'Trust building is key in insurance sales'
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Park Sun-nyeo, a financial planner of Hanwha Life Insurance, holds a trophy given at the company’s annual awards in June. / Courtesy of Hanwha Life Insurance
By Chung Ah-young
Park Sun-nyeo came to Korea from China in 1996, leaving two children and her husband behind, to earn money to repay her father’s debt.
As so many other “joseonjok,” which means ethnic Koreans living in China, experience here, she has had to fight against social prejudice while working as a restaurant waitress and a Chinese language instructor over the past 10 years. Her life didn’t seem to be any better in Korea.
In 2010, her close friend introduced her to the world of insurance sales. Since joining Hanwha Life Insurance, her life has totally changed.
The 51-year-old won an award given to top rookie financial planners (FP) for the company when she first started the job in 2010.
She generates insurance premiums worth 1 billion won annually and some 92 percent of her contracts are maintained. She is now in the ACE Club, which means she ranks in the top 3 percent of the company’s 23,000 FPs.
“When I began this job, I didn’t want to reveal my background because people have a bias against ‘joseonjok,’” she said.
“To overcome this bias, I have to work harder than others. Then customers trust me,” she said.
Born in Heilongjiang, China, she studied Japanese and ran a small private educational institute. But because her father and her family were in huge debt, she decided to come to Korea to find a new opportunity.
She wakes up at 5:30 a.m. every day, meets four to five customers a day and goes home at 10 p.m. But her work doesn’t end until midnight. “I should be there when my client wants to ask something,” she said.
Park gave a lecture to some 500 Chinese FPs to teach them her success story at a meeting of Hanwha’s local subsidiaries last month.
Her passion and devotion inspired Chinese FPs when she told them that she is always available by phone whenever customers need to talk to her.
Working at Yangnam branch in Yeongdeungpo, Seoul, Park said that FPs should never solicit customers to take out a policy.
“Don’t ask them if they need an insurance policy until they ask you first,” she said.
“The point of a successful insurance sale is not asking customers to buy one, but making them want to do it only after building up confidence with customers,” she said.
“Whatever you do or wherever you work, the most important thing for a salesperson is to build trust with customers,” she said.