The Two Essential Ingredients of Success

By: Erin Tamberella

Date: 5/15/07

What makes one person more successful than another? It’s not education or money or contacts or good looks or even personality. When someone is more successful than we are, many times we’d like to simply explain it away with one those factors. However, I believe you can have all those things but if you don’t have the two essential ingredients of success, your success will be fleeting at best. Likewise, regardless of the obstacles that stand in your way, if you do have the two essential ingredients, your success if virtually guaranteed. They are as simple as they are powerful and to approach your true potential, you must have both. They are activity and belief.

“You can’t build a reputation on what you’re going to do.” —-Henry Ford

Goal setting is big in the brokerage business. We have business plans and marketing plans, production goals and asset goals. However, the weak link is even when financial advisors know what they want to accomplish, many never really think through what it’s going to take to get there. Consequently, they never make an informed choice as to whether they’re willing to pay that price.

There are two irrefutable laws of success. First, in order to get there, you must pay the price in full. You have to sow before you can reap. Much of the frustration that accompanies any quest towards a goal can be traced back to an attempt to violate this principle. The second law is you have to pay the full price in advance. There are no exceptions and that price is measured in activity.

Your level of production today is a reflection of the price you’ve paid in activity up until now. The level of production you accomplish in the future is a reflection of the price you’re willing to pay going forward.

Most everyone has a natural tendency to want to follow the path of least resistance and towards immediate gratification. Most people allow their desire for what’s easy and convenient to determine their actions. The difference between the successful and the marginal is that the successful do the things the marginal don’t like to do, even though those things are the same for both. Successful people do them anyway because they realize that is the price they must pay in full and in advance.

Within your goal lies the power to overcome these natural tendencies of human nature. The bigger your goal and the more intensely you want it and believe you can get it, the more likely you are to activate your powers of self-discipline and take the necessary actions to get there. Your limits to achieving any goal are measured solely by your desire. How badly do you want it? Are you willing to pay the price upfront and in full?

You can increase your level of activity by either affecting the quality or the quantity of your activity or some combination of both. In 1928, Sales and Marketing Management magazine did an extensive study on salespeople and how they spent their time. They found that the average salesperson actually spent only 20% of their time or about 1 ½ hours per day on the actual sales process. What followed were exhaustive programs on time efficiency, improved training programs and increased supervision.

In 1988, some 60 years later, the magazine conducted the study again and discovered that salespeople still spent only 20% of their time on the actual sales process. Another study conducted by Columbia University found that salespeople on average make their first sales call at 11 AM and the last sales call of the day is made before 3:30 PM. Most of the other time is spent warming up, shuffling papers, traveling, socializing, ect.

Analyze how you actually spend your time. Don’t rely on how you think you spend your time because often the two are very different. You can’t begin to set goals for improving the quantity of your activity until you have an accurate baseline from which to measure.

The quality of your activity can be improved by simply asking yourself two questions throughout the day before you begin any task. Is this the very best use of my time right now? Is this activity bringing me closer to my goal or further away from my goal? This last question forces you to keep your goal front and center at all times which serves to remind you of why exactly you’re doing what you’re doing and paying the price in full and upfront.

Action Challenges For Raising Quality & Quantity of Activity:

1. For one work week, without deviating from your usual routine, record what you actually do every three hours. This process will take a total of about 10 minutes a day and what you discover will be the starting point for raising your activity level. In all likelihood, it will also shock you.
2. Resolve in week 2 to eliminate 30 minutes of unproductive time and replace it with prospecting or selling time. You know you have at least 30 minutes of unproductive time a day. Find it and work all the time you work. This alone can dramatically improve your activity level. Continue this process each week until you can find no more unproductive time.
3. Ask yourself the two magic questions continually throughout your day:

• Is this the very best use of my time right now?
• Is this activity bringing me closer to my goal or further away from my goal?
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If you are diligent with asking yourself these two questions and adjusting your actions accordingly, you are virtually guaranteed success.

“If you believe that you can do a thing, or if you believe you cannot, in either case, you are right.” —Henry Ford

Your beliefs set you up for either success or failure. Successful financial advisors condition their thoughts and beliefs as well as their habits. Whatever you truly believe–not what you tell others, but rather what you tell yourself becomes your reality. In fact, your beliefs act as a sort of censor, causing you to ignore or reject information that’s inconsistent with them. For example, you have certain beliefs about how well-organized you are or how much production you’re capable of doing and you tend to always act in a manner consistent with those beliefs. It’s very difficult to rise much higher than what you believe is possible in any area.

What do you truly believe is possible for your production, your assets, your prospecting, your business? The first step in changing your belief in any of these areas is to begin thinking in terms of how instead of whether. If you can start thinking about how you’re going to accomplish your goal and at the same time refusing to think in terms of whether it’s possible, your beliefs begin to shift.

If you constantly think in terms of how you can get what you want, your actions will begin to change to support what you focus on. It will become your own self-fulfilling prophesy. Diligently keep your mind on what you do want and the person you want to become rather than on what you don’t want. The mind can only hold one thought at a time so make a habit of immediately replacing the negative or self-limiting thoughts with positive ones.

Another way to build belief is to formulate a belief statement. It should be positive, first person and present tense, no longer than one or two sentences. What is it within you that if unleashed would guarantee your success? That is your belief statement. Memorize it and repeat it to yourself when things are going well, when they’re not going well, when you’re distracted, when you’re depressed, when you’re happy—all the time. This is your success mantra and each time you say it, you’re building belief.

Action Challenges For Building Belief:

1. Determine what your current beliefs are concerning your business. Be brutally honest with yourself. Decide what you’d like them to be. Replace any negative or self-limiting thought with a positive one for 5 days and be amazed at the difference in you at the end of 5 days.
2. Formulate a belief statement. Repeat it to yourself throughout the day.
3. Rate your belief on a scale of 1 to 10. Determine what it would take to raise that by one or two points over the next month and then do that.
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The more you build your belief in what you want for your business and single-mindedly focus on that until it’s very real to you, the more your actions will begin to follow. It’s a cause and effect relationship. Your thoughts and beliefs are the causes and your actions are the effect. Success is the final outcome.

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