You are reading a page from Life Insurance as a Life Work, by Hugh Hart
(1926)
Part of the American Term Life Insurance History Project
Term Life Insurance
CHAPTER XII
QUALITIES REQUIRED
Men make progress in the world not so much by
reason of circumstances which lie outside of them, as
by virtue of qualities with which they come into the
world endowed and by the proper use of which they
make themselves masters of their circumstances.—
ANON.
You have had spread out for your inspec-
tion, in the preceding chapters, the advan-
tages and disadvantages of life insurance
selling. You have by now a fair opinion of
what life underwriting has to offer you hy
way of a career. It is now proper to ask
yourself: "What qualities have I to offer
to the vocation of life insurance selling'?"
The vocation may appeal strongly to you;
but it is vital that you should now consider
whether you would fit into the vocation.
Having before you the measure of the vo-
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QUALITIES REQUIRED
cation, you should now measure yourself.
Another cannot take your measure for
you. He can only supply you with a yard-
stick, and suggest ways to use it. He may
form an opinion—but only you yourself can
sound the hidden depths of your own char-
acter and gauge the qualities which lie hid-
den there.
Nor is it an easy task to supply the yard-
stick. The predetermination of a man's
fitness for successfully engaging in life in-
surance is a phase of life insurance develop-
ment which has not been given the consider-
ation that its importance deserves. It is
vital both to you and to the life underwrit-
ing vocation, that you should not take up
this work if you do not possess the qualities
requisite for success. On the other hand,
it is one of life's marvelous adventures to
discover hidden within you capacities quali-
fying you for carrying on the constructive
work of insuring lives, of enabling people to
guard against the hazardous uncertainties
of fate and circumstance.
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LIFE INSURANCE AS A LIFE WORK
In addition to good character and good
health, there are three major characteristics
by which you may test your fitness for this
work. You should, therefore, answer these
questions before you decide whether or not
you will choose life underwriting as a ca-
reer ;
(1) Have you the life insurance tem-
perament %
(2) Do you possess the quality of being
convincing ?
(3) Are you ambitious?
(1) THE LIFE INSURANCE TEMPERAMENT
There is a life insurance temperament,
just as pronounced as the artistic tempera-
ment, or the scholastic temperament.
There is nothing vague or mysterious about
it. A man either has it, or he does not have
it. It is made up of many elements and
shows itself in various ways. Here are
some of them:
(a) A desire to sell something.
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QUALITIES REQUIRED
(b) Enjoyment in meeting strangers,
and in mingling with people—
the social instinct.
(c) The impulse to give expression to
your ideas, and to have others
believe as you do.
(d) Confidence in your ability success-
fully to accomplish whatever you
set out to do.
(e) Love of the thrill that comes from
a hard fight for a good cause.
(f) Tendency to want to dominate
those with whom you come in
contact.
(g) A gift for being tactful.
(h) The kind of personality that
causes people to like you as soon
as they meet you, and to continue
liking you thereafter.
(i) The courage of your convictions.
(j) Initiative—the compelling desire
to start something.
(k) The "go-getter" attitude, with a
preference for dealing with peo-
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pie, rather than with papers.
(1) A boundless energy.
(m) A desire to serve.
(n) Vision which enables you to see far
into the future.
(2) CONVINCINGNESS
A man may have all the elements enumer-
ated under "Life Insurance Temperament"
and still be unable to sell life insurance.
We meet many such persons in different
branches of salesmanship, and we say they
are "good mixers" or that they are "hus-
tlers," but we wonder why they do not go
ahead. Often it is because they do not
have, in addition to the life insurance tem-
perament, the all important quality of con-
vincingness. To be convincing means
everything in our vocation.
There is quite a difference between pos-
sessing the quality of convincingness and
merely being a "convincing talker." The
quality of convincingness is an element of
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QUALITIES REQUIRED
character. To be convincing, a man must
possess a great deal more than mere talking
ability. Some of the most convincing peo-
ple are extremely poor talkers, and some of
the most unconvincing are excellent talkers.
To be convincing, a man must have convic-
tions. He must have knowledge on which
to base his convictions. He must think
clearly in the light of his convictions and of
his knowledge, and, then, his sincere expres-
sion of the belief in which he has saturated
his very soul carries the weight that con-
vinces his hearers. The life insurance
agent, therefore, finds converts to his cause
if he believes in life insurance with a pas-
sionate conviction, and if his faith is based
on a thorough knowledge of life insurance.
Earnestness, sincerity, and enthusiasm are
likewise necessary elements of this quality
of convincingness.
To be convincing does not mean that a
man must speak in a loud tone, or be of-
fensively emphatic. It is not necessary to
resort to "fire eating" tactics to be convinc-
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ing. After listening to a noisy harangue by
a country lawyer, a wise old farmer on the
jury turned to one of his colleagues and
dryly said of the speech, "Lots of heat but
very little light.'' Webster, perhaps Amer-
ica's most effective orator, is said never to
have spoken above a conversational tone.
Nor is it necessary to be "long-winded"
to be convincing. Concentration of much
thought in few words renders the thought
more compelling than if it is smothered un-
der an excess of language. To be logical
enhances one's ability to convince. Facts,
like soldiers, are more powerful if sent into
combat in orderly array.
You know whether or not you are con-
vincing—whether you can make others be-
lieve the things in which you believe. It is
a trait that can be acquired. Modern life
insurance training courses go far toward
developing this characteristic because they
inculcate both knowledge of life insurance
and faith in life insurance—its two chief
sources.
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QUALITIES REQUIRED
(3) AMBITION
Former Governor Neff of Texas recently
said, "You can turn the world upside down
if you only want to badly enough, but you
must want to first." In these words he has
expressed a truth of such great importance
that you should apply it in determining
whether or not you should venture upon a
life insurance career. You may have the
life insurance temperament, you may be
convincing, and yet fail utterly to make
good in life insurance selling if you do not
have ambition—by far the most important
quality of the three. Upon the depth of
your desire to go ahead, depends, to a
greater degree than upon any other factor
(except sound character), your success in
life underwriting. In fact, a strong, insis-
tent, sustained desire, a desire that makes
you willing to work long hours, to suffer
hardships, to endure sacrifices in order to
gain your goal, will carry you to amazing
lengths in this vocation.
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LIFE INSURANCE AS A LIFE WORK
Men often ask, "What is the secret of suc-
cess in life insurance selling?" An an-
swer often given is, "Hard work." That
answer does not go deeply enough into the
truth; ambition lies behind hard work, and
prompts it. Sometimes the question is an-
swered, "Knowledge of the business."
But ambition inspires the acquisition of
knowledge, for you do not have to prod the
truly ambitious life insurance man to learn
his business; his ambition to succeed causes
him to acquire the necessary knowledge.
Ambition energizes a man's life insurance
temperament, it gives power to his convinc-
ingness, and it bears him along from one
prospect to another on the wave of an al-
most irresistible enthusiasm.
There is the possibility that you may
think you are ambitious when such is not
the case. You can decide this question by a
simple test. Answer for yourself these
questions:
(1) What goal do I wish to reach in
life underwriting?
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QUALITIES REQUIRED
(2) What price am I willing to pay to
reach that goal<?
(3) Am I willing to study diligently
and to do a certain amount of
planning and constructive think-
ing every day, no matter what
outside temptations may present
themselves ?
(4) Am I willing to continue to call on
a definite number of prospects
every day, regardless of whether
success or failure meets my ef-
forts?
(5) Am I willing to suffer the pangs of
discouragement, to endure re-
buffs and disappointments, and
to live economically, even to the
point of privation if necessary,
until I am established in my new
life work %
An ambition which is strong enough to in-
spire a favorable reaction to these tests, will
sustain you through almost every difficulty
that may arise in the business of insuring
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lives. Furthermore, such an ambition will
cause you to love your work, and even to
minimize some of its disagreeable features,
for, by conscientiously pursuing the course
laid down by an unswerving desire to suc-
ceed, you will realize that every one of these
hardships is but another step forward to
the enjoyment of the rewards of success.
If you do not have this deep-seated desire,
this unconquerable ambition, then your fa-
vorable temperament and your convincing-
ness will amount to nothing. If, however,
the three are linked together in your
makeup, the life insurance temperament,
convincingness, and ambition, then to you is
destined to come, through the medium of
the life underwriting vocation, the fulfill-
ment of the four fundamental aims in your
life work: you will make all the money re-
quisite to your comfort and happiness and
that of your loved ones, both as you go along
in active pursuit of your tasks, and after
you reach old age; you will win a name hon-
ored and respected for the constructive
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QUALITIES REQUIRED
good you have done; you will confer prac-
tical benefactions upon your fellow men;
you will enjoy the thrill of practicing a
fascinating profession, filled with variety
and interest always, and rendered more
charming by the sense of pride which inevi-
tably comes to the underwriter who realizes
that his production is adding to the happi-
ness, as well as conserving the wealth of the
world.
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