My First Internal Wholesaler's Desk

Most wholesalers have an Internal Wholesaler (IW) that has become a vital piece of the business process and overall success of the region.

Sadly, from what I have seen over the years, there are wholesalers that just don’t understand how to leverage these valuable folks to maximize the success of the region.

It is for you that I offer this partial list of ways to get more out of your IW and develop a great relationship.

1. Give your IW a part of the business plan to complete. At the very least complete sections as a team.
2. Get together in the territory (preferred) or at the home office once per quarter.
3. When in the territory have the IW present – assuming they have goal to become an external wholesaler.
4. Set up calls once per week that are devoted to just the discussing the territory. These calls should cover both strategic and tactical issues. These calls will cover more ground than the calls that the external makes into the desk as they race around throughout the day.
5. Find out what the careers goals are for your IW.
6. Do NOT have them do administrative work to the extent you can avoid it. Most IWs are too talented and $50-$100k is far too much money for the firm to spend in that manner.
7. Unless your firm clearly expects this of IWs, do not make them your scheduler. Go hire a scheduler if you are not doing it yourself. In fact if you are a member of the LinkedIn Wholesaler Mastermind Group you have a discount available for 20% off scheduling – but you need to join that group to get it.
8. Give the IW a piece of the book to work. As an example give them all your ‘C’ advisors. Then give the IW a production goal for this group with an incentive to perform.
9. Find out what the personal goals are for your IW. Graduate degree? Having a family? Looking for love in all the wrong places? You work too closely with this person to only talk shop all the time.
10. Give your IW a piece of the budget. My IW used to have the budget for Trinkets and Trash – and if they went over I collected from them!
11. Coordinate all the product stories and sales ideas so that you are delivering a consistent message. Record your pitch and have your IW nail that presentation.
12. Hold your IW accountable – for their part of the business plan, for their piece of the budget, for hitting their nut in production.
13. Help get them promoted – to wherever in the firm they want to go. Marketing, Portfolio Management, Wholesaling; it doesn’t matter.
14. Treat your IW as a valued business partner with all of the courtesy and respect that is appropriate.

Those that follow these suggestions are already reaping the benefits of great personal and professional success.

Are you?

If you missed the post Wholesalers: What Style of Communicator is Your Sales Manager? it might be because you are not a member of Wholesaler Masterminds on LinkedIn. Why not join today?

Join the Wholesaler Masterminds coaching group and work with your peers and a professional coach to become the best wholesaler you can possibly be. Apply today.

flickr creditSimilar Posts:

• 7 Essential Wholesaling Skills Your Manager Wants You to Have
• The Other 8 Wholesaling Skills Your Manager Wants You to Have
• 24 Great Ideas Wholesalers Use to be More Productive…and Memorable
• 53 Great Questions Wholesalers Should Ask Advisors

Here’s the follow up to the 7 Essential Wholesaling Skills Your Manager Wants You to Have post.

In that post I said:

The survey findings were distilled down into two distinct categories. Those skills we deemed to be most critical indicators of success and secondary (though not much less important) skills.

While the following skills were rated as less critical on a scale of 1-10 than the attributes in the first article, it should be noted that these all came in very closely behind and are really no less important to the success of the great wholesaler.

Self Confidence – There is a fine line between self confidence and cocky. Think of it this way: cocky is self confidence gone bad.

Yes, underneath all the brash and brazen behavior of the cocky wholesaler there is some form of self confidence. It’s just being masked by this annoying facade of arrogance.

Conversely the self confident wholesaler has a confidence about them that is almost palpable. Kinda like, dare I say, Tiger Woods – before the 10 alleged mistresses?

Friendliness – Maybe this should be called Likability, or are they the same? Folks that have the ability to connect with others quickly, to find points of connection that lead to an immediate dialog, or start to gain trust right out of the gate make for great wholesalers.

Organization – When I managed wholesalers I had no tolerance for late sales reports, expense reports, etc.  My thought was, and is, if I am paying you in excess of $250k per year you can figure out how to get your administrative house in order.

Attention wholesalers: want to gain favor with your manager? Do your administrative work on time so he/she doesn’t have to nag you like an adolescent child.

Stress Tolerance/Deals with Change – This assessment of preferred wholesaler skills was done a number of years ago and I imagine that this attribute would have been on the ‘essentials’ list if managers were polled today.

That’s because wholesalers today are tested in ways that simply were unthinkable 3 years ago. Hostile brokers, dissatisfied shareholders/policy owners, and skeptical prospects all make for additional clicks of the stress meter to the right. Add in the rigors of travel, activity tracking, CRM requirements, the number of folks in line to take your job, downsizing, right-sizing, product changes, new marketing campaigns, a new CEO, a new sales manager, higher sales goals, less expense money and the stress-o-meter is past maxed out – it’s at 11.

Managers need wholesalers that work well under stress and can deal with change– and a ton of it.

Motivation to Change –– Do you take feedback well? What do you do with it? Great wholesalers are introspective and are looking for ways to up their game. They seek out feedback and they act on it.

Socially Adept – Just because you are a market (or marketing) genius does not mean you have the social skills to make it as a great wholesaler.

Did you hear the one about the wholesaler that popped Xanax before large events just to get through the whole event?

I knew this wholesaler.

Not socially adept.

No longer in the business.

Flexibility – Read this from the shorespeak newsletter archives: Gumby Never Pulled a Hamstring

Emotional Maturity – This list isn’t just about wholesalers or employees; it’s about how we all interact in the world. Not to get too zen (but I am from California…), the partial list of attributes of emotional maturity are:

• The ability to listen to others without passing judgment

• Knowing how to fight fair, to argue without making it personal

• Mastering the art of compromise

• To see, and consider, another person’s perspective

• To be able to express your feelings appropriately

• Taking responsibility for your actions and behaviors

• Maintaining perspective under trying circumstances

• Keeping your word and being dependable

• Having a sense of humor, including self–deprecating humor

So how do you self assess your skills on these 8 attributes, and the 7 from the prior post?

Where do you have room to grow or improve?

If you missed the post Wholesalers: What Style of Communicator is Your Sales Manager? it might be because you are not a member of Wholesaler Masterminds on LinkedIn. Why not join today?

Join the Wholesaler Masterminds coaching group and work with your peers and a professional coach to become the best wholesaler you can possibly be. Apply today.

flickr credit

Similar Posts:

• 7 Essential Wholesaling Skills Your Manager Wants You to Have
• 14 Guaranteed Ways to Achieve Success With Your Internal Wholesaler
• Wholesalers: What Style of Communicator is Your Sales Manager?
• Good News! I Got Fired and I’m Leaving Wholesaling

On a Wholesaler Masterminds call today the group and I were discussing the best ways to build a successful relationship with, and leverage the talents of, your immediate manager.

One participant suggested that in order to communicate most effectively with the manager a wholesaler should understand, and implement, the manager’s preferred style of communication.

The Live and In Person Manager (LIPM): While somewhat of a throw-back to days gone by, and obviously out of place in a fast moving world of instant communication, the LIPM only wants to have conversations face to face. They have less ability to connect via phone and almost no ability to connect via email. As a wholesaler this is hands down the hardest manager to communicate with .

The Live On the Phone Manager (LOPM): Managers in this category, like the one above, have not found a comfortable place with instant forms of communication and are infinitely more effective in a live phone discussion. This means that they may take longer to connect with you, depending on conflicting schedules.

Conversely you’ll often have interactions that go deeper than:

The Email or Text Addict Manager (ETAM): The ETAM gives you short blasts of 1-2 sentence texts that at first appear curt and impersonal. That said, the ETAM will likely be the first to respond. Although, you might need to decode the response - requiring a live conversation.

The Voice Mail Manager (VMM): Perhaps the easiest manager for the wholesaler on the go to communicate with as you don’t need super-human ‘read between the lines’ skills as the ETAM. You get to hear voice inflection, volume, pace and use those to add more texture to the communication.

Obviously there is no one style of communication that make for the ideal wholesaler/manager relationship and all four of these forms of communication have their appropriate place.

Yet often times by learning, acknowledging and utilizing your managers preferred style of communication you will develop better dialog, get issues resolved faster, and provide a more satisfying experience for both parties.

If this sounds too basic then why are so many wholesalers so frustrated with their manager’s communication?

The only place this post was available on LinkedIn was in the Wholesaler Masterminds Group. Have you joined? Have you told a friend?

flicker creditSimilar Posts:

• 7 Essential Wholesaling Skills Your Manager Wants You to Have
• The Other 8 Wholesaling Skills Your Manager Wants You to Have
• 24 Great Ideas Wholesalers Use to be More Productive…and Memorable
• Good News! I Got Fired and I’m Leaving Wholesaling

Ten years ago I asked an outside vendor to help me and my team put together an assessment that we might be able to use to pre-screen wholesalers at the point of the interview. What I wanted was something that was custom designed. While DISC and Myers Briggs are instructive, they are not specific to the craft of wholesaling.

The vendor undertook interviews with successful existing wholesalers that we employed as well as national sales managers and divisional sales managers within our firm.

The findings were distilled down into two distinct categories. Those skills we deemed to be most critical indicators of success and secondary (though not much less important) skills.

The seven critical skills sales managers want wholesalers to have are:

Work ethic: There’s a lot I can train someone to be. But I can’t train someone not to be lazy. No, not the couch potato, honey get me another beer lazy that you might be thinking of. Work ethic means you wake up most days ready to kill it. You want to see six appointments in the day and you only have five booked. Between appointments you are on the phone with reps. You feel guilty for taking a vacation [disclaimer: I am not advocating not taking time off but a little guilt never hurt] and work harder when you get back. You complete assigned tasks before they are due. You….you get the picture, right?

Self starter: A kissing cousin of work ethic, this means that you don’t wait for answers, processes, solutions to come to you. Rather, you figure them out. Frequently this manifests itself when, as an example, you think about a piece of technology or a piece of literature that you do not have and the competition does. The self starter figures out how to create a work around, or alternate solution. The rest of the folks bitch they they don’t have what they need to succeed.

Time management: If you have a copy of the 15 Sales Rules to Live (and Die) By you know that the number one rule is be on time, every time. And time management is even more. Your administrative reports are completed when (before?) they are due. You know how to efficiently schedule your travel within your loops. You make the time to clearly document your meeting in the CRM. Your office days are not reduced to a gigantic time suck.

Communication skills: Great wholesalers understand the art of 360 degree communication. This means they know how to effectively communicate with their boss, their peers and internal partners that do not have have the same position (or title, or seniority) in the firm. Have you experienced the guy/gal that is a sugar coated suck up when they speak to the boss and a raving bitch when they speak to a customer service rep? Don’t be that person!

This also means you are adept at the written word as well as the spoken word. Think internal emails are a place to skip spell check, write in all lower case, use shorthand [CUL8R]? You’re wrong.

Lastly, check your ability to articulate, enunciate, use pace, silence, volume and vocabulary to enhance your ability to communicate verbally.

Public speaking: Yes, I know you think you are a great speaker. Most wholesalers do. Some are right others. Others, how do I put this delicately, SUCK! Do yourself a favor and get a critical, non biased eye on your presentations. This means what your husband/wife or mom thinks does not count.

Self discipline: How many jobs in America give you almost complete autonomy, with company benefits, and allow you to earn north of $250k – at the age of 31? Well in exchange for that I expect wholesalers who know how carry themselves, That can handle their alcohol. That know how to respond to the CEO of broker dealer when they meet them. That know the rep top producer trip to Kona is not designed as their private, expense paid getaway. That always see and respect the line between client and friend.

Resilience/Tenacity: This is one of the hardest jobs there is. Wholesalers frequently get the short end of the rep stick. Performance sucks? Blame the wholesaler. Bad seminar turnout? Blame the wholesaler. Fight with your wife? Blame the wholesaler. And through it all great wholesalers just keep showing up, providing great ideas, building consultative relationships, demonstrating everyday why that rep/broker/agent/IMO can’t afford to do business without them.

Here’s my personal guarantee: you perfect these seven, and all of their permutations, and you will never be without a wholesaling gig again.

Have you joined Wholesaler Masterminds on LinkedIn? In the very near future it will be the ONLY LinkedIn group that I’ll post these articles to – and you wouldn’t want to miss one, right? Click here to apply (only wholesalers need do so) or go to LinkedIn and search groups for Wholesaler Masterminds.

If you’re a wholesaler with less than three years of experience I have a special message just for you.

Finally, have you contributed to the new book about wholesaling called I Carry the Bag?Similar Posts:

• The Other 8 Wholesaling Skills Your Manager Wants You to Have
• Wholesalers: What Style of Communicator is Your Sales Manager?
• Good News! I Got Fired and I’m Leaving Wholesaling
• 14 Guaranteed Ways to Achieve Success With Your Internal Wholesaler

Similar Posts:

• 24 Great Ideas Wholesalers Use to be More Productive…and Memorable
• How to Craft a Story and Spin It
• 7 Essential Wholesaling Skills Your Manager Wants You to Have
• 14 Guaranteed Ways to Achieve Success With Your Internal Wholesaler

If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it 100 times: wholesalers who partner with advisors (AE’s, agents, reps, etc.) are a valuable commodity.

Those that show up and throw up are a dime a dozen.

Where do you fit?

In order to assist you with becoming a consultative business partner to advisors, and elevate you out of the sea of wholesaler sameness, download the list of 53 Great Advisor Questions.

If you have questions to contribute PLEASE do so via the comments section.

Also, I’d like to have you join the NEW Wholesaler Mastermind Group on LinkedIn. It will soon become the ONLY LinkedIn group this FREE information will be posted to.

There is no obligation.

Just become a better wholesaler tomorrow than you are today.Similar Posts:

• 24 Great Ideas Wholesalers Use to be More Productive…and Memorable
• 14 Guaranteed Ways to Achieve Success With Your Internal Wholesaler
• Advanced Wholesaler Technique: The Benefits of Forward Scheduling
• Tell Me Where It Hurts

Some skills that wholesalers employ really separate the men from the boys, the posers from the superstars, the wheat from the……well you get the idea.

One of those advanced skills is Forward Scheduling.

Picture this sequence of events:

• You have great meeting with a high potential rep, for our purposes we’ll call him The Whale (TW). TW is in your Top 50 for 2010 and you have every intention of converting them from an occasional seller of your product, better than a one ticket wonder, to superstar producer status.

• During the meeting you are taking copious notes about where the opportunities lie for both product placement and how to contribute to The Whale’s overall business (no, I will not use the over-used ‘value-added’ because I’m boycotting that phrase).

• You now have a number of follow up items that needs to be completed for TW such as:
  • Putting TW’s existing fund grid through an analytics program to test your funds.
  • Running a hypothetical for an immediate income stream for a prospect TW will be seeing.
  • Getting information about the availability of a portfolio manager to conduct a call for TW’s 20 best clients.

• Before you leave the office you say to The Whale that in addition to promptly handling the items on the to do list that require immediate follow up, you would like to schedule the next visit to go through the fund grid and the associated analysis that you will run so you can talk through the results.

• You and The Whale are now scheduled for 4, 6 or 8 weeks out.

• You debrief the visit with your internal and give them the most pressing to do’s upon leaving TW’s office.

• You put your notes into SalesForce.com (or similar) and…

• You enter the dates of the next meeting in the forward schedule.

• Now it’s the internal wholesalers opportunity to leverage the benefits of the forward schedule:
  • Internal calls The Whale to follow up on the pressing to do’s from the meeting that just took place.
  • During the conversation the internal mentions to The Whale that they see the next appointment on the calendar and that they will be working on the analysis that the wholesaler promised, checking to see that The Whale doesn’t have any additional question or concerns.
  • Internal mentions to TW that they will be back in touch shortly before the next scheduled meeting with the external wholesaler to cover any additional agenda items that TW might like to add.

• A week before the scheduled appointment with The Whale you send an email to confirm the appointment. Make it short and sweet:

Whale,

Looking forward to the continuation of our discussion re your practice and how advancing the relationship with Foonman Funds adds to your 2010 bottom line.

As a reminder were meeting on Monday March 8^th at 10:00 AM. If there has been a change to your schedule please let me know as this time is reserved specifically for you.

If there is anything else that you would like me to be prepared to discuss to help you grow your business please let me know.

Regards,

World’s Best Wholesaler

To recap, the benefits of Forward Scheduling are:

• Less time spent scheduling, as a number of appointments with your best producers are preset via the last meeting.

• Tighter coordination with your internal partner.

• Keep your rotations/loops in good order.

• Maximize the potential of systems such as SalesForce.com. If your firm has no such system simply use a shared Google Calendar.

• Impress reps with your organization skills because most wholesalers simply are not organized.

• Reminds reps that your working on their practice and their agenda (mostly) vs. the dreaded “show up and throw up” that too many wholesalers practice.

• Less pressure to fill the calendar the week before a trip.

• Allow your internal partner to help “clear the weeds” before your next in person visit.

Feel free to add more benefits or suggestions about Forward Scheduling via the comment section below – it won’t hurt a bit!

Want to explore more techniques that will take your wholesaling practice from good to great? Join your peers and a professional coach for two hours of discussion every month about becoming the best wholesaler you can be.

Find out more about Wholesaler Masterminds today – it’s where the best get better.

If you are a wholesaler with less than three years of experience there is NEW group starting that’s designed just for you. Get details and watch a video message.

flickr creditSimilar Posts:

• 14 Guaranteed Ways to Achieve Success With Your Internal Wholesaler
• 24 Great Ideas Wholesalers Use to be More Productive…and Memorable
• 7 Essential Wholesaling Skills Your Manager Wants You to Have
• Are You a Wholesaling Pretender?

Some wholesalers can pick up the morning paper, read a headline or two, and run the entire day with a great story to tell every rep that they touch.

Some wholesalers haven’t a clue.

Watch a video lesson on how it’s done:

As a reminder, the six steps are:

1. Read the business page
2. What’s the hot story?
3. What does it mean for the economy?
4. What does it mean for investors?
5. What does it mean to the broker?
6. How can my firm, my product, or I help?

Similar Posts:

• 24 Great Ideas Wholesalers Use to be More Productive…and Memorable
• Tell Me Where It Hurts
• Are You a Wholesaling Pretender?
• 14 Guaranteed Ways to Achieve Success With Your Internal Wholesaler

So the Monday after Christmas I had a private coaching call scheduled with one of my Wholesaler Mastermind participants. I was looking forward to this call as “Hal” (not their real name) is a newer wholesaler (less than three years experience) and has worked at a firm that has had senior level management shake-ups and dubious local management support. I knew from our group calls that there was a great deal to discuss and felt confident that I could make a difference.

As we got past the holiday niceties and into the purpose of the call, Hal takes a sharp left turn and explains that he had received a call just prior to Christmas and was no longer with the firm. In addition he explained that a huge weight felt like it had been removed from his shoulder and that he was done with wholesaling.

As a devotee of our profession I felt a bit deflated and disappointed.

Hal explained that after trying to get airtime with brokers for a less well known company, enduring three strategy shifts at the firm courtesy of multiple C-suite changes, and dealing with a Divisional Manager who, in his opinion, was clueless, he was done with the whole financial services wholesaling thing.

And then I started thinking about the fact that it is true enough that not everyone is cut out for this line of work. After all, the hours are longer than long, the role we play in brokers lives’ ranges from teacher to minister to psudo friend and the job is flat out hard.

Unfortunately Hal had those other headwinds that made it even harder.

Working for a boss that adds no value to your career evolution is certainly frustrating. Wholesalers should have a manager that makes their jobs easier and helps propel their careers.

Watching the guy in the first chair at the firm change multiple times in only five years is indeed frustrating. Getting on board with a new set of directives, strategies and tactics can be tiring.

Hawking a product that few are familiar with has great challenges. And yet not every wholesaler gets to show a name brand product – and that name brand product may not even be the best solution.

Hal did try. I have to give him that. He reached out and sought coaching – and paid for it out of pocket. That alone speaks volumes to me.

Yet I can’t help but believe that Hal made a mistake.

I know it’s his career to manage but won’t the challenges be the same in Pharmaceutical sales as an example?

It’s another highly regulated industry with razor thin margins.

Sales managers in that industry are, after all, still sales managers.

Your drug vs. the other firms’ drug.

Great doctors to call on and doctors and you would like to report for malpractice.

Wholesaling is one of the truly great professions. While not for everyone, it has a great combination of ‘assisted entrepreneurialism’, extraordinary earning opportunity, and the ability to make a difference in the lives of those that use our products.

Did Hal make a mistake by leaving our business?

That’s Hal’s question to answer.

As for me, I’m now motivated to start a 3rd Mastermind group that is geared only towards wholesalers with less than three years of experience.

Click here to learn more.

flickr creditSimilar Posts:

• Are You a Wholesaling Pretender?
• The Other 8 Wholesaling Skills Your Manager Wants You to Have
• 7 Essential Wholesaling Skills Your Manager Wants You to Have
• 14 Guaranteed Ways to Achieve Success With Your Internal Wholesaler

Great wholesalers have the right tools of the trade.

With a limited number of shopping days winding down quickly you may not get these items under your tree or in your stocking. That’s o.k. because these ten items that I use all the time for travel, efficiency and fun are so useful (and some have no cost) that you will want to get them for yourself!

Since these items are must haves for the cutting edge wholesaler, I have provided links directly to each product for further investigation and purchase if you wish.

1. Logitech 2.4 GHz Cordless Presenter – the model that I have, has been upgraded to the newer Logitech Professional Presenter R800. Either way this is a must have for the professional presenter. Why?

• It has an LCD display with timer and silent vibrating alerts to help you manage time without watching the clock. Admit it. Most wholesalers do not know how to deliver a presentation in the time allotted. Rather than looking at your watch you can set the timer and get a subtle reminder that you need to start closing.
• Up to 100-foot wireless range for freedom to move and mingle around the room. So depending on how big the crowd is you don’t need to be concerned you’ll go out of range. And besides, you don’t ever present from behind the podium, ever, do you?
• Intuitive controls for easy, one-touch slideshow navigation which is important because when a presentation includes the presenter fumbling with the remote controls I get concerned about the quality of the talk.
• You have 5 minutes to set up after the last speaker and you have 2 minutes to clear out when you are done. Plug-and-play USB wireless receiver stores inside the presenter for easy set up and pack up. Carrying case included.

__________

2. In the olden days (you know, before electricity) we did not have GPSs. I remember riding with a fellow wholesaler in NY one time and he had a FULL SIZE Auto Club map spread over the steering wheel and into the passenger seat where I was sitting. I thought I was going to die. Fortunately today there are GPSs and they’re cheap!

The Magellan Maestro 4700 4.7-Inch Widescreen Bluetooth Portable GPS Navigator is the latest from a company that makes great units. This model makes the one that I own look prehistoric.

• Exclusive OneTouch Favorites Menu
• Exclusive AAA TourBook Guide
• 4.7-inch Touch Screen
• 6 Million Points of Interest (POI)
• Voice Command
• Highway Lane Assist
• Bluetooth Compatibility
• Predictive Traffic – it automatically analyzes past traffic patterns when creating a route to help you avoid known delays, saving you time and making your journey less stressful. Choose to stay on your current route or go with the new less-traveled route.
• Highway Exit POI Search -search for gas stations, restaurants, hotels, and more near upcoming highway exits.
• Multi-destination Routing -plan a trip within a city with multiple stops in the order you want, or have it optimized for the most efficient route.
• Find your Car – can’t remember which rental car you have this week? Easily remember the location of your car in parking lots, airports, malls, universities, amusement parks, or stadiums. When your day is done, the Maestro 4700 will automatically guide you to your car.

__________

3. If you really want to up your presentation game, and great wholesalers do, then you need to listen back to a presentation and critique it for yourself. That means you need to record it and the Olympus DS-40 Digital Voice Recorder is the right tool to use.  The features that I like are:

• Professional-grade digital voice recorder with high-sensitivity microphone. Sometimes the mic picks up too much room noise which is why I also recommend the Olympus ME-15 Microphone which clips onto your lapel and offers clear and discreet recording.
• With up to 136 hours of recording time and a 30-hour battery life you don’t need to be to concerned that you’ll run out of juice. Plus it operates on 2 AAA batteries.
• Because you can connect to a PC to transfer files you can listen from your office in big speaker sound. If you are really feeling geeky you can edit your talk with Audacity, a free audio editing program.

__________

4. Sometimes I want to pipe my iPod music into an external speaker when I am on the road. Sometimes I need to play an audio track for an audience and have learned (the hard way) not to rely on the hotel or conference center’s audio system. The Altec Lansing iM-237 Orbit Ultraportable Speaker does an amazing job. I have used it in a room of 50 people and nobody complained that they couldn’t here the audio loud and clear.  A few features include:

• Compatibility: all MP3 players; iPod mini; iPod nano 1G, 2G, 3G, 4G; iPod classic 1G, 2G, 3G, 4G, 5G, 5.5G, 6G; iPod touch 1G, 2G
• Conveniently connects to any music player with 3.5-mm connection and music phones with 2.5-mm adapter (not included)
• Compact size and battery power for maximum portability; LED indicates power on/off and battery status

__________

5. Next time you are hosting an event (golf, bowling, skeet shooting, etc.) why not capture the fun with a really simple to use video camera? I use the Flip UltraHD Camcorder and it delivers great quality. Oh, and it is stupid simple to use which is important as I don’t have the patience to wade through a 200 page users guide. In fact the video on the home page of this site was shot with the non-HD version of this video camera.The features I find so useful are:

• Easy-to-use, pocket-sized HD camcorder featuring one-touch recording and digital zoom
• Simple user interface lets you start capturing video just seconds after powering on
• Captures 120 minutes of HD video on 8 GB of built-in memory; no tapes or additional memory cards required
• Convenient flip-out USB arm plugs directly into your PC or Mac to launch FlipShare software
• Built-in FlipShare software lets you easily email videos, edit individual clips, make custom movies, capture still photos from video

__________

6. You ‘carry the bag” but do you carry THE bag?  You have a Tumi briefcase right? I have two. One is 15 years old made of leather and has been refurbished twice. The other is made of ballistic nylon and will not die. All other computer bags, backpacks (perish the thought), and messenger bags from other manufacturers are pretenders.

Get a TUMI….period.

__________

7. For years I held off. I thought that the cost could not be worth it. “I’ll use the headphones from my iPod”, I thought. Geez, was I being cheap or misinformed or both? Now I don’t travel without my Bose® QuietComfort® 15 Acoustic Noise Cancelling® Headphones. First off all when you wear these on the plane you are sending the important “I don’t really feel like chit chatting” message to Mrs. Farquart in the next seat. Secondly the sound quality is stunning – it even makes my CDs from the 80’s sound unbelievable.  Lastly, the noise canceling technology really works, and works great.

__________

8. Have you ever tried to find something on your computer and searched for hours? You’re looking for that one document, that one photo and it’s just not there. You vaguely remember the name of it, but hell it’s been 5 years since you looked at it so you are not sure. You could use the built in search feature in Windows, and I’m guessing you would still be lost because it sucks. Or you could use X1 Email Search, Application Search and eDiscovery.Their site says:

No other product interactively searches across email, attachments, contacts, and files from a single interface. With X1, you just don’t search; you find exactly what you are looking for in seconds.

and it is true. Download a trial for free – you’ll be buying it for a whopping $50 once you experience it.

__________

9. Do you use products from Google besides their search engine? I do. A lot. One that gets my vote is Google Voice.

When you sign up for Google Voice using your own number you get these features:

• Google voicemail: voicemail like email
• Voicemail transcription: read what your voicemail says
• Custom greetings: vary voicemail greetings by caller
• International calling: low cost calls to the world
• Notifications: read voicemail messages via email or SMS
• Share voicemails: forward, embed, or download voicemails

If you choose to use a Google Voice phone number like I do you get these features:

• One number: a single phone number that rings all your phones
• Free SMS: send, receive & store text messages online
• Block calls: send unwanted callers straight to voicemail
• Record calls: record phone calls and store them online
• Conference calls: join several people into a single call
• Screen callers: hear who is calling before you pick up

Best of all this is a free service.

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10. One of the best gifts you can give yourself is the gift of intelligence. In this case I refer to business intelligence. After all, the great wholesaler is a ’student of the business’. They are able to consume vast amounts information about the economy, markets, clients, prospects, and the competition – and they do it in the easiest and fastest way possible.

They use Google Reader.

For more information about using RSS (Really Simple Syndication) and Google Reader read these posts:

24 Reasons to Use RSS to Grow Your Business

You Don’t Need Compliance Approval to Listen

Then watch this video (use the password ‘learn’) to learn how to set it up:

Learn Google Reader

Don’t wait for the holiday season, your next birthday or other special occasion. Invest in your business with these tools – you’ll see your productivity go up and your stress go down.

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Get 1/2 off your third month of membership!
Simply join our existing Wholesaler Mastermind group BEFORE 1/15/09
and prepay for 3 months.
You’ll pay only $372.50 for three full months
plus you get a FREE private one on one session.Similar Posts:

• 24 Great Ideas Wholesalers Use to be More Productive…and Memorable
• Tell Me Where It Hurts
• Advanced Wholesaler Technique: The Benefits of Forward Scheduling
• 7 Essential Wholesaling Skills Your Manager Wants You to Have