In September of 1997, I was a one-week insurance genius who just graduated from Gold Coast School. I had passed my state test and was just starting what would become a 21-year career of selling insurance.

It all started when the owner of the IMO with whom I had contracted set me up with my own mentor who specialized in the selling of mortgage insurance.

I started my journey with extensive tutoring. My total education lasted 15 minutes.

The sobering reality was that I would have to look up my prospects’ phone numbers in the PHONE BOOK to contact them (remember having one of those?).

I was given the gift of 30 leads in Broward County and Miami in South Florida. These leads came right from the public records at city hall and I was lucky when they had the clients’ name and address. But, what the hell, it was time to get to work.

My sales territory turned out to be an hour away from my home in Palm Beach County.

After I looked up their phone numbers, I called and made my appointments, most of them after seven at night.  I sold a bunch of policies at an average premium of $19 a month for a company called Old Line Life.

It was not an easy deal. If the client was a no-show, I had to find a pay phone to call them. There were no cellphones and there was no internet; just grit and a paper application.

I soon learned an important lesson: That the client I was selling was creating for me a book of business. It started with Mortgage Protection, but I could then go back to and sell them and their families additional insurance policies.

I kept in contact with my Mortgage Protection clients through my drip process: a birthday card and an occasional phone call. That was my CRM.

At the time, I didn’t realize, but the reason that this all worked was because that I was dealing with responsible people. Homeowners who had families, assets and the means to pay for the ongoing premium cost to protect themselves and their families.

I did go on to cross sell these homeowners their health insurance, additional life insurance, set up their retirement plans, and later provided them with Medicare.

Today things are different. The policies changed for the better and technology makes it a lot easier for the producer, but the thing that did not change was the homeowners’ needs.

If clients trust you with the protection of their home, they will trust you with the job of protecting the future financial security of their family. It starts with the book of business.