Editor's note: Benefits Selling's Broker of the Year finalists will be revealed Monday-Friday this week. Butch Zemar is our fifth and final finalist.
If teaching scuba diving in Chicago were more lucrative, then it's likely the Windy City would be missing one of its top insurance salespeople.
"I got into the insurance business by accident," explains Butch Zemar, health care reform consultant for Elite Benefits of America in Chicago. "I went for a group interview for selling products to the self-employed market. It wasn't until the end of the presentation when I asked what the product was — it was health insurance. I didn't even have health insurance myself."
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That was the beginning of Zemar's career, and although he's maintained a love of scuba (and taken several dives in Lake Michigan), now the U.S. Navy veteran's focus is on the broader spectrum of employee benefits rather than individual health products.
He's written a health care reform guide for manufacturers that's being reformatted to address small businesses. And, apart from his ebooks, Zemar has been churning out both written articles and videos since 2008 to help guide consumers and industry experts alike, giving him increased visibility and credibility in the marketplace.
"The ebook didn't start from scratch," he explains. "What happened is, I wrote segments of it for articles, blogs, guest writing or whatever it might be, and then it formulates into an ebook.
"I usually write the articles while I'm on the road in between meetings or enrollments and have to grab a bite to eat," he says. "I'm an Average Joe, but I somehow have the ability to break things down to make them easier to understand."
And that ability also has led to Zemar's success in the insurance industry, where he's willing to spend one-on-one time with his clients in order to ensure their satisfaction.
"If I were to give somebody advice, I would say, 'Bring all your work ethic to the table. Show up. Be persistent. And build relationships.'"
In a city the size of Chicago, that attention to personal relationships is one thing that makes Zemar's business model unique.
"You get so busy that it's not always easy to call and tell your clients that their insurance card is in the mail — but they need that to feel comfortable," he says. "Every five blocks in Chicago, there's an insurance agent. And the only way you can really set yourself apart is to build a relationship with people.
"When you start adding up all your clients, sometimes it's hard to get back to all of them," he acknowledges. "But you have to set up a rotation and figure out how to stay in front of your clients all the time, provide them resources or give them facts about what's going on in the industry. Otherwise, it gets to a certain point where they haven't heard from their agent in years. And now you have a problem — because if you call them now, are you sure they'll give you a call back?"
Photo: Butch Zemar would be underwater right now if he wasn't in the benefits business. By Tom McKenzie.
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