12/29: The Great Nursing Home Roundup
8 p.m.
• Gimmie the Pats.
1:30 p.m.
• So in honor of my soon-to-be departure from my current job, let me take a trip down memory lane for what I like to call the “Nursing Home Roundup.”
It was just over a year ago and my idiot boss was getting ready for our quarterly marketing meeting. Despite our head salesman also being on this marketing committee, he (nor I) never have any idea as to what would be discussed at this event. All that would happen is that our Board of Directors would come from out of state and rubber-stamp everything my idiot boss says. Right before this particular meeting started, the idiot tells our head salesman (I’ll call him Mike), to “follow my lead.” The idiot then gives a presentation about a newfound guaranteed issue promotion to get more money. This left Mike speechless and let me tell you why.
I’m not an insurance salesman, and I doubt you are as well, so let me do an overview of what a guaranteed issue plan is. When you get life insurance, you have fill out some paperwork and undergo a medical examination. It is usually after these examinations that the insurer finds something wrong with the insuree and jacks up the original premium from the advertised amount that initially attracted the insuree. What a guaranteed issue plan does is eliminate the need for a medical examination. So who does this plan attract? Those people who are unable to get life insurance due to their health condition. Get it? Got it? Good.
Right after this meeting, Mike was livid because he said this program was a terrible way to grow the organization. In previous meetings there was talk about getting insurance plans together to attract new members, and all this guaranteed issue plan would do is keep squeezing our already dwindling supply of customers. In addition, he said the only people who would get this plan are those too sick or old to get any other kind of insurance. And he was right. (And because this was a Guaranteed Issue plan, Mike [or any of our agents] didn’t get a commission on any sales they did.)
After manually stuffing envelopes for a week (yes, my powers-that-be don’t believe in outsourcing this menial labor or investing in a folding machine), we mailed out more than 17,000 solicitations to our customers. What was our response rate? Years ago I was told in a college class that if a direct mailing campaign gets a three-to-five percent response rate, then champagne is poured and parties are had. We got less than a one percent response – I think the final number was around 110. And out of these 110, more than half were people older than 65 years of age. In fact, one person DIED just three weeks after being approved. Why do I call this event the “Nursing Home Roundup”? Because that’s just what we did. Instead of trying to market to young families or several other demographic groups that Mike said our organization desperately needed to reach, we went with those whose address is at the local hospice.
When the results of the Nursing Home Roundup were given at a Board Meeting several months later, it was hilarious to see my idiot boss try to spin this disaster into a positive and said the following: “Did the Guaranteed Issue Plan produce what I thought it would? No. Am I disappointed by the results? No. This was the short in the arm that we needed.” It was then a director asked about some “costs” that weren’t included in my idiot boss’ report, pointing out that labor costs for the dozen or so office employees who stuffed the envelopes for a week weren’t listed (the cost to mail these letters out was well in the thousands – near the $10,000 mark). The idiot’s response? “You can do that.” By “do that” he meant “You can factor that in.” See, when you work with an unethical piece of shit, you have to listen to what this person actually says. Trying to get a liar to give you a direct “yes” or “no” answer can be quite a challenge. However, it’s also really fun to do. Here’s another example of watching what someone says.
As our head insurance salesman, you would assume that Mike would be out on the road attending various public events, meeting people and making contacts. Uh, no. Despite having a $5,000 expense budget (which is a joke in itself due to its pittance of an amount), Mike is never allowed to spend this money. Mike only went to two events this past year with costs amounting to $800. The first trip he went on was for an insurance seminar presentation, and the second trip was some annual outing where he meets and greets clients and prospective members. This event was halfway across the country and only put in expenses for gas, tolls and lodging. When it was all said and done, that amount was just under $500. Once he turned in his expense form, he was asked, “In what capacity did you attend this event?” You see, Mike was dressed in “casual” attire and roamed throughout the event’s location talking to people as if he was “one of them” rather than being dressed in a stuffy suit. For some odd reason, people tend to feel more comfortable talking about life insurance and other financial issues in a casual atmosphere. I have no idea why. I would think walking into a sterile office environment with a suit-and-tie salesman would be ideal place to talk about someone a person knows nothing about.
Why am I bringing this up? Because one time a Director asked the idiot boss why Mike’s ability to travel was limited. The idiot’s response: “Mike can go anywhere he wants.” See, Mike can go anywhere he wants, but it would have to be on his own dime, which of course he can’t afford to do. However, my idiot boss can spend several thousand dollars of our organization’s money to take a useless trip to California.
And there's plenty more where this came from.
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