James L. Cowles--Fun Times On The Job

My career in the insurance business was rather unique. Instead of expecting relatives to become my first customers, we sold “fringe benefits” (insurance policies) to small businesses, both owners and employees. Believe me, I’m sure my relatives appreciated that. In addition, many of our specialists, including myself, were Chartered Life Underwriters (CLU), which is a designation earned through ten college courses in insurance. It’s a little tough to study and earn a designation, while also working every day, but we claimed to be experienced professionals, and thus we were expected to earn this designation. So, while some were relaxing after work, I was studying.

The one thing that helped us most in our business was the endorsement of trade associations. Most of these Kentucky associations were actively seeking insurance benefits for their members, and we were able to design and implement several benefit plans for member firms. Later in my career, I became a Senior Vice President and Regional Sales and Marketing Director, and as such, I serviced our trade associations and managed their benefit programs. At one time, we had most every trade association in Kentucky as customers (9 or 10 of them), and I routinely worked with their insurance committees, especially when medical plans renewed. We also offered to enroll new employees as they became eligible, but we could only do so where the employer was paying a good portion of the benefit costs. Those customers also received annual benefit communications to their employees, reminding them of how much their employer was spending for their benefits. Of course, this often gave us opportunities to sell additional, payroll deducted benefits, which helped pay for the work we did for our employer customers.

As you may have already gathered, it took quite a large staff to accomplish our goals, and another of my jobs was to manage that staff, which required hiring and firing. Oh, man; imagine the fun I had. Our account executives were the more experienced sales force, making calls on business owners. In other words, they called on corporate members and sold the association programs that were endorsed by the trade association insurance committee membership. It was pretty easy to talk with most members, using the phrase, “I’m calling on behalf of your (fill in the blank) Trade Association.”

We also had quite a large staff (50 or so, employees) who did the very hard work of selling, enrolling, communicating, and servicing the association benefits for employers, and to employees, one on one. We called those folks, Account Representatives, and they had to be ready to enroll new plans, new employees, and new programs. As brokers, we had many insurers covering employees in most every client business. In other words, we might have five to ten insurers in a corporate program, depending on the benefit plans the employer had approved. Each one of the insurers in a program had their own applications, so perhaps this helps give you a picture of how much work it took to sell and service clients.

That’s the last of the somewhat technical information I intend to provide in this story, and at this point, if you’ve read this far, and have decided to keep going, I know you will be glad there will be no more of that kind of stuff. In fact, from here on out I’m going to give you the lowdown on the more humoristic side of our business; the things that are bound to happen when you have so much on your plate. My Lord, when I look back at all we had to do, I don’t know how we accomplished it all.

Maybe my story should have started here, ignoring all the explanation of what we did, but I think it gives you a better picture of what we were dealing with. Let’s just say we were bound to make mistakes, so we were always looking for something to lighten our load. Now, some of what I am going to tell you, simply happened out of the stupidity. The silliness that befalls us humans; let’s begin at the beginning.

When you have such a major undertaking, you know you are going to have to receive a lot of training, and I came aboard as an innocent, inexperienced AR (account representative). Yes, we were the ones who had to do all the dirty work of completing applications for every insurer involved in covering the employees in an employer sponsored program. Part of our role was to explain to each employee how a benefit works, thus all of us inexperienced folks had to attend a week of classes in our home office, in Nashville, Tennessee to learn about the programs we provided. We were called rookies, amongst other things, and we were the low life of the sales force, occasionally fitting into the “dumb and dumber” category. A good sense of humor was a definite requirement.

This initial training week began smoothly enough, but the night life in Nashville always called, making the training days a little tougher; turning to late night honky-tonks and such was not conducive to learning, but no one was watching us at night, so…. Here are a few examples of what occurred during the free hours of training.

Our company thought it was good to double up on hotel rooms, you know, so we could get to know our fellow agents a little better, at least that’s what they said. Of course, it saved the company lots of money, but they didn’t tell it that way. We figured that out all by ourselves. Now, I have never been much of a drinker, but the peer pressure among the class of account representative made that part of life’s journey essential, at least a time or two. I was rooming with my new, good friend, whom we will call Alan, and that was an experience with alcohol I will not forget. One of those nights, I can’t remember which one it was, I decided to stay in the room after dinner. I should say, I needed to stay in my room, to try to catch up on something important to the learning process, restful sleep! I remember being fast asleep when Alan came in that night, and I think it must have been at least 2:00 or 3:00 am, if not later. Of course, he had to wake me and fill me in on the adventurous time he had had that night, something I would rather not have heard, and as he slurred his way through it, I kept nodding and dropping off to sleep. Alan was a talkative guy, so it was not okay with him when I didn’t respond to him. He shook me a time or two, and began talking louder, probably thinking that would make me more attentive. He was wrong; I just faked it. Anyway, at some point, he abruptly stopped talking and ran into the bathroom, and I thought whatever he had drank was about to come up. Instead, he ran back in quickly to continue his story, which I didn’t want to hear. My luck had run out. Now get this. He was suddenly drinking a fresh can of beer. So, I’m still lying there, pretending I’m hearing him, and then I began wondering, where he got that beer, so I interrupted and ask him, “do we have a refrigerator in our restroom (?).” “No,” he says, so I say, “where’d you get that beer?” “From the toilet,” he says. “From the toilet,” I say?

Well, you know exactly what I’m thinking. “You’re telling me you put your can of beer into the toilet? I repeat. “Not in the toilet, dumbass, in the toilet tank,” he says. “And there’s a six pack in there. Want one?” After I politely answer, “Hell no. I just want to sleep.” “Alright, alright. Don’t get your panties in a bunch,” he says, and he lets me go back to peaceful sleep while he sits drinking his beer.

The next morning, I’m up bright and early, then shower, shave and dress, ready for breakfast, and Alan is still asleep. Payback time!” “Alan, Alan,” I say, as I shake him. “What, what the hell,” he says. “You are going to be late, dude. You’d better get your ass in gear if you want some breakfast.” “I’ve got breakfast in there in the toilet tank,” he says, and he’s serious. He made it to class on time, and even though he had beer on his breath, he looked damn chipper. Unbelievable…

We were warned there would be a test on the last day, Friday, so Thursday night, as I go over my notes and reading material, Alan doesn’t crack a book. Nothing. But he keeps saying, “Ask me a question, ask me a question. Make it a hard one and let’s see if I can answer it.” So, I play his silly game, and ask him a very technical question about life insurance. He answers it perfectly. He continues to bug me, and I continue asking him questions, with him preventing me from going over the material so I can be ready for the damn test. Here’s a guy who took no notes, didn’t crack a book, an insurance policy, nothing, and he scores perfectly on the test. I got a 90%, but this guy who didn’t study a lick, went out partying every night, and only came to breakfast the first day, drank his breakfast from a toilet, scores 100%. He had to be genius level.

There were many other training sessions over the years, and many stories to go with them, but three stand out in my memory. They don’t stand out because of the incident, but rather, the person with whom I experienced them. I’ll call the guys involved, Roger, Mickey, and my favorite pal, Tom. He was Best Man at our wedding.

In Mickey’s case, he was a good friend I worked with, but never roomed with. He told me this story, and had me on the floor, laughing. Mick was an old country boy from Eastern, Kentucky. He was a high school football star, playing abandonly throughout his short career. He didn’t play in college, primarily because his doctor advised against it. He was so reckless on the field, that most every game he would get knocked out. Winning was important to Mick, and he knew two speeds back in the day. Fast and faster. Work hard and you win, was his policy, and to do so, like most country boys, he went to bed not much past dark, and awoke before the rooster had even thought about crowing. You know the type, always rested and ready, up so early and happy to see the cows and milk them; it made me nauseous. His story goes something like this. The company put him in a room with a guy considerably different than him. The fellow, we’ll call him “David,” had only one eye, and the other was fake, but it looked pretty good, except it seemed to follow you no matter where you went. If you looked back as you walked away, I’d swear, it followed your movement. He also was a partier like my friend Alan, so Mick was fast asleep when David was coming in, and almost ready to awaken for the morning. He got up before daylight that morning, as usual, but David, like my pal, Alan, also wanted to talk when he came in from a night on the town. Mickey had a switch. Turn it off and he slept, turn it on and he was bright as a new light bulb. So, David wore Mickey out with conversation at two or three o’clock in the morning. It would have been fine if David had stayed out one more hour, or so, but he messed up Mickey’s sleep pattern, so he couldn’t get his eight or nine hours of sleep in. Anyway, as Mickey tells it, he just wasn’t himself that morning, primarily because of David’s attempt to tell him what all he had done the night before. Mickey was so polite; he would never have thought of telling his new friend to shut it. David, of course was fast asleep by the time Mick arose and went into the bathroom. I can’t make this as funny as Mickey did when he first told me the story, but here goes. He said he did what he always did when he got up every morning. He always had a good long pee, then he would wash his hands with warm water, then turn the cold water on, and splash it on his face with both hands. Afterward, he’d drink a glass of cold water, and he was good to go. This morning, as he looked down for a glass to get his water, in one of the motel glasses, already full of water, an eyeball was staring back at him. He said, the first thing he did, was reach up and check each eye with his hands. “I didn’t know David had a fake eye,” he said. I had never really met him until he came in so late that night. I thought, ‘could this be my eye?’ I had to check to be sure.” Mickey was one of my favorite friends, but he bugged me because he would never ask for the sale. You know how a salesman is supposed to ask, “Shall we began enrolling your employees next Tuesday, or would Wednesday be better?” He presented a plan the right way, but he would wait for the business owner to say, “Hey, I really like that. Let’s do it.” That is not commonplace in sales. You must schedule a sale, and you must ask for the order. I recall several times I went with him to visit a car dealer in downtown Louisville. In fact, it was probably four or five times. During each of those visits, Mickey would reemphasize a certain benefit, then leave without asking for the order. The owner had to be interested, because Mickey just popped in, and Mr. Smith would always welcome us to his office. He was a salesman himself, and perhaps he was waiting for Mickey to “close” the sale. As I recall, summer had arrived and Mickey was doing some work outside at home, and hurt his back. In fact, it was so bad, he had to have surgery. My job at that point was to take over Mickey’s calls, and the first person I called-on was Bob Smith, dealership-owner. I decided I would tell Bob about Mickey, then say, “Bob, when can we start enrollment of this program for you and your employees? Mickey had him ready, but that day I closed the sale by just giving him alternate enrollment dates, and let him choose. It was a sale for Mickey, and when I visited him in the hospital, he had to hear the entire story, which really was nothing more than asking Bob when we should plan to start. Mickey was amazed.

This next story involves me again, of course. Seems I was often the brunt of someone’s ill-conceived plan. At any rate, I knew Roger from previous training classes, and like Mickey, he was a Kentucky boy, only he was from Western Kentucky Coal country. You know, “Mr. Peabody’s coal train done hauled it away,” country. John Prine, may he rest in peace.

We found ourselves at another Nashville training session, and they chose to put Roger and I in a room together. This had to be more advanced training, because Roger and I kept trading places as the leading salesman in our agency, so we were both pretty experienced guys. That's exactly why they put us together; they loved the competition. Every sales organization does.

Roger, living in Madisonville, Kentucky, didn't have much opportunity for night life, so he had to make up for it during those Nashville sessions. On the other hand, it was my intent to work my way into management at some future date, and I had learned that upper management looked all of us over when they had the opportunity, and being fuzzy brained during a training session was not a good thing for the more serious minded. At any rate, I remember that Roger “went out on the town,” and stayed rather late. For me, I figured one drink was enough, then I'd turn in early and be fresh when the president of our company popped in.

Roger rolled in about 3:00am, or so, and of course woke me up, saying, hey Jim, get up and let’s go get some “Crystal burgers.” Those burgers are identical to White Castles, a favorite in the Louisville area. I was just awoken from a sound sleep, and right away I told him that wasn't a good idea. Crystal stayed open all night, and he could have picked a package up on the way home himself, as he drove down Murfreesboro Road to the Holiday Inn, but no, he didn't think of that. He kept pleading with me, and it was then I realized how drunk he was. He didn't even realize he had passed right by the place on the way back. In fact, I'm surprised he even found the hotel.

Roger kept insisting I get up and dress, so we could go to Crystal, and I kept insisting he get his rear end in bed, but he wasn't even listening. Instead, he said he was going to call his wife and tell her how much he loved and missed her. I tried to talk him out of that, but he was already dialing, and the next thing I hear is, “How is my old sweet cheeks doin,’ darlin?” I was entertained for the next several minutes, with his caddy remarks, none of which I want to include here. I’ve never laughed so hard in my life. She was sweet about being awakened and told how much he loved her, and I know she was embarrassed to know I was listening to one half their conversation.

Well, Roger finished up with his phone call hung up, and said, “Why aren't you dressed; now get dressed!” I told him to shut up and go to bed and that’s when he got me. He said, “I don't need you to go with me, hell, I'll go by myself!” Now, he had not sobered up even a little bit, so I was not going to let him drive. He was so drunk, that an accident would not have hurt him, so I was more concerned about any other poor soul who might have the misfortune of being run over by him. Yes, you guessed it. I volunteered to go for him, and when I got back, he was dead to the world. I shook him, and was tempted to stuff the burgers down his throat.

However, they did not go unwasted; Roger ate them, cold and greasy, the next morning. That was his breakfast. He looked a bit peaked all day, and skipped lunch altogether. I smiled throughout the day, every time I caught his eye. I committed myself to beat him in sales that year, only because of what he did to me that night. It motivated me, and I was the leading Account Representative that year.

This next story is one of the shortest, but one I love more than any. Tom was the Account Executive to whom I was assigned when I first got into the business. I enrolled his new business for him, and he taught me how to make calls on employer association members. I recall my very first call on a member of one of our associations. It was a Pepsi Cola manufacturer in Louisville.

For weeks, I was with him when he made this kind of call, and he was with me that day, allowing me to lead the way for the first time. During the weeks and days leading up to that fateful day, we role played, and he shared with me the serious objectives of that first call. In the Pepsi parking lot, we again discussed our objectives, and he asked me if I was ready. I think I said, “No, but let's do this anyway.” So off we went, headed for the front door of Pepsi Cola.

As we neared the front door, I noticed that the entrance had double glass doors, with a corridor between them. Something many buildings have to keep the heat or A/C in. One set opens automatically, and when they close, the lobby doors open to let you in. Just as the first set of doors closed behind us, Tom passed gas, and it was fairly loud as I remember. Not just a little either. The distance between doors was sufficient to get a good whiff, and I turned to Tom and asked, “Did you just fart?” Tom grinned, and I broke up laughing. Then the other doors opened, and I was still laughing as we entered, or maybe it had turned into a big smile by then. I was completely at ease when we reached the receptionist and the call could not have gone more smoothly. We met our objectives, and as I recall, Tom ultimately had himself a new client.

Tom was a special guy. He sensed the tension I was feeling, and he made me laugh. I always remembered that the best thing you can do on a sales call is relax, and above all, smile. Now, as to the other part, I cannot recommend it. Thankfully, the door had a air-draft fan that took the odor away quickly, otherwise, I can’t even begin to guess how that call would have gone.

There are many other stories I could tell, but I’ll stop there. Every one of us has these kinds of stories from our days of pushing that rock up the hill. If you care to share them, I’d love to hear some of yours.

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