My Best Practices: 16 Insights From A Recently Promoted Internal Wholesaler

It’s both good news and bad news.

Good news: your amazing, LONG tenured, successful internal partner just got promoted to external.

Bad news: your amazing, LONG tenured, successful internal partner just got promoted to external.

Recently, a coaching client was navigating this transition in their territory.

He asked his soon-to-be-departed partner for their best pearls of wisdom that he could pass along to his new internal partner.

These 16 insights are presented as written, with only light editing for clarity.

Never say no unless you’re certain.
Never say yes unless you’re certain.
Advisors would rather hear you say you don’t know and will get back to them, than get the wrong answer.
You’re at the goal, just kick the ball. Ask for the appointment with your external partner.
If an email comes in and you’re cc’d, and you know your external partner is in an appointment, respond. Unless it’s something only s/he can answer – but it doesn’t hurt to let the person know s/he’s unavailable.
Ask questions, don’t just take orders for hypos/illustrations. More times than not, the advisor doesn’t even know what they’re looking for.
If someone sends you a complex email, or elaborate hypo/illustration request, call them with questions instead of responding with a book of follow up questions.
Your first few weeks are the perfect time to act “ignorant.” You’ll be forgiven. Even if you absolutely know who the assistant is, or what they’re personal interests are, or where they position products like ours. “I was reading through the notes that were under your profile, and I looked at your company site before I called you. It says that “Jane” is your assistant and she’s really the one that profiles annuity companies for you. Is that still the case?”
Admit to your mistakes. Talk to your external partner about them first. If you made a mistake, be prepared to fall on the sword. It might upset an advisor but they’ll appreciate your straightforwardness.
WRITE EVERYTHING DOWN!!!!! You’ll be multitasking very often. It’s been proven that multitasking is the least efficient way of getting things done. When I was overwhelmed, I liked to take out a fresh page of paper, and write down a list of exactly what I needed to get done. Start at the top and do one at a time until they are fully complete.
You’ll be absolutely dead, and then get 5 voicemails and 10 emails in 7-minutes.
CC your external partner on everything until s/he tells you that you don’t need to. They’ll do the same to you.
“Opportunities” are your money. Keep up on those. Enter them as soon as you wrapped the call and emailed the advisor with the hypo/illustration.
Make your pitches your own. Most sales ideas are 99% the same across all the wholesalers, but we all say it 1% different. If it seems like it relates to you on a personal level and that you’re passionate about it, it resonates.
When you’re thinking about pitching a new sales idea, run it by your external partner and other internals. Then, pick an advisor that doesn’t do business, and you know always picks up the phone and will listen. That way you can pitch it to someone that wasn’t expecting it, and if you fall on your face, no one cares.
Learn and live the PVP!!!!!! You will totally differentiate yourself quickly.