10 Key Traits of Highly Successful Top Sales Producers

During the circuit breaker period, our team had the privilege to invite 9 TOP Financial Consultants to give us a glimpse of how they conduct their business and to share their stories on a deeper and personal level.

The intent of this article is to share with more readers on what it takes to be truly successful, the habits and discipline that were built over time alongside with the strong mental resilience to keep forward rather than being paralysed in despair.

More importantly, this article is intended to pay tribute to each speaker to thank them for their precious time and presence. To me, "Time is the most valuable resource". For every one hour spent with us, it meant that they had concurrently paid the price of opportunity cost of that hour on something else. In this article, I have also weaved my own thoughts and expeience as a closing note.

Within the Financial Industry, a global recognition commonly known is "Million Dollar Round Table" (MDRT). No, please do not get me wrong. It does not mean that the Financial Consultants who have been accredited MDRT earn a million bucks. On the contrary, the history of MDRT came about in 1927, 32 extraordinary life insurance producers, each of whom had sold at least USD 1 million of life insurance. Fast forward to today, being accredited with MDRT meant that we have protected our customers with a high quantum.

Amongst the 9 TOP Producers, there were first time MDRT qualifiers, with some taking a shorter path to achieve whilst some shared with us their several years of journey. There was also Court of the Table (COT - 3x MDRT) Prudence Lu and also the only one Top of the Table (TOT - 6x MDRT) Ultra-TOP Producer Etak Chen.

No matter how diverse the background, or years of experience, the most apparent similarity lies in their mental mindset and the following key traits. I have synthesised them into the following. Are you interested to find out more? Read on to find out these Top 10 key traits which led them to achieve continual success year on year:

1. Strong WHY

All of them have a Strong WHY to succeed in this industry. Many came from humble and even poor family backgrounds. They knew that only a sales career could help them to end the poverty cycle at their generation as long as they are willing to work hard.

As a result, this creates the very much needed Self-motivation. What is Self-Motivation? It is the inner voice inside us that would keep propelling us forward, to push us on and keep moving forward even in the face of adversities or challenges.

One of the speakers Shirley Tan shared her story of her younger days. Being Malaysians residing in Johor, her parents wanted a better education and future for her and her siblings. Hence since primary school days, she had to consistently wake up at 4AM daily to commute across the Causeway just to attend school. This went on for 10 years.

Imagine the kind of discipline Shirley had instilled in herself since young and now being a grown up, she had long internalised such discipline into her work ethics. This makes her a totally resilient and extraordinary kid.

As she rightly pointed out, “Nothing can be too tough for me because those were the toughest times”.

2. Grit

Grit as term coined by Angela Duckworth is defined as passion and sustained persistence applied toward long-term achievement, with no particular concern for rewards or recognition along the way. It combines resilience, ambition, and self-control in the pursuit of goals that take months, years, or even decades.

All of them exemplify such gritty spirit in the process of creating their own success. For example Candice Ong, who has achieved strong and commendable success in Social Media prospecting through Instagram spent hours trying to curate her own content.

She also started her small niche female seminars at the comfort bode, through intimate sharing of experiences, this creates a strong community of followers who want to be her customers.

There were so many hours of hard work behind the scene but she kept pressing on just because she wanted to create this feminine experience for her own tribe.

3. Innovative

Most of them are innovative when it comes to managing this business.

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting a different result ~ Albert Einstein

Even when we have successfully achieved an outcome which we were targeting, we must learn to continuously improve and most importantly innovate.

In particular, there were two of them who embody this trait extremely well.

Nathan Tan said that he is constantly on the lookout to think of ways to make his clients feel that they are part of his inner circles by distributing the customised EZ-Link cards with printed caricatures of him on the gifts and banners.

Being an ex-Marketing professional, Nathan understands that in order to stand out, he has to differentiate himself not other in terms of professionalism but also his personality. Nathan comes across as someone who exudes extraordinary high energy, instantly bridging the gaps between others and him. To put it simply, he is such an entertaining spirit and we would never get bored talking to him!

4. Out of Comfort Zone

Stepping out of comfort zone is truly what transforms someone ordinary to a successful individual. Carol Chin, who did her first MDRT last year after being in the business for 6 years shared with us that year on year, she would challenge herself to embark on a new project.

She is never contented with doing the same over and over again. For instance, she has set a goal to sell all the different plans offered by her Company so that she will force herself to get out of her comfort zone to learn new knowledge every single year. It is with such determination that created her tipping her point to taste that bittersweet success.

5. Customer-Centric

The key difference between an ordinary Financial Consultant and being a TOP Producer lies in how customer-centric we are.

Prudence Lu, a COT producer shares with us how she is able to win the hearts of her customers so well that she is very ‘referrable’.

One of the favourite anecdotes shared by Prudence was that she is extremely attentive and observant of her clients. One day she found out by chance that this client of hers has since quit smoking for more than a year. She took the initiative to inform the company so that the premiums can be adjusted downwards for this client. Though it affected her commission, she was more than happy to do so. As a result, this client gave her consistent quality referrals every single year.

6. Good Story Teller

No matter the industry, you are always talking to people to influence them in one way or another. Over time, I have come to realise that people only listen when they want to—so in order to sell, they must want to listen to you.

But the interesting fact is "Everybody Hates to be Sold but Everybody loves a Good Story", in particularly emotionally connecting stories told by a good story teller.

How often have we been sold through pitches of all good a product or service is? But don’t you agree that when the product is being framed in a good story, it evokes a huge emotional impact and creates stirs within us?

This was the magic created by Joel Zhuang. Through his stories, we were subtly brought into his world, taking us back to his past days. The stories manifested such strong impact on me that I had tears welling during his sharing. I told my team that 15 minutes into his storytelling that I was totally sold by his authentic personality and would even likely become his customer.

7. Mentorship

Etak Chen, who is the only TOT producer clearly reaffirms this trait. Being the finest Salesperson in this industry, who else can she learn from?

The answer was to seek external mentorship. Etak knew that in order to breakthrough from a consistent COT to her first inaugural TOT, she needed to do think and act differently. She has to be more strategic than ever.

Etak started to go full-steam to take charge of her career. In the recent 2019 MDRT conference in Sydney, she spoke to several industry veterans to open up her mind and break her own limiting beliefs. She knew that in order to achieve a TOT which she has never done before, it starts from the mental mindset leading to different thinking, action and behaviours. In other words, Etak needs to transform herself and her way to doing things.

What utterly surprised her was that her own mentor shared one Golden Tip with her. In order to blossom, Etak needs to be a MENTOR to Others. At that instant, she did not quite understand and even had some doubts. But later on, Etak shared with us that this Mentor-Mentee relationship paved her way to TOT. Whatever was being shared with her Mentees, became a self-fulfilling prophecy in reaffirming her own actions and beliefs.

8. Always Learning

All of them demonstrated this key trait of being Hungry Learners. There is this evident voracious appetite to keep learning to become even better versions of themselves. Consistently all of them had invested money out of their own pockets to learn new knowledge. Their purpose was simple: To value add their customers. But when you are an Sales Team Leader (Agency Leader) yourself, learning new knowledge not only benefits your customers, but also your own internal sales team.

One key leading example would be Winston Cheong. He is one of the youngest and yet the fasting growing Financial Services Director, touting Million Dollar Agency awards. Today he leads a team of close to 30 Millennial FCs.

Winston knows that in order to guide them towards the higher purpose and goals, he needed to be knowledgeable and hands-on. He consistently allocates a yearly budget of 5-figure digit for his self-development and upgrading, and also reinvesting into team upgrading and business activities. This is a commitment to himself and his team of Financial Consultants so that they can have full confidence that their own leader is one of the best in this industry

9. Do not Compare with Others

Out of so many speakers, Charity Tan, clearly displays this trait more than any others. This probably comes from her own journey of achieving MDRT after 8 years in the industry.

Blossom in your own lane was the phrase which Charity taught us and resonates so strongly with me. It simply means that we remain focused in doing what we need to do rather than look externally and comparing others with ourselves.

Despite in being in one of the top sales team with many juniors coming in achieving certain milestones faster than her, Charity never seems to be fazed with it. Rather she is able to channel all her energy into reinventing herself and her business. Since then, Charity has been able to find her sweet spot of servicing many legal professionals. She shared with her that she has also discovered her profound inner strength and higher purpose in keeping her going every single day.

10. Strategic Thinking

To truly demonstrate strategic thinking:

It requires us to simultaneously become a salesperson, a marketing, an editor and even a change agent.

It means that we need to have proactive and widespread communication of our strategic efforts combined with the courage to challenge others and initiate and drive your strategic ideas in order to stand out.

Being one of the Company's Top Financial Consultants, I had the privilege of being invited to our Company's different specialised focus groups to give my inputs on products, customer propositions, operations, sales tools and cycles. Sometimes this extends to Client Seminars, sharing with our clients on how to address their protection gaps and also sharing my own Practitioner knowledge with my fellow Financial Consultant peers.

Being a strategic thinking also means that we need to communicate effectively to bring our point of view to the table. In times of being challenged, many sales person might be pressured to become "YES MAN". However I believe we need to stand firm in our ground if we believe that what we share with our customers are the best for them.

On the other hand, the ability to think strategically and plan is the probably the key to my own success in achieving my first MDRT in 6 months and a COT in my first full year as a Rookie Financial Consultant.

To me, being strategic means that we are able to identify the long term over-arching goals and the means to achieving them. More often than not, the HOWs are not immediately visible. However when we are able to clearly DEFINE the WHATS, the ways to achieving them would become easier.

I left a high paying corporate HR role to start from scratch as a Financial Consultant in July 2017. Being burnt out with deteriorating health, I wanted more time with my kids who were 5 and 3 back then.

Many has asked me what are my goals year on year. Whether I am aspiring to achieve more, but every time my answer remains the same - it was to achieve that Strategic Optimal balance amongst the 6 pillars:

• Family Pillar
• Health and Fitness Pillar
• Career Pillar
• Self Development Pillar
• Social Relationship Pillar
• Mentorship Pillar (since I am also an Agency Leader now

With such clarity and goal in mind, this helps me to be more strategic in how I would like to manage my time very productively whilst ensuring that I do not compromise on any of the pillars that would cause huge trade offs.

Bringing it Altogether

There is never a single magic formula to achieve the success. However if you are able to work towards this list of traits, and internalising them, I am pretty confident that you would transform to be more successful than who you were yesterday.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Jaslyn Ng is an ordinary working mother of two. Someone who loves to challenge her own limits. Her greatest competitor has always been herself. At the age of 33, she took a leap of faith to move out of Corporate HR to join Prudential as a Financial Consultant, starting all over again. It has been an amazing journey so far. because she has truly found a career which aligns with her personal values of work-life integration, family, health, meaningful career and relationships. She is also a mentor to her own team of 8 Financial Consultants today.