In
a modern society, we like to think that knowledge is predominantly
spread through higher learning: books, lectures, organized courses
and other media. But the fact is that we still learn much of
what we need to know by who we know and what we do. Remember
how important it was to put something under ‘Experience’ on
your job application? That had nothing to do with any of the
courses that you took. And who taught you to drive, how to cook,
how to run the lawnmower or how to start the computer? None
of this came from a book – it came from something called ‘Tribal
Knowledge’ – information that you picked up through
family or friends, or from the ‘School of Hard knocks’!
And
in the insurance industry, we have always heavily depended
on the transfer of that knowledge through the ‘tribe’ ie.
other sales people with whom you work. In the past we had various,
well defined ‘tribes’ called Insurance Agencies – each
with its own group of agents bound to it through product and
contract. Inside each of these agencies were agents with a wide
range of sales experience and knowledge. New agents quickly
found out that the smartest way to figure out how to do the
job successfully was to grab a cup of coffee with one of the
top agents in their office and just listen to his ‘war
stories’ about the sales calls that he had made. Better
yet was to listen in on two old ‘grizzlies’ swapping
experiences they had in the field. It was here that the new
agent learned how to get the attention of the business owner
despite a protective secretary or how to bring an accountant
on side with an argument of what was better for their company – or
just simply how to find the reason to pick up that phone one
more time.
But
the insurance industry has changed: agencies are basically
a thing of the past. Agents are now independent ‘brokers’ who
can represent any company to a client – a good thing as
that way the client is most likely to obtain the best type of
plan, with no restriction to the companies that are quoted.
But the broker, usually running his business out of his own
home or his own little office, is now alone. There are no swapping
stories at the water cooler or sharing war stories with his
cohorts – and the industry is suffering because of it.
New agents are missing the basic sales concepts eg. “How
do I get past the receptionist?”. And the clients out
there are suffering as a result too: we do have some fantastic
ideas for business owners and if he doesn’t hear from
us, he may miss out on some creative financial opportunities – due
to a decision not made by him, but rather by his protective
secretary and an agent that missed out on that piece of tribal
knowledge.
The
industry is going to great lengths to make sure that the brokers
out there are well trained and tested in their industry
book knowledge. And they are succeeding at that. Many brokers
have earned their esteemed educational degrees of CFP, CLU and
RHU after many years of study. But the one thing they will find
that they will never be able to replace is the ‘loss of
the tribal knowledge’ in our industry.
And we are all the poorer for it.
