I was drinking coffee with one of the producers I first trained and he reminded me of a story. "Do you remember that time we were out and you made me cold call all day?" he said. "I went from business to business dropping off our marketing card, introducing myself, and then following up on every interaction.

"After that day, the strangest thing began to happen. I started slowly writing business. That day you showed me the key to sales. In fact, you didn't want me to be an insurance agent—you wanted me to be a sales person."

This former "student" is now the owner of his own insurance agency and my biggest friendly competitor. I trained him well, giving him all of my tools and tricks. Our sales approaches are completely different, but I think he would agree that our foundation of cold calling, prospecting and upfront agreements helped him be the success he is today.

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