My six months of internship phase at HDFC LIFE had 3 sales distribution career options- Agency, Banca and Direct. Being inexperienced in sales and in people management, I wanted to go for Banca or Direct, where the sales are mainly done by banks or the retail offices. Luck didn't favor and I was put into Agency.

Agency channel works on agents. I being the manager (BDM) have to recruit agents, assist them in clearing an IRDAI exam, motivate and finally achieve the sales target with the help of them.

Being an introvert, I was too shy to ask random people to think insurance as a second career option. My motivation was gunned down with the disappointing conclusion, that sales wasn't my cup of tea. The social pressure was immense, I can't quit what I started 4 month back.

The immediate challenge was recruiting consultants. Many of my colleagues shared their conventional approaches, by suggesting that I should visit post offices, banks, public places, chartered accountants, mutual fund agents to generate the prospect list. Adding a little of personal background here, one of the biggest challenge I find in B2C sales is asking people out from the open market. My childhood memory of a salesman selling detergent powder to my father has been too impactful, in a negative way. I didn't want to go the same way. Especially, when people are terrified with the idea of getting pitched by an insurance policy.

Suddenly, on a lucky day, one of was colleague was fixing a doctor appointment through Justdial. Though his appointment was for a medical checkup, when he expressed about how user-friendly Justdial is in searching contacts, I was punched with my Eureka moment. At first, I thought of going with Justdial but the very next moment, I realized that many contacts (in Justdial) would be having a job/profession and might not be that interested or free in going for a part time commission job.

Four months ago, I joined HDFC LIFE through an advertisement in Fresherworld (an online job sourcing site). It occurec to me that if I was looking for a job through Fresherworld, there might be thousands of more people doing the same. I immediately googled Fresherworld, paid them and in return got a list of 500+ raw contacts. The ore was too muddy. I can’t be calling all of them. The converted the file into an Excel and started filtering. The filters were the following (with the logic behind it):

Proximity: Ease of accessibility to the office. I understand most people are busy and not interested in losing their precious time in travelling frequently.
Age: I wasn’t taking bachelors, who are coming straight out of college. Insurance selling involves advising and it must come from a senior respected person in the family.
Graduate: Nothing in life can be achieved without basic education. This is my motto.
Female: I find housewives too dedicated and ambitious in achieving an independent status of their own.

Upon filtering (proximity, age, graduate and female), I was left with 50+ contacts. After rigorous cold calls, appointments, follow-ups and offering mock sessions, I converted 8+ of them into agents.

Now the next task was driving business. I started from building rapport by visiting their homes, occasionally taking them for lunch and most importantly hand-holding them in joint calls. I imparted training to them for personal finance and how to pitch insurance.

While going with the plan, I was introspecting and re-strategizing whenever I hit a speed breaker. This was done by review meetings, which I conducted fortnightly.

What I got from all of it?

An outstanding result. I completed my internship target 3 months before and then successfully got confirmed as an employee. I shared my success story with my reporting manager, who was very humble to ask me to share the same in the branch cultural meet. I beamed.

Good thing is, they are still my prominent agents.

Learning: Hard work is not always the best work.
Times are becoming more competitive and we need to be creative in finding out a solution. This challenge was more oriented towards people management and less with analytics. Otherwise, a lot of problems can be sorted out over a cup of coffee and a spreadsheet (Excel).

Sarim Haroon

Fortune Favors The Smart | #MBAIITKanpur