Selling by the Numbers

“My name is Joe Gandolfo, and I sell more life insurance than any other human being on the face of the earth,” were the first words spoken by 35-year-old Matthew Joseph "Joe" Gandolfo as he took the podium at a large life underwriters conference in Cincinnati, Ohio in the early 1970’s. The audience of several hundred life agents there to see Joe deliver the keynote speech collectively gasped at his bold self-introduction. It turns out, as successful as he already was on that day, he was really just getting started. Joe later became the only life agent in the world to sell a billion dollars' worth of life insurance in a single year. His 10-year average annual production was $800 million dollars!?

What I remember most about Joe’s presentation was the story of how he got started in the life insurance business. Married with children, Joe was previously a schoolteacher. He was attracted to the financial opportunities in life insurance sales, but very aware of the high failure rate of new agents. When he went to work for a small southern based life insurance company, they gave him several prospecting goals with instructions to accomplish them each week. Joe said he was so afraid of failure that the weekly goals they gave him became his daily goals. In other words, his prospecting activity was 5 times what he was asked to do by the company.

After Joe's speech, I stood in a long line just to shake the hand of this sales superstar.

Years later I had the opportunity to visit with State Farm great, Cosmo Conte. Cosmo, now retired, was State Farm’s top agent for 15 consecutive years, and a member of the Million Dollar Round Table for 30 years. Cosmo C. Conte Insurance, established in Cleveland, Ohio became the largest State Farm Insurance agency in the United States. Cosmo was a popular motivational speaker, and he authored several books.

When asked about his beginnings in the insurance business, Cosmo said State Farm told him the secret to a successful start was to acquire 20 personal lines x-dates every day. Not 18 today, and try to make up the difference tomorrow, but 20 every day before he laid his head on the pillow. (Back in the day, most all personal lines was x-date driven.) He said there were days when he was still x-dating at 9:00 that night. Decades later, Cosmo’s wife Nancy was one of the first women in the country to become an independent State Farm Insurance agent. Her approach to starting the agency? 20 personal lines x-dates every day. Not 18 today, and try to make up the difference tomorrow, but 20 every day before she laid her head on the pillow. Nancy also became a top State Farm agent.

Most recently, I was referred to a book called Game of Numbers by Nick Murray. Nick is the author of eight books for financial services professionals, as well as a best-selling book for clients titled Simple Wealth, Inevitable Wealth. Nick is the only person ever to have delivered keynote addresses at all four of the major financial planning conferences in the English-speaking world and was a main platform speaker at the Million Dollar Roundtable.

Game of Numbers reinforces the sales philosophy of superstars like Gandolfo and Conte in a no-nonsense approach that gets to the core of how to achieve sales success. Murray’s words, “It does not matter how you prospect. It does not matter whom you prospect. It matters only that you prospect – a little more each month, as you grow stronger and stronger – and above all that you do not stop.”

Game of Numbers can be a career changing book. It should be required reading for every new salesperson. It can also be a life-changing book. Another of Murray’s quotes, “You are the problem. You are the solution.” Murray deflates every excuse a salesperson can make for failure by illustrating that every obstacle to sales success can be overcome by ratcheting up prospecting activity.

Regardless of what you are selling, it all begins with prospecting. Without prospects all your sales skills are worthless. It does not matter how well you know your product, or how competitively it is priced, or how good your presentation skills, or your ability to overcome objections, or your closing skills, because without prospects, you are out of business. The #1 reason salespeople fail is lack of prospects.

Imagine you are standing in a large gambling casino in Las Vegas overlooking the hundreds of slot machines common to all the casinos. The casino manager tells you one of those slot machines will pay $1 million dollars on the first pull of the handle. That’s right. Insert a single coin, pull the handle, bells go off, lights flash, and $1 million dollars cash drops out the bottom of the machine.?

How many handles would you pull, and how fast would you pull them? The obvious answer: “All of them, as fast as I can.”

A million dollars in commission is waiting for you in your marketing territory right now. How many “handles” are you going to pull today?

Have a great day!