Early in this century, when Henry Baldwin Hyde was getting started in the insurance business, he learned that success results from a continuous series of practical applications of tried and tested success formulas. After The Equitable Life Insurance Company was well on the road to permanent profitability, Hyde encapsulated his success lessons and shared them with Equitable’s agents. Below are just a few of these success principles.

What the Agent Must Do First

Obtain an Equitable policy on your own life. Carry it in your pocket. You’ll find it the best canvassing document you can have. Next, present a prosperous appearance. The Equitable Society is one of the most important of the World’s financial institutions, and it is only proper that its agents should represent it in a dignified and fitting manner. But this is not the primary reason for this advice.

You must be well dressed chiefly because people judge the company by the agent. If you look prosperous, the stability of your company will be taken for granted. If you are shabby and down at the heel, the success of your company may be questioned.

See that your rate book, and the canvassing documents you carry in your pocket are always neat and trim.

Be sure that your office has an air of order and thrift at all times. Then people will conclude that you are prosperous; that your wares have given satisfaction to others, and that consequently it may be worth their while to consider the expediency of insuring.Get to work without delay. It is more important in the beginning for you to find out what to do than what to be. But what can you do before you have become an accomplished solicitor? Well, you can

(1) Insure your friends if you go about it with tact and discrimination;

(2) You can induce those who already have policies to increase their insurance. It is easy to convince a man who has a good thing that he needs more of the same commodity;

(3) You can persuade procrastinators to act. You will find a multitude of men who are firm believers in life insurance. Such men do not need to be convinced. They simply need to be persuaded to take the plunge at once which they have determined to take some day. Such men will act if the way is made smooth for them.

Modern life insurance serves a great variety of useful purposes, but in the beginning you will succeed best with those who have families dependent on them. Any novice can advance invincible arguments in favor of the kind of insurance whose primary object is to protect widows and orphans- the kind which can be advocated convincingly by any man of ordinary intelligence whether he has expert knowledge about the theory and practice of life insurance or not. If you thus succeed in making money from the start, your progress will be rapid, for it is peculiarly true of soliciting that experience is the best teacher. An ounce of practice is worth twenty pounds of theory. The doctor learns most in the hospital, and the agent most in the field.

If you find yourself unexpectedly up against some difficult proposition, arrange for a second interview, and then consult the general agent as to the best form of policy to offer, the best arguments to use, and the best ways of removing the difficulties that have arrested your progress. If you are not in a position to obtain such advice, familiarize yourself in the very beginning with one or two of the simplest and most useful policy forms. These you will find easy to explain, and consequently, easy to sell.

Organize your work so as to economize every moment of your time. No matter how small your beginnings may be, establish a good working system. Then, as your time becomes more and more valuable, a carefully prepared basis of organization will enable you to extend your operations in such a way as to make all your work tell, and thus prove remunerative.

What You Must Not Do

It is quite as important to know what to avoid as to know what to do.

Don’t talk too much and don’t be a bore. The tongue is a dagger which often assassinates success.

Don’t stray from the path. Some agents think that the way to insure a man is to give him full information regarding the mathematics and science of life insurance. But such agents write mighty little business.

Don’t let the applicant get beyond his depth. It is not true hospitality to feed your guest so full that he cannot digest his food. Keep your eye on the applicant. See to it that he understands each proposition advanced. Don’t expect to convince him by statements he can’t comprehend. And when you have convinced him, write the application.

Don’t stop half way. Finish your work. Your business is

(1) to get a signature to an application and (2) to get a check for the premium.Don’t get discouraged by failure. Every failure gives experience, and every thoughtful agent can manufacture gold out of experience. The man who recognizes this truth, and utilizes it, will find that he has discovered the philosopher’s stone. Don’t “twist” a man from one policy to another, or from one company to another. “Twisting” is scarcely better than a “confidence game.”

Congratulate the man who is insured in any responsible company on the foresight he has exhibited in taking the policy he holds in that company. Show him that it is a valuable asset – that an old policy issued by any sound company is worth keeping. But show him also that he needs more, and that the Equitable is the company with which he must take the additional amount. You can never secure confidence in the Equitable by shaking a man’s confidence in the insurance issued by any other reputable company. On the other hand, you can by a generous attitude increase your reputation for candor and fair dealing, and will thus extend your business by proving that you can always look out for the true interests of your clients.

Don’t interview a man until you have tried to gain some knowledge of his circumstances. Don’t offer a policy until you know that it will suit the case. Don’t try to write an application until you are ready to submit a business proposition which any man of intelligence will recognize as worth considering.

Don’t pester your customer. Don’t try to do business with him at the wrong time, or in an inappropriate way. But this advice does not mean that you can afford to permit yourself to be side-tracked or blocked. You must always proceed with tact, and be ready to exercise infinite patience, but you must be equally ready to strike when the iron is hot to carry forward a whirlwind campaign when that will serve best.

Don’t let a customer procrastinate. And don’t procrastinate yourself.

Don’t mistake excuses for arguments. There are very few men who can successfully combat the arguments of a competent Equitable agent if he can get the opportunity of presenting his case adequately.

Don’t lose your temper, and never grow excited. Keep cool and you will win.

Don’t present superfluous arguments. In nine cases out of ten you will find that your customer believes in insurance; thinks well of the Equitable, and has intended to insure for a long time. In such a case there are but two things for you to do – persuade him to sign the application, and draw his check for the first premium to the order of the Society, and hand it to you.

Don’t neglect the man who is already insured. As your business grows and your income increases, cultivate the insuring habit.

Take from time to time an additional policy on your own life. By such an object lesson you can the more easily cultivate the insuring habit in your customers. Usually as a man grows older his obligations increase. Such a man ought to increase his insurance from time to time.Don’t waste your own time or your customer’s time. Study conciseness – concentration. Prepare for every interview as a lawyer prepares to defend a client in court.

Don’t be unprepared or indefinite. Concentrate your faculties on your work. Write an application as a great surgeon performs a capital operation.

His success often depends not only on his knowledge and experience, but on the skill, accuracy, and rapidity with which he does his work.

Don’t offer a number of propositions, or describe a variety of policies.

Use your expert knowledge in selecting and advocating the policy which in your judgment will best fit the case. If, during the progress of negotiation, you find that facts previously unknown to you make another policy more appropriate you can change to that.

Don’t conduct your business heedlessly. Map out the year’s campaign; have a definite program for the month; lay out carefully your work for each week, and finally adjust the business of everyday so as to waste no time, and so as to secure the best results attainable.Compare your position to date with past achievements, and resolve to keep well ahead of all previous records.