Why I Love Life Insurance Agency

The stories of transformation that I witnessed and am still witnessing are endless. Almost twenty years later, as I travel around the country to motivate agents from across different life insurance companies, I continue to be fascinated by the success stories of ordinary people transforming themselves into extraordinary professionals because of this industry.

In January 2004, I joined Max Life Insurance (then Max New York Life Insurance) as a Branch Sales Trainer and went to attend the induction program in Gurgaon. Little did I know then the impact the next five and half years was to have on my life and entrepreneurial journey.

The defining moments in the five-and-a-half-year stint with the company came when conducting induction and other kinds of sales training for my branch’s agents. I remember telling my Boss Mr Manish Saklani that I felt I belonged to the system and the environment. Many of my trainer colleagues in the company had come from a sales background. I had no background in sales. My career had spanned research, six years in journalism and two years in soft skills training. Yet, maybe I was hired due to my good communication and public speaking skills.

\What struck me was the instant connect I had with my agents. Though I learnt sales while conducting sales training, my agents felt inspired by my sessions and I grew up the ladder to eventually become one of the six Zone Training Heads in the company. It is a tribute to the company’s training ecosystem and mentors that it transformed a novice like me into a strong sales trainer. Ever since I have expanded my sales training repertoire much beyond just the insurance sector.

I felt an instant connect with my agents, ordinary people who came from diverse backgrounds to give their life dreams another chance to manifest. It was extraordinary for me to see a housewife become a superstar salesperson within a short period of time, sometimes within weeks of acquiring the licence. It was astonishing to see a businessman who had lost much money and morale resurrect his life by selling life insurance. It was astonishing for me to see an undergraduate girl become one of Mumbai city’s most successful advisors.

The stories of transformation that I witnessed and am still witnessing are endless. Almost twenty years later, as I travel around the country to motivate agents from across different life insurance companies, I continue to be fascinated by the success stories of ordinary people transforming themselves into extraordinary professionals because of this industry. I joined the industry when it was in its nascent stages, and now the sector has expanded itself exponentially with customer awareness of products and options also at a totally different level. Yet, the one thing that has not changed is the extraordinary power of the agency model to provide opportunities for common people to become highly successful and acclaimed professionals.

During my travels and sessions, I get to meet legends of life insurance, many of whom are also leaders mentoring advisors in their team. The other industry where I see such a wide spectrum of legends is Bollywood. The Hindi film industry has legends across various functions – acting, direction, music direction, singing, etc. Just like in Bollywood, where many people have created a legacy of sorts, life insurance too is a legacy-based business for both the company as well as the agency force.

So what really is the connect I feel with the agents? I realised during my stint as an employee that I somewhere identified myself with them. Having grown up as an ordinary and weak child, I have had to work my way through life, constantly trying to evolve, reinvent myself and make a mark in this world. It has been an excruciating yet fascinating process of evolution for a man who has dared to dream and developed enormous self-belief, despite not exactly having what it takes to make a significant impact in life. I saw myself in my agents. They were up against a world which they had not experienced before. All they had when they took up agency was Hope.

Many people’s hopes even today crumble within weeks of joining the business because of the intrinsically difficult nature of selling, especially life insurance. In a world where there is so much emphasis on talent and intelligence, the successful agents are those who have placed far more emphasis on resilience than these two attributes.

Sales, for many people, is simply an acquired skill. It is not usual for people even today to aspire to be a professional salesperson. Sales, for many people, happens by accident, or due to lack of other ‘skilled’ choices. Sales has a low entry barrier too. It is difficult to stay when you get in, but generally not difficult to get in.

I sensed that my life was also about displaying loads of resilience. In my entrepreneurial journey since 2009, I have brought on all the elements of the agency business. In my training business, besides implementing the selling principles I taught to agents, I am also constantly trying to expand my own little agency – the Associates team.

My business’s mission statement too is inspired by my love for the life insurance agency model: ‘To help ordinary people become extraordinary through the power of fun-based learning and thereby enable people to fall in love with Learning’.

While we at Hariharan’s School Of Success Education (HSSE) deliver training programs across sectors, I personally still feel charged and extraordinarily enthused whenever presented with an opportunity to deliver sessions for agents or even agency managers at various levels.

My love affair with life insurance agency and insurance agency as a whole continues.