Monday, February 18, 2013

Brother Love’s Traveling Salvation Show, the Life Insurance version


The following is a real advertisement run in several insurance industry journals and promoted via email to licensed agents:

And now, for the first time ever on the planet, this amazing system is available for use; completely systemized, and ready to sell monster amounts of life insurance almost automatically for a few select life insurance agents.

This system is unlike any other ever created in that it has the ability to create large sales forces of enthusiastic clients that will eagerly and consistently give you referrals, encouraging their friends and family who qualify to seek you out and ask you to sell them life insurance.

No one else in our industry knows how to do this or knows that this system even exists.

This IS NOT fantasy.

It is reality. I've created the ultimate "easy button" for life insurance agents.

No more begging for business.

No more multiple closes.

No more attorneys or accountants killing deals.

No more tough and ugly prospecting. Instead, you will have eager, interested prospective clients calling you, asking you to complete a life insurance application for them.

ATTENTION: Discounting what I'm about to tell you could be one of the costliest mistakes of your financial services career. Before you finish this letter, you'll know beyond any doubt that what I'm saying is true and can instantly transform the way you do business, allowing you to quickly and easily reach the ranks of Millionaire Advisor at ZERO risk to you.

I'm allowing a limited number of advisors in your area to preview and license this system, and because this system is so powerful and so easy to use, the results are fully guaranteed. (Qualifying life insurance agents and advisors can license this system at no net cost to them. Complete details of this unmatched guarantee are covered completely at a free preview and business building seminar. You'll receive $2,308.95 in free gifts just for attending.)  (END of advertisement)

I have maintained my registrations and licenses in the Financial Services industry, but that has been to become an advocate to clients not an advisor, agent or representative. As an advocate I seek the best interests of those I serve. Above please see what has happened to a once proud and meaningful industry. The entire Life Insurance industry is at risk due to gimmicks and tricks like the above fore mentioned. The industry has no one but themselves to blame. I research over 14 industry periodicals monthly and can tell you that these so called educational and industry promoting publications are all guilty of taking advertising revenues from predators who offer so called silver bullet marketing scams to unsuspecting agents. There is more money being made selling useless information then there is in actually serving the needs of clients. If there was room here I would post for you the postcard this organization uses to lure agents into their game. Needless to say it is done with the allure of sex. Imagine in a professional field such as impacting people’s FINANCIAL well being, we have to be subjected to the same kind of marketing that was once used in Times Square to promote peep show palaces. Not exactly what I would call professional. Of course as you are not licensed or in the industry it has no concern for you, right? Wrong, over the coming days I will be writing a series on annuities, life insurance and other very important financial tools that you need to be aware of. In this series I will expose the realities and truths of this important vehicles and I will also expose the myths and sales manipulations you must avoid. (MOST IMPORTANTLY I WILL NOT BE SELLING YOU ANY PRODUCTS!) That is why I gave you a simple display of what agents in the industry are being taught. Of course you must believe that insurance companies and the industry as a whole doesn’t educate their agents this way, unfortunately as they take the advertising revenues and allow this to be pitched to the agents, they are culpable in this gimmick driven environment. Let me say right up front that all of this is TOTALLY legal and allowable, now as to whether it is moral and ethical is a totally debatable issue. I want to educate you on the importance and the realities of these financial tools and help insulate you and inoculate you against the manipulative techniques and myth pitches out there. Send you family, friends and associates to this blog so they can get the real scoop on financial services.

 

Monday, February 11, 2013

Psychological Triggers Exposed


So far we have discussed the normalcy bias, the silver bullet syndrome and the dangers of conformity. These diverse discussions all fit together in forming a puzzle of psychological triggers. The big picture can come together when you have all the pieces starting to fit together.

Earl Nightingale in his classic audio series “Lead the Field” told a story that fits this best.

“One day, a man was watching a professional football game on television. His five-year old son kept bothering him. So the man tore out a page of the Sunday paper. It was a full page airline ad that showed a picture of the world – the planet Earth as seen from space. He tore up the page into a dozen pieces and gave them to his son. He said to him, “Here, put this picture together with this cellophane tape, and show Daddy how smart you are.” He then went back to watching his football game. In a surprising short time, the youngster had taped the picture back together. It wasn’t very neat, but it was a very good job, indeed, for one so young. “Hey, that’s amazing!” the father said. “How did you put the world together so quickly?” The little boy said, “There was a picture of a man on the other side. I just put man together, and then the world was all together.”

The youngster was no doubt surprised by the big, warm hug he got. “That’s right, son,” the father said. “When the man is altogether, his world is altogether, too.”

Becoming aware of how the big picture comes together is a key component in making smart decisions about money. The small pieces that are torn apart are psychological triggers that come together to form the big picture. The sense that everything will return to “normal” (normalcy bias) is tied to the overwhelming hope that everything will work out well (the silver bullet syndrome), which leads directly into the complacency of conformity. It is the end result of conformity that leads investors running like lemmings toward a cliff.

These psychological triggers are ingrained in an individual’s thinking process. Napoleon Hill discussed this in terms such as accurate thinking, critical thinking and straight thinking. Hill, spoke in terms of rarity when discussing this form of thinking. Let’s briefly look at what Hill had written about “straight thinking.”

“Two great forces are working in the minds of all men to make them what they are. One is social heredity, and the other is physical heredity.

Physical heredity is the law of nature through which the sum and substance of all characteristics, traits and physical aspects of your ancestors, through the ages, have been handed on to you. You are unavoidably a product of all your ancestors.

Social heredity consists of every influence with which you will come in contact, from the time you reach a state of consciousness until you die. Your mother’s and father’s influence, your education, the conversations you listen to, religious influences, political ideas, the newspapers you read, the shows you see – they all have and will help to make you what you are. They are your social inheritance. Very few persons have what it takes to pull away from these and do some independent, accurate thinking for themselves. A few cast off their social inheritance and dare to be different and individualistic. When this happens, the world has an Edison, a Ford, a Thomas Paine, an Ingersoll or a Jonas Salk. But the vast majority of people allow themselves to become victims of social heredity. This is why straight thinking is such a rarity.”  (Source: PMA Science of Success Course. Educational Edition. 1961. Pgs. 504 & 505

Independent, accurate thinking is the absolute benchmark for making smart decisions about money. The inoculation and insulation from scams, fraud and predatory sales tactics direct require you to learn how to become independent and accurate in your thinking process. The reality of victimization is that people are unaware of the natural bias they have formed toward conformity and the lack of independence in their thinking process. A major part of this redundant vicious cycle is the normalcy bias, the silver bullet syndrome and the ease of conformity.

 Karl Schilling
321-245-1445 O 321-947-3220 C
Skype:karl.schilling5
 

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

When Too Many Think Alike




"As a general rule, it is foolish to do just what other people are doing, because there are almost sure to be too many people doing the same thing."
   -- William Stanley Jevons (1835-1882)
One of the sure-fire ways to financial failure is conformity. There is nothing more damaging then following the crowd. For the most part the crowd is listening to someone else who is listening to the crowd. It is a vicious cycle that ends with a death spiral.
The economic climate we now live in is a highly evolutionary vehicle. Gone are the ties to the past and the trends that were in existence for the last 100 years. This is not a bump in the road which ends with everything happily and comfortably returning to “normal”; there is a new normal being created. It is a source of dramatic change with new rules and new patterns and trends.
The simple facts are those so-called experts are out of their depth as they have now become novices along with everyone else in this new age of geo-political driven economic events. The financial markets are being re-created and this requires all investors and consumers to become counter-intuitive in their thought processes. The financial decision making process that may have served you well in the past has been made meaningless into the future.
There are many dangerous myths built into your financial decision making process, we already covered the normalcy bias and the magic silver bullet syndrome, now you must confront the conformity of “everything old will be new again.”
"In speculation, as in most other things, one individual derives confidence from another. Such a one purchases or sells, not because he has had any really accurate information...but because some else has done so before him"
-- J.R. McCulloch 1830
The following is a story that best clarifies what is happening in the financial markets today:
Everyone has had a taste of success. The explanation for it all is "the world is awash in liquidity". Everyone is also feeling rather complacent & secure. It reminds one of the Red Indians....
"It was autumn, and the Red Indians on the remote reservation asked their new Chief if the winter was going to be cold or mild. Since he was a Red Indian Chief in a modern society, he had never been taught the old secrets, and when he looked at the sky, he couldn't tell what the weather was going to be. Nevertheless, to be on the safe side, he replied to his tribe that the winter was indeed going to be cold and that the members of the village should collect wood to be prepared. But also being a practical leader, after several days he got an idea.
He went to the phone booth, called the National Weather Service and asked "Is the coming winter going to be cold?" "It looks like this winter is going to be quite cold indeed," the meteorologist at the weather service responded. So the Chief went back to his people and told them to collect even more wood in order to be prepared. A week later, he called the National Weather Service again. "Is it going to be a very cold winter?" "Yes," the man at National Weather Service again replied, "It's definitely going to be a very cold winter."
The Chief again went back to his people and ordered them to collect every scrap of wood they could find. Two weeks later, he called the National Weather Service again.
"Are you absolutely sure that the winter is going to be very cold?" "Absolutely," the man replied. "It's going to be one of the coldest winters ever."
 
"How can you be so sure?" the Chief asked.
The weatherman replied, "The Red Indians are collecting wood like crazy."
Conformity in financial decisions leads to calamity!
 And, so the question is are you following “Red Indians” in the financial markets?

Karl Schilling
The Advocacy Network
321-250-1445 O
321-947-3220 C
Skype: karl.schilling5