The Ontario Broker - June 2019 - 28

PERSONAL LINES SALES ASSOCIATE

ALEX HILLHOUSE

Alex was a Funeral Director before he joined M&W, meeting with families, making funeral arrangements
and negotiating contracts. He corrects some of my assumptions-that funerals are fairly standard events
and only terminally ill people plan their own. "You'd be surprised how many people pre-arrange their own
funerals. I organized a full-on BBQ for this one guy. Picnic tables, hot dogs, the whole thing."
Alex doesn't strike you as a typical Funeral Director, if there is such a thing. But he doesn't strike you as an
insurance broker either. "I thought insurance was just a bunch of people in suits working sombre, monotonous jobs. Until I got into it and found out it's not."
His career in funeral planning came to be when he needed money to finish school and started helping out
at his friend's father's funeral home. But with limited opportunity for advancement, he wanted to better
provide for his family, so he started looking for something else. "I was intrigued by sales where you have
better control over your salary. Exactly what you put into it is what you get out.
"My dad's been working at M&W for a couple years. He's our Controller. He would show me pictures of
Trolley Tuesday and Cheers Friday-it always seemed like such a great place to work." Alex applied and
joined their Personal Lines team as a Sales Associate.
Alex says the hardest part when he joined the brokerage was learning 40 markets, not only product
lines, but understanding the differences between each company. "When you first start here,
you go through boot camp. How to quote, how to use our lead management system, that
kind of thing. Part way through my second week I tried my first client call, which was a
quote on right-hand drive. My second quote was an Airbnb. But I still made a sale that
first day."
Customer experience is clearly a strong suit for Alex. "If it's important to your customers, you make it important to you. Take the time to explain things in the simplest
terms and remember what's relevant to their particular situation. Be available for your
clients. One of the things I hate most is being stuck on hold when all you want is to talk
to someone. Why make them wait? Put yourself in the client's shoes and your numbers
will go through the roof."
Alex attributes his success to flexibility, transparency and the team. Not
only the ability to Bluetooth his clients on his drive home but the fact
that "...there aren't many workplaces you get emails from the President explaining what's happening in the market. In memes. Where I
used to work, we saw the Regional Manager every few months. But
the transparency here is amazing. The sales side of me appreciates it because that extra insight and knowledge help position
my conversations with clients. Maybe even more so, everyone
works so well together. It's not all fun and games, but even if we're
drowning, we still shoot hoops."
While Alex never pictured himself in insurance, he's become so
keen he recruited a friend of his to join M&W's Sales team and
will tell anyone who will listen how awesome it is working there.
"Insurance was never something I appreciated or understood.
And it sounds funny but if you think about making insurance
not suck every time you talk to someone, you change the way
people think about it."

JUNE 2019

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The Ontario Broker - June 2019

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