It always seems that during an agent training session, new agents want to know about some real appointments we have had and what they may some day run into in the field. I was asked the other day, what is the craziest appointments you ever ran? Believe me selling for 6 years in the mountains, I have several.
One of the craziest appointments I ran was in a very small town in the mountains of East Tennessee in a private owned landfill, in other words, they owned the city dump. I drove up a dirt road to a small building that was under renovation, being nice, so we had to meet outside. Now please understand this is in the month of August with record setting heat. The daytime high at my 1:00pm was a balmy 102 degrees with very high humidity. I am a rather large man, who could easily sweat in an air conditioned room. I have a shirt and tie and the owner pulls up a barrel with a small piece of plywood to use as a desk for my presentation. There is no breeze to blow my papers, which was the only good thing about not having a breeze that day. There are flies that Stephen King could have inspired into an award winning movie. I am sweating so bad, that it is starting to drip off of my tie. Yes, I kept it on. Have to be a professional, my District Manager taught me (jerk). The lady came out and I guess had some sympathy for me and brought me a roll of paper towels to start drying myself. I couldn’t write on the application because my sweaty hands were smearing all of the ink. I finally made notes about everything and had them sign an app so I could transfer the information when I was able to get to an air conditioned room (forgive me compliance, for I know that I have sinned).
Really nice people, I closed the deal and drove to the nearest McDonald’s to try to get myself together for the rest of my appointments. Did I mention I was over 100 miles from home and didn’t have a change of clothes? So I go into the restroom and try using the hand dryers as blow dryers to dry myself off. I smelled like I had just finished a two hour football practice in full pads. I decided to call my next three appointments to reschedule. I told each one of my story in the city dump and everyone happily rescheduled once they could stop laughing at me long enough to talk.
There were a few lessons learned that day. Since that day,I have never worn a tie on an appointment. I always carried an extra shirt and deodorant. Finally, I realized McDonald’s hand dryers make lousy blow dryers. Happy selling!
Tim Wilhoit is owner/principal of Your Friend 4 Life Insurance Agency in Nashville, TN. He is a family man, father of 3, entrepreneur, insurance agent, life insurance broker, salesman, sales trainer, recruiter, public speaker, blogger and team leader with over 25 years of experience in sales and marketing in the insurance and beverage industries.