“I have given the subject a good deal of thought,” was the reply, “and insurance interests me.”
“That’s a good sign,” commented Murray. “Success is for the man who is interested in his work, and not merely in the financial results of that work.”
“Oh, I want to make money, too,” said the young man frankly.
“We all do,” returned Murray, “but the man who has no other aim than that would better stick to business and let the professions alone. Life insurance has become a profession, like banking. Time was when anybody with money could be a banker, but now it is conceded to require special gifts and a special training. I place life insurance right up in the front rank of the professions, for it is semi-philanthropic. We are not in it for our health, of course, but, if we are conscientious and earnest, we may reasonably flatter ourselves that we are doing a vast amount of good in line with our work. The life insurance solicitor has been the butt of many jokes. Perhaps he himself has been responsible for this, but times have changed and so have methods. If I ever caught one of my men slipping into an office with an apologetic air, like a second-rate book-canvasser, I’d discharge him on the spot. The insurance solicitor of to-day wants to consider himself a business man with a business proposition to make; he must have self-respect and show it. The best men plan their work carefully, do not attempt to hurry matters, and usually meet those that they expect to interest in their proposition by appointment, instead of trying to force the thing upon them by pure nerve. When a fellow becomes a nuisance he is hurting himself, his company and all others in his line. Do you still think insurance the line for you?”
“I can begin,” said the young man, by way of reply, “with an application from my present employer. I’ve been talking insurance to him for practice, and he has agreed to take out a policy. He’s a pretty good fellow. He says I’m worth more than he can afford to pay me and he wants to help me along.”
“I guess you’re all right,” laughed Murray. “At any rate, you impress me as being the kind of man I want. Leave your references and come in again tomorrow.”
Murray was unusually particular as to the character of the men he employed. It was not enough for him that a man could get business, but he had his own ideas as to the way business should be secured. Absolute integrity and the most painstaking care to state a proposition fairly, without exaggeration, were points upon which he insisted.
“A dissatisfied policy-holder,” he said, “is a dead weight to carry; a satisfied policy-holder is an advertisement. If a man finds he is getting a little more than he expected, he is so much better pleased; if he finds he is getting a little less, he feels he has been tricked. Insurance is a good enough proposition, so that you don’t have to gild it.”
Murray himself, in his younger days, had once secured an application for a large policy by refusing to expatiate on the merits of the particular form of insurance he was advocating.
“Well, let’s hear what a beautiful thing it is,” the man had said.