVEN KNEEL ON YOUR KNEES. GIFFFFFFOOOOORD! GIFFFFFOOOOORD! YOU GOTTA BE FREAKING KIDDING ME. GET ON MY QUARTERDECK GIFFORD, MOVE IT.”

The first day on any job is exciting.

Maybe you’ll be awake the night before, maybe you actually planned your day out, maybe you made your phone calls, or maybe you practiced the presentation a few times. At this point, your day should have started the night before at 6pm. I would set up shop at the kitchen table or in my office, and I would make phone calls my first night prior to hitting the road at 6, 7, or 8pm.

I would try to have five solid appointments set. If your manager was any good, he or she would be sitting next to you while you make your first set of calls to make sure you don’t blow through $599.00 in leads. I don’t recommend them going with you on your first day because you are already nervous.

Them sitting beside you with their palm pilot and shades on top of their head looking cool doesn't help you. I do think that meeting up with them earlier in the morning to go over any last minute items would help.

The bad thing is there is nothing they can do. What happens if you didn’t study your presentation, or you didn’t put your binder together like you promised? You look like a sea bag that was pulled out of the trunk of a Navy guys closet. No offense to SEALS. I know you guys take care of your equipment.

What if you didn’t take the time to prep yourself for the day? It’s not your manager's fault. They should have had you ride with them for two days, probably two or three days of class training and you should be out on your own Thursday or Friday after training. If you wait until the next week to hit the field, you might as well just quit.

You’ll forget it and you’ll blame the leads. You have to hit the field as soon as training is over.

For training purposes, let’s say your day looks like this:

10:00 - Mrs. Jones - N. Side
11:00 - Mr. Harris - East Side
1:00 - Mr. and Mrs. Kehl - East Side
3:00 - Mrs. Smith - N. Side
5:00 - Mr. Johnson - East. Side

So, you get in your car. You have everything you're supposed to have:

Presentation binder
Pens
Business cards
Appointments (should be in Google Calendar)
Leads that you couldn’t get a hold of
Wallet
Positive attitude

You pull up to your 10am appointment, and right off the back, Mrs. Jones tells you she has to run and get her grandson. You tell her:

“No problem, I have a 2 and 4 available. What time works best for you?” You knew this because you had a plan in place in case this happens.

She tells you, “2 o'clock,” and thanks you so much. That is a guaranteed sale.

You look at your calendar and your next appointment is on the east side. You see that you have 1-2 leads over there and that you can swing by and try to get in the house or leave a sticky note telling them that you stopped by with information to drop off. At least make the effort to get in or meet them.

So you stop by the two leads on that side, but no one was home, and you left two sticky notes. You get to your 11am appointment at 10:45, and everything goes as planned and you sell the policy for $45.00 and got your first sale. Nice job!

Your next appointment is at 1:00, so you have an hour. You can do a couple things.
Go back over the paperwork from the sale
Make sure it’s correct
You can call your manager and go over the sale with him or her. Even through a sale you can learn.
You can hit the two houses you left sticky notes on, AGAIN!
You can grab a quick lunch
Or a combination of all the above.
Maximize your time. Why waste it?

So you talk to your manager, get lunch, and head to your 1PM with the Kehls. Your phone rings from a familiar number. It’s probably from one of the two stickies you left. What do you do? You do not answer it. Let it go to voicemail. We’ll address this after your 1:00 with the Kehls.

You get to the Kehls. Robert is sitting in his recliner and Bonnie comes to the door all happy and excited to see you. She walks you to the kitchen and you’re talking, and you find out she was looking for some coverage for her and Bob. What do you do? You try to get Bob out of his comfortable chair in front of the television and get him to the kitchen. Not too many sales are made in front of a T.V.

You get Robert to come out you do a great presentation and you sell both policies for $89.99. You are on a roll. You do all the paperwork, you leave your card, you seal the sale up and you leave.

You have your next appointment at 3:00 on the north side, and you had the re-schedule at 2:00. I know the 2:00 is a done deal because she wants it bad. I am going to that appointment and you didn’t forget about the call at 12:30 about the sticky note. You want to stop by their house tomorrow at the same time that they called you. Ignore the phone call and stop by their home the next day.

You are on the way to your rescheduled 2:00 and you have an earpiece in. Go ahead and shoot your manager another call and update him on the sale. Go over how you got gramps to the kitchen table and you were able to help them out. See what you can learn from that. You want to call your manager after every appointment your first week in the field, or at least leave a voicemail, as he or she might be in an appointment, too. They will address it at the end of the day.

You arrive at your 2:00 and, like I mentioned, she was there and ready to buy. Sign her up and get some referrals from this one. You treated her right and she loves you, so get some referrals. We’ll talk about this later. So, you have a 3 and a 5 left. You have four sales. You can go home and be joyous of your first day or you can hit the last two appointments. Let’s say you hit them both, and you sell one out of two and you’re at five sales on your first day and it’s 6:30. What do you do?

Go home and call it a day
Hit some stop bys in the area that you could not get ahold of
Pull over and make some calls for tomorrow
Make a few calls and do some stop bys

I would do the last one. Make a few calls and do some stop bys. I would want to hit 7, 8, or 9 sales and write my story. Can you imagine telling your agents you hire down the road that you sold 8 applications your first day out in the field? Write your story!

Your day isn’t over until you get home, so make some calls for tomorrow, go back over the applications you wrote and make sure they are correct. You should do one more thing! CALL YOUR MANAGER.

You should be excited to report into your manager how great your day was. Go over the good and the bad. Maybe you had an objection you didn’t know how to overcome, maybe you didn’t get anyone home after your 6:00, or maybe you did everything right and you ` just need that pat on the back, which you deserve.

Call your manager up and build that rapport with him or her. Here is the end of the day check list:

Make sure you restock your binder with applications and whatever you hand out.

Add business cards and pens.

Check all your applications. The ones that are correct put a checkmark on the top right corner and put them in your binder so that your clients can see it tomorrow. Always keep the business up front in a clear folder so they can see the checks. It tells them they are going to buy today! It also says you take checks.