MEET SHELDON

Give me a call and let’s connect

“I don’t study insurance pricing, binding, underwriting, workflow, claims, loss ratios, contingencies or anything else related to the back-end of insurance agency operations. Let me just get that out front.

I study sales and human behavior, and I do this primarily for insurance professionals so they can boost the profit and pleasure they get from work while delivering more value to their customers.
I could tell you, and it is true, about the billion-dollar insurance call centers where I coached the coaches.
I could share with you, and it is true, that I coach with equal success single-location, million dollar agencies, and multi-state, hundred million dollar agencies.
I could crow about the double digit increases here and the high percentage gains there. But I won’t. (Check the results page on this site to hear it directly from my customers.)

Instead, I will tell you that it’s all about the right markets, message, and methods.

I know this because at the age of twelve I made my first of countless sales mistakes by asking the nuns at my Catholic School if I could take Chanukah off. (Wrong market and message!)
Proving the adage that good judgment comes from experience and experience comes from bad judgment, I failed with four different start-ups before I found a clue. (Troubled methods!)

After four years as an Army officer, including the rigorous Airborne jump school, I traded military discipline, bearing and stamina for a civilian career that required the same attributes: 100% commission-based selling in Boston’s corporate jungle.

Within two years I was promoted to be the New England Region, Sales trainer for Uniglobe Travel, the third largest travel franchisor in the world at the time. Subsequently, I was recruited to a series of sales and marketing leadership positions in public utilities, information technology and the software industry. Man, that was a lot of selling.

Inspired by my success and failures, I launched SteadySales.com to help service professionals sell. (Finally, the right market, message and method!)

Along the way I earned an MBA from UMass Isenberg School of Management, and became an Entrepreneurial Business Planning Instructor thorough the NxLevel Educational Foundation. I am also a Certified Guerrilla Marketing Coach whose book chapter on salesmanship helped propel Guerrilla Marketing on the Front Lines to an Amazon.com best-seller. (Okay, it was only for two days, but still.)

Lest I be too consumed with work, my wife, two daughters and roles as a perpetual volunteer, ski instructor and white water rafting guide keep my focused on matters of the heart. My world HQ is in Williamsburg, MA.

I seek first to understand before I ever make a suggestion.

Five Elemental Truths:

You must operate within your character.
You must speak less and listen more.
You must orient toward adding value.
You must expend effort only on those with whom there is a mutual basis for doing business.
You must ask for the business.

Influences:

My approach and philosophy are informed by the writings and teachings of many luminaries in the field of sales, marketing and personal development including:

Jay Conrad Levinson’s — Guerrilla Marketingseries of books
Marty Neumeier’s — The Brand Gap
Joseph Pine and James Gilmore’s -The Experience Economy
T. Harv Ecker – Secrets of the Millionaire Mind
Tim Sanders – Love is the Killer App
CJ Haydens’s — Get Clients Now
Geshe Michael Roach’s — The Diamond Cutter
Steven Covey’s — 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
Jacques Werth’s — High Probability Selling
Jim Holden’s — Power Base Selling ö Secrets of an Ivy League Street Fighter
Michael Gerber’s — E-Myth
Richard Bach, Tich Nhat Hanh, Gandhi, and many others