It’s always exciting when I see a new agent in any company, come out of the gates, and hit numbers that exceed some of the top veterans in their fields. It gets the competitive juices flowing and it inspires other new agents that they can achieve beyond their expectations.
So how do new agents perform at these levels?  They obviously don’t know the products as well as the vets.  They can’t have better leads.  They don’t know all the intricacies of the sales cycle, so what is it?
I’ll always argue that the top sales people will sell at a high level due to their conviction or “belief,” in the product or service that they’re offering.  In my industry of Cancer and catastrophic insurance, it didn’t surprise me at all when one of my best friends in the industry started selling at a high level, especially since his sister had passed from Cancer just a year before.  Another close friend came on board and broke the company record in his first full year, and these same catastrophic events had touched him and his family several times, where they’d become regulars at funerals and fundraisers to help the people that had been effected.  They both knew how much our products would make a difference in their prospects lives, so they did all they could to get their prospects to understand, and sign up.
Knowledge is great, and the more knowledge you can gather about your product or service will only serve you, but it has no comparison to your belief.  So, what if you don’t sell anything as emotionally charged as catastrophic insurance?  It doesn’t matter.  In what ways can an alarm system save a family?  How many vacuums will someone go through before they spend more than they would have with yours?  Health wise, what are you providing with your organic meats, that they can’t find elsewhere?
We all should have passion about what we sell, or you may be selling the wrong thing.  The reason that new agents succeed where even veterans fail, is in their belief of why the prospect should buy, even if they don’t know all the in’s and out’s of answering objections.  Take more time to learn about what your product can do, as opposed to HOW it does it.  Read testimonials and start to discover why your prospect should work with you before you even sit down to start pitching them.  Conviction and belief are your biggest allies, so use them to help your customers get the protection/value that they deserve!