Great Eastern & About Great Eastern : Financial Consultant Career

Harold has an illustrious career with Great Eastern that spans almost two decades. In 2006, he was appointed Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Great Eastern office in Indonesia. During his tenure there, Harold managed to increase their sales ten fold and clinched the exclusive distribution rights to a public listed bank.

Now back in Singapore, Harold continues to grow Great Eastern through his agency, Harold Ng & Associates.

Q: Harold, what’s it like working at Great Eastern?

A: Well, I’ve been with Great Eastern for 18 years now, and have been a Group Manager running my own agency for the last 8 years.

Great Eastern has a strong commitment to providing financial security and protection for our customers. And for our employees and life planners, we place great emphasis on building a strong "Life is great!" culture so that it can be translated into a real commitment to help our customers live a great life, and deliver value for our shareholders, our business partners and the community in which we operate.

Great Eastern’s corporate philosophy is driven by the 3 I’s – Integrity, Initiative and Involvement.

Integrity involves maintaining the highest standards of integrity, safeguarding our customers’ interest and providing quality holistic financial planning.

Initiative means that we strive for excellence in everything we do, always being customer-focused, proactive, and to always be improving, innovating and generating new ideas.

Involvement entails fostering a strong sense of belonging for all our stakeholders, providing a conducive environment to promote growth and development, adopting a team approach governed by respect and courtesy, and by being a responsible member of our community.

Q: What are some highlights in your career at Great Eastern?

A: In 1995, I attended a 9-month intensive course called Agency Management Training Course (AMTC), which is for all aspiring managers in the insurance industry. I emerged from the course a top student, and scored 97 marks out of a 100 for my final project.

Add to the fact that I was studying with many highly experienced insurance agents from other companies, made me feel a strong sense of achievement and satisfaction.

I’ve also designed a full-fledged financial planning software called “Financialist Methodology”, which Great Eastern has adopted and endorsed as a part of its training program for its life planners.The program is able to plan out a person’s life in important aspects such as when one is able to retire, for instance.

And my most recent highlight is being appointed CEO of the Great Eastern office in Indonesia in 2006.

Q: What does it take to be a successful insurance agent?

This question brings to mind an article from the Harvard Business Review. The article talked about what makes a good insurance agent, and two qualities in particular were highlighted – One is drive, the other is empathy. The argument was whether it was more important for an insurance agent to have higher drive or higher empathy.

The conclusion was that it was important to have a balance of both, as having too much drive would mean being a high-pressure salesperson, whereas being too empathic would most likely result in you losing the sale as you are unable to guide your client to close a sale.

So the best way to be a successful insurance agent is to always present the facts logically, listen attentively to the client, and then help to select the best insurance solution for their needs.

Q: How can a new insurance agent overcome rejections and be motivated to succeed?

A: Well, making cold calls and getting rejections is part and parcel of being in any form of sales, not just insurance. And it is an integral part in building up their self-confidence, picking themselves up from failure and enabling them to learn important people relation skills.

Here at Great Eastern, we have the ’90 day fast start program’ which is designed to teach and train new agents to become qualified life planners and insurance professionals that are confident and have a clear vision of where their career is going.

This is very important, we believe, in ensuring that new agents are given the best possible support so that they can go forward and deliver the best insurance solutions for their clients, and to be successful in the process.

Q: What are the prospects for the insurance industry in Singapore?

A: The mass market insurance segment is pretty crowded, but there is a lot of potential in the high income as well as the niche market segments. Therefore, there are always opportunities for hardworking and driven people who want to succeed.

Q: What is Great Eastern’s vision for the future?

A:We definitely want to be an important player in the insurance industry in Asia, and to maintain our position as number one in terms of new business volume.

Great Eastern is also looking to expand our resources in the risk management and wealth protection segments, and we are constantly developing new financial products and insurance services to better serve our clients in these lucrative segments. In essence, this is definitely a sunrise industry with lots of potential.

We also want to reach out to more fresh graduates and to make them aware that being a life planner at Great Eastern can enable them to become successful entrepreneurs and fulfill their leadership potential.

This is because as a life planner, there are essentially no limits on how much you can achieve, in terms of financial success, personal development and career satisfaction.

www.lifeisgreat.com.sg

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