Building a successful team with 100% MDRT qualifiers is not a dream but a possibility. Wave Chow who leads a Hong Kong-based team of insurance agents with 100% MDRT members shares his strategies.
After Wave, a 17-year MDRT member, first qualified as lifetime MDRT member, he decided to focus on building his team with his personal sales taking a back seat.
But six months after the decision, his team’s production dropped and he only managed to recruit two new agents. One of them stayed for only one month and the other stayed only because she felt sorry for his terrible situation, he shared on the MDRT Experience platform in Bangkok yesterday.
Recounting his meeting with someone who was suffering from Polio at an MDRT annual meeting, he said: “Then I asked myself, ‘If a physically challenged person can qualify for MDRT, how come those of us who are not physically-challenged cannot achieve MDRT?’”
Inspired, he strategised to achieve 100% MDRT qualifiers in his team, focussing on:
Quality recruitment
Anyone who wants to join his team has to go through four interviews. “You may think that four interviews are too many and some people may quit during the process. However, that is a good thing because it is evident that they are not the right ones for our team."
He added: "We believe that the best training cannot make up for mistakes in selection. Our limited resources should be put into the right people."
Now, his team consists of over 95% who have bachelor’s degree and 68% with post-graduate degrees. Among them, there are CFPs, CFAs, CPAs, Doctors, Lawyers and Investment Bankers. "That makes us a very professional team."
Target marketing
Many agents, even those who have been in the industry for over 10 years, suffer from the problem of prospecting, he said. “The main reason for such a situation is the lack of target marketing.”
"Our target market is clear, it is professionals. Our slogan is 'Professional to Serve Professionals'. Which is also helpful for us in recruiting professionals," he said.
Fix 15 appointments per week
We cannot control results, what we can control is how many people we meet per day.
“Interestingly, when we have enough activities, we feel better. And activities can solve most of the problems that agents face,” he said.
“We believe that ordinary people can achieve MDRT by being diligent,” he added.
Determination
There is nothing you can’t do in this world. But it is up to you – to do it or not to do it.
In 2016, when he heard that 2017 MDRT annual meeting will be held in Orlando, he asked his whole team to buy air tickets from Hong Kong to Orlando.
It sounds crazy, but “crazy people achieve crazy success”. At the end of the year, “we made it, we achieved 100% MDRT, 39% COT and TOT!”
“If I can do it, so can you. 100% MDRT is not a dream but a possibility,” he concluded.
Asia Advisers Network and Asia Insurance Review are official media partners of MDRT Experience which ends on Saturday.
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