Introduction - Pre-Insurance Days

My sales career had an illustrious start at RadioShack, Arden Fair Mall ... this was back in the early days of the free mobile phone giveaway programs (an outrageous, Purple Cow concept at the time). My sales manager told me to grab a clipboard and stand at the front of the store, right next to door, so that I could greet every person that walked in with an offer for a free mobile phone. We sold some phones, that's for sure. Led the nation at one point. I was pretty happy, feeling like I was makin' Big Bucks at $2,000 per month as a recently married full-time college student, but I didn't like the work on nights and weekends. I moved over to The Sharper Image (going bankrupt now), where the schedule was great, but the pay was horrible. Retail sales, with its pay based on evening, weekend, and holiday sales was not a good fit for me.

I figured that following the footsteps of my successful Real Estate Agent father would be a good way to go, so I asked him about it (little did I know that Realtors work plenty of evenings and weekends too!). "Son, nobody is going to buy a house from a twenty-year old rookie. It's a huge financial decision and people want to feel confident with their Realtor." Ah. He had a point. And so, I took my naive self down another path. Surely I can sell cars! (As if car salespeople don't work nights and weekends!) "They will hire just about anybody on a car lot, right? At least they'll give me a chance," I thought. Three interviews later, no job. Sheesh.

Back to Dad for some advice. "My boy ... have you thought about the insurance business? I have a guy that I refer to every time I sell a house and he seems to do pretty well. Let me see if he might have a position for you, ok?" The next week, I was working in the back office of a local Farmers Insurance agent's office where I experienced my walking-in-the-snow-uphill-both-ways introduction to the industry. My first task as an employee? Filing and mailing paperwork eight hours a day. I'm talking strenuous work here folks. Sore legs from filing-cabinet-crouches, paper cuts on my hands every day, ... TOUGH WORK.

My wife, Janice, dug out this photo of me from back in my days as an employee. Look at that cheesy smile! Just over a year after I had been hired, I had obtained my insurance licenses, been promoted out from the back room, and become armed with some experience and insight in to how the insurance industry operated. In December of 1998, I decided to strike out on my own.