Page 3 - Shaw Wall of Honor

COME A LONG WAY
We’ve Come a Long Way, Ladies
When you are looking at celebrating your 35th year in an industry, you notice a few changes (besides your use of creative math skills to alter the age you ‘started’ in order to always stay young). You begin to have frequent requests to speak on podcasts and at industry conventions, as well as being asked to write articles like this one for trade publications. You also notice something really amazing happens—you find yourself with opportunities to provide the help and guidance to others that wasn’t available to you. More specifically in my case, to help mentor, support, and inspire fellow female insurance agency owners.
As a teenager fresh out of high school (stop doing the math), I simply answered phones at an insurance agency to pay for college; I had no plans to remain in this industry. It did not sound like an exciting career choice. Oh
how wrong I was. Okay, so perhaps it wasn’t exciting right away; I mean who is going to listen to insurance advice from someone who has never experienced an insurance claim or even paid for insurance, beyond an auto policy that her parents and the State of Michigan made her buy?
Fortunately for me, I quickly discovered sales— and the secret to being successful at sales was having the guts to be bold enough to ask. You see, I began writing auto and home insurance back when we called families during dinnertime and asked for the chance to try and save them money. Back then the Yellow Pages (young people, just ask Google), screamed shop, shop, shop for price, price, price. If you could save them money, they usually switched.
LINDA FISHER
WRITTEN BY
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