 
By Adam Sachs, CLU, ChFC, CFP
I want to share two stories that changed my personal
and professional life. About 12 years ago I started my career in
the insurance and financial services industry. Training was intense,
ranging from learning about mutual funds, annuities and insurance
to doing a lot of role-playing.
During my first six months in the business, I
went on appointments with mentors and senior associates in the office.
When I started going out on my own, I was marketing to new homeowners
in the Metrowest Boston area. There, I met with a young, newly married
couple who had just purchased a new home. Kathy was a human resources
director for a well-known hospital. Her husband had emigrated from
South Africa and started a small business, which Kathy was supporting.
I didn’t realize that this unassuming encounter would change
my life.
During our meeting I went through a basic fact-finder
and discovered they needed some life insurance, basic estate planning
and a revision of Kathy’s old retirement plan. Soon after,
I took an application for life insurance on both of them. The medical
examiner met with them right after I did.
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| Take
a few minutes each day to visualize how the protection you
recommend to your clients can affect their families’
lives. |
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Three weeks later they were approved, both at
preferred rates. I left a message on their answering machine that
they were approved and that we needed to get together to review
the contracts. The following day I was on the road and called in
for my messages. Karen, the receptionist, told me that one of my
clients had passed away.
It was Kathy. She had passed away from a blood
clot, a pulmonary embolism, which can happen to anyone at any time.
In this case, it happened two hours after I left that message. Thank
goodness I had taken the binder check. I had not even delivered
the contract. I was 23 years old and had based my recommendations
to Kathy and her husband on case studies and some joint fieldwork.
Within the first year of my career, I delivered my first death claim
and truly realized the importance of what we do. However, even after
an experience like Kathy, sometimes you forget.
Another lesson
Then, déjà vu happened. A few years later I was referred
to Terry by her niece, an intern that I had hired eight years before.
Terry and her husband were very adamant about their priorities.
Family was their most important, they said. I shared with them my
experience with Kathy. If they wanted to make sure their family’s
plan was intact, they needed to meet with an attorney to address
their estate-planning needs and obtain some life insurance.
Throughout the years I became very close to Terry
and her family. I came to understand firsthand what she had meant
when, in our first meeting, she stated that family was very important
to them. Five years later Terry developed cancer. I continued to
meet Terry and her family for periodic reviews.
At one of those meetings, Terry said she was glad
that she obtained the life insurance and that she probably wouldn’t
be able to get any more coverage. I did not say anything. Terry’s
condition worsened over the next three years. At the last review,
Terry’s husband applied for more life insurance. After he
was approved I gave Terry a call. She kept on saying she was very
tired. I told her that I would call back. A few days later, I received
a call from Terry’s niece with the news.
More than 1,000 people attended Terry’s
wake. She was 39 years old. She left two daughters, a husband, parents,
a sibling, nieces, nephews and numerous friends. I felt overwhelmed
by how many lives she touched. Before I met with her husband to
deliver the insurance proceeds, I knew that he and his family would
be all right. His daughters would remain in the same house, and
they would still be able to go to their summer home in New Hampshire
and go to the college of their choice. Terry’s husband would
be able to pay off any outstanding debts, and their ultimate goal
would be accomplished. Family came first.
Why we do what we do
It should not have to take a client’s passing away to remember
why we do what we do. Both Terry and Kathy were in their thirties
and in perfect health when I met them. Every day I try to allocate
a few minutes to remember the influence I had on their families’
lives. Without someone like me, where would they be? Our business
can be tough. Part of what we do is motivating people who have a
responsibility to others to make a conscious decision about protecting
those they care about.
Try to take a few minutes each day to visualize
how the protection you recommend to your clients can affect their
families’ lives. The impact on your business could be immeasurable.
It was on mine!
Adam Sachs, CLU, ChFC, CFP, is with John Hancock
Financial Network in Wellesley, Mass. He is a board member at NAIFA-Boston,
is chair of the Boston YAT, and serves on the YAT Task Force.
April 2005
Converting
Prospects into Clients and Clients into Advocates
Success
in a Small Town
The Give-Get
Ratio
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