When I found out that I had the opportunity to be able to do insurance this summer I was super exited. Going into the summer I didn’t really know what to expect. I was filled with excitement and a slight bit of nervousness. Going into the internship I didn’t really know much about insurance or what I was getting myself into. When I walked into the doors at Allstate, I was instantly accepted by the other people that worked there. They welcomed me with open arms and taught me so much about the world of insurance in such little time.
My first week on the internship I spent most of my time researching and learning about how to sell insurance and write claims for people. At first, I struggled to be able to grasp the skill of communicating when it came to sales. I started off extremally slow and couldn’t make a sale for the whole first week. I felt a little discouraged and frustrated, so I decided to talk with my boss/ Mentor Ryan Owens. Throughout our multiple conversations, he told me not to beat myself up over a slow week, especially because I had just started selling insurance. He Gave me some extremally valuable tips throughout those conversations. Some of those being When walking in to sell something, you have to know what people want to hear. He told me things like imagine you were trying to sell to yourself, and what would make you buy/ try out whatever product you were selling. He also taught me things like know what you’re going to say before you try to sell something, and try not to be too long winded because people have really short attention spans, especially when people are trying to sell them things, they may not be interested in. As the summer continued, I got way better and my sales started to go up tremendously. The more experience and practice that I got in talking to people and selling things, the easier it became and the more sales I would make.
For the second half of the summer, I spent my time in the office making phone calls out to people trying to get them comparison quotes. These days were the longest days of the summer, as I sat at a desk making calls all day. On most of these calls I would get hung up on or the customers wouldn’t be interested in the comparison quote that I was trying to sell. Over this two-week period, I gained a lot of patience skills, and this is the part where I really learned how to communicate what I’m trying to sell quickly and effectively due to the short amount of time I was on the phone. This part of the summer experience was my least favorite.
Overall, I learned a tremendous amount about the world of insurance. Being able to struggle at the beginning and work my way through those struggles allowed me to learn way more than if I was just told what to do. It allowed me to do many things I thought I was not capable of doing before the summer started. Looking back at the overall experience I learned that insurance is not for me however I find a huge interest in sales. I feel that walking out of the internship I have gained many pivotal skills that will play an Important part in my life going forward.
