Why Agency Stays Open 24 Hours a Day

The story of a small business that is growing fast because its owner is the kind of man who if not afraid to strike out on unbeaten trails-keeping his insurance office open 24 hours a day, for example

IT IS 11:30 p. m. in downtown Akron, Ohio. The department store windows are dark; the office buildings deserted. All retail selling in the city has adjourned.

But on the eleventh floor of a downtown office building a switchboard light flashes. "Is this the place that sells insurance twenty-four hours a day?" a voice asks. A courteous answer in a strong, wide-awake voice; then, "Wait a minute and I'll connect you with that department." A moment later a salesman answers.

Nearly midnight, but one of our salesmen is well on his way to making a sale to a customer he has never seen and, in all probability, to a customer who has never before bought: a dollar's worth of insurance from anybody. This customer will be easy and pleasant to deal with, because the salesman isn't "selling" something; the customer is buying.

Ten years ago it became evident to me some new way of selling insurance had to be developed. Too many insurance peddlers-and I was one of them-were spending their evening hours ringing doorbells and calling on busy people in their few leisure hours at home.

But insurance is a commodity, I told myself, and like any other commodity deserves to have its sales points explained to people who might reasonably profit by buying. I decided there must be a better way to sell insurance. People wanted insurance, even though they often thought they didn't. But I couldn't hope to sell them when they didn't want to buy. There was nothing wrong with the goods; there was plenty of market waiting; the problem was to correct wrong selling methods.

A Campaign of Education

So we began a campaign of education, a campaign to bring insurance customers to us rather than to have our men knocking at strange doors.

We run a sizable ad in the classified pages of the phone book. It states that we handle all kinds of

By J. GORDON GAINES

President, J. Gordon Gaines, Inc., Akron, Ohio

Copyright Rough Notes Co., Inc. Jun 2004
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