This summer, I interned at a company by the name Northwestern Mutual. They are very well known in their industry, most notably life insurance, so I thought that there was no way that I would get the internship. To my surprise, they reached out to me and recruited me to join their Akron/Canton branch back home. After doing a little research and going through the interview process, I found out that they were very well known for their superior training. Little did I know that I was in for a surprise.
People had always told me that selling was hard but I brushed that off, telling myself that it wouldn’t be that hard. Then I had my first close. Throughout the whole meeting, the customer (who was a former teammate of mine) seemed very interested in what we had to say. The only drawback he really had for it was the fact that he wanted to keep putting more money into paying off his student loans than we were recommending. Throughout the whole meeting, I thought for sure that he was going to buy from us. We got all the way through and….he said it wasn’t the right time for him to start anything with us. It completely shattered my idea of sales and made me realize that I was going to work so much harder than I thought to try and convince people to buy from me. I eventually had someone close and that was a completely opposite feeling from my first meeting, but overall I felt that sales was going to be tough work.
At the end of the summer, I had realized two things. One, that I had the ability to be successful in sales and two, I was my only opponent when it came to closing a sale. My bosses would tell me that every time because my main boss had the exact same personality as me. He was quieter and more reserved so he knew how to get me out of my shell. Eventually, I did, but I still did not want to continue selling life insurance.
BoweryJE22
This sounds like it was such an amazing experience, but I can’t imagine how difficult it must have been for someone our age to try to sell something as serious as insurance. However, even from your story of a customer pulling out of a deal at the last second, I’m sure it was a transforming experience overall.
This sounds like it was an awesome experience to go through! I actually also was in a similar situation, but only similar, I was intershipping directly under a sales man who sold financial plans to people. The difference was that I was not actually the one running the meetings but I was able to listening and sit through the meetings Matt, the person whom I was under, had with his clients and learned his way of selling and how he sold to those clients that made the plan best for them. I thought it sounded more fun (And Scary!) that you were able to be the one behind the selling itself.