Pioneer: A Woman in a Man’S World of Sales

By Jeanne C. Adelman

Jeanne Adelmann was raised in a middleclass, blue-collar family. Growing up in a male dominated world at home and in her community may have prepared her for her lifes work in insurance sales. When she started in 1978, there were very few women in sales and no women in sales management. She attained the highest level for a female in field sales in her company.

In this frank memoir, she looks back at her pioneering careerthe good and the badand tells of one womans struggle to break down barriers in the business world of the seventies, eighties, and nineties. She recounts her uphill battle with splashes of humor as she struggles to open doors for women.

Jeanne faced many challenges during her twenty-three years in insurance sales. She is proud of her work as a pioneer in creating new opportunities for those who followed her, opportunities that were not there for her when she entered the world of sales.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jul 8, 2011
• ISBN: 9781462026012

Jeanne C. Adelman

Jeanne C. Adelmann spent twenty-three years breaking barriers in the insurance industry. She now lives in retired bliss with her husband, John, in Woodstock, Illinois. She enjoys reading, writing, collecting antiques, and doing volunteer work. Her great joy is her family, composed of three grown children, their spouses, and six grandchildren.

Book preview

Contents

Preface

Introduction

Chapter 1

At The Beginning (1974-1978)

Chapter 2

TALLYBOARD

Chapter 3

The Sales Process

Chapter 4

Early Lessons in Prospecting (1978-1980)

Chapter 5

Change is Hard to Come By

Chapter 6

My Most Embarrassing

Insurance Moment

Chapter 7

Managing Men (1981-1986)

Chapter 8

The Joke’s On Me

Chapter 9

Problems, Problems, Problems, and My Efforts to Fix Them (1986-1989)

Chapter 10

Leaving Prairie Ridge the

First Time (1989)

Chapter 11

My First Year after Prairie Ridge (1989-1990)

Chapter 12

The Early O’Leary Years (1990-1996)

Chapter 13

The Later O’Leary Years (1996-1998)

Chapter 14

O’Leary Years Funny Stuff

Chapter 15

Back to Prairie Ridge (1998)

Chapter 16

Funny Stuff in My Last Years Working

for Prairie Ridge

Chapter 17

The Final Years at Prairie Ridge (1998-2001)

Chapter 18

All My Wonderful Angels

Chapter 19

Other Successful Women in

Insurance Sales

Chapter 20

Positive Leadership Influences in

My Insurance Career

Conclusion

Appendix

TALLYBOARD

RESULTS:

EARLY YEARS (1978-1981)

TALLYBOARD

RESULTS:

MANAGEMENT YEARS (1981-1988)

In loving memory

of my mother and father,

Helen Lucy Bodnar Rodeghero

and

Robert John Rodeghero Sr.

Preface

I wrote this book mainly for myself. I wanted to be able to see it in print and know that the story is all together, in one place, reminding me that it really did happen. Hopefully, others will benefit from reading this. Perhaps it might appeal to others, like me, who find they are blazing a trail; or perhaps it will help husbands or partners of women, who are in situations where they are hitting their heads against a brick wall or brushing up against that invisible glass ceiling.

In my insurance sales career, which was truly a great adventure, I did much more than I had ever imagined I could do. I had a very successful three years as a Prairie Ridge sales representative, five years as a successful sales manager, and then three more years as director of sales in Wisconsin. My years at Michael J. O’Leary were great years of learning, teaching, and more sales success. My last three years back at Prairie Ridge were not the crowning glory of my career as I had expected, but they were full of many good side benefits. I rose higher than any woman had ever risen in the chain of command in sales at this company.

I acquired respected business designations, including the Chartered Property and Casualty Underwriter (CPCU) designation, as well as the Associate in Risk Management (ARM) designation. I made more money than I had ever imagined when I began in 1978, ending my career with an income over six figures, a respectable retirement, and a healthy 401K savings.

I touched the lives of so many wonderful people, and they touched my life in ways for which I am so thankful. That’s not bad for a woman in a man’s world of sales, is it?

I’ve changed some names to protect both the innocent and the guilty. It has never been my desire to hurt anyone involved in my experience but only to tell my tale.

Jeanne Adelmann

Woodstock, Illinois

April 2011

Introduction

There are pioneers and there are pioneers. If you live in the United States and someone mentions the word pioneer, you would most likely think of those brave souls who ventured out across this great country and risked the little they had in hopes of gaining more. Then there are modern-day pioneers, who venture out, making the way for others to follow in areas of the business world where few like them have previously ventured. The latter describes me. Would those early pioneers do it again, knowing what they faced in hardships and difficulties? I think they would. Would I do it again, knowing what I know now? I believe I would. In both cases, there was great adventure and, despite the difficulties, great rewards.

As I open my story, I’d like to say a few things about working in a male-dominated business. Early in my sales career with Prairie Ridge Insurance, I felt being a woman was much more a positive than a negative. I started at a time when there were few women calling on the phone or in person to commercial businesses to ask for the opportunity to quote on their insurance coverage. Everyone in sales, as they make cold calls, tries to be different so the potential clients will remember them. Everyone likes to have a gimmick. Being a woman was my built-in gimmick or way of being different.

Often when another sales rep would call on a company I had been to, the owner would say, Someone from Prairie Ridge has already been here.

When asked who that was, they would say, "I don’t remember her name, but it was that woman." Everyone at my company knew who that woman was.

However, I knew that once I was in, I needed to know what I was talking about. When the questions started, I had better have the answers. Thus, I did everything I could to learn my business, attending any class I could and obtaining the CPCU and ARM designations. I always felt I needed to know more than the men doing the same job I did. In later years, it was less that way, but in 1978, it was very true.

In my management years, I tried to analyze what type of woman could do the insurance sales job well. I studied my own methods and those of other successful women around me. I found it was good to not take myself too seriously. It was necessary to put up with a lot of comments from the men. I learned to just throw their jokes and jibes right back at them. I had a good relationship with the men I supervised and my male clients, as well as the wives of these men. Over the years, I observed other successful women who had this same ability to not be offended when the men’s comments were a little out of line. However, though we could laugh and joke with the men, we always tried to conduct ourselves professionally and be knowledgeable about what we were selling.

Two comments were made about me that I found interesting and somewhat amusing. One was made by the insurance buyer of one of my larger clients in my later years working for Michael J. O’Leary & Co.

This man said, Jeanne, you were the first and only woman to be invited by the owner of our company to his office on the top floor. He continued, Do you know why you were allowed up there and no other woman has ever been there?

I said I did not.

He said, Because he doesn’t think of you as a woman.

I laughed and said, I will take that as a compliment.

He replied, That was exactly how it was intended.

The other comment was made by my friend, who I refer to throughout this saga.

He asked me, Do you know why you were successful in reaching the highest position ever for a woman in sales with Prairie Ridge or why you are so accepted by the guys? I asked him why, and he said, Because you don’t think like a woman. You think like a man.

I believe it is true about most of the other women I observed who were successful in sales. It’s a valuable trait to possess in a man’s world.

There is one very important thing that I found was necessary in women’s lives if they were to have any chance of success in the difficult field of sales. This was strong support in their personal situations. I always had the unfailing support of my husband, John. When I was in management and interviewed many women and minorities of all kinds, I found that it was becoming unpopular, if not illegal, to ask questions that revealed a woman’s personal situation. However, if there was a way I could, I found out if there would be trouble for them in taking on an insurance sales position.

For example, I would ask, If you are out on night appointments, would that be a problem for you at home?

Usually I could tell by their answers to my careful questions if there would be a concern that could hinder their success in sales. In those days it was still not common for women to work outside the home and even less common for them to work in sales and be away from home in the evenings.

During my last years in insurance sales, I came to feel I had reached my limit. I could go no further up the corporate ladder. Prairie Ridge had made strides in the general hiring of women in sales over the years. When I was hired in 1978, about 8 percent of the sales force was made up of women. When I left in 2001 about 28 percent were women. The sales upper management positions, however, were still, at that time, all held by men. I believe there are one or two women who were made vice presidents in most recent years. I am happy they had opportunities that were not there for me. There are times I am still sad about what could have been. I feel it was a waste of my experience and talents for me to retire so early, as I had so much more to give. I didn’t think it would end as it did, but that’s life, and you can only play the hand you are dealt.

Following is the whole story. I am very happy I took the turn in the road that put me into insurance sales, albeit in a man’s world, because it gave me the opportunity of my lifetime…

Chapter 1

At The Beginning (1974-1978)

Jeanne, you had better come up here. I think we have a dead man in room 38.

That brought me to attention! I had been passing by the motel desk at Martinetti’s Restaurant and Motel, where I worked. The phone rang and Donna, the desk clerk, handed it to me.

When I heard Carol’s message, I said, I’m on my way. I was not too upset at first, as Carol always seemed to have bad things happen to her, and sometimes her imagination ran away with her. She was one of our better housekeepers, otherwise known as motel maids, who cleaned rooms in our fifty-one-room motel.

I arrived outside room 38. Carol was very excited and said, I have been trying to clean this room all morning, but there has been no answer to my knocks, and when I tried to open the door, it was chained from the inside.

This was, of course, an indication that someone was in there and did not want to be disturbed. As it was now early afternoon, Carol had once again unlocked the door.

Finding it still chained from inside, she pushed the door open as far as it would go and called, Maid service—can we come in and clean the room?

There was no answer to her requests or her pounding on the door. She had peeked through the two inches of open space in the doorway. She could only see the foot of the bed, and there were two bare feet sticking over the end of the bed on top of the bedspread. At this point, she panicked and called me. I tried, as she had already done, to call and pound on the door but to no avail.

We had no cell phones in those days, so I walked to the laundry room a few rooms away and picked up the phone. By this time a new person had come on duty at the motel desk. It was Theresa who answered, and I told her, Call the police and tell them we are concerned we might have either a dead man or a passed-out man in one of our rooms. Very shortly, I heard the sirens, and the police were there.

After trying what we had tried twice before—first calling and then shouting and pounding on the door—one of the policemen said, We will have to break down the door.

Ever conscious of expenses, I did not want them to do that. I said, Can’t you just cut the chain?

They looked at each other, both rolled their eyes, and one of them went to their car and returned with a small saw. He proceeded to cut the chain. When we entered the room, we were met with the strong smell of alcohol and found a bottle of whiskey on the floor by the bed. The man was breathing, and it appeared he was in an alcohol-induced state of unconsciousness.

We were able to identify him and called his home. His wife answered and said, He’s been missing for three days. I’ll come and get him. The police called an ambulance, and his wife rode with him to the hospital.

We had not been paid for the room the night before when he checked in. There was a pile of crumpled bills on the nightstand in the room.

Before they left for the hospital, I said to one of the policemen, We would appreciate being paid for the room. He peeled a $20 bill out of the messy pile of money and gave it to me before returning the man’s belongings to his wife. Rooms rented for about $16.95 plus tax in those days, so I was happy.

It was all in a day’s work. Hardly a day went by that we didn’t have some sort of emergency. If it wasn’t a dead body, it was a room trashed by a drunken bridal party, a broken pipe in a bathroom with water flooding the room, or the maids upset because the janitor had once again brought his huge St. Bernard dog to work.

Once on a Friday night, which was the busiest night of the week, the bartenders went on a strike. I had to come in and tend bar. This was something I had never done before. Also, I remember a late morning, about half an hour before the lunch crowd could be expected in the dining room. Someone hit the fire-protection system button by accident. It was a system that threw a powdered chemical all over the kitchen, and we had to throw out all the preparations for lunch that day.

We had another maintenance man, who was hired based on someone’s strong recommendation. He came to us after we had to let the prior maintenance man go, as he would not agree to leave his dog at home. This new man was named Harris. I never knew if that was his first or last name, as everyone called him Harris. He was from Latvia and spoke with a thick accent that was very similar to my maternal grandmother’s accent. She was from Slovakia and called me Jheenie.

One day Harris said, Don’t call the plumber, Jheenie. I can fix the pipes leaking in room 17.

I said, Are you sure, Harris?

He replied, Yes, I can do it. I can do it. I tell you I can do it!

Later that day Harris came to me and said, I no like my day, Jheenie. Whenever he said that, I knew