How to achieve Million Dollar Round Table M.D.R.T.?

By AAN team | 22 Aug 2019

What's the secret behind the success of Jaslyn Ng, a mother of two, an Associate Financial Services Manager leading her own team, and a Court of the Table producer?

Jaslyn, who is from Assets Prestige Alliance – Jaden Wang Group and the top five Rookie Insurance Agent of the Year at the 4th Asia Trusted Life Agents & Advisers Awards, shares in this article, “How to achieve Million Dollar Round Table M.D.R.T.?”

I woke up this morning around 4am, tossing and turning. I had wanted to get back to sleep because my usual weekday wake-up time is 5am. However the thoughts were flashing through my head and I just wanted to pen them down instead of losing the inspiration!

Side Note: To the contrary of many others, I do not suffer from any form of sleep disorder or insomnia, thankfully. This morning was just special! I am sure you can resonate with me on this similar scenario:

When adrenaline runs through you and you just have the urge to spring out of bed wanting to do something that you feel is important to you!

I've experienced the above several times in my life. For example, when I forgot to study for examinations, laptop program crashed on the verge of completing budgeting exercise, or last-minute add-ons to management presentations which could cost you your job.

But this morning, the motivation was simply different!

I sprang out of bed to write this article because I believe my 2 hours of sleep sacrifice would enable me to help more people.

With the proliferation of social media, I am blessed and fortunate to achieve a considerable success in this new career which I joined in July 2017 as a Financial Consultant.

From HR to sales

What was my background before? I had been working in Corporate HR, specialising in a very niche area of Compensation & Benefits for the past 11 years. You may have read about my unusual career transition - from HR to Sales.

I have been told by many others - from the very top sales leaders to many financial consultant peers and even the corporate senior management that my achievements are simply remarkable and sounds like a good legend or story to tell.

Firstly for someone who did not have any sales experience and boldly did a drastic career switch. And secondly, to achieve this kind of performance within such a short time frame.

To set things in context (rather than self-complimenting) these were what I had achieved in my first 12 months:

Achieved 2 times of Million Dollar Round Table (M.D.R.T.s) within a span of 10 months
Ranked 5th Top Rookie Financial Consultant in Year 2017 (Joined only in July 2017)
Ranked 1st in Top Rookie Financial Consultant in 1st Half 2018
Ranked 1st in Protection Plans in 1st Half 2018
Invited to multiple Corporate Speaking events that range from client seminar, recruitment, product knowledge sharing to fellow financial consultant sharings
Financial consultant to several C-suite clients

So what is Million Dollar Round Table?

To put it simply, those who attain MDRT are the top 1% of the industry.

For the consumers, what it means is MDRT members must adhere to strict ethical standards. They must love helping others with their financial needs, and ensuring that they are prepared in the event of a catastrophe.

MDRT members come together not for accolades and personal gain, but to share how they provide peace of mind, save lives, and protect the futures of clients.

The reason why I am penning this article is to spread this strong code of ethics for the purpose of helping my fellow financial consultant peers.

Only with such right values only then we can work together to protect and save more lives.

Another stronger reason is because I feel bad that I have to say so many NOs to all who have sent me personal messages asking me for coffee chats to share advice or tips.

But the fact is I am a working mother who switched jobs to have a balance. So strong time management and prioritisation is my modus operandi.

I need to adhere to this to achieve that optimal balance among my Family, Career, Health, and literally Sleep.

Any 30 minutes or 1 hour I give away would have an attached opportunity cost and encroach on the any of the above important pillars.

Besides I believe in the exponential Power Multiplier Effect. By penning down it, it can potentially have far greater outreach to help more people.

That's what mummies do, we calculate and evaluate our time currency to get the greatest effect! =)

M.D.R.T.

The below M.D.R.T. (and it must be in this sequential order) is a self-invented formula which I have personally come up with and shared a few times on different platforms with new financial consultants during their induction and agency sharings:

Mindset

With a strong mindset, "Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, the mind can achieve." ~ Napoleon Hill

For financial consultants, if you join with a mindset convoluted with many common discouraging sentiments that "this industry is overly-saturated, and everybody has insurance already etc...", you would probably be struggling very hard in this career.

Because even before you step out of the door, you are facing an internal battle.

Previously, I attended a MDRT bootcamp taught by Dion Jensen. He told us the greatest enemy is ourselves. If we do not have an enemy within us, we do not Fear the Enemy From Outside because nothing can get us down.

Discipline

As I grow older, I began to realise that one of the greatest strengths I have is a strong self-discipline.

And gradually as I read more and more self-improvement books, this trait is MANDATORY within all successful people.

Having a strong mindset is key but you need self-discipline to constantly adhere yourself to a set of habits and practise them on a daily basis to achieve MDRT.

Even for a child, my daughter who is now 7 does her assigned abacus homework regularly and I have witnessed for myself the effect of "Practice Makes Perfect" for such a young child.

One common problem that I frequently hear from many financial consultants is "Procrastination".

My only response to beat procrastination is - You have to determine how important this career is to you? Do you require the income to feed your family and provide for your loved ones? Do you really want to protect lives as you once believed?

If the answer is an affirmative YES to any of the above, you will find your WHY and how to do it would follow.

Resilience

Fall down 7 times and get up 8. That's what Resilience means in short.

It means that we keep going through the lessons learnt (note: I didn't say failure because every failure is indeed a lesson learnt), reflect, work on improving ourselves and keep going.

For financial consultants, especially those who adopt the cold prospecting strategies such as roadshows or cold calls, this is even far more applicable to you because the total number of rejections and NOs you hear in a single day is more far than the number of times in your entire lifetime.

I once heard this beautiful quote "Success is always one more try away."

Training

Sometimes what truly differentiates the Good from the Great is training.

After the M.D.R, what's the tipping point may just be how proficient and abreast you are with the latest market outlook, movements and legislation. And how you communicate to share these insights to bring value to your clients.

Consumers look for value in the things they buy.

In real estate, it would be targeting the right time to buy low and invest.

In the financial industry, the value they look for, contrary to popular beliefs, may not be the lowest premiums but what value we can provide to them in this entire journey. The entire journey of walking with them on important milestones (Graduation, Marriage, Newborn, Kids Entering School, Kids Graduation and Retirement).

Personally for me, I am truly very appreciative of the many company-sponsored courses that Prudential provides that range from FC orientation, product training, investment outlooks, interpersonal skills, social media prospecting and many more.

In summary I hope that the above M(indset). D(iscipline). R(esilience). T(raining). can help you achieve your first and subsequent MDRT in this interesting financial planning career.

Assets Prestige Alliance (APA) is a group of agency units of Prudential Assurance Company Singapore.