[ad_1]
I grew up in a small town on the Ohio River called East Liverpool. It is located in Ohio at the intersection of Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. When I was growing up it was a population of about 22,000. Today the population has dropped to just over 13,000. However, some very unique and interesting people come from my town. I want to tell you about one of those who learned the meaning of providing value to their customers so well that he went on to become the greatest life insurance salesman ever.
He was named Ben Feldman (1912 – 1993) and the 50-year career selling his insurance for one company, its sales volume of $ 1.8 billion, with over one third of what comes after he turned 65 and, he did it by selling out of his office in East Liverpool and not some major financial capital like New York.
Ben Feldman came from a sleepy little town Salineville, Ohio, where he began his business career selling chicken and eggs for $ 5 a week. As an aspiring businessperson, he wanted to enter the field of insurance but was unable to pass the audition basic Equitable Life Insurance Company is.
In typical fashion Feldman, he sold himself to the fair, and began to collect premiums on meager nickel and dime policy. In 1942 he joined New York Life and opened a small office in Little Building, the Diamond, in downtown East Liverpool. It was from this place that he began a relentless quest to achieve membership in the prestigious Million Dollar Round Table. He did it in 1946.
Little did anyone suspect that he would far surpass the million dollar mark, however, in 1955, he sold $ 10 million in coverage. He then began to sell one million a month, then a million a week, and in 1971 signed contracts over $ 65 million. He shot them for $ 10 million per month in 1983, with the help of two of his sons, Marvin and Richard, he sold $ 148 million of insurance.
Feldman was a pioneer, which made it easy for customers to understand the complexity of the federal estate tax, which defiled the fortunes of a large number of wealthy individuals in the period followed World War II. Long before computer graphics, he created a clever hand-drawn charts, showing the need for life insurance to protect individual assets from the government. He would book himself flying a plane, next to potential customers, he would open his brief case, filled with $ 100, $ 500 and $ 1,000 bills, along with their charts and graphs. The idea was to entice neighbor to notice money and comment, “Is that real money?” “Yes,” Ben would reply, “but I’m not afraid to carry it, because it is insured.” With such an opening, sales promotion, the lay-up.
A lover of luxury cars, Feldman was often seen racing up and down the highways that connect Pittsburgh and Youngstown Cadillac Eldorado him. It was within this 50-mile corridor that he sold the majority of his policies. Often equipped with a CB radio and car telephone – long before anyone had heard of such a device – he handled rejection like no other.
A favorite method Feldman was approaching the busy executive office and ask for an interview. Feedback from frazzled secretary would normally be, “I’m sorry, his time is too valuable.” Ben would ask, “Is it worth $ 100 a minute?” “At least!” was the answer, the answer (accompanied by five brand new hundred dollar bills,) was, “Well I want to buy five minutes.”
Even when Ben Feldman would go deep sea fishing, he would spend his time developing new sales techniques, memorizing all New York Life Insurance rate book. And, he would arm himself with a pithy little phrases, designed to overcome the most difficult challenge. For potential customers who said: “I believe the term insurance.” Ben would react, “Term insurance is temporary, but the problem is permanent.” “I can not afford the premium,” would apply, “You already broke and not even know it.”
Following in the footsteps of such legends was not easy for Marv and Rich Feldman, but they treat the challenge and Marv was president of the Million Dollar Table in 2001, and Rich excelled in many endeavors, including “drag racing” of everything.
Now you may be thinking to yourself that Ben must have been some kind of superstar, good looking, talking fast, good man – but you’d be wrong. Ben was short, stout, bald and spoke slowly with a special Lisp. He never finished high school. He was so shy that years later when he was asked to speak at meetings of the insurance industry, he would only agree if the screen was erected between him and the audience.
He was a legend when it came to making a point to know every business owner in his district. He did his homework first and learned everything he could about potential clients so that when he met them (often the “cold call”) was ready with the proper Value Development Questions. He was not always sell right away, but he never gave up. I once heard him say that for many years he did not stop working for the day until he made at least one sale – no matter how late it got.
One of the favorite stories about Ben is a prominent real estate developer. Ben tried for weeks to get in to see a busy man, but was always unsuccessful. One day, Ben stopped in the cold and handed Assistant developer is an envelope with five $ 100 bills and asked her to give it to her boss. He told her, “If I do not have a good idea for him, he can keep the money.” He got in and sold $ 14 million policy. Years later when Ben realized you need additional insurance due to the unprecedented growth of its business; He was again stymied by man claim that he was too busy to take a physical. Undaunted, Ben rent a fully equipped mobile hospital van, hired a doctor and sent them to the industrialist. Rumor is that the man ended up with over $ 50 million in coverage.
In 1992, New York Life marked 50 years Ben the enterprise advocate “Feldman’s February” national sales competition. Ben took this as a personal challenge. The winner of the contest (80 years) was Ben Feldman.
Ben was famous for his words, which he used to encourage both customers and themselves. my favorite is:
“do something costs something
Doing nothing costs anything
And quite often, doing nothing costs a lot more …”
Ben Feldman died in 1993 at 81. A few years before his death he was asked about the biggest policy that he had ever written. “I can not say. I have not written it yet.”
[ad_2]
Source by Bob Poole