Exclusivefocus Spring 2013 - National Association of Professional ...

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Katrina. Unable to find reliable contractors to gut and rebuild our home, we got up each morning at the crack of dawn to do the work ourselves. On weekday mornings, we met her dad at our property and worked until it was time to open NAPAA headquarters for the day. Then once our day with NAPAA ended, it was back to work on the house. When the weekends came, the three of us spent every waking hour at the property to make it livable again. Finally, a few weeks before the first anniversary of Katrina, we were able to move back in, albeit without a working kitchen. There was still much to do, but we were finally back in our own home. You learn a lot about someone during a crisis and we all learned things we never knew about each other. One of the things I learned about Nancy is that she doesn’t like to put things off. Like her father, when she’s confronted with a project, she dives right in and doesn’t come up for air until it’s finished. But she’s not satisfied to simply complete the project; it is a learning experience for her. She educates herself by scrutinizing every step along the way so she fully understands the process. So, whether it’s a quarterly earnings report or a new agent program, she scours company documents, dissecting and piecing together information as she looks for clues that provide insights into the company’s reasoning and direction, especially as they relate to the agency force – a quality that has served NAPAA well. Since Katrina, thousands of Allstate agents have come and gone, many of whom were terminated for missing their quotas. Fearful of losing their jobs and desperate for advice, they turned to NAPAA for help and Nancy bore the brunt of the incoming calls. As you might imagine, the majority of these conversations were not brief and many agents called time and again. The inbound call volume became so great; we were forced to limit calls to dues-paying members. But even then, the calls were relentless. Nancy views the NAPAA membership roster as her book of business. To her, each member is a customer and she does everything in her power to assist them when they call for help. Like an agent’s book of business, some members are more interactive and call often, while others never call at all. Never wanting to offend anyone, Nancy is sometimes overly accommodating, which can increase the wait time for other callers. But they all seem to take it in stride because they know she will give them straight answers when she calls them back. I’m not sure if Nancy’s deep-seated desire to help others is an inherited trait or a learned behavior, but it seems to run in her family. Her immediate family is amazing and all share this same attribute. Her dad was raised on a small farm in South Louisiana where he toiled in the fields picking cotton by hand. But while the family was financially dirt poor, they were rich in social values. And unlike children from similar backgrounds who abandoned such values, Nancy and her sister soaked them up and put them into practice, making the world a better place for humanity. This value system is not something they feel as an obligation, it simply comes naturally. They are an industrious, loving and caring family. Getting to know them has been a source of great joy for me and has helped change the way I deal with my own family. I am so fortunate to have had them in my life. Members who speak to Nancy fully understand her value. They know they can call her and get the right answers every time. It is rare for her to be stumped by a caller’s question and if it does happen, she becomes a heat-seeking missile in her quest to find the answer. Being a former manager is also very helpful because she is a great resource for new agents, whose FSLs are likely to be significantly less knowledgeable about contract issues and other job-related matters. In recent years, the FSLs’ primary area of responsibility has been to hire agents to replace the thousands of agents that have terminated. Most do not act as an agent advocate or as a source of reliable information for the agents in their markets. Still, there are some who proclaim to know all there is to know about the R3001 Agreement and Supplement, yet they often offer incomplete or inaccurate advice. In reality, few people in the company can match Nancy’s knowledge of the R3001 contract and the R3001 Supplement. She is so well-versed that attorneys from across the country call to pick her brain about contract issues and other Allstate matters. In a recent conversation with an attorney friend of ours, I commented that I often defer matters requiring an understanding of the law to Nancy because she is “more lawyerly” than I am. The attorney laughed and said, “She’s more lawyerly than me too!” The point is: if there was only one reason to join NAPAA, it would be to have access to Nancy and her comprehensive level of knowledge. In addition to her one-on-one work with NAPAA members, Nancy wears many other hats. She maintains the membership database, posts payments, keeps the books, sets up and coordinates NAPAA meetings and conferences, processes member-to member referrals, updates the NAPAA website and handles an assortment of other duties. In her spare time, she writes articles for this magazine and for our weekly memberonly newsletter, DirectExpress. Besides always going the extra mile to help our members, she is smart – some say brilliant – highly organized, dedicated, and extremely hard-working. Whether a business matter or a personal matter, she is consistently focused and always gives 110%. In addition, she is serious-minded, and takes none of her responsibilities lightly. What amazes me is her ability to juggle so many tasks at the same time and do them all equally well. There is much more that could be written about Nancy Fish and her many qualities. All I know is that I am the luckiest guy in the world, not only because Nancy is my wife, my soul mate and best friend, but because we share the same values, one of which is a deep-seated desire for fair treatment and reasonable compensation for Allstate agents and other captive agents. NAPAA is the vehicle that allows us to achieve this just goal. Through thick and thin, Nancy has never waivered in her support for the agency force. Allstate agents are fortunate to have someone like her on their side. I am so glad we spent that $70 to get married in Reno, it was money well-spent. Ef 48 — Exclusivefocus Spring 2013
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Page 3 and 4: L APPROVAL We’re lending to Allst
Page 5 and 6: Grow your business. Hear what our a
Page 7 and 8: “Is your agency planted in good s
Page 9 and 10: INDEPENDENCE IS A CHOICE • Put Yo
Page 11 and 12: Spring 2013 Exclusivefocus — 11
Page 13 and 14: a compelling speech about staying p
Page 15 and 16: fice in order to attend company mee
Page 17 and 18: will be increased if there are more
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Page 23 and 24: This Is For 25 Fast Acting, Lucky A
Page 25 and 26: The Ki ndness Revol uti on Welcome
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Page 29 and 30: Financing exclusively for insurance
Page 31 and 32: Break the Shackles... Get EXCITED A
Page 33 and 34: to maintain the tax deferred status
Page 35 and 36: challenge is to identify homeowners
Page 37 and 38: feature The Saboteurs By Dave Thorp
Page 39 and 40: sales and marketing Should Your Age
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Page 45 and 46: ful, would have been less problemat
Page 47: DirectWriter magazine, the forerunn
Page 51 and 52: Confidential NAPAA Membership Appli
Page 53 and 54: the NAPAA market place Agencies for
Page 55: Insurance Professionals: IS IT TIME

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