The Day Everything Changed.

The Day Everything Changed

Paul Glidewell, CEO

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“Paul, I trust you…if you say I need one, I’ll buy one.”

 

With that sentence, Chuck changed both the trajectory of my career and the future of Glidewell.

 

Based on a financial incentive from our insurance carrier, I called Chuck and recommended he purchase an umbrella policy.

 

I thought he would likely say, “No.”  I hoped he would say, “Yes’ because that meant money in my pocket.  But what I didn’t expect was for him to just say, “I trust you.”

 

And I especially didn’t expect his words to pierce my heart.  But they did. 

 

That changed everything for me.

 

Until that moment, I considered my occupation responsibility to be ensuring customers felt “peace” by purchasing insurance for nearly every conceivable financial risk.

 

I regret that mindset, and do not want to blame others…but it was what was taught from day one in insurance.

 

Did Chuck need an umbrella?  My training said yes…someone, anyone, could be sued for over $1,000,000.  What if that someone was Chuck?  And it would be less than $200 a year.  That’s only $.50 a day…a cheap cup of coffee costs more than that (my training really liked using the cost of a cup of coffee to make a point).

 

My “financial prudence” also said yes (it’s amazing what you can justify if you owe it to “financial prudence.”  For I was trained the more policies I sell, the more money I make (who knew?).

 

What two words stand out to you in Chuck’s sentence, “Paul, I trust you…if you say I need one, I’ll buy one.”?

 

That day…the two words that stood out to me, that changed me, were, ‘trust’, and ‘need.’

 

It was the first time it registered that someone was doing business with me because they trusted me.

 

At that moment, something clicked.  I didn’t want to sell insurance because someone knew me.  I didn’t want to sell insurance because my price was less.  I decided from that moment on, I wanted people to buy insurance from me because they trusted me.

 

And the best way I could prove that trust was to help them determine whether they needed that policy.

 

From that day forward, that has been Glidewell.  Our objective is not to sell insurance.  Our objective is to earn the trust of our customers by helping them determine what they need, and do not need.

 

In the end, I told Chuck that though many people do have an authentic need for an umbrella insurance policy, based on his budget it appeared there were greater financial needs he needed to address before considering an umbrella.

 

Chuck’s last words before he hung up were, “Thank you, Paul, I knew I could trust you.”