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Not having a clear and effective message at every point along the contact continuum is a weakness that the best product or idea will have difficulty overcoming.  These contact points include emails, voice mails, phone calls, 1 on 1 meetings and group presentations.

Being comfortable and entertaining in front of the room or having “good” conversations in meetings is nice, but to make money you need to be effective…that is, move advisors to action. When writing emails, you need to get advisors to open them AND act on them.

So how does intentional messaging help you do this? Intentional messaging is a 2 step process. The first step is taking the time to craft an effective talk, email or message*. The second step is to practice it enough to convey it clearly. Everyone reading this knows the words to countless songs, yet don’t memorize the words to songs that can make them hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The problem is that most of us prioritize activity over everything else. When things get busy, the first thing that gets pushed off is working on our messages or crafting great emails. THIS IS BACKWARDS.  Crafting and memorizing effective messages first, meetings second.

The analogy I like to use for this thinking is replacing worn grips on a golf club. Playing with bad grips makes it difficult to hit the ball square. If you re-grip your clubs in April or August, the time and cost is the same. If you wait until August, though, every swing you take (advisor meetings) is not as good as it can be and the effect multiplies. If you get your grips taken care of in April (crafting and memorizing an effective message), every swing through the summer is that much better. Same time and effort, but exponentially different results.

The ability to focus on a specific task for 30, 45 or 60 minutes without interruption would solve so many problems in your business. And a timer is the answer (not your phone timer). So here is the link to the best productivity tool on the planethttps://www.amazon.com/Wrenwane-Digital-Kitchen-Operation-Magnetic/dp/B00GOPICNM/

Intentional Meeting = Walk in with an objective(s) – Leave with clarity If you cancel an appointment with an advisor will they be upset? Will they call you to get back on the books? The point I am making is advisors usually don’t have a pressing need or problem they expect you to assist with. Most of the time, they don’t think about the meeting until you walk in. So if you go in without a clear purpose, the conversation might be “good”, they might say the right things, but the net business may be zero. Even worse, you may go back and do it again. Your goal is to have “effective” meetings, not “good” ones. To do this, you must start with the end in mind. If you are meeting with an advisor to get business, then you must plan on effectively placing your product and asking for the business. This means knowing ahead of time how you will ask for the business and how you will react to potential answers (your clarifying conversation). The goal of an intentional meeting is to get a result. Sometimes the result is finding out they won’t be doing business in the near future. (despite what they say). For example, an advisor may be vague about their interest. They will use phrases like “that seems like a possibility, let me review the info” or “sounds good, I think there might be a place in the future”.  If you are conducting an intentional meeting, you can’t leave it there. Instead you might follow up with “I appreciate that, let me ask you a question. What is your process and timeline for reviewing and using a product?  If they start talking in circles and planting future excuses then at least you know where they stand and the meeting was effective. This is just an example. Not every meeting requires asking for the business. Users of the VAR Strategy may have very specific sorting or value add goals. Some meetings may be to discuss very specific products or cases. The takeaway is this. If you are meeting with an advisor, you should have a pre-determined reason. And your meeting should be structured intentionally to get that result. Fishing expeditions are for vacation.

An intentional wholesaler focuses on high leverage activities at the expense of everything else. The average wholesaler spends most of their time “doing” and “reacting”.  Whether intentional or not, they prioritize activity over results.

It’s easy to do urgent and significant tasks like showing up for meetings or responding to an advisor regarding a sale. But if you want to go next level, you must CORRECTLY identify and execute on the activities (pillars) that have the biggest impact on your business. The ones that have no immediate consequence (and are easy to procrastinate or fall short on), but huge long term consequences.

Your pillars become the focal point of your weekly business plan and trump everything else. I refer to your weekly pillars as an “intentional strategy” because when identified correctly they align what you want to accomplish with what you “actually” do.

When you execute on your weekly pillars, you will have what I refer to as “The Friday Night Feeling”. This is the feeling on Friday night, that you know beyond a shadow of a doubt, because you executed on your pillars, your business is moving in the right direction. This is the opposite of the emotional judgement of your business based on potentially misleading lag indicators.

2 examples of pillars that you might implement (scheduling, crafting effective messages) will be discussed in upcoming posts in this series.

If you decide to use the pillar system this will drive your daily plan. Regardless, the key to an intentional daily plan is to dedicate time the night or morning prior to prioritize your day and then stick with your plan regardless of how you “feel” throughout the day. This is not new advice, but is this really what you do or do you spend most of your day reacting to internal and external stimuli that send you off course?

An intentional wholesaler focuses on high leverage activities at the expense of everything else. The average wholesaler spends most of their time “doing” and “reacting”.  Whether intentional or not, they prioritize activity over results. It’s easy to do urgent and significant tasks like showing up for meetings or responding to an advisor regarding a sale. But if you want to go next level, you must CORRECTLY identify and execute on the activities (pillars) that have the biggest impact on your business. The ones that have no immediate consequence (and are easy to procrastinate or fall short on), but huge long term consequences. Your pillars become the focal point of your weekly business plan and trump everything else. I refer to your weekly pillars as an “intentional strategy” because when identified correctly they align what you want to accomplish with what you “actually” do. When you execute on your weekly pillars, you will have what I refer to as “The Friday Night Feeling”. This is the feeling on Friday night, that you know beyond a shadow of a doubt, because you executed on your pillars, your business is moving in the right direction. This is the opposite of the emotional judgement of your business based on potentially misleading lag indicators. 2 examples of pillars that you might implement (scheduling, crafting effective messages) will be discussed in upcoming posts in this series. If you decide to use the pillar system this will drive your daily plan. Regardless, the key to an intentional daily plan is to dedicate time the night or morning prior to prioritize your day and then stick with your plan regardless of how you “feel” throughout the day. This is not new advice, but is this really what you do or do you spend most of your day reacting to internal and external stimuli that send you off course?

The difference between how wholesalers perceive their business and it’s true health can be significant. The reason is most wholesalers only monitor lag indicators (gross sales, growth, million dollar producers etc.). These are important, but only monitoring lag indicators can be very misleading. Metrics like weekly gross sales are not necessarily reflective of how you executed during the week.

If I lose 15lbs in 6 months and then skip 2 weeks of exercise, my weight will still look good. Alternatively, If I exercise for 3 straight weeks for my new program, looking in the mirror isn’t the best indicator of my early success.

As a wholesaler running an intentional business you must also monitor lead indicators consistently to get a true sense of your business health. Lead indicators are the  activities that you control the execution of (e.g. scheduling quality meetings). Specifically, the activities that don’t directly affect that week’s sales, but have the largest impact over time. I will be discussing these activities in the next post regarding pillars.

The average wholesaler determines their yearly goal by simply adding 20-30% of the previous year’s sales. There is no rhyme or reason to this number other than the optimistic feeling that they will do more last year than the current year. Whether they actually achieve this goal usually has more to do with external factors (the market, changes to your product or territory) than executing on a true week to week strategy to grow their business. The intentional wholesaler sets a realistic goal based on their current numbers and a specific week to week plan to grow these numbers.  I personally like the 80/20 goal setting approach when using the VAR strategy or any similar strategy that gets advisors to commit.  80/20 Goal: You need  ___ advisors doing a minimum of ____ in business. A goal like this allows you to be intentional across your business about getting these minimum commitments and monitoring your progress. A lot of factors go into determining your 80/20 goal including comp plan, product, current sales, territory maturity etc. However, when you look at your previous year’s data you can usually find a multiplier. For example, with mutual fund wholesalers it will often be 4. This means you multiply 4 by your number of advisors that did a minimum of 1 million dollars in business last year it will be pretty close to your gross sales (if eliminate top producer anomalies). So working forward, a goal of 200 million is really a goal of getting 50 advisors to do a minimum of 1 million. In your case the multiple and minimum in biz might be different, but we always find one.

Humans are creatures of habit and an honest look at ourselves shows we do most things habitually or in reaction to outside stimuli. As a wholesaler, this is costing you money! Running an intentional business is the opposite of being reactive, doing things habitually or winging it. It prioritizes strategy and results over activity. Once you learn the basics, running an intentional business becomes a mindset in which you do things deliberately, for a pre-determined reason…or you don’t do them. Wholesalers who run an intentional business benefit from a simplicity and clarity that few professionals experience. It is the planning, precision and clarity of a special forces mission vs throwing all your grenades from behind a wall. Once you begin to start running an intentional business it will be scary to think how much money has been left on the table. However, it is also exciting to think about how much your business can grow with this simple shift in mindset. In the coming weeks I will be describing the components of an intentional wholesaling business, including: Intentional Goal Setting: Setting goals that are aligned with a realistic week to week strategy to achieve them, instead of just adding 20% to last year’s numbers. Intentional Monitoring: Tracking the appropriate lead and lag indicators that give you an objective assessment of your business, instead of just total gross sales. Intentional Scheduling: Intentional scheduling means you take the time prior to contacting advisors to rank the value of seeing them. The result is a list where an advisor is #1, #12 or #30 based on real data and circumstances instead of who you “feel” you should call on. Intentional Meetings: Intentional meetings have a pre-determined agenda and goal. They are designed in way so that you know whether you achieved your goal or not. They replace “fishing expeditions” and “good conversations”. Intentional Strategy: Your days and weeks are structured based on a pre-determined set of priorities in a way to maximize results and the mental energy needed to achieve them. Intentional Messaging:  Understanding that attention is today’s business currency, your emails are designed to get responses and your meetings and talks are no longer “good”, but effective. The willingness to learn how to do this and sharpen the axe pays off in huge ways.. There is now an audio series on running an intentional business available at PGwholesaling.com

It makes sense, you’re more talented than them, but they’re more successful…   There must be a reason…  They got a better territory, had great timing, and 10,000 other reasons…   But here’s what took me longer than I care to admit to learn…  And something, some never learn…  Being good at something is different than being successful…  Talent, skill and hard work can only get you so far. If you’re not pointing them in the right direction on a day to day basis, you’re ROI will always be capped.  A heater in the snow pumps out perfectly good heat, but most of it is wasted…  Put some duct work on it and direct it into a room and it takes just a little to warm it.   Strategy is pre-determining the right place to focus your skills, talent and work ethic to get the biggest ROI…

If you got paid on “good meetings” you’d be the happiest wholesaler on the planet.  But you don’t… You get paid on sales.. So watch the short video at the link below to learn to make your meetings more valuable.  https://pgwholesaling.com/making-your-meetings-more-valuable/