Emily Prendiville: Insurance with clarity and purpose
May 10, 2017 by Emily Holbrook
When Emily Prendiville responded to a newspaper ad for an insurance sales position back in 1985, she never thought it would take her on the career path she has traveled.
From working for big-name insurance companies to owning her own firm, she has proved herself to be a success within a male-dominated field. She is a producing general agent and the owner of Financial Transitions in Littleton, Mass.
She has been affiliated with Ohio National Financial Services since 2011, where her company honors and awards include four President’s Inner Circle qualifications, two Executive Council qualifications and two Council of Honor qualifications. She has also received the George B. Pearson Gold Sales Leadership Award two times and the George B. Pearson Silver Sales Leadership Award (formerly the Pacesetter Award) two times.
She is also is a four-time Ohio National Concierge member as well as a four-time Wall of Fame member. She has been ranked as Leading Agency (Top 40 PGA) four times and ranked as Leading Agent (PGA Top 20) four times. Emily is a five-year Qualifying member of the Million Dollar Round Table and Top of the Table.
Prendiville recently took the time to answer the following questions exclusively for Women’s Insurance Network, and we’re proud to feature her as the subject of our inaugural Producer Profile.
You founded Financial Transitions in August of 2012. What would you say is the main purpose and driving force behind your business?
My main purpose and driving force is to put people, rather than institutions, in control of their own wealth. I believe — and it took me 26 years to actually reach this conclusion — that the information we as advisors have been taught is really built on the agenda of institutions, Wall Street and the government. I want to show people that they can be in control of their wealth.
How has your company’s mission changed over the years?
My practice has changed so much as I gained clarity.
There was a turning point that happened for me and took me from mediocrity to a whole new level. Going through the market meltdown of 2008 with my clients — when the dust settled — I had an opportunity to evaluate the effects of the economic crisis.
It was my belief that people can — and should — be in control of their wealth and that made me question everything I had been taught. Does it make sense for me to go back to my clients and tell them to do the same things we had been doing before? I wrestled with that.
Because of that situation I made the decision to set up my own company and be completely independent and follow my own thinking. My career really began after that point, in 2012.
In the last few years I started using a mentor. Then, in 2014, I became a mentor to another advisor. Now, advisors all over the country are my clients. They bring their clients to me. My entire business model has changed. I’ve been in such a journey with my practice. If I sat down and said this is what I want my business to look like, I couldn’t have dreamed this. But it all comes back to clarity.
Do you have any advice for other advisors?
I highly recommend they start with Simon Sinek’s TED Talk titled “How Great Leaders Inspire Action” [based on his book “Start with Why”]. His message is so powerful. I wrote down every single word. I realized my “why” is putting people in control of their wealth.
When I first gained this clarity, I went from that person that was at a social event and didn’t even want to bring up what I did for a living to one who looks for those opportunities. I don’t answer with a “what,” I answer with a “why.” As Simon Sinek said, people don’t care what you do, they care why you do it. I can’t separate my being from my work anymore.
If you study Simon you realize your job is not to sell a product; your job is to do business with people who believe what you believe in.
Why did you choose the financial services sector?
I answered a blind ad in the newspaper. I had no idea it was for insurance sales until I showed up for the interview. It was MetLife. I thought, “I don’t want to sell insurance. No one likes insurance.” Then I told myself I’d go for the interview experience.
But I was so excited when I left that interview. The job was an opportunity to meet new people every day and to be in such a dynamic industry; to be in control of your hours and your income. I told my parents and my mother said, “How can you get involved in such a filthy industry?” I didn’t exactly have support behind me.
So I started my journey with MetLife. The man I started there with said, “When you get lemons, turn it into lemonade.” He always believed in me. I found that again in 2013 when I started doing joint work with another producer. Many times, people see stuff in us we don’t see ourselves. He was a general agent back in that day. I would call him a mentor. He taught me how to run my business as a business and that the only thing you can control is your activity.
When you have a person who believes in you in that way, it gives you the confidence and you push forward. It’s fascinating with comfort zones — once you do push through it, you have a whole new comfort zone.
I was in a male-dominated industry, more so back then. I never considered myself a sales person. I considered myself an educator. The reason people feel like my mother felt about insurance is lack of understanding. I’m simply educating people as to the possibilities of life insurance. I feel like more of a teacher. Very early on I started working toward industry designations. As a woman, I felt I needed credibility that perhaps men didn’t need.
When you start producing, male or female, people have to take notice. I had men say, “You came in here and I thought you’d do $10,000 and $25,000 death benefits.”
I said, “I’m going to do at least $100,000.” I started with a different expectation.
Life insurance is not a need, it’s a want. When you think about needs analysis, when you need something, you don’t want to pay a dime more than you have to. But when you change that to becoming a want — because people realize the power of life insurance — you have people asking how much they can put in. The whole conversation changes.
I have four steps to making that transition of looking at life insurance as a want instead of a need.
- Create a powerful message
- Do business with people who believe what you believe
- Teach people why what they are doing with their wealth is inconsistent with their own beliefs
- Once the client sees the problem, they want the solution
I often site a LIMRA study that says that 74% of people say they can’t afford life insurance, 51% of people think life insurance is too complicated to understand and 35% would buy if they were asked.
These three problems identify what everyone in this industry faces every day but people don’t address this when they communicate with their clients. I show people they can own life insurance without it affecting their lifestyle.
For people in the industry, if they focus on the fact that those three things are going through people’s minds and address that up front, they’d be so successful.
What would you say is the No. 1 challenge for women in the insurance industry?
Their own mindset. I think women have such an opportunity because there are so few women in this industry. If you can make yourself unique rather than lumping yourself in with other advisors, you can become a “person of interest.” I recommend they read Michael Burt’s book “Person of Interest.”
I think being female in this industry is nothing but a positive.
I hear you’re an avid runner and you’ve competed in several marathons. Is there something you get from running that you apply to your business?
I’ve completed six Boston Marathons.
For me, running is like meditation. I let my mind go free. I never run with music. I run on country roads and get as quiet as I can. It has always been fascinating to me that I can come back from a run and suddenly I have answers to complex business issues I didn’t even know my brain was working on.
• Editor’s Note: Women’s Insurance Network, an all-new website brought to you by the team behind Insurance Forums. We see a tremendous opportunity for women to succeed in the insurance industry, and by providing this exclusive new platform for sharing of market intelligence, best-practices information and networking, hope to do our part to foster success. Much more to come! Questions? Please email traci@womensinsurancenet.com
Emily Holbrook is a former Editor in Chief of National Underwriter Life & Health and Retirement Advisor magazine. She has covered the financial, risk management and insurance industries for more than a decade, with her work appearing in Risk Management, National Law Review and Huffington Post. Emily graduated with dual degrees in Finance and English and worked in the financial industry as a fixed income trading administrator and analyst before becoming a full-time writer and editor. Emily now owns her own writing, editing and content strategy company, Red Label Writing. She can be reached at emily@redlabelwriting.com or on LinkedIn.
