David J. Murphy

Proposition:  In independent life insurance distribution, nothing happens until the life of an independent financial professional (IFP) intersects, in an impactful way, with the life of a consumer who is unprepared for the unexpected.

 To begin, we need to define a term from jurisprudence.

Definition #1: Proximate Cause  
“Proximate Cause is defined as an act from which an injury results as a natural, direct, uninterrupted consequence and without which the injury would not have occurred. Proximate cause is the primary cause of an injury. It is not necessarily the closest cause in time or space nor the first event that sets in motion a sequence of events leading to an injury. Proximate cause produces particular, foreseeable consequences without the intervention of any independent or unforeseeable cause. It is also known as legal cause.

To help determine the proximate cause of an injury in negligence or other tort cases, courts have devised the ‘but for’ or ‘sine qua non’ rule, which considers whether the injury would not have occurred but for the defendant’s negligent act. A finding that an injury would not have occurred but for a defendant’s act establishes that the particular act or omission is the proximate cause of the harm, but it does not necessarily establish liability since a variety of other factors can come into play in tort actions.” (From: http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/proximate+cause.)

Proximate Cause as a Metaphor
The term “Proximate Cause” is borrowed in order to illustrate, metaphorically, the prime element that drives independent life insurance distribution. Proximate cause is generally viewed in the negative sense as being that one primary factor that contributed to a loss. This article will turn this upside down and use the term “proximate cause” positively, to mean that singular action conducted by an IFP that produces vital improvement in the preparedness of a consumer.

Consider the following unexpected consequences of everyday life for which many consumers are completely unprepared:

• Dying too soon and leaving a family or business partner financially unable to continue as anticipated.
• Developing a chronic or critical medical condition that prohibits continued income and may require considerable expense.
• Reaching retirement age with insufficient funds to actually retire completely or at least maintain a comfortable lifestyle.
• One’s children reaching college age and having nothing saved to offset, partially or in whole, the expense of tuition, room and board.
• Discovering late in life that one’s savings and retirement funds have been exhausted; or in other words, outliving one’s assets.

Enter a properly-trained and motivated IFP driven by passion to help people protect their families and business partners from financial risk of loss. As in everything (science, innovation, improvement, discovery, invention, etc.), nothing happens until the right questions are asked and answered. The IFP who is armed with the right questions can become the proximate cause in the consumer’s life and will lead to particular, foreseeable consequences in the form of a plan and a product.

Sample Proximate Cause Questions:
What worries you the most about your financial future? Would you be interested in life insurance as a way to help supplement retirement income and include a self completion of funds even if you were to die prior to retiring?

• What do you wish you could afford to do in retirement?  Do you have a plan to meet that goal?
• Would your family continue with their lifestyle if tomorrow you developed a serious illness or died?
• How many months or years’ worth of your income have you saved?
• What if you could buy dollars of future income for pennies today that would be paid to your family if you died and your income stopped? How many dollars of future income would help to meet your family’s future financial goals?

Without the intervention of an IFP armed with the right questions and trained in the right solutions, most consumers will go on being unprepared for the unexpected. But for the intentional interaction of an IFP, the family and/or business partners of the unprepared consumer may end up bearing the consequences.

This is why the impact that an independent financial professional (IFP) is rightly viewed as a proximate cause in the positive sense.

Next, we need to define a term from chemistry.

Definition #2: Catalyst

1. a substance that enables a chemical reaction to proceed at a usually faster rate or under different conditions (as at a lower temperature) than otherwise possible.
2. an agent that provokes or speeds significant change or action. That waterway became the catalyst of the area’s industrialization. He was the catalyst in the native uprising.
   (From: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/catalyst.)

Catalyst as a Metaphor
The term “Catalyst” is borrowed in order to illustrate, metaphorically, the second most important element that drives independent life insurance distribution. In independent life insurance distribution the MGA (BGA, IMO, etc.) is the party best suited to help IFPs become the proximate cause in the lives of more and more consumers! The MGA can help the IFP improve effectiveness and therefore speed significant change in the lives of existing clients and cause prospecting to happen at a faster rate!

 Again, nothing happens until the right questions are asked and answered.

Sample Catalyst Questions: 

• What concerns are most pressing among your clients?
• How many families and businesses can you help to protect through life insurance this year?
• How many of your past clients own life insurance products that do not feature the living benefits available in today’s products?
• How much of your annual revenue originates from life insurance sales?
• How many of your clients have you not seen in the last four years?
• Can you state whether or not your clients are well-covered with life insurance?
• Why are more people not buying life insurance from you?
• Are your referral-gathering skills below average, average or above average?

Without the MGA investing time by asking the right questions, an IFP will likely not change, and the number and frequency of contacts with consumers will remain static.

Summary

• In independent life insurance distribution, nothing happens until the life of an independent financial professional intersects, in an impactful way, with the life of a consumer who is unprepared for the unexpected. 
• The IFP armed with the right questions and trained in the right solutions can become the proximate cause that produces vital improvement in the preparedness of a consumer. 
• The MGA who asks the right questions can be the catalyst who helps the IFP improve effectiveness and therefore speed significant change in the lives of existing clients and cause prospecting to happen at a faster rate.

Are you ready to become that proximate cause, or that catalyst, so that the widely-acknowledged life insurance coverage gap among American households can be speedily reduced?

But for you, who is it that will remain unprepared for the unexpected?

The opinions and ideas expressed by the author are his own and not necessarily those of North American Company for Life and Health Insurance or its affiliates. North American Company does not endorse or promote these opinions and ideas nor does the company or agents give tax advice. 

I began my career as an agent for a large mutual insurer. My agent number was 855. Whenever I had occasion to call the home office, the employees first asked, “What is your agent number?” No one called me by name. Years later I picked up another contract with a carrier on the opposite coast. I was assigned the exact same number and suddenly developed a twitch! Turns out, no one at the latter company ever referred to me by anything but my name.

Some of us experience a neurological phenomenon in which we see faces in random or ambiguous visual patterns.  This falls under a category known as “pareidolia.” This is me. I tend to see human faces in the whorl of grain on a wooden door, in the marbling of a granite countertop, and, of course, in electrical outlets.

The irony is, while many of us see faces where they do not actually exist, many of us fail to see faces where they do exist. We develop work habits that relegate people with real faces to the status of just names on files, email addresses or contract numbers.

Seeing a face is one step in the process of perceiving another person as human. Perceiving another being as human is one step toward establishing a sense of connectedness and community.

We have all had the feeling that we had somehow fallen into a circumstance of being processed like nameless, faceless objects, of being part of a long line of faceless inconveniences. We stand in line at airports waiting for our “zone” to be called. We order our fast food, get a receipt and are told to wait for our number to be called. “Number 127!” Sometimes when we place our order the cashier takes our name, and calls out our name when our food is ready. “Dave!” That is a little better. With the technology we have today, could these restaurants not take our picture when we place our orders, and display our images when our food is ready? Wouldn’t that be powerful?

Where Are You
Your business processes are designed to either accentuate relationship-building or to drive business in an impersonal manner. Ask yourself, “Am I seeing faces?”

If you rely on blast emails for getting out your marketing messages, you are not seeing faces.

If you have lost track of customers with whom you have had no contact for a lengthy period of time, their faces have faded in your mind.

If you transfer someone’s problem to another associate without at least giving a brief description of who the person is, you are simply passing on a faceless problem.

Practical Application
Consider these simple techniques for seeing faces:

• Microsoft Outlook allows you to upload a photo for the person you are setting up as a contact. Do you use this?
• Sales Force allows you to upload a photo for each contact. Do you use this?
• Your iPhone contacts can be personalized with a photo of each person. Have you used this function?
• LinkedIn features the faces for each contact in your network, in messaging and in your home feed. Are you seeing the faces of your customers and commenting or liking what they share, and sending messages on their work anniversaries and birthdays? If you work in the same office as they do, are you thinking of work anniversary ideas to celebrate?
• Are you making use of video conferencing? There is a free App for your iPhone called appear.in that enables you to conduct a video conference with as many as eight people simultaneously.
• If you have associates who have regular contact with the customers, but have never met them in person, arrange for at least one video session so everyone can see what everyone else looks like.
• Do you host client appreciation days? Posting a photograph of your customer for all your associates to see helps them remember that your customer is a real human being. It will also prepare them to recognize your best customers should they actually show up in your offices.
• You can capture a photo on your phone of anyone you are talking to via FaceTime. You can send that photo with the follow-up notes from your FaceTime meeting, thereby reinforcing to your customers that you see them as people.
• Taking a photo of yourself with your customer creates multiple opportunities. First, you can share it on Social Media. I often tweet photos of me standing with my key customers. That shows the customer you value the relationship enough to want to celebrate it publically. In addition, you can create a card to send to your customer using Microsoft Publisher or a similar tool, to send on the anniversary of your business relationship.

As an agent, I created a file folder for every new client. On the inside front cover I stapled a photograph of the client and the client’s family with their dates of birth, wedding anniversaries, job titles or grades in school. A year could go by and I could pick up the folder, be reminded of who the client was and be instantly prepared to ask some simple questions that indicated I remembered who they were.

Connectedness and Community
In the financial services business, we are just as prone as any other industry to focus merely on process and transactional efficiency. However, we are just as capable of remembering to make this our focus: people serving people. 

I enjoy staying at Ritz-Carlton properties. Their employee motto is “We are Ladies and Gentlemen serving Ladies and Gentlemen.” In my experience, Ritz-Carlton employees remember my face from the day before, from last night’s reception and dinner. They really see me as a human being. I have experienced a sense of community with people serving tables that is on par with the connectedness I have with the other people at the table.

In our competitive environment, wind-swept by regulation, low interest rates, aging demographics and technological upheaval, we stand or fall depending on the strength of our customer relationships. Those relationships are based on connectedness and community. These, in turn, rely on frequent contact, on genuine interest and shared commitments. It all starts, simply enough, with seeing faces.

The opinions and ideas expressed by the author are his own and not necessarily those of North American Company for Life and Health Insurance or its affiliates. North American Company does not endorse or promote these opinions and ideas nor does the company or agents give tax advice.

When we are looking for real evidence, we need to be clear as to what we are trying to prove.

Real evidence concerning whether or not a substance is actually honey requires that we taste it.

Real evidence concerning whether or not a substance is actually ammonia requires that we smell it.

Real evidence for whether or not a client’s family needs life insurance is not more product knowledge nor a better handle on its tax advantages, but rather actual stories of other families that benefited from it. The glory and exclusive wonder of life insurance is in its singular ability to positively impact lives intersected by major (and often devastating) changes.

Sharing only product performance through illustrations may only make clients believe in illustrated performance. It may not help them believe their family needs it!  It is the beautiful singularity of life insurance to deliver funds when most needed that is the proper object of our conviction!

Believing that life insurance has generally great tax advantages, or a decent internal rate of return, does not translate into a belief that it can really do a client’s family any good.  While educating clients regarding how life insurance products function is essential, such information is insufficient to prompt action.

Honey can be easily known through taste and ammonia can be experienced through smell.

Life insurance, properly presented, is truly only known through real stories of actual families that stayed in their homes, whose kids were able to attend college or whose comfortable retirement was made possible because the individuals supplemented their income using qualified plans and permanent life insurance.

There is a difference between intellectual knowledge and the emotional conviction that leads to action. Knowing and believing are not the same thing. Believing includes the willful embrace of what is believed. Knowledge does not necessitate action.

People do not typically relate well to life insurance. The terms we use are unusual. Paradoxically, stories of real people whose lives were improved by life insurance make it seem less foreign.

“When someone starts to describe your experience in words you have never heard, and in ways you have never understood, suddenly the strange words all sound exactly right.”*

Sharing the experience of others whose lives are similar to the clients’ lives makes the idea seem more tenable.

In 2017, we need to train independent financial professionals to transmit information and knowledge, certainly, but more important, to motivate their clients through effective stories! 

The opinions and ideas expressed by Dave Murphy are his own and not necessarily those of North American Company for Life and Health Insurance® or its affiliates. North American Company for Life and Health Insurance® does not endorse or promote these opinions and ideas nor does the company or agents give tax advice. 

Reference:
*”A Peculiar Glory,” Dr. John Piper, Crossway, Wheaton, IL 2016

I am a good fisherman. I stink, however, at catching fish. You would enjoy having me casting a line beside you. We would talk about a wide variety of subjects, laugh together and enjoy the water and sky. If you are competitive, you would certainly enjoy catching more fish.

This is my 35th year in the life insurance business. Imagine that you and I could sit together in the parade bleachers and watch a procession of all the financial professionals we have each known, walking briskly by. We would recognize the MDRT qualifiers, the award winners and the sales leaders. Figuratively, we would nod and say, “Those people can catch fish!”

 On the other hand, a throng of people will pass, smiling and waving back, who have only ever had mediocre success. These are some of the nicest people we have ever met. Quality people. Trustworthy people. Friends of ours.

What if you turned to me, quizzically, and asked, “Dave, what caused some of these people to reach high levels of success while the others muddled along for years and years?” This article is the answer I would give.

The reason I stink at catching fish is that I have never learned to think like a fish.
Fish eat, and therefore chase bait, in accordance with the season, the time of day, the conditions of the water, the weather, rising or falling barometric pressure, and the natural cycle of insect larvae and available prey. To catch a fish is to provide something that resembles what they expect to see, when they expect to see it and in a manner that resonates with them. 

 Fish have three sensing mechanisms they use to find their prey. They are sight, smell and sound. Colors matter because they change dramatically as they go deeper and therefore become darker. Red is the first to change to black. Yellow appears to get brighter. Some lure manufacturers smear the outside of their products with a scent attractant. Some species of freshwater fish have a lateral line, which is a major sensory element. These fish use their lateral lines to detect water motion. This motion can be generated by the fish itself, water currents or by some external moving object. This motion detection ultimately results in finding food. The senses work together to confirm that the lure presented is actually good to eat.

It is not how awesome I think what I am casting looks, or if I am casting and retrieving continually. What matters is how the fish perceive the lure I am presenting.

Thinking Like a Client
I urge you again to look down from the parade stands at the truly successful financial professionals. You are going to see people who think like a client.

Unlike fish, humans are sentient beings with self-awareness and an appreciation of past, present and future. While fish act and survive according to instinct, humans have the ability to remember, plan and anticipate. 

Just like fish, however, human beings have a natural life cycle. 

The successful financial professional knows that clients live in a stream of time, hurtling toward the future. They also know this about clients:

 • While they intuitively know time passes quickly, the days, weeks, months, years and even decades seem to pass imperceptibly.

• They look up now and then only to discover they have reached a transition.

• They are generally consumed with today and have trouble keeping their future selves in sight.

John Lennon famously said, “Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.”

Consider these examples:

1. If you graduated from college, you remember the students looking at each other in surprise and asking, “How did the four years go by so fast?” (You may also remember that many students reached graduation with no job lined up, no plans for graduate school and only a vague idea of what was next.) 

2. You were likely the parent watching your child pull on a backpack on day one of first grade as you thought back to what seemed like yesterday when you brought your baby home from the hospital. (You could not imagine this same child starting college in twelve years.) 

3. You have attended the retirement party for the retiree who asks where the years went. (While a better question may be, how many years are ahead and how will I afford to live?)

The successful financial professional presents solutions appropriate for each stage in the client’s life, but more important, realizes that the client only subconsciously knows what it means.

Predictably Unexpected
While a fish cannot fathom the unexpected, clients know that risks are lurking out there because they know people who have died prematurely, developed disabling conditions, required assisted living services or have out-lived their assets. Knowing that risks exist and preparing for them are two different things. The successful financial professional knows that clients are predictably unprepared for the unexpected.

Presenting Clients with What They Need and Want
Clients will take action on a plan when three conditions are met:

• Credibility is established

• Relatability is demonstrated

• Ideas are sound

Credibility is like a lure that looks like real food. It is genuine. Authentic. The successful financial professional is personally financially responsible, can produce testimonials of satisfied clients, can be researched on social media, has designations, is connected in the community and works with other advisors (CPAs, attorneys, etc.) in teamwork fashion.

 Ask yourself:

1. Is my own financial house in order? (Am I prepared for the unexpected?)

2. Am I still growing my knowledge of the business?

3. Have I asked my best clients for testimonials?

4. Have I achieved distinction through earning designations?

5. Do I work in concert with CPAs, attorneys, money managers, and other advisors?

Relatability is like a sweet smelling lure. The successful financial professional listens carefully, demonstrates understanding of the client’s individual situation and communicates with clarity. The solutions are presented with the client as the hero.

 Ask yourself:

1. Do I demonstrate respect for each client by sending an agenda ahead of each meeting?

2. Do I take careful notes during each meeting and repeat what I learned at the end to show the client I listened?

3. Do I know my clients well enough to use their vocabulary, make reference to things important to them and use the names of their family members and business partners in designing their story?

4. Do I present the client as the hero who loves others by resisting procrastination and making important decisions?

Ideas that are sound can be seen from a distance as having merit, and yet, they become more convincing under closer scrutiny. They have the feel of matching the client’s life today and plans for tomorrow.

 Ask yourself:

1. Have I attended to my reputation so my good name arrives before I do?

2. Do I attend to details in developing tailored solutions?

3. Are the ideas I present practical and palatable?

Our industry is in a period of tremendous pressure and rapid change. We have experienced many difficult periods before. The secret to resilience, to be able to succeed in the face of obstacles and change, is to think like your clients.

May you be better at serving clients than I am at catching fish. 

The opinions and ideas expressed by the author are his own and not necessarily those of North American Company for Life and Health Insurance or its affiliates. North American Company does not endorse or promote these opinions and ideas nor does the company or agents give tax advice.

When one year or quarter ends and another begins, the question comes to mind, What can be done differently than last period to affect business growth? These days, there are so many different things that can help a business to grow, so it’s important that business owners pay attention to areas where their business could improve. Recently, a lot of smaller businesses have been starting to digitalize some of their operations. This helps them to increase productivity. However, IT can sometimes cause problems for companies, so it’s important that they have some IT solutions in place to ensure these problems can be fixed easily. Perhaps some companies might want to find a business offering IT Support Melbourne small business services. This should help more companies to digitalize easily, whilst also staying protected from any virus or hardware threats. Hopefully, this will help more small businesses to grow and achieve more in the future.

Nature is all about growth. The cold, hard tooth and claw of nature seek that which has ceased growing and begin dragging it inevitably and unmercifully toward death and decay. In nature, there is only growing, dying, or dead. The same exigencies define the business of independent life insurance distribution.

Growth, in nature, is intricate and tangled. Few organisms grow in a linear fashion, unhindered and free.

In business, we build models, utilize projections and reporting, marketing plans and other tools which contain assumptions of uniformity, consistency, and order. This is not how reality works. Every wholesaling insurance agency must wind its way through roadblocks, disloyalty, stronger competitors, and setbacks. Businesses go through a lot to keep themselves going, they need to test out and do new things to help with their productivity, one way they must be good in, is communication, using a unified communication platform can work with the business to help maintain its growth, these tips on finding the best platform will be useful to the businesses that need to keep connected.

Profit-tropism for Wholesaling Agencies
Plants exhibit phototropismthe tendency to grow toward the light. The battle for position in sun-warmed spaces causes plants to twist, bend and veer off in new directions. Life in the shadows is tenuous and near-fatal.

Similarly, in the business of independent life insurance distribution, the battles are for market share, recruiting candidates and profits.

Right Questions Lead to Finding the Growth Window and Greater Profit
The wholesaling insurance agency achieves growth through its producers. Finding the growth window is as simple as shaping producer behavior to reach the potential business in range of these producers. Some decide to better improve their reach as a business by franchising. There are a wide range of factors to consider when franchising though and it depends if you can support a franchise but if you’re interested in learning more about the law around it to make a better-informed choice for your growing business, consider talking to someone similar to LegalVision Franchise Lawyers for insight into how that process might work legally.

The following questions will discover open space, potential sales and greater profit:

Which producers are contracted currently with only one or two core carriers? They cannot represent to their clients that which they do not know.

Which producers are obviously not making a sustainable income from the sales they produce currently? There must be business going elsewhere.

Which producers tend to write one type of product? (Can all their clients have identical needs?) Limited knowledge of product variety and applicability restricts sales. Perhaps another wholesaling agency is reaping sales in other product lines.

Which producers have a low average premium? This usually means the producer is not conducting adequate fact-finding or has an inability to capture greater premium commitments commensurate with longer-term insurance strategies. Training in fact-finding and sales ideas will uncover growth opportunities.

Which producers developed sales in 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014 but not in 2015? Did they cease writing business in general, or are they simply directing it elsewhere? Time to reconnect with these producers and survey their business growth objectives.

How many people have the producers served in the past but have not seen in four years? A very high percentage of clients will experience major life changes in every four-year period (different life partners, increases or decreases in number of dependents, new career, promotion, retirement, health changes, inheritances, etc.)

Which producers have clients that now own small businesses who once worked for others?

Which producers have clients who are ill-prepared for retirement? College? Chronic illness? Critical illness? Terminal illness?

What keeps the producers from meeting with these people?

Which producers have no working knowledge of key financial concepts never before discussed with clients?

Right Questions Lead to Profitable Pruning
Often, as in nature, business expansion requires putting off, pruning, shedding and transformation.

In independent life insurance distribution, profits diminish when time, energy and effort are expended with no results. It is always the right time to discover where cuts can yield growth in profits by expense reduction.

Which producers have a low placement ratio?

Which producers order inordinate quantities of illustrations relative to their sales?

Which producers cannot seem to submit applications in good order?

Which producers refuse to embrace the greater efficiencies offered through web sites, e-applications, and other technology solutions?

Action Steps Leading to Profit-trophic Growth
Schedule producer training on how clients can benefit from todays products.

Schedule producer training on the right questions to ask in order to discover needs never before addressed.

Schedule producer training on the right words needed to describe the solution to those needs.

Help producers develop a process for getting in front of more people, learning about them and proposing ideas.

Ask producers how many people have they served in the past but have not seen in four years or more.

Ask producers who among their clients has had life changes since the last meeting.

Ask producers which of their clients now own small businesses who once worked for others?

Ask producers which clients they believe are ill-prepared for retirement, college, chronic illness, or critical illness.

Ask unprofitable producers to find a new home.

Summary
Growing is not optional. Survival depends on it. If you don’t know where to start, then ask for help, as there are plenty of options out there. Planned ascent, for example, offer business consultancy and coaching focusing on growing businesses. Space exists in the market for the wholesaling insurance agency equipped to shape producer behavior to reach the untapped and significant potential business in range of these producers.

The views and opinions expressed are the authors views and opinions as an individual and do not reflect the views and opinions of North American Company for Life and Health Insurance.

I am 31 years into my life insurance career, and today I have as strong a belief as ever in the power of life insurance.

Every other Friday I have a call with a young man who is a marketer in a wholesaling agency. It is a mentoring call, but I get as much out of it as he does. Here is our standing agenda:

 • What are we learning that would benefit one another?

 • What one thing could we do to be more effective?

 • What did we discover in the last two weeks that had surprisingly good results?

Our most recent call led us to a discussion of the changed landscape in wholesale distribution. Times have changed, and so must our approach.

Brokerage general agencies (BGAs) grew out of an environment in which most life insurance representatives were agents of captive carriers. Naturally, with two broad exceptions, those carriers received the majority of the business from their representatives. The two exceptions were cases either declined or highly rated, and cases requiring a product or price unavailable at the representative’s primary carrier. Hence, BGAs grew out of impaired risk and competitive products.

Unfortunately, impaired risk and products are still the cornerstones of value offered by many BGAs. I say “unfortunately” because the majority of retail life insurance agents are no longer career agents representing a primary carrier. There is no default carrier for their life cases. All the business is eligible for brokerage.

The need for the life insurance agent today extends well beyond underwriting and price. These agents fundamentally need the kind of support once enjoyed from primary carriers.

One example: mentoring and succession planning.

When I began my insurance adventure, it was as a representative of a career carrier. The seasoned agents who shared my office gave me advice, taught me how to prospect, how to deliver a policy, how to develop a sustainable process for continuous sales, and how to grow in my knowledge. Some of these agents even came with me on appointments to allow me the privilege of seeing and hearing the body language and right words to use with clients in order to compellingly tell the story of life insurance.

Those seasoned agents also had the knowledge that their clients would have a stream of new agents available to them at all times should the seasoned agent retire or die.

Fast forward to today. If a young person wants to help people find peace of mind through life insurance, who is standing ready to mentor them? How many seasoned independent agents, in anticipation of their own death or retirement, have young agents to whom they can direct their clients?

Three Questions for Experienced

Life Insurance Agents

 1. Do you care enough about the value of life insurance to pass on your passion to a younger person?

 2. Do you plan to abandon your clients to the competition or to the customer service teams at the carriers you represent when you die or retire?

 3. Do you have anything in your current professional life that could possibly compare with the joy of mentoring someone in the very industry that gave you income sufficient to raise your family, travel, live comfortably and have hobbies?

 Look, if the answers to these questions are “I don’t care,” “I don’t care,” and “I am too tired,” then please stop reading this.

Three Questions for Wholesaling

General Agency Principals

 1. Where are the life agents of the future going to come from?

 2. What will remain of the residual income from your effort and energy expended over the years, helping your agents build their businesses, when those agents retire or die?

 3. What is your succession plan? How can you separate your succession plan from the need for your agents to each have one as well?

 I predict your answers to all three questions are “I don’t know.”

A Modest Proposal

I’d like to present two assumptions.

First, the experienced agent nearing retirement age still has contact with hundreds of clients he has worked with over the course of his career.

Second, the wholesaling general agency principal has knowledgeable staff capable of training someone in product, how business is processed, sales concepts and best practices.

Now, what does someone look like who could possibly be interested in entering the life insurance business who would also have the aptitude to succeed? Hmm. This question, while difficult at first glance, is really rather easy to answer. Consider:

 • Colleges and universities are pouring out graduates into retail and service jobs paying entry level wages.

 • These young people are looking to make serious money but are not willing to wait until they are older to do so.

 • A fair number of these graduates have the two necessary requirements that our industry has always had: They are smart, and they are personable.

 • These young people are discovered the way they have always been—by asking those you know who they might recommend for a possible career as your successor.

Blending Core Competencies and Assets

The experienced agent has the clients who would be willing to meet the agent’s successor. The wholesaling general agency principal has the people and resources to assist in training the new agent. The clients of the experienced agent have needs that may have never been addressed, which could yield new sales, and they know people not yet served by any life agent who they could introduce to the new agent.

Getting Started

The place to start is the long term partnerships that exist between experienced agents and wholesaling general agency principals. The first step is to meet in order to discuss if either or both parties have a desire to develop a path for succession of one another’s business. Then, a projection must be quantified for how many sales and how much revenue could reasonably be developed with all parties working together. That revenue projection then needs to be compared with the incomes that fresh graduates are earning from alternative occupations.

What Comes Next?

There is simply no way to provide a template. This proposal is like recommending to an explorer in the 1500s that he cross the ocean to discover new lands. “Get a good ship and plenty of supplies. Oh, and head generally west.” Create a process for introducing the new agent to the experienced agent’s clients (represented by the ship) and provide adequate training on the right words to say and the right questions to ask (the supplies). The experienced agent can then head into the sunset, leaving clients in capable hands.

For all the good that you have done in your career, all the death benefits paid to beneficiaries, the greatest legacy you could leave just might be someone to carry on the good work.

The opinions and ideas expressed by the author are his own and not necessarily those of North American Company for Life and Health Insurance or its affiliates. North American Company for Life and Health Insurance does not endorse or promote these opinions and ideas. For agent use only. Not to be used for consumer solicitation purposes.