A: Well, I’ve been with Great Eastern for 18 years now, and have been a Group Manager running my own agency for the last 8 years.
Great Eastern has a strong commitment to providing financial security and protection for our customers. And for our employees and life planners, we place great emphasis on building a strong "Life is great!" culture so that it can be translated into a real commitment to help our customers live a great life, and deliver value for our shareholders, our business partners and the community in which we operate.
Great Eastern’s corporate philosophy is driven by the 3 I’s – Integrity, Initiative and Involvement.
Integrity involves maintaining the highest standards of integrity, safeguarding our customers’ interest and providing quality holistic financial planning.
Initiative means that we strive for excellence in everything we do, always being customer-focused, proactive, and to always be improving, innovating and generating new ideas.
Involvement entails fostering a strong sense of belonging for all our stakeholders, providing a conducive environment to promote growth and development, adopting a team approach governed by respect and courtesy, and by being a responsible member of our community.
Q: What are some highlights in your career at Great Eastern?
A: In 1995, I attended a 9-month intensive course called Agency Management Training Course (AMTC), which is for all aspiring managers in the insurance industry. I emerged from the course a top student, and scored 97 marks out of a 100 for my final project.
Add to the fact that I was studying with many highly experienced insurance agents from other companies, made me feel a strong sense of achievement and satisfaction.
I’ve also designed a full-fledged financial planning software called “Financialist Methodology”, which Great Eastern has adopted and endorsed as a part of its training program for its life planners.The program is able to plan out a person’s life in important aspects such as when one is able to retire, for instance.
And my most recent highlight is being appointed CEO of the Great Eastern office in Indonesia in 2006.
This question brings to mind an article from the Harvard Business Review. The article talked about what makes a good insurance agent, and two qualities in particular were highlighted – One is drive, the other is empathy. The argument was whether it was more important for an insurance agent to have higher drive or higher empathy.
The conclusion was that it was important to have a balance of both, as having too much drive would mean being a high-pressure salesperson, whereas being too empathic would most likely result in you losing the sale as you are unable to guide your client to close a sale.
So the best way to be a successful insurance agent is to always present the facts logically, listen attentively to the client, and then help to select the best insurance solution for their needs.
