A Day in the Life of a Japanese Insurance Agent

Mr. Sunumu Nakamura is the kind of salesman everyone likes. His puckish smile, dry sense of humor and eagerness to do more than his share to contribute to the sales team has earned him high respect and admiration from his colleagues and managers. Only three and a half years ago, Nakamura was hired by Prudential’s Funabashi agency, located on the outskirts of Tokyo, about an hour’s ride by train from downtown. Nakamura, who is 32 years old and graduated from a business college, says that his best asset is his enthusiasm for learning. “It pays off,” he adds with a smile. Today, he is the agency’s most experienced and most successful salesman. Last year his income exceeded $350,000. Nakamura’s parents, who were at first shocked when they learned that he wanted to become an insurance salesman, are very proud of their son’s achievements.

Like all agency salesmen, Nakamura holds the distinctive title of “Life Planner.” The agency offices are located on the 12th floor of a modern office building adjacent to a thoroughbred racetrack and close to a McDonald’s franchise. While the managers have enclosed offices with glass doors, the sales team of 26 agents occupy one large office decorated with slogans, sales charts, photos from contests and sales awards. The color of entry level agents’ office chairs is gray; once they exceed a certain sales volume, they earn the more distinctive green chair.

Nakamura proudly owns a blue chair, the most prestigious one and the only one of its kind in the agency.

Here is how Nakamura explains his success: “If you want to succeed, you have to work harder and smarter.” While the average agency salesman completes about 12 calls per week, Nakamura’s goal is to visit four clients every day, five days a week. How does he do it? He pulls out his notebook and offers a quick glance at the previous week’s schedule: 18 calls completed. Five policies sold and delivered. Monday: staff party for new section manager, came home at midnight. Tuesday: stayed in the office until 9:30 to complete paperwork. Wednesday: got home at seven, but worked on his computer until ten. Thursday: attended welcome party for a new employee. Came home at midnight and his wife was pleased, because she thought it would last longer. Friday: left for home at 7 p.m. Saturday: worked on a presentation for about two hours and made a call in the afternoon to make a sales presentation. Sunday: paperwork for about three hours, then played golf with his section manager and a customer.

Nakamura thinks nothing of a 60-hour work week. “It’s such an exciting business,” he says with a broad grin, “and you can help so many people, that I can’t think of it as work. I feel it is a privilege to help my customers.”

NAKAMURA’S DAILY ROUTINE 7 a.m.: Breakfast

Today, Nakamura has a typical Japanese breakfast consisting of fish, rice, soup and green tea, prepared by his wife. After breakfast he spends a few minutes reviewing his plan for the day. He checks his appearance in the mirror, kisses his wife good-bye and enters the commuter traffic at eight. Nakamura’s car is equipped with a stereo cassette player and a small TV built into the dashboard. When traffic comes to a stall, which is often the case when he drives in downtown Tokyo, he likes to turn on his car TV and catch up on the news.

8:45 a.m.:Work begins

Nakamura enters the office building where the agency occupies half of the twelfth floor. The agency manager and several agents are already present discussing their plans for the day. Nakamura scans his daily planner and quickly calls two customers to reconfirm appointments.

9:05 a.m.:Meeting with management

The agency manager and the assistant manager go over Nakamura’s sales plans for the next three months. Although Nakamura has led the top of the sales charts each month for the last six months, it appears that his active prospect file has decreased. He has over 400 clients but only 22 new prospects. The agency manager expresses his concern and Nakamura outlines his plan for getting 50 new referrals by calling some of his existing clients. To back up his commitment, Nakamura cites the names of some of his clients who have created a steady stream of new leads to him in the past. The agency manager asks him if he needs help with any of the sales calls scheduled during this week. Nakamura mentions that one client came up with a question about an inheritance tax problem that he could not answer. The agency manager asks to see the tax code and the client file. After a brief check of the numbers, the agency manager offers a few ideas for presenting a solution to the client. The assistant manager suggests that they both role-play the situation at 10:15 a.m. in the conference room.

9:41 a.m.: Prospecting calls

Nakamura sits down at his desk, reviews his client files and calls five clients in a row. Surprisingly, he reaches every single one of them and every one of them promises to introduce Nakamura to his friends and business associates. Telemarketing is still in its infancy in Japan and many salespeople avoid using the telephone as a sales tool.

10:02 a.m.: Customer call

Nakamura receives a call from a client who asks about additional coverage. He quickly schedules an appointment and uses the opportunity to ask for a referral.

10:05 a.m.: Preparation for role-play

After reviewing the inheritance tax problem, he runs a few financial scenarios on his Toshiba Dynabook (a 386 notebook computer, 40 MB hard disk). The monitor displays the information in Kanji characters, complete with graphs, tables and pie charts.

10:15 a.m.: Role-playing with assistant manager

Like most salespeople in the agency, Nakamura loves to practice complex sales calls in front of the TV camera with the assistant manager. As is customary in the agency, Nakamura first outlines his call objective and discusses his presentation strategy. During the actual role play, both assume their roles with diligence, professionalism and mutual respect. As in a tennis match, both take turns in serving up new ideas and putting a little extra spin on the ball. Nakamura is smooth and asks razor-sharp questions, getting all key data from his “customer.”

He waits patiently for each answer and listens while showing understanding of the customer’s situation. He quickly summarizes the customer’s financial scenario and turns on his notebook computer to present several possibilities to his client. The assistant manager is pleased with Nakamura’s approach and offers a few extra ideas for polishing the presentation even more. For a brief moment, the assistant manager reverses the roles and shows Nakamura how he would have handled the same situation differently.

10:27 a.m.: Interview with PSP

Nakamura spends time with Personal Selling Power discussing his sales approach and what he believes to be his 10 keys to sales success.(See side box on page 49.)

12:07 p.m.: Lunch

In honor of his guests, Nakamura calls a local fast food place for hamburgers. The hamburgers are about half the size of the typical American burger, but very tasty. He shares a few stories about his trip to the United States when he visited New York and went to a Yankees game. He loved the game, but confesses that he would not want to ride the subway again.

12:29 p.m.: Travel to first customer

During the 20-minute ride, Nakamura tells us about his hobbies: golf, tennis, skiing and ping-pong. He loves acting and has developed a great talent for being the MC at weddings and private parties. “Actors are not always good salespeople,” says Nakamura, “but good salespeople are always good actors.” He is happy to be out of the office and looks forward to visiting his customer. Nakamura’s adrenaline is pumping. He quickly briefs us on the customer’s unique situation.

12:57 p.m.: First call Yamaha motorcycle dealer

Nakamura pulls up at the dealership right on time. He enters with a smile and waves to the two mechanics working on a motorcycle.

The dealership is divided into a showroom area, a repair area and an office area. The owner, a 45-year-old, high-energy, go-getter and hands-on manager, owns four motorcycle stores in the area. His mechanical skills, combined with a great talent for running a business, have earned him a high reputation in the community and a fair amount of wealth. We exchange business cards and the customer motions us to sit down. Next to the owner’s desk are several small folding chairs which he offers us with a friendly bow. There is little small talk and Nakamura asks a series of questions to isolate his customer’s financial needs. His client suffers from the typical problems of a rapidly growing business, skyrocketing property values and a chronic cash shortage. For example, the client bought a commercial property 10 years ago for only two million yen, today it is worth over a hundred million yen.

Nakamura’s challenge is to develop a financial plan that will reduce his client’s tax burden for the surviving spouse and children. Nakamura jots down the key data on his note pad and listens carefully to the customer’s information. He summarizes his exact understanding of the customer’s financial situation and draws up a quick reference chart on his note pad. His diagram shows two big circles for the customer and his wife, and three smaller ones for his children. At this point, the customer is completely absorbed in Nakamura’s pencil and paper exercise. Nakamura proposes to run the key numbers through the computer and opens his notebook computer and enters a few keystrokes. The customer follows the dazzling display of characters and numbers on the screen, not realizing that Nakamura wants the computer to become the messenger of the surprising news. He wants his customer to realize just how big the tax liability will be for his family in the event of his death.

Both Nakamura and the customer share a moment of disbelief as the final tax liability pops up on the screen. The customer asks to enter a different scenario to calculate the taxes his children would have to pay on his estate assuming different property values. Nakamura willingly obliges. Both remain silent as the computer recalculates the data. As the new data are displayed, Nakamura soaks up his customer’s change of expressions ranging from confusion to anger and irony over the staggering tax liabilities. As the customer wipes off imaginary sweat, Nakamura knows that the hook has been set. He breaks out in a broad smile. “Now comes the good news,” he says calmly, slowing his speech on purpose, “For less money than you think, you can protect your wife and children and keep the estate in the hands of your family…isn’t that what you want?” “Of course,” says the customer. Nakamura knows that another sale has just been closed.

2:32 p.m.: Travel to Tokyo

Nakamura warns us about the slow traffic going to Tokyo. The closer we get, the more the traffic slows down. At one point we’re stuck in the middle of a bridge and Nakamura gets a chance to turn on the small color TV built into his dashboard. Many shows are education oriented. Nakamura loves learning. He often buys new books on selling and motivation and likes going to the training courses offered by The Prudential. His father was a teacher and his mother worked for a tax agent. He asks us how insurance agents get new business in America. He loves the idea of a newsletter to keep in touch with his clients and makes a note to talk to his manager about that. The conversation drifts back to Nakamura’s skills as a performer. He likes the reaction from the audience and he is never intimidated by people. Yet, he cautions: “Japanese customers don’t trust the smooth talking salesman.” Nakamura feels that Japanese customers are suspicious of people who are too polished. When asked the reason, he says, “When thoughts come from the depth of your mind, they don’t appear in an organized and refined way.” At this moment, I realize what makes Nakamura so effective: he is unafraid to be himself. His speech isn’t smooth, his sentences are not polished, and he isn’t a fast talker, but what he says comes straight from the heart.

4:45 p.m.: Second Call

It takes some time to find a parking lot and we’re late for our appointment with a public accountant in downtown Tokyo. The six-story office building has no elevator and we walk up a narrow staircase to the fourth floor. Nakamura carries his briefcase in one hand, clutches his notebook computer under his arm and takes two steps at a time. The light on the third floor flickers erratically. As we enter the one-room office of about 900 square feet we are hardly noticed by the 15 office workers, bent over their desks, working quietly. An office girl serves tea with a graceful bow to a section manager who occupies a desk in the far corner. The owner gives us a warm welcome, we exchange business cards (holding the card with both hands) and he asks us to sit down in the small reception area. The owner immediately summons the office girl and asks her to serve tea to his guests.

A few minutes later she returns with a tray, kneeling beside the table with a smile, while serving green Japanese tea. Nakamura leads the discussion to the customer’s concerns about term insurance and inheritance tax. Given the customer’s expertise, Nakamura is very careful in his replies and shows an enormous amount of patience when the customer interrupts the presentation several times with tough questions. About a half hour into the interview, the customer softens up and tells Nakamura that several of his own clients are interested in a life insurance policy. This is the signal for Nakamura to get out his order pad and he boldly says, “Let’s get started with you. Why don’t you sign right here.” To Nakamura’s surprise, the customer signs the blank application.

Through the windows we hear a Buddhist priest chant his prayers to believers in the streets. While Nakamura completes the information on the document, the customer explains to us that in order for any contract to become legally binding, a personal seal is required in addition to the signature. Every adult in Japan uses a registered, personal seal for concluding a deal. The customer explains, “I always study the document carefully and if everything is done as we discussed, then I’ll put my seal on it.” Nakamura jokes, “I should be the beneficiary, but since I’d like to return the favor, I’ll write your wife’s name here instead of mine.”

When we ask the customer what he likes about dealing with Nakamura he says, “He knows how to customize his product to my needs. There are so many insurance agents who walk in here. They don’t know our business and they don’t understand our needs. They just try to sell us on a small policy without any knowledge of our situation. Nakamura sells financial solutions that make sense.” Nakamura walks away with another sale closed.

6:09 p.m.: Phone home

Nakamura makes a quick phone call to his wife. He checks with his office for messages (yes, everyone is still working) and learns that his 8 p.m. appointment has canceled. Nakamura decides to stop by at the office on his way home.

8:15 p.m.: Office

About half of the office staff is still in the office, catching up on their work. Nakamura spends a few minutes reviewing the day’s events with his assistant manager. He completes his paperwork, writes out a list of things to do for tomorrow, calls his wife and heads home at 8:45 for a relaxing dinner and a quiet evening.