January 27, 1923.
beaten, and never to go back to teaching with its wearing and tearing monotony and inadequate financial re-turns. Gradually that resolution to succeed and hard work brought its rewards and I am now selling a quarter million of insurance a year, 90% of it among women.
For indeed, there is a great field hardly cultivated yet, for insuring women, and women agents are especially qualified to cultivate it be-cause of their knowledge of women's needs, their sympathy with them, and their better understanding of women's minds.
To succeed in insurance, women, just like men, must be willing to pay the price of success. The profession is worth it, not only in its financial returns, but because it is a fine constructive work, helpful to all, necessary to many. But life insurance is not a sinecure—emphatically no. It is the hardest kind of business to con duct successfully because it calls for an investment not merely of dollars and cents or in previous education; but for a constant investment of personality plus hard work, plus initiative, plus tact, plus courage, plus ambition, plus a few other virtues and qualities.
If one has, or is willing to acquire these, then there are few professions that offer the same opportunities to a woman without capital or previous business training; very few, where she can be to the same extent as the successful insurance agent, "the master of her fate, and the captain of her soul."
THE LIFE INSURANCE PROFES-
SION AN OPPORTUNITY FOR
WOMEN
By Maude McCallister, Guardian Life,
at Washington, Mo.
I am indeed proud of the fact that I am one of the many ladies who are
MAUDE McCALLISTER
selling life insurance in America to-day. Several years ago before I went with the Guardian Life, had any-one told me that I would have been
one of our happy band I might have marveled at the fact, but now I can only say the mystery to me is why didn't I think of it sooner? I had for some time thought the work would be interesting and when the desire grew strong enough I could see selling life insurance as the best and most worth while work any girl could do and at that time I took my stand. It was not all easy at first but I feel that no doubt the "beginning" of any business is the hard part. First of all I learned to love my work and early saw that in order to succeed I must keep my mind only on the good and be above the chattering of the person who felt that selling life insurance was anything but a creditable occupation for a woman. (Don't hesitate girls that can be clone.)
I have been with Guardian Life for over six years, working in a town of about five thousand inhabitants. Not a place of many big policies. My largest yearly production was $225,000 this chiefly as I mentioned made of small policies. I had rather sell my client what I know that he can carry and be happy with than for him to feel that his insurance is a burden for when that is the case he fails to be a booster and we all need them.
My success in this work does not ';ffer from the average business per-son. I attribute it largely to the fact I believe in what I am doing and persist in it daily. I owe much to my managers whose words of encouragement came at the opportune time.
I believe there are opportunities in the life insurance for women because buying life insurance today is a business and the woman who sells knows she has something to sell which the world wants to buy and the world does not draw the line between men and women agents when they are buying insurance. The business man looks at it from a business stand-point and considers it a necessity. All that he demands is that the agent know the proposition and whether man or woman, it is no difference.
We must realize that the work we are doing is a genuine service to man-kind, and think of it as a game and play it for all we are worth.
A WELL PAID WORK
By Edna Kaufman, Home Life,
at Chicago.
Some one said: "The life insurance business is the hardest business in the world if you work it easy, but it is the easiest business in the world if you work it hard."
The field for women is unlimited, and I would advise one who wants to work hard and be well paid for that work to take up the selling of life insurance.
After leaving school and deciding on a business career, I consider that
13
I was very fortunate in securing a position with a life insurance company. After many years of office work my employer persuaded me to take up the selling end of the business in connection with my inside duties, telling me that I was missing a big opportunity on account of my knowledge of the business, and, further, that women were being recognized more every clay in the selling lines.
I shall always be under deep obligations to him for the suggestion, which I immediately followed. What little success I have made I attribute to my knowledge of the business; to stating the object of my call very briefly and being businesslike. When talking with a prospect I take it for granted he is going to buy and talk about the contract as if already his.
LIFE INSURANCE—A WONDER-
FUL OPPORTUNITY TO BRING
OUT OUR BEST QUAL-
ITIES.
By Mrs. Wynona Hauser, Bankers
Life Insurance Company, at
La Crosse, Wisconsin.
Prelimarily, my reason for uniting with members of The Banker's Life Co., was the death of my husband;
E. WYNONA HAUSER
which occurred suddenly about four years ago. And following upon this, came the necessity for me to carry on the work alone, of rearing our twc children. Because of this, and Because
The home is the Heart of the Woiid. and the child the Heart of the Home. Being a mother, I know of nothing more pleasing than to give joy to little children, or be permitted to influence the world through them.
Because
In order to succeed in our business, no man need ever violate the golden rule of his conscience. And because
WOMEN IN LIFE INSURANCE EDITION; INSURANCE ADVOCATE
