Twenty years of glory? Taking root at the grassroots level and achieving extraordinary results amidst the ordinary
From the moment he became a salesperson of China Life Insurance Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “China Life Insurance Company”), Cao Jiping took root at the grassroots level and stayed there for 25 years. Cao Jiping’s career has been accompanied by the successful listing and rapid development of China Life Insurance Company. It has also been accompanied by the take-off of China’s economy, the improvement of personal income and living standards, and the national demand for insurance products, especially life insurance products, continues to rise. Today, standing at a new starting point, opportunities and challenges coexist, and this “dream chaser” in the insurance industry is walking on his “ordinary road” and pursuing the next “extraordinary”.
The “Ordinary Road” to Developing a Business
In 1998, Cao Jiping started delivering milk and embarked on the road of insurance sales. This unique experience also showed from the side the hardships in the early stages of his business development. As a southerner, Cao Jiping wanted to do business in Jinan, Shandong Province. His strong southern accent and basically zero social connections became two major problems before him. After the distress, he decided to start from the bottom and correct his Mandarin and open up contacts by delivering milk to his friends and communicating with the locals.
“At that time, I had to get up at four o’clock in the morning to pack all the milk,” Cao Jiping said with emotion. During those years, it became this young man’s daily routine to get up at 4:30 every day to load milk and deliver milk to every household before 6 o’clock. In the process, he talked with local people and understood the public’s insurance needs. Cao Jiping also accumulated his first batch of customers in this way.
After getting the first pot of gold in his career, Cao Jiping set his sights on villages and towns again. “No one answered my door when I knocked on the door in the city, so I went to the towns.” Cao Jiping said that at that time, the towns and villages were in urgent need of popularizing insurance knowledge. It was against this background that he took several colleagues with him to the countryside every day to promote insurance knowledge, and gained a second batch of customers.
In the following years, his clientele continued to grow. Various titles such as “Gold Medal Salesman”, “Shandong Province Sales Champion” and “National Sales Champion” also followed one after another, becoming synonymous with Cao Jiping.
“Service Road” Managed with Care
“Today, I have been in this business for 25 years. I have always been rooted in the front line and have come into contact with all kinds of customers. Although I have been rejected, I have gained more trust from customers.” Professional and sincere service is what Cao Jiping said The confidence of this sentence. 25 years of experience in the industry have also allowed him to find his own path to customer service through constant exploration.
Cao Jiping’s experience of walking around the streets made him discover that many products that were promoted by the market in the early years could only solve the basic security problem of a young family. But once the family’s breadwinner is at risk, people will become poor or return to poverty due to illness. question. Therefore, from the perspective of customers, Cao Jiping regards health insurance sales as his main business goal. “Life insurance is a financial industry that targets personal risks and is closely related to the production and life of the people. Therefore, we should insist on being ‘people-centered’ and keep the things that people care about most at heart.” Cao Jiping summarized his customers in this way Service philosophy.
Not only that, in order to let the public better understand insurance, Cao Jiping printed a special issue on personal insurance services, “Insurance Information”, becoming the first “crab eater” in the industry. In 1998, when he first started working in insurance, he began to give customers “Insurance Information” printed on A4 paper when visiting customers to introduce insurance-related knowledge to them. In 2002, with Cao Jiping’s continuous learning and improvement of professional abilities, “Insurance Information” was upgraded from a few thin pages of A4 paper to a printed special issue on insurance service information. This magazine has also become a bridge between the public and insurance.
Cao Jiping said: “The most important thing when doing insurance is to establish a correct concept. I regard insurance as my lifelong career and manage it carefully.” In his 24-year career, he has served more than 5,000 customers and provided insurance for more than 100 people. 20 billion.
A persistent “path of learning”
The 25 years that Cao Jiping has been in the industry are also the 25 years of rapid development of China’s insurance industry. At the beginning of the century, the annual premium income of my country’s insurance companies was only 210.9 billion yuan. Today, the annual premium income of China Life Insurance Company alone exceeds 600 billion yuan.
The industry is developing rapidly, and the public’s insurance needs are also changing with each passing day. If you want to avoid being eliminated by the market, continuous learning has become an inevitable option. Since 2008, Cao Jiping has studied for Executive Master of Business Administration (EMBA) at Shandong University and Peking University, hoping to arm himself with professional knowledge and provide customers with better services.
Not only does he have to learn, Cao Jiping also helps his teammates in the team continue to learn and improve their capabilities. In Cao Jiping’s view, the life insurance market space is still huge. The key lies in whether there are professionals who can deliver suitable insurance solutions to customers and truly meet people’s needs for insurance. Therefore, the professionalism of employees is crucial. He established his own sales team in 2017. Although the team directly manages more than 400 people, he still seriously and responsibly provides training and coaching for team members, answers questions and solves their doubts, in order to be able to Let the service be more perfect and effectively build a “safety net” for people’s livelihood.
This year marks the 20th anniversary of the listing of China Life Insurance Company, and it is also an important node in Cao Jiping’s career. Looking forward to the future, he hopes to provide more considerate services and protection to more customers and bring insurance love and responsibility to thousands of households.
(Picture: Cao Jiping)
