Are you striking out when trying to sell supplemental and ancillary insurance? Maybe it’s because you’re trying to cram all of your sales efforts into a single call or appointment. There are three big reasons why this may not be a good idea.

It’s that time of the year again—open enrollment. The 2016 individual open enrollment period begins November 1 and ends January 31, which means that brokers who specialize in individual coverage will be very busy for the next three months. To help make sure this is a successful selling season for you, we thought we’d share a few quick thoughts.

Use these to help you close more individual business

While conducting a one-on-one coaching session with a particular insurance agent, I offered some advice that many agents–or anyone for that matter–can benefit from. And it starts with this: Get Out Of Your Own Way! Zach (not his real name) was struggling. He was confronted with some personal issues including financial debt that were negatively impacting his work. His sales were down, and he was feeling pretty discouraged. This is common, because we tend to view temporary problems as permanent ones and don’t look beyond our immediate struggle. Rather than seek a solution and make a consistent effort to change things, we tend to expect things to improve overnight. It’s like we wish we could microwave the problem and be done with it. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. When things don’t immediately improve, we feel as though we are stuck under the weight of the world until the situation feels hopeless, creating one big bundle of stress. It becomes all- consuming and constrains both our business dealings as well as our personal relationships. The beautiful thing is that, in reality, you have control over it, especially if you’re in sales. But first you must choose to put the struggles on hold (they aren’t going anywhere for the moment) and work through it, make progress, make sales, and break the cycle. The Snowball When you allow financial challenges or personal struggles to affect your sales, it makes everything worse. You feel discouraged, so you sell less and you feel even more discouraged, so you sell less, feel worse, sell less, feel worse ... you get the point. Talk about a vicious cycle. However, if instead you decide sell your way out of it, you will slowly but surely start to make things better. Exhale, have some coffee, clear your head and get back on the phones. You might want to start by calling existing clients just to say hello. This is a confidence boost because they are already customers, meaning they’re evidence of your success stories. You can do this! While money may not be the most important thing, financial struggles can be challenging. Turn it around and use it as an effective tool for self-empowerment. Earn a little more and your self- esteem grows. Your debt decreases, which makes your self-esteem grow more, so you make even more sales, more commissions and so on. ... That’s the kind of cycle you want to be riding! Like A Swagger In My Heart When you earn more money and feel more successful, it trickles down into your personal life. You get your swagger back, and you feel more joy. If you focus on the task at hand, and get moving, nothing can stop you. You might consider adding new products to your portfolio or research untapped markets, in order to give yourself a fresh start.