For the most part, selling insurance is a Monday through Friday job, with a few exceptions. There are those people who are only available on the weekends, and for those clients I make appointments. However, there was a time at the beginning of my sales career when a sales manager required us to cold call on a Saturday and it didn't always end up as planned.
Our sales crew had fallen behind in our production goals and apparently the sales manager was getting grief from his boss (or bosses). Either way, he announced to us during a Friday morning meeting that we would be working the following morning, which was a cool Saturday in the fall. No one was pleased to hear this since most of us had plans to sleep in or do something more enjoyable.
After we complained a bit the manager said we could ride in pairs, so I looked over at a guy I knew and got along with, Frank. We nodded at each other and after the meeting we came up with a game plan for our Saturday morning. Frank said he knew a place not far from home where we could probably get a couple of policies written, split the business and both be back home by noon.
The next morning we met and I got into Frank's car. He drove out into the country toward nowhere. We saw what looked like an abandoned pick up truck off of the road about 50 yards, so Frank pulled up next to it. The doors were open and there was a half-gallon of Jack Daniels on the front seat.
Suddenly a couple of guys in camouflage walked out of the trees toward us. It became apparent they were deer hunters. "You fellas need something?" they asked.
Frank said, "Hello gentlemen. We noticed you guys were out here hunting and wanted to see if you had an accident insurance policy, just in case, of course."
The hunters smiled and offered us a drink of their liquor. Frank and I looked at each other surprised. It was about 10am and maybe a bit early, but on the other hand, we didn't want to be rude.
Time seemed to slip by as we drank together and the topic of the conversation changed. These two hunters were more interested in holding a country music festival than insurance. Frank and I drank whisky as the hunters explained their thoughts on how we could all make money hosting a concert in a small rural town, complete with vendors and parking fees. To their credit they had already worked out most of the details, specifically how much money it would take to get this event off the ground. Frank egged them on but I was getting a bad feeling in my gut, which wasn't from the five stiff drinks I had consumed.
The hunters wanted Frank and I to assist them with their country music concert plans by making a financial commitment. "I'm not in a position to do that," I muttered. In my head, if I had that kind of money I wouldn't be trying to sell insurance on the side of the road on a Saturday morning.
Suddenly, the hunters became angry. "If you aren't going to support us on this then get the hell our of here," one of them said as he walked toward his truck. On the seat, next to the liquor, was a 12 gauge shotgun. He grabbed it and began waving it around in a drunken stupor. In my buzzed state of mind I began thinking that this idiot really DID need an accident policy.
Frank had the wherewithal to try to calm down the other guys, but his efforts didn't work. They were mad, drunk and armed.
"Get the hell out of here if you don't want to invest in our project!" the drunken hunter screamed. Frank and I gave some sort of half-assed apologies for offending them and staggered back to his car. We got out of there quickly as we watched the two hunters still waving their guns at us.
Then Frank realized that we still hadn't made a sale yet. After driving a couple of miles he pulled into the yard of a small house with a couple of cars parked out front. "Someone is home. I'll do the talking," he slurred. Again, a bad feeling started to creep over me.
We knocked on the door and a nice lady walked us into a small den. She immediately made a face that led my drunken paranoia to believe she could smell the alcohol on both of us. Keep in mind, it was still morning, These poor people had just finished breakfast and we reeked of a early drinking binge.
I don't remember much of what happened in their home, but Frank managed to get a couple of applications and a check. We rode home not saying much to each other as we tried to digest the morning's activities.
About a week later we got a notice that the policies we wrote were declined because the clients had their bank stop payment on the check. In retrospect, they were probably desperate to get these two drunken idiots out of their home. I don't blame them at all and we shouldn't have been there to begin with.
In retrospect, there are several lessons from this story. Obviously, cold calling armed drunk people can be dangerous. But from my perspective, waiting until the last minute (Friday) to tell a sales team that they will have to work on Saturday was pointless, demotivational and dumb. None of the agents wrote much business and without time to plan a strategy, it was doomed to fail from the beginning.
Chris Castanes is a professional speaker who helps sales people succeed through workshops and humorous presentations. He's also the author of "You're Going To Be Great At This!", a humorous look at sales. For booking information, click here. He's also the president of Surf Financial Brokers selling life and disability insurance in several states.
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