Page 246 - harryDEC12_clean.iba

So the way is free. I’m not a goner, mates. The clients all come back. Have we got a deal? We’ll meet tomorrow. In the meantime you can do your homework”
Fred said, and unpacked a pile of papers onto our desk: listings of yachts with specifications, insurance sums, premium tariffs, all of the YACHT Club of Australia - he says - all of it crowned with a stack of brochures and magazines, the club magazine of the Yacht Club which was distributed to the members, not free of charge, but on a subscription basis. John took one of the magazines, leafed through it, and showed me the editorial, the foreword by Fred Jefferson always with his falsely youthful photo and finishing up with the slogan "Take care out there.”
"Fred, that’s really not the sort of document we normally make the basis of our presentations, “
John objected.
“ Nonsense ..."
Answers Fred.
„You’ll see this is the key. We’re presenting a totally new concept; forget your dusty old heap of papers. The Yacht Club is bringing some color into the stuffy old world of insurance. Life is colorful. I’ll help you with the placement. "
At that remark John’s eyebrows shot up. In the end, however, we declared that we agreed to put the concept on the Market. When Fred had left the room we looked at each other.
"Bullshit? "
I ask, looking at John skeptically.
„I don’t think so. It’s worth a try, you have to have instinct as a Lloyd’s Broker, Harry.”
+++++++++
We got to work straight away. It was no easy job to sell the insurers not a portfolio but a business prospect, a prospect of a business that, looked at in the bright light of the day, was to be stolen from other insurers. In addition we had little, or better said, no clue about the Market, the competitors, and really not even of the subject matter. But the motto of every Lloyd’s broker was: the big chance comes when you go after it. To open up new possibilities you have to tie wings to yourself, or again, as Kennedy put it:
„Things do not happen, they are made to happen“.
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