I actually had fun yesterday….but in so doing, I realized one of my weaknesses…. I’m a person (in business) who just wants to get to the point and move on…. I think from time to time, this sets my clients back just a bit….

I had to be at Dunn Brothers in Hugo at 9:00 a.m… I’m supposed to meet three contractor’s who are starting drywall business….thanks to a referral from my Banker Son…Bryan….I hate being late for anything…so anticipating a 49 mile drive directly through the Twin Cities at rush hour, I left at about 6:45….. got there at 7:45…I had lots of extra time, so I gassed up and got the Jag washed….my prospects were there at 9:00 and after sitting down…I asked about 10 questions…and said..”I’m done”.. I’ll have something for you in the next day or two…

“Oh…and by the way do you have a Buy/Sell agreement?”.. “Yes” came the reply almost in unison…. “How is it funded?”..I queried… blank looks all around… “Well, we have an agreement that says our wives have no claim to the business if something happens to us”.. “Does your lawyer feel it can’t be challenged?”…. blank looks again….. “You know Grouchy…we need a few grey hairs like you around to tell us this stuff”.. thanks for that..so I’ll probably write a few life policies out of this….I sure should anyway.

Off to one of my more loyal clients in Osseo…. “Serious Guy” handles the service on this account.. and he had about 20 questions for me to clarify….I got about three of them done….and when I mentioned that my clients insurance was up 10%, he gave me that..”I like you .. but I’m not sure I like you that much” look…. I was out the door in 15 minutes…. (He likes me that much)…

At 3:00 pm I had an appointment with an insurance agents dream….. I already wrote one account for him and his new business is being bound and covered today..but he is forever worrying about having a loss that isn’t covered..for example, last week he asked me about “weather” insurance….I didn’t think much of it unless I just wanted to wade around in his bank account…so I advised him..”You can find an insurance policy for just about any eventuality…and carriers and agents will take your money all day long… but the fact is you really can’t insure against everything even if there is a policy for it because you have to read the exclusions”…. “I need weather insurance” came the reply…. okay…I’ll go get it… I collected the down payment on his new policy and will no go find some weather insurance for him….this guy is good businessman, very smart but one of those rare people that really could say he’s insurance poor if I don’t watch out for him…

I ended the day at another clients office… I saved him over $2,000 this year….”Great Job Grouchy”, he kept saying….he was pretty happy, and after going through the policy another ten times we found even more things that would cut his insurance costs…then I mentioned that “rates were going up”…. and I needed him to consider his expectations for the next renewal….he didn’t say “great job Grouchy” this time…. he looked at me like he might just have to test the market next year…

So on my way home, I was thinking….. I’m great when I lose income..(we get paid a percentage of the premium)….but things get more neutral when rates start going up… there is a life experience lesson here..but I need to think about it more before I really know what it is…..