By Helen Thompson
When we first started talking to Bill Barbee, a Nationwide agent, about what makes him successful and he started talking about mentor relationships, we thought he was talking about being the person mentored. But don’t let the former NAIFA-San Fernando Valley (Calif.) president’s youthful visage and demeanor fool you: Barbee has more than 25 years’ experience, first as a business consultant and then as an agent, and regularly works with younger advisors.
Barbee credits his process of mentoring younger agents through joint sales work as a crucial component to his success. “When you have two sets of ears listening to people, you’re able to go farther than what the case immediately calls for,” says Barbee.
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Over the long term, these relationships can grow into mutual partnerships. |
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Active listening
Mentor relationships can take many forms, and doing joint work is just one of them. You might choose joint work as a good way to gain experience and get an ongoing critique of your sales process. “There’s an active listening process going on, and it can be tricky,” says Barbee. “Both advisors must be able and willing to listen to one another as well as to the client.”
Say, for instance, you’re a financial planner who’s reasonably comfortable with the wealth-accumulation phase of retirement planning, but you have a client who has decided to retire early and wants to come up with a retirement-income strategy. That’s not something you’ve done before, but you know it’s an up-and-coming area that you should be dialed in to. The mentor-colleague relationship gives you an opportunity to work alongside someone with experience in that area. Here’s a script from Barbee you could use to help introduce the colleague to the client:
“Hi, Mr. X. I’ve brought along my colleague, Joe, today, because Joe is an expert in retirement-income management, and he’s been doing this for 15 years. Joe’s seen it all, and we’re looking forward to getting you on track for your retirement.”
On the other hand, you might be a brand new agent and not have established relationships with clients. Joint work might then take the form of a senior advisor introducing you to clients. Clients may be put off, however, if they feel like they’re being shifted aside for a “junior” colleague. So Barbee suggests using an “added value” approach, with something like this from the senior advisor:
“This is my associate, Susan. She’s joining us because she’s interested in specializing in this kind of work. We’re thrilled to have her join our team because she has tremendous potential, and her solutions are amazing. She can really help us on this solution.”
Double the solutions
If you want to do joint work, you’ll need to set up a compensation structure before you move forward. “Whether it’s 50/50, 60/40, or 70/30 really depends on the work you’re doing,” says Barbee. “What matters is that you have it in place, and an agreement on what sort of feedback you’ll get from the other advisor.”
Barbee’s relationships revolve around that active listening process he mentioned earlier, being on the lookout for signals that might mean he needs to rescue or redirect. “The most common mistake I see is assuming the solution before you’ve really listened to the problem,” he says. “I learned that myself after tripping up hundreds of times, and it wasn’t until I went out and got an objective mentor that I learned what I was doing wrong.”
A relationship that can grow
Over the long term, these relationships can grow into mutual partnerships. As you become more experienced, you can start to specialize and become the senior advisor’s go-to person on a particular area of expertise. Or, you can set up your own practice, but retain the senior advisor as your specialist. “My ideal practice would be a team of specialists, not unlike a law practice,” says Barbee. “Look for mentors who are interested in the potential for long-term partnerships, because they will treat you like a true partner from the start.”
Advisors who are approaching their own retirement may make ideal candidates for joint work mentorships. As a younger advisor, Barbee spent several years working with a 73-year-old agent, and enjoyed the complementary feedback they exchanged. “I identified problems that he missed, and he taught me a lot,” says Barbee. “I’d go out expecting to sell a term policy for $500 and come back with a $50,000 premium in life insurance with a disability policy on the side, with his help.”
July 2007
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