RML Sales Recruiting & Lifestyle
Copied from 02 Purple cars - part of Jim Woods notes for his RML book
Recruiting good sales personnel is still a major problem. Why?
A career in selling Life insurance is one of the most attractive and rewarding sales positions available. Yet Life Insurance Companies have a very difficult time attracting the top sales personnel. There are two basic reasons for this. Firstly, the Companies of today are more concerned about creating an image of themselves, than they are an image for their sales personnel. They all spend millions of dollars in upgrading their image and do little to upgrade the image of their salespeople.
In Jim Wood's view the Life Underwriters should enjoy as good, if not a better public image than many other Professionals. In general, they have a better overall expertise not only of business matters but our human life values. The companies have failed them badly and the companies "with a future" will take some steps to change all this.
When a professional becomes a Life Underwriter, they have been chosen by the Life Underwriters Association of Canada - an organization funded and operated by the Life Underwriters across Canada.
Most Companies pay the new Representative to join the company. As a result, the salesman sells the "advance" rather than the "career". No wonder retention is so low.
There is a saying that you never really "have a person" until you have their money. Do you really want to attract anyone to your organization who can't come up with $1000 for an excellent training program? In this type of negotiation, you prove the company is "selective" as well.
Most people searching for work study the "Want Ad" pages closely. So Rocky Mountain Life took advantage of this fact. All of our Program Managers, every weekend advertised for Sales Personnel. The Ad was something like the one at the top.
All of our Regional Managers followed this process of renting a nice Hotel Room for the weekend and arranging Appointments in the Hotel Room over the weekend. Good Salespeople are a proud lot and do not like to publicly expose them self to an Office atmosphere when looking for a job. This method of recruiting was most successful, and the quality of our recruits was above normal, and they liked the philosophy of Rocky Mountain Life, combined with the opportunity to earn a pretty good income.
Firstly, we didn't make it easy to join Rocky Mountain Life. There was a $1000 fee to pay to take the training. The recruit was not left alone when he returned home. His Divisional Manager would work with him on a joint commission basis for two weeks, and his Regional was always available to help wherever he could as long as it was necessary. The Chairman and President insisted that the new recruit called him weekly to report his problems and progress. A separate phone line was installed by the Chairman which was very active.
The Regional Manager held daily meetings at 8.00 am and all Divisional Managers and their Special Representatives were required to attend. The Chair and President requested that every Regional Manager report to him with the results of his region for the previous day.
Every three months the Company held an exciting Rally. They were usually held in a Luxury Hotel although the Banff School of Fine Arts was a popular location. As many as 1100 people attended one rally, but usually about 300 wives were expected to attend. A special speaker was brought in and all Regional Managers would report on their progress for the previous three months.
The rallies were more designed for fun, education and motivation. The automobile program was always a significant part of the rally, particularly to the new recruit who had just qualified for the new Cougar Automobile.