Super Seller Signs In

The days of running down potential clients are a thing of the past, says Supersad, 48, who was awarded Guardian Life of the Caribbean 2005 Agent of the Year. For her, the watchwords are mutual respect, trust and service.

In a gala ceremony at the Trinidad Hilton ballroom on February 4, she won the hearts of her peers and set the bar even higher in her field. Eager to make her mark, she hit the road and sold policies like her life depended on it.

In an interview last week at her executive office of the Larry Gocool Ageny, Hobson’s Court, Keate Street in San Fernando, which was decorated with over 30 plaques and trophies garnered over the years, Supersad exuded confidence that could only come from experience. With perfectly manicured hair and nails and dressed in a dapper suit, she said her early beginnings in the insurance industry were anything but easy.

“It was filled with endless interviews and stress-filled days,” she said as she recalled times that blunted her enthusiasm and drive to succeed. Supersad said her policy was never to harass anyone. “I think that is one of the main reasons why I am successful, I don’t pound down on people. I never harass anyone into signing a policy,” she said. Her mantra had become: Some will, some won’t. So what? “In those days, I used to have 15 interviews with perspective clients almost every day. It was a lot of pavement pounding and telephone calls, and it came at a time when I was going through a personal crisis,” said Supersad, who lives in Chaguanas.

Her journey has not been an easy one. She has survived an illness that left her comatose for 21 days as well as a divorce and the death of both parents, all this within the space of 12 years.

It began with the death of her father, Siew Supersad in 1982, Supersad’s hospitalisation a few months later, followed by the death of her mother, Rohini, in 1994, and later a divorce.

But one year after her mother died, she entered the insurance industry as a rookie and ploughed her way through the ranks, capturing the coveted crown as the top producer of Guardian Life, a subsidiary of Guardian Holdings Limited (GHL).

She attributes her success to three sources: her daughter, Aurora, the support of her agency manager and her God, whom she said played a fundamental part in her rise in the insurance world. She also paid tribute to her personal assistant Dorothy Shaw- Herbert, whose responsibility is to follow-up her clients.

Supersad said almost six months after entering the industry, she was separated from her husband who eventually migrated to the United States.

As hard as those setbacks were, she never wavered from her goal to be among the elite. But her journey to the top of the insurance industry really began to take shape in 1983 when she had to be hospitalised for a foot infection, which resulted in a two-month stay in the hospital.

She said the infection gradually spread throughout her entire body and she slipped into a 21-day coma.

“I can only say it was the prayers of my family that brought me out of that coma,” she said. “And I saw that God has given me a second chance for a reason.” At the time, she said she still was not sure what that was. Another signpost that insurance was her calling occurred in 1994 when her mother, Rohani, was hospitalised. “A lot of things happened during my mother’s illness and I began to see the need for adequate medical coverage,” said Supersad, the last of nine children.

Soon after, Supersad brought a life insurance policy from a Guardian Life agent named Larry Gocool, who later became her boss, and who introduced her to the business. “I was taking a Dale Carnegie course on “How to stop worrying and start living” and “How to win friends and influence people” when the offer came,” she said. “I took it

With careful planning and analysis and with her mother’s experience filed away, she said critical illness become her forte. Today, over 90 percent of policies sold by her involve this sort of coverage.

Within the first six months of becoming an insurance agent, she became a single parent. In addition to having to build a clientele, she had to restructure her finances.

She took another course on sales management, noting that while those first two years were really rough she began to build a client base. “In 1998, all that hard work started to pay off when I qualified for the Million Dollar Round Table, (MDRT),” she said, a designation for the creme de le creme in the global industry.

MDRT qualification has taken her to new Orleans twice, in 1999 and then in 2005, just before Hurricane Katrina levelled the city, Tennessee, Anaheim, and Las Vegas. In June, she will be travelling to San Diego.

“In the beginning I used to wonder what am I doing here, but over the years, with a client base established, the job became easier,” she said, adding it all depends on the level of service to your clients.

Supersad, a member of the TT Association of Financial Advisors, said a typical work week in her first two years was made up of 15 appointments for the first four days and followups on Friday.

Supersad had consistently maintained her position at the top of the insurance board. She copped Top producer of the branch, as well as winning the Bronze, Gold and Diamond awards from the company. She is now in training for the position of unit manager within her branch and will be responsible for the recruitment, training and moulding of agents. Asked whether insurance agents had moved away from the perception of being parasites, she said this was no longer so.

She said the Guardian Life had a proven track record on how to secure sales, which if followed properly, agents were guaranteed to succeed.

“This is a highly competitive business with a lot of different companies out there, but it’s still basically the same product and services,” she said, adding it all comes down to service. She said while 60 percent of her clientele were male, she had consciously made an effort to target single female parents and tailor policies for their particular needs.

She said the profession, while it required discipline, was entirely up to the agent to determine their source of income. “The harder they work, the more lucrative the rewards,” she said. “You determine your type of day and your pay cheque, if you work hard, the rewards will be great,” she said.

She also believes that professional women had to exhibit the same amount of determination, passion and goal-oriented focus in order to succeed in their careers. “I have seen many young female agents go out to lunch or dinner with male clients in the hope of getting a policy signed and they end up with nothing and leave the job,” she said.

“Women who maintain their self-respect are the ones who eventually become successful in whatever busines venture they go into because they have proven themselves to be women of integrity and trust,” she said.