How difficult is that? At one level, selling life insurance essentially means selling a piece of paper that states a promise to pay a certain amount of money to a third party, after the ‘insured’ is dead. As far as the client is concerned, money paid for this piece of paper is money that he or she will never see again. That’s a tough business.
One the other hand, an amazing 95 percent of Americans have never ever been directly solicited for insurance. For a hard-driving agent like Chadha, these are green pastures, and he stays on top of his game in order to cash in on this opportunity. He strives to turn the seemingly dry craft of selling insurance into an art form. As such, he works with and around federal and state laws to sell compelling insurance policies to wealthy individuals, with estate plans and private foundations. Right in the heart of Silicon Valley, Chadha has struck on a paradigm of making it big that relies on others having done the same.
Chadha came to the United States on a vacation in 1996, and he decided this was the place to be. He went back to India, only to return two years later. He began working in the sales department of a small technology company in Silicon Valley, and soon began exploring other options. Tapping away at a computer all day was not for him. Chadha had carried a package for someone who happened to be a senior executive at New York Life, when he had left India. They began talking and it ended with Chadha landing a job at one of the company’s Bay Area offices.
His new career began cold-calling people. Some said they didn’t want a policy, and others said they already had one. With one family, whenever Chadha would call and ask for the husband, the wife would invariably reply that he was in the bathroom.
Chadha soon struck pay dirt with an important client — someone he now calls one of his major “centers of influence.” The nature of his business does not permit him to identify any of his clients, but he says that that gentleman in turn introduced him to other prospective clients. And the circle has continued to grow; Ninety-five percent of Chadha’s business now comes from referrals. “The network is the lifeline of my business, and it helps to establish credibility,” he says.
Chadha does not consider clients to be people you sell a policy to and forget about until you want to sell them another, more expensive policy. Call him a salesman and he is offended. He is often invited to share in his clients’ happiness when they buy a house or have a baby, and Chadha shows his affection by sending over gifts on such occasions. “This business is all about relationships,” he says.
Chadha is innately driven. He goes to sleep at two a.m. and wakes up at seven in the morning. His success at a very young age seems to come from a need to constantly challenge himself. To him, contentment is stagnation.
“If you’re content, what do you look for?” he asks.
Therefore, Chadha sets himself short and long-term goals; and once he achieves them, he devises another set to keep him motivated. It’s not an issue of greed, he insists.
“You have to keep the bar moving up constantly,” he says.
His current short-term professional goal is to maintain his position at the top of the Million Dollar Round Table. In 10 years, he wants to be the person who comes to mind when people think of insurance — in the same way, he says, as Vinod Khosla comes to mind when people think of a successful Indian venture capitalist. One other goal is to buy a Gulfstream 5, a $45-million executive plane.
To Chadha, like most driven siliconindians, these goals mean more than the purely material satisfaction of reaching them — of feeling powerful and believing you are better than the rest.
“What is the objective of a 100-meter Olympic record holder?” he asks. “To beat his own record.” si
