Ever wonder if your attitude really makes a difference in your insurance sales results?
Well it turns out, it does!
Last week, I ran across a study that I think every insurance agent should know about. A few years ago (mid 1980’s), Met Life hired Dr. Martin Seligman to help them improve their hiring processes. They were spending a lot of money on training agents that weren’t sticking around. At the time, over half of their agents quit within the first year!
Dr. Seligman was a psychologist who studied optimism and positive psychology. He created an optimism screening test and followed a group of Met Life new hires (appx 15,000 agents) over one year. The result? The agents with an optimistic outlook drastically outsold the pessimists by as much as 21% in the first year and 57% in the second year!
And to make these results even more drastic, here’s this. The top 10% of the optimists (with the highest optimism scores) sold 88% more insurance than those ranked in the most pessimistic 10%.
You can read all the details of this study here. But I think this says a LOT about being in the insurance industry (and an entrepreneur in general). When you feel that you are the person in charge of your destiny and that you control your own results, you’re more successful. Those that feel they can always do better, improve, make more, and remain upbeat drastically outsell their negative, unhappy colleagues.
Use this information to your advantage. How can you increase your own positive outlook? What about your team? Do you have a negative Nancy dragging down the rest of the team? Do you allow your staff to sit around complaining all day?
Met Life took this information, expanded their optimistic sales force, and increased their market share by 50% in the personal lines market. How will you do the same?