Insurance- there are forms and policies?

As you might imagine, when one trades in his career for another totally unrelated career there is a massive learning curve.  In my case not only did I have to learn outside sales, but the technical aspect of insurance.  Some will say I am still light years behind in the technical aspect, and candidly had I not had such amazing colleagues, I would have had to learn a lot more than I did.

As mentioned in my last post, Terry McCubbin was very instrumental in learning of outside sales not only by making multitudes of calls with me, but by pointing me in the direction of books and tapes (I know that dates me a lot) so that I could learn on my own and adapt my style to what I read or had witnessed in my joint calls with Terry.

Today's shout out though is for my first technical sounding board or mentor...Charles Lehr.  Charlie did not always favor sales people (understatement of the decade) but for some strange reason he took pity on me and he would take time to answer my idiotic questions nearly every day when I darkened his door step.  Admittedly there was scotch or vodka involved, but he would always share his knowledge about the products I was trying desperately to understand.   Most importantly, he knew when to push or prod me in a new direction, and when to make me do the research myself.  As it turns out Charlie was also a darn fine salesperson, but would not "fess up" to that as his technical knowledge was very strong and he took great pride in that as he should!

Some of my best real sales lessons came at Charlie's direction.  One of my favorite stories with Charlie went something like this:

Charlie- are you calling on XYZ Company?

Me:- I know someone who can get me an introduction

Charlie-that's nice but do you have an appointment yet?

Me- after going to make my call..I got an appointment!

Charlie- okay but do you have an opportunity yet?

Me- sigh, not yet....after my first call...we have an opportunity now

Charlie- is it sold yet?

Me- double sigh... after getting the the sale ultimately

Charlie- did you collect the money?

Me- &^%$# - and after collecting the money and proudly advising Charlie I had collected the check

Charlie- did the check clear the bank

Me- #$%%^^&&&^%%**&^%$-  so about three days later I proudly showed up at Charlie's office to advise him the check had cleared the bank

Charlie-  as only Charlie could ask....that's nice but can you do it again, and what are you doing tomorrow?  CHUCKLE...silence....well???

While the entire series of discussions drove me to contemplating drinking heavily, he was absolutely right in that sales, like golf, the most important step or shot is the next one.  Even more important than that was Charlie had laid the groundwork for what makes sales people strong...the ability to start anew after success or failure.  To this day, I remind sales people that their success will be determined on how well they start anew each and every day.  So thank you Charles Lehr for spending time with me and teaching me about insurance and sales!

By now you should know your assignment...reach out and thank someone who helped you.  Until next time...