What is your bottom line?

Last week I had an interesting meeting with a long-time mentor of mine and a business associate of his. I was pitching my ideas to them with great enthusiasm. The main idea of the meeting was to establish how I can take my philosophy about mentoring forward.

I have to say, I was very disappointed after the meeting. I know it was not their ideas that made me feel that way, but instead the coming to terms with the reality of what business is all about, financial bottom line.

Although disappointing, I was motivated even more to get my ideas out there. It just proved to me that business owners do not really care about the people that are adding to the bottom line. 

When selling insurance, we are taught to listen to our customers and treat them fairly. But we tend, as advisors, to also be interested only in the outcome of commission. Maybe that is why we have a bad reputation and why legislation are put into place, but that is just a bunch of extra paperwork.

A few weeks ago I had a meeting with a female client. I decided before the meeting not to bombard her with a bunch of info, but to listen to her story. After the meeting she sent me a message to thank me for the meeting. In the meantime, trying to set up a second meeting, she fell ill with pneumonia. Every day I messaged her, enquiring about how she is doing, not pushing for a second meeting. 

Yesterday I had my meeting with her. Out of her own she organized another meeting for me with a co-worker. She also asked for a bunch of business cards so that she can distribute them in the company.

What does this show us? Although her business is coming to me and I will earn commission, she felt my sincere caring feeling about her. There are thousands of brokers out there, but I think she will never move her business. 

That is called loyalty, and now she is an advocate for my business. It did not take much of my time, maybe 3 sincere caring messages. Sometimes, taking your eye off the financial gain, adds to the bottom line automatically.

In business you have to stand out from the rest. If you are just pushing numbers, you are just like the rest. 

I am also involved in another business. About a month ago I contacted one of the people in the network, just enquiring how their business is progressing. After a few days I got this message to say that she is including me in a transaction, without me being involved at all. I was stunned again, without really doing anything, I created an opportunity. 

One of her comments stated that she wants to do business with me, because I am not like all the other "bloodsuckers". The reason is sincerety and caring about the person, not my own pocket.

Another example happened about 8 years ago. I was introduced to a client, but his business was with another broker. I had his details like birthdate and for 2 years I phoned him on that day. At that time he started a business with 3 other engineers. Out of the blue he phoned me one day and I ended up doing all of the business insurance and all of their personal business as well. 2 innocent phone calls, but what that proved to him was that I cared without even getting anything from him.

Many ancient writings, including the Bible, teaches us to give without receiving. They go further to say you have to give away first, and that you have to give away without guarantees of getting anything back. In our businesses today, we tend to focus on numbers only, and we use people to get there. We say we care, but most of the time we don't. 

John F. Kennedy's words resound to me: "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country". We tend to ask what our clients and employees can do for us, not what we can do for them. We focus more on the clients that spend the most money and not on all equally. 

I have been in the insurance industry for 20 years. In this time I had amazing achievements and terrible failures. What I experienced was that when I added to the bottom line, the trips and lunches were abundant. But when I experienced personal problems, and with that bad business, nobody cared. That was actually the time when I needed support. 

The question is if you know the stories of the people around you? Do you even care about them and their lives. Are you looking at the whole person with love, or just at your bottom line?

Sent from my iPhone