Be A Proactive Mentor

Did this month’s Producer Profile subject Bryan Krupin overcome long odds and major obstacles to become a highly successful life insurance producer? Not so much. Upon deciding to follow in his very successful father’s footsteps and give the business a try, he was presented with a great opportunity to succeed in the industry – and he certainly didn’t squander that opportunity. On the contrary, he made the most of it, exceeding his father’s expectations and helping their company, Gilbert-Krupin LLC, reach heights few life insurance agencies ever attain.

Bryan Krupin’s story (which begins on page 16) provides a great example of the value of mentorship in helping younger producers thrive in the business rather than wash out within a few years, victims of a lack of proper training and a “sell first” management mentality.

Now, obviously, not everyone gets the chance to enter the business under the wing of a parent who has already achieved great success in the industry. It’s an ideal scenario to be sure. But while a lot of successful producers out there may not have a son or daughter interested in joining them in the life insurance business, that does not mean those experienced producers can’t share their expertise with other deserving young producers with ambition and potential.

I think a key here is that experienced producers take a proactive approach to finding someone to mentor rather than waiting for someone to ask for their help – or being directed to act as a mentor by their company. Take the initiative and you could end up developing a relationship that might even turn out to be the answer to your own business succession question.

We also need more companies to follow the lead of the MDRT Mentoring Program, which is designed to match highly successful MDRT members with up-and-coming new agents or less-experienced agents who aspire to MDRT membership. Sure, it can be seen as a little self-serving in that the goal is to help more agents qualify and join MDRT, but if they do that, it also means they are making it as career agents. This is something many of them might not achieve without that mentoring program.

To me, that’s the real goal – doing what we can to make sure more industry newcomers survive those perilous first years and blossom into successful career agents. The industry has a huge challenge in front of it to recruit and properly train the next generation of agents. It has been well-documented that we have an aging producer workforce that is currently not being replaced at a sustainable level.

An increase in the activity level of mentoring programs is an important tool to help fix that problem.

“To me, that’s the real goal – doing what we can to make sure more industry newcomers survive those perilous first years and blossom into successful career agents.”

BRIAN ANDERSON is the Editor of Life Insurance Selling.