sample 2 - etpress€¦ · author’s profile mr. wave chow senior district director, ... economic...

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Riding the WaveThe Key To Building A 100% MDRT Team

Author’s Profile

Mr. Wave ChowSenior District Director, AIA Hong Kong

Mr. Chow graduated from The Hong Kong Polytechnic University with a Bachelor's degree in Engineering – Electronics Engineering in 1997. After graduation, Mr. Chow began his career at AIA as a financial planner. Through diligent self-upgrading, Mr. Chow attained many professional qualifications at a young age. To date, Mr. Chow has 14 professional qualifications including CFP CM , ChFC, ChLP, FChFP, LUTCF, ACS, CPB, HKCIP, CIAM and NLPMP.

Mr. Chow has won numerous awards throughout his career. In 2000, he was awarded the Outstanding Young Salesperson Award (OYSA) by the Hong Kong Management Association (HKMA). Despite the economic slowdown caused by the global financial crisis, he became a MDRT Life Member in 2009. Thereafter, he was awarded the Master Agency Award (MAA), Distinguished Manager Awards (DMA), Quality Leader Award (QLA), Quality Manager Award (QMA), Quality Advisor Award (QAA) and many other prestigious awards by the Life Underwriters Association of Hong Kong Limited (LUAHK) and the General Agents and Managers Association of Hong Kong (GAMA).

Mr. Chow takes pride in leading an exceptionally high-performing team of professionals with an average age of approximately 30 years old; 96% of his team members are tertiary graduates (70% of them being Masters and PhDs graduates). Mr. Chow is also often referred as the “Father of IANG” who, previously, spent 9 months in 2002 to hire a

Author’s Profile

non-local graduate to become the 1st financial planner accepted under the scheme.

Mr. Chow is a regular columnist for Hong Kong Economic Journal, Hong Kong Economic Digest and Etnet. He is also the author of “RIDING THE WAVE – The Key To Building A 100% MDRT Team”, a bestselling book published by ET Press. Mr. Chow is a well-received and experienced speaker, who is frequently invited to major events, both at home and abroad, to share his perspective on financial planning, investment, sales and marketing, service delivery, motivational techniques, brand building and interpersonal communication skills. In the past decade, he has delivered well over 400 speeches to more than 60,000 audience.

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my book seriously. After some time, I came up with the idea of writing a reference book that I would be willing to pay for.

I have seen many MDRT members who developed their teams without any idea of where to begin, and some even eventually resigned. I hope that I have combined the experience, methods and ideas that I have learned and understood over the years into a useful reference book through which latecomers would take fewer detours than what they would normally do, thereby reducing the loss of talent in the industry. In the future, if a colleague in my team wants to be promoted as supervisor, I will also ask him to buy the book and submit a book report after reading it, so that I can save much time when training talent.

It ought to be noted that my first degree was electronic engineering, so I am not a management scholar. Therefore, there is no profound management theory in this book, but it includes accounts of practical experience and stories of an ordinary supervisor who successfully built a 100% MDRT team. No matter which country you are in, we are all fighting hard under the same sky. I believe that this book will surely quicken the beat in your heart.

Now, I have realised my dream. First of all, I would like to thank the Lord's grace, the opportunity given by the Hong Kong Economic Times Press, the cultivation of my character by my boss and master, Mr Kanki Lam, and my predecessors’ selflessness in sharing wisdom. Therefore, strictly speaking, this book is the crystallisation of the experiences of my predecessors, and I am just a ghostwriter. I hope everyone likes "RIDING THE WAVE - The Key To Building A 100% MDRT Team".

Wave Chow

Author’s Preface

Author’s Preface

“My grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness.”

--Corinthians 12:9

When I wrote this author’s preface, I unexpectedly came up with this biblical sentence in my mind.

Due to lack of self-confidence when I was a kid, I always blushed and stammered when I stood up to answer questions in front of the class when told to do so by my teacher, so I never imagined I would make speeches and share my experiences in public after entering the insurance industry. At the college entrance examination, I even failed my Chinese practical writing exam, though I tried my best to write it. What I thought would never happen was that a media organisation would invite me to share my insurance management experience as a columnist in 2015, and then have a book published for first time in my life. I thank the Lord for using such a weak person as me!

In retrospect, the idea of publishing books had already formed in 2001. At that time I heard foreign TOTs spent three months to visit customers, three months to make speeches, three months to write, and the last three months to travel and rest. I thought that was the life I wanted. However, since I had been daydreaming without taking action, I did not realise this until recently as I had not thought about writing books.

Soon after I started writing articles for the column, a publisher invited me to write a book. Although I put aside the plan because the conditions were not to my satisfaction, I started to think about the subject matter of

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Contents

Prefaces ............................................................................................................ 5Author’s Preface .......................................................................................... 21

Chapter I Establishment of a 0% MDRT team1.1 From 0 to 6 ............................................................................................ 281.2 Inspiration from a rival ........................................................................ 32

Chapter II Facing a dilemma2.1 Making small changes to create a significant improvement ....... 362.2 The revelation of QUEEN ............................................................... 382.3 Knowing ourselves and others through SWOT analysis ............... 402.4 My blue ocean ....................................................................................... 442.5 Thinking about positioning ................................................................ 472.6 M-shaped society ................................................................................. 492.7 Premier financial professionals .......................................................... 51

Chapter III Stepping into a well-off state3.1 Ten thousand arrows shot at once .................................................... 543.2 Training leaders ..................................................................................... 55

Chapter IV Selection and recruitment4.1 The nine-part interview ...................................................................... 584.2 The eight-step move ............................................................................ 764.3 Five levels of making money ............................................................. 90

Chapter V New thinking of management5.1 Five levels of leadership ..................................................................... 965.2 Four categories of teams .................................................................. 1015.3 Winning by quantity or quality? ....................................................... 1055.4 Sheep-tending management ............................................................ 1075.5 Relationships lead to either success or failure ............................... 1115.6 Democratic centralism ....................................................................... 114

Chapter VI Substitution of the old for the new6.1 A merciful person is incapable of charging the army ................. 1186.2 Unlocking potential by proper management ................................. 1226.3 Effective implementation of the bottom line ............................... 1256.4 5A assessment .................................................................................... 128

Chapter VII Training7.1 Good working habits ........................................................................ 1347.2 Anti-traditional training .................................................................... 1377.3 Swing sushi .......................................................................................... 1407.4 Assessment system ............................................................................. 144

Chapter VIII Target8.1 To make progress, set the target first .............................................. 1548.2 Target shall be SMART ..................................................................... 1578.3 Emphasizing status when setting targets ...................................... 1608.4 The S-curve ......................................................................................... 163


Contents

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Chapter I Establishment of a 0% MDRT team

7


Chapter IX Supervisor9.1 The greatest doctor treats people who are not sick ..................... 1689.2 Eight key points of supervision ....................................................... 1709.3 Appointment 15 report ..................................................................... 1769.4 Three kinds of incentives .................................................................. 1809.5 Do not be a monster leader ............................................................... 1859.6 Cherish medium colleagues .............................................................. 1899.7 Deal with trouble-making colleagues .............................................. 192

Chapter X 100% MDRT10.1 Core competitiveness ...................................................................... 19610.2 New blue ocean ................................................................................. 20010.3 Challenge the giant ........................................................................... 20310.4 Seven-part DOOPARS .................................................................... 20610.5 Fulfillment of the legend ................................................................ 21310.6 Stay Humble, Stay Hungry ............................................................. 217

A Letter to Readers ................................................................................... 218

Chapter VIITraining

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Chapter VIITraining

After a team recruits new people, a series of training courses must be arranged before they can formally meet clients and sign policies. There must be a comprehensive training system covering all aspects from basic knowledge on products and insurance wealth management to the way to introduce insurance to customers, the successful signing of policies, and handling of objections, etc.

The training of any industry and any type of work is related to the four aspects of KASH, but the content is different because of the nature of industries and types of work. We call it the KASH equation:

7.1 Good working habits

Many newcomers feel that knowledge and skills are the most important in insurance sales, but experienced colleagues know that attitudes and habits are more important.

An interesting story I read on the Internet was about a secretary who was used to typing files with a typewriter. When she typed on the typewriter, she needed to push the carriage to the left, using the return lever,

Skill HabitAttitudeKnowledge

whenever a line was finished. This action was repeated numerous times, so it became one of her habits over time.

One day, the secretary's boss replaced her typewriter with a computer, but the secretary failed to adapt to the new computer when typing. After she finished typing, she did the action of pushing the carriage sideways, but of course, it was not there, and she instead pushed the computer screen to the ground. Although this is a humorous story, it tells us that it is not easy to change a habit. Everyone has working habits, whether good or bad.

It is easy for a newcomer to accept new things in the face of new personnel and new environment. We should cultivate their good work habits by requiring them to go to work on time to learn different knowledge and sales skills, which not only improves their punctuality and sense of responsibility but also enhances their cohesiveness and morale through meeting people each day, something that online learning cannot provide.

Of course, colleagues can't just sit and waste time by doing nothing. If one is required to punch in at the company but has nothing to do, I believe that there will be someone who refuses to come to the company even if he has to pay a fine. Therefore, the team must arrange some useful and valuable classes or group meetings for them.

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Chapter VIITraining

Taking our team as an example, we invite colleagues to share their sales skills and tips on the following topics:

● How to conduct online marketing● How to use an iPad for after-sales service● How to develop the mainland market and become a COT● How to get in touch with young people and sign policies with them● How to arrange a two-day and one-night schedule for mainland customers● How to grasp the policy of the budget to create business opportunities● Understanding how the Common Reporting Standard (CRS) affects us

Time Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday

0915-0930

Weekly meeting

Morning meeting

Morning meeting

Morning meeting

Morning meeting0931-0945

0946-1000

Sales practice

Sales practice

Group meeting

Sales practice

1001-1015

1016-1030

1031-1045

After the training framework is established, we also need to find the right training methods.

Cold Calling

I remember in 2000, the Hong Kong Government introduced the "Mandatory Provident Fund (MPF) Scheme". I thought that this market was very promising because every employee had to contribute to the scheme, so the chances of successful signings ought to be quite high. However, I found out that to be successful in the MPF market, I needed to have a lot of customers who work in the human resources department of companies or who are business owners, but I don't have any contacts in these circles. Nevertheless, I firmly believed that success could be achieved through making efforts, so I bought more than one telephone directory and invited two college students to do summer jobs, asking them to make cold calls every day. Of course, I designed the sales conversation in advance and taught them how to deal with objections.

I asked the summer workers to make 250 calls a day, and they successfully reached about five customers. In this way, I achieved the sixth place in the company in the MPF field without a network of contacts. This shows that as long as you are willing to meet customers, you can achieve a lot.

When I was promoted to be a leader, I found that my colleagues’ performance was not satisfactory. Since the method of making cold calls had brought me success, I decided to reapply it to the colleagues. Among my six colleagues, I chose three optimistic colleagues with rich experience

7.2 Anti-traditional training

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Chapter VIITraining

to make cold calls. They met about five clients a day and about 100 clients a month. In three months, they met about 300 clients, but the result was that they could not sign a single policy. There were even murmurs of discontent from these colleagues that making cold calls were wasting their time.

I wondered why the three colleagues, who were not newcomers and had sales experience, failed while I succeeded in using this method. After conducting some thorough research, I discovered that there was a problem with the training system.

Traditional sales training

In this method, a group of mentors teaches traditional insurance training to a group of colleagues. They do role-playing drills in which one colleague acts as a client, and the other acts as an agent to reproduce a situation that occurs in real work. Other colleagues who are not involved in the drill watch and express their views after watching the role play. Finally, the mentor evaluates the colleagues who participated in the drill.

This method has its drawbacks. First, the drill takes a long time. Only one or two pairs of colleagues take part, and the other colleagues can only sit and watch. Although the audience can learn from the drill, they can't master the skills as quickly as the colleagues who participated in the exercise. If the audience members daydream during the training, they learn nothing, and it is a waste of time.

Second, everyone learns at different speeds. Some colleagues learn faster, while others are slower and need more time to digest the knowledge. However, the traditional training mode is that the mentor teaches skills unilaterally. Out of the ten colleagues, only four of them may understand

the skills taught by the mentor. The other six colleagues have only a sketchy knowledge and do not master the skills. Therefore, when a new training session on other topics begins, the six colleagues, who are still stuck at the stage of being unfamiliar and unskilled, will be unable to make further improvements.

Third, when audience members and mentors openly comment on the colleagues who participated in the drill in front of other colleagues, some vulnerable colleagues will inevitably feel uneasy, which may affect their confidence when meeting clients.

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Chapter VIITraining

To solve the above problems, I introduced a training method called "revolving sushi". First of all, I will divide the various training content, such as self-introduction, introduction of the company, introduction of the team, how to understand each other's financial situation, how to deal with objection, how to respond to the request for rebates, and so on, into 64 small training modules, which may take 1 to 3 minutes each.

Every time I train colleagues, I will choose one of the modules. For example, how should we respond if the customer says that he has no money? All colleagues will stand in two rows, with one row of colleagues acting as customers, and the other as agents, and drills will be conducted with the person standing on the opposite side within two minutes.

Round 1

7.3 Revolving sushi After two minutes, all the colleagues move clockwise to face another colleague, and the colleague at the very end moved across to the opposite row, changing from the client to the agent, or from the agent to the client so that everyone would have a new co-worker to practise the drill.

Round 2

Everyone does the role-play again with the same module. When they have finished, everyone moves clockwise to conduct the same drill with a new participant. The whole process is like a revolving sushi belt, allowing everyone to switch opponents constantly.

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Chapter VIITraining

Round 3

The revolving continues until everyone has occupied all the positions in the two rows (as shown below).

Round 9

One advantage of this method is that every colleague can participate in the drill, and no one has the chance to indulge in idling or daydreaming. Another benefit is that when everyone is familiar with a situation after several rounds of practice, the colleagues would feel more relaxed and can talk at ease, and then everyone can naturally and fluently say what they want to say. The third benefit of this training process is that colleagues are not required to give their opinions or criticisms of others, so some sensitive colleagues would not get offended.

Some people may think that if no one evaluates a colleague’s performance, then the participants would not know their shortcomings and can’t make any progress. However, many people have a strong self-learning ability. After witnessing the role-playing done by different colleagues, and after everyone has played the role of both client and agent, they will always know who is performing better and also realise what their weakest link is. Based on these observations and self-evaluations, they can make corrections and improvements, which is better than being publicly criticised.

If they can practice the responses in different scenarios through the "revolving sushi" training, they will be able to respond naturally to whoever they are facing, and customers will feel that they are professional and reliable. When a customer objects, they can handle it with ease. The customer will have few reasons not to buy insurance from them; as a result, they will improve the success rate of signing policies.

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Chapter VIITraining

One of the most challenging things about training newcomers is that they join the team at all times. Take my team as an example – it has new colleagues joining every two to three days. The team won’t wait for a certain number of newcomers to start training. Therefore, many newcomers have to join the training courses midway. Unless their line manager takes the initiative to explain to them what is being taught, some newcomers without a knowledge base will often obtain a smattering of superficial knowledge from the learning modules.

Besides, everyone learns at different speeds. Some people pick up information faster, while others are slower at understanding what is taught. It is impossible to teach new skills and knowledge until everyone fully understands or masters what has been taught, which will delay the progress of colleagues who study faster. Therefore, you can ask your colleagues to learn the training content by themselves, and they can ask for help from their leader or senior fellows if there is anything that can’t be understood.

To solve the problem of colleagues learning at different speeds, I devised an e-Learning method. I made all the training materials into short films, PowerPoint presentations and text files, and then uploaded them to the cloud system so that the contents can be viewed online simply through a mobile phone.

7.4 Assessment system

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UTOPIA newcomer deepening course

New colleagues will then watch the videos and learn the knowledge in sequence. Colleagues can study on their own when they have the time, and the leader is responsible for assessing their results through questions and assignments. If the colleagues fail to pass the assessment, they have to continue studying the content of that particular topic until they have fully mastered the relevant knowledge and skills before progressing to other topics.

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Chapter VIITraining

2016/12 U Morning Drill Class FTutor : Winson

No. TASK Min Jasmine Gloria Kiki Carol Daniel Gigi Jesse

1 One minute self-introduction

2

Call friends for an appointment

(Not to specify the intention)

1

3

Call friends for an appointment

(to specify the intention)

4 Call referral 2

5 Warm-up dialogue at meeting 2

6 Promote AIA 2

7 Promote the team 2

8 Promote yourself 2

9 Fact-Finding 3

10 Family status

11 Fact-Finding 2

12 Financial status

13 Fact-Finding 2

14 Financial objectives 2

15 Fact-Finding 2

16 Financial management 4

: Upgrade to next level : Try next time


17 Request and confirm 2

18 Concept - Life Insurance 2

19 Product – E-Life 2 2

20 Product –Abundance Life 2 2

21Product – U select + charge (only life

insurance)2

22 WP simple concepts and benefits 2

23 Concept – Major disease insurance 2

24 Product – PCP 2 2

25 Product – SCP 5 5

26 Product – SCIP + Conversion 2

27Concept –

Hospitalisation insurance

2

28 Product – SGH2 + SMM 3

29 Exemption clauses, effective period 1

30 Product – CEOE 2

31 Product – CEO 3 3

32 Product – FL+CEO 3

33

Notification of health issues

Possible results of underwriting

2

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Chapter VIITraining


34 Giving notice of counter offer 2

35 Concept – Education fund 4

36Concept – Retirement insurance

2

37 Concept – Accident insurance 2

38 Product – Secure First 2

39 TransactionM Motivation story 2

40 TransactionI Substitute decision 1

41Transaction

L Small decision-related problem

1

42 TransactionRisk of no insurance 2

43 TransactionB Benefit 2

44 TransactionA Other advice 1

45

Step 1 of the transaction:

Introduce the purchase process

2

46

Step 2 of the transaction:

Introduce risk coverage

After-sales and claim services

2

47 Request a referral 1


48

Handling objections:I have no confidence in you as you are new

in the industry

2

49 Handling objections:I have no money 2

50Handling objections:

I will discuss with my family

2

51

Handling objections:I have an agent

already / I bought insurance already

2

52

Handling objections:My company has bought insurance

for me

2


I don't believe in insurance

2

54 Handling objections: I don't like AIA 2


I like to invest by myself!

2


Let’s talk about it later

2

57 Handling objections:I'll think about it 2

58 Handling objections:I don't think I need it 2

59

Handling objections:The dollar has

depreciated! / RMB has appreciated!

2

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Chapter VIITraining


60

Handling objections:I have no confidence in you as you are new

in the industry

2

61 Handling objections:I have no money 2


I will discuss with my family

2

63

Handling objections:I have an agent

already / I bought insurance already

2

64

Handling objections:My company has bought insurance

for me

2


I don't believe in insurance

1

The advantage of this method is that all new colleagues can flexibly determine their learning progress according to their ability and availability.

Also, it takes at least a year or more for new colleagues to complete the entire sales training. However, during the training period, they already start to meet customers. It is inevitable that they will encounter some unknown situations. For example, what should they do if a customer requests for a return of the commission? At this point, they can check the relevant knowledge using the online system and learn to deal with the situation by themselves. If they fail to do so, they can also consult the leader.

One thing to note in this training system is that the person responsible for supervision and assessment must be a person with an MDRT member or higher. Imagine the goal of a newcomer being trained is to qualify for MDRT membership or be an elite with a higher status, but if the assessor does not even qualify to join MDRT, he may not be able to teach the newcomer on how to surpass him, and the newcomers won’t have confidence in the mentor.

In fact, in addition to training new people, we must also train senior colleagues to become leaders. In other words, teaching them to build and manage teams by using this method.

Furthermore, colleagues need to hire a secretary to handle affairs after they are promoted, but they may not have the time or knowledge to train the secretary. They can also use the e-Learning method to teach a competent secretary, and that would lead to an improvement in work efficiency.

UTOPIA Secretary training course

UTOPIA newcomer deepening course

sample 2 - etpress€¦ · author’s profile mr. wave chow senior district director, ... economic...

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