How Bespoke Fabrication Can Beat The Restaurant Blues

We are living in an era where home improvement shows are so popular that it is possible to buy shares in Lawrence Llewellyn Bowen and his super frilly dandy shirts. We are bombarded with adverts for B&Q, Homebase and the Range to encourage us to part with our hard earned cash in exchange for cushions, throws, venetian blinds and patio chairs. This way we have a beautiful home that we can think about while we work hard all day somewhere totally different.

The appealing nature of these programmes and products is proof of our desire to be the kings of our own castles. It is also about getting one over on the Joness as it were. Creating a unique space to live in allows a level of expression that is fundamental to personal wellbeing. The monotony of standard issue fixtures and fittings is tantamount to institutionalism; and one might as well be residing in a padded cell.

This trend toward defining ones style through hunting down exclusive designs and picking up vintage Lloyd loom from a Portobello flea market has become a cliched aesthetic in itself. Designer style is being branded and sold everywhere, from Harvey Nicks to Wilkos and even at Aunty Bettys garage sale. It is not just in homes across the country either. This tendency toward an exclusive off the shelf look is evident in pubs and clubs along every high street.

It is time to kick the sterile authenticity of Irish theme bars, American diners and Spanish tapas restaurants into touch and start introducing some taste into these tasteless establishments. The time has come to embrace a more daring style, a style that is not determined by foppish fellers in Victorian cotton.

Bespoke fabrication of commercial interiors is guaranteed to attract customers and increase the potential profits. You see, as much as the general public dont want a home that looks like a reproduction of an IKEA catalogue they dont want to spend an evening in a restaurant that looks like it has been lifted from a marketing design brief.

The public want a dining experience that feels exclusive, and experience that justifies the cost of the meal and the wine and the taxi fares. Going out for a meal means buying into a whole experience; and no-one wants to buy into a generic and mediocre setting if they are paying fifteen pounds a head on a night out.

Having bespoke fittings fabricated to specification allows a restaurant setting to be modified toward the needs of your staff as well as the pleasure of the customer. Serving gantrys and food counters can be made to measure, and many companies offer a bespoke design service as well as fabrication to get a really exclusive look. By mixing and matching coolers, cabinets and counters it is possible to avoid the fast food dross that has become so popular in high street establishments.

The trick is to treat the business decor as you would your home. In fact, more attention should be paid to creating a unique oasis of good taste in the workplace, as that is where most of a persons waking hours are spent. Without a dash of good taste in the workplace, you may well suffer from some post traumatic design stress and enter into a laminate clad induced fever. Next thing you know, youll be wearing leather trousers and ordering chintzy drapes
About the Author

Dominic Donaldson is an expert in the catering industry.
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Why Insurance Agents Are Frustrated and Fed Up

For such a lucrative business it is unfortunate that most first year insurance agents do not renew their insurance license. Why is that? To start with, Big Insurance often tells the new insurance agent to make a list of 100 (or more) people they know to sell to, everyone from family to friends of friends, and then start dialing.

This is known as the infamous "project 100" which consists of bothering anyone the agent knows to make insurance sales to. The agent tries to sell them insurance, whether they need it or not. When they run out of friends and family then what? So what if the insurance company gave the agent a nice office. Who are they going to sell insurance to now? Most agents in this scenario quit only to become a statistic.

Or, the agent might be handed a 37 page list of phone numbers, maybe even the phone book, most of them dead or disconnected numbers from years ago, and they're told to start cold calling. Or the agent is commonly told about a fantastic lead system that is just a crumpled piece of paper with a few names and numbers. Of course everyone else in the building has already tried and failed to sell to these so called leads.

Newly licensed insurance agents are often told they just need to survive their first year in order to make some real income in their second year. Yeah right, what exactly do insurance agents get paid to do? The truth is, most agents won't or don't last that long because the big insurance companies set them up to fail by default.

It's no wonder insurance companies have morphed into churning factories, turning out agent after agent who decides to quit after investing time and money into taking the insurance exam and getting a few sales. The insurance company's managers are all too happy to accept the renewals left over from these agents. This might make the insurance companies and a few of the managers rich, but agents are fed up with this approach.

Agents are also tired of selling strategies that involve bait and switch techniques in which the agent promises the customer something for free, like a review of their government benefits, only to get in to their homes to sell something unrelated or something they just don't need. It's a "push and sell" style and it rarely works in the long term for agents.

At National Agents Alliance (NAA) we understand that what most agents need to thrive in the insurance business is a proven system. The NAA system consists of a mailed in response client lead program, a unique field underwriting process, a proven agent marketing program, and a powerful agency building opportunity. Systems help the agent make more money in less time and the foundation of our agents success is the exclusive NAA lead system.

A client response lead is the ultimate leverage in insurance sales. Unlike other insurance marketing organizations NAA owns its own lead company that provides its agents a consistent flow of qualified leads from potential clients across the country. This one of a kind program allows the agent to focus their efforts contacting prospects who have mailed a response letter back to the company. The end result is the agent spends most of their time in front of clients selling instead of prospecting.

In their own handwriting, homeowners are leaving contact details expecting an agent to call them back. The perfect marketing campaign in any business is one that can deliver potential clients who have identified a problem in their mind that you have a solution for. That is the backbone of the NAA lead program.

Taking this system-based approach has propelled NAA from $10 Million in sales in 2002 to over $140 Million in sales for 2007. NAA offers a full portfolio of life insurance and annuity products representing top A-rated companies like Old Mutual Life, ING, Foresters, and Aviva.

NAA believes its most important principle is to help others out first and you will be rewarded handsomely in return. This is the motto of Thomas Brown, an NAA agent who runs his own multi-million-dollar agency. My goal is to help change people's lives, to help them improve their lives, says Brown. I want to find winners, the next success story. I want to help people reach high levels of productivity and income. You can too by joining the next wave in the insurance business with NAA.


About the Author

We provide sales leads to our agents. These leads are returned by a homeowner in their own handwriting. This allows the agent to spend most of their time selling versus prospecting. Go to www.powerfulinsurancesales.com for more information.

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Setting Goals To Take The Lid Off Your Insurance Sales

Setting Goals, Many insurance agents state that their goals are to close more sales, keep customers happy, get more business and give better service. The problem is that these general statements are nothing more than wishes, hopes and dreams.

Time to Commit

For any plan to work there must be a real commitment from the players. In this case the key player is you. One way to help build this commitment is for you to sign the plan. A signature often has a strong psychological impact that compels people to act. In a word, you are the action in the action plan. To lock in this commitment, share it with someone you can be accountable to, who can hold you to the promise you made to yourself.

In many companies, the goals of the salespeople complement the goals of their sales manager, whose goals complement those of his or her manger, all the way up the organization to the very top. Make sure that your goals are in tune with those of the company, and that your mentors and managers know what youre aiming for, so they can help you get there.

What you expect is what you get

Your positive expectations have a definite impact on your behavior, causing you to behave and react in ways that are more likely to produce the desired results. This type of behavior also influences the behavior of the people you meet and interact with professionally. If you are positive, confident and optimistic about the way your product and services will meet your prospects needs, your client is more likely to react in a similar way. At the same time, if you enter the same situation with the same goals, but with less than positive expectations, your behavior is going to show it and your customer is going to see it. Most importantly, your income is going to show it as well.

Program Yourself to Win

It is one thing to say to yourself that you are going to have positive expectations, and quite another to make it happen. There are three quick and easy steps you can take to increase your positive outlook:

1. Visualize yourself dealing comfortably and persuasively with your prospect and see yourself closing the sale. The best time to do the visualizing is when you are at the edge of awareness, just before you are about to fall asleep. It is one thing to see your goal outcome. It is another to rehearse the good feelings you will have right NOW. You always know how you want to feel right Let that be your anchor to a positive outcome.

2. Leave some upbeat notes for yourself that reaffirm your strengths, effectiveness, competence and aspirations. These notes are similar to the advertising messages you constantly see and which gradually work their way into your subconscious. Reinforce your own personal brand identity.

3. Set realistic, quantifiable goals, such as a certain number of sales or a volume of business. Be sure to set a deadline for yourself Put up a note or graphic that shows how much progress you have made toward reaching your goal and how much is needed before you reach it. Track your progress on intermediate landmarks on the way to your goal.

When people have a clear idea of where they are going, they are more likely to demonstrate behaviors that will get them there. The motivational impact of goals is even more compelling for those individuals who have either participated in the goal-setting process or have established the goals for themselves.

Bottom line, as an insurance agent we have control over two things in our professional life: our attitude and our activity. Strive to be the best agent you can be and good selling


About the Author

We provide sales leads to our agents. These leads are returned by a homeowner in their own handwriting. This allows the agent to spend most of their time selling versus prospecting. Go to

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