350 Focus Sessions: Top of the Table

How to Reach the Top of the Table

and Stay There
Radhakrishna K. Shetty, LUTCF

This session was presented in Hindi.
It is said that one might fail 1,000 times, but success dawns
at the 1,001st time. Like Thomas Edison said way back in
1879, nonchalantly with a smile on his face, “I have not
failed 1,000 times. I have successfully discovered 1,000 ways
to not make a light bulb.” And yes, he developed the incan-
descent light bulb.
Everyone wants happiness. No one wants pain. But you
cannot have a rainbow without a little rain.
Similarly, when I joined the insurance industry, becoming
an MDRT Court of the Table or Top of the Table member
was not the sole motive. But when I was actually in the trade,
looking at the king-like stature of the insurance advisors in
our country who were MDRT members, a materialistic,
genuinely human desire erupted in my insure-centric heart,
and I got perplexed and equally ecstatic to answer an urgent
question within my inner voice, Why can’t I be an MDRT
member? Soon after I became an MDRT member, then a
Court of the Table, and ultimately—the elixir for every
insurance advisor, the pivot of insurance—Top of the Table.
Yes, to reach the pinnacle of success is easier than to
remain pinned to the pinnacle. There is a segment of the
insurance industry across the globe that watches with open
and curious eyes as to how these successful people at Top of
the Table remain there year after year. That is the challenge,
the fun, the clear, “fun-n-frolic” situation for every Top of
the Table member to be there in the insurance fraternity.
Winston Churchill said, “The positive thinker sees the invis-
ible, feels the intangible and achieves the impossible.” Ritu
Ghatourey said, “Be like a diamond precious and rare, not
like a stone that is found everywhere.” An arrow can only be
shot by pulling it back. When life is dragging you back with
difficulties, it means it’s going to launch you into something
great, so just focus and keep aiming.
No doubt, scaling the mighty Himalayan mountain range
is definitely a challenge to every mountaineer, and likewise,
reaching the moon to an astronaut. If you ask the Williams
sisters how to qualify and win the Wimbledon title, they
find it relatively easy to explain how to qualify and to win. If
you ask them how to retain the title consistently, they find it
very difficult to explain despite their past achievements and
present form.
Michael Schumacher, the best example for consistency
and real performance, remained the champion of champions
despite the stiff competition until he retired.
In other words, any minute, any second, football fans
know the score. Even beer-guzzling “Big George,” dozing
in front of the TV set on football Sunday knows. Poke his
pudgy pot, and in a wink, he’ll tell you who’s winning and
who’s losing, and by precisely how many points.
Likewise, a Top of the Table member in the insurance
trade keeps a tab with him or her counting “chickens” to
win and sustain the race of being a Top of the Table member.
The key players in the game of life are like Big George. Even
when you think they are dozing, they are constantly aware
of the score between themselves and everyone in their life.
Both winning and retaining the title consistently are the
two unusual situations not only for a player but also to a
relationship master. My distinguished fellow gold medal
winners in the business of insurance fully agree that their

Radhakrishna K. Shetty, LUTCF

Shetty is a 20-year MDRT member with three Court of the Table and 13 Top of the Table qualifications
who regularly appears on various business TV channels in India. He has served on numerous MDRT
committees, including as Divisional Vice President of MCC in 2010 and as a Zone Chair or Area Chair
several times.
LIC India
201 Shreyas Apts Opp Swami Samarath Tmpl, Dl Vaidya Road Dadar West, Mumbai 40002 8 India
email: rk_shetty@vsnl.net phone: 91.222.4360696 website: rkshetty.com

View this presentation in the Resource Zone at mdrt.org or purchase from mdrtstore.org.

Annual Meeting Proceedings | 2017 ©Million Dollar Round Table


aim is not only to win the title, but also to retain the title, for
we are the builders of the bridges between two ends and not
the builders of a horizontal wall.
A successful value creator is one who not only catches
an elephant but also teaches it the language of his own.
A successful value creator must know how to swim like a
fish, fly like a bird, and creep like a snake. It means he must
know something about everything and everything about
something.
Qualifying for Top of the Table is definitely a huge task
for any advisor or agent in the world. However, to become
Top of the Table in the business is a golden dream, a close-to-
the-heart fantasy in the life of any serious insurance advisor.
Everybody believes these golden words “Nothing is impossi-
ble,” but everyone is averse to say with belief, “It is possible.”
But with dedicated determination, determined dedication,
profound sincerity, hard work, and most importantly, com-
mitted to commitment combined with a passion, one can
achieve Top of the Table.
I have a passion to achieve Top of the Table every year
because I am confident there is a huge commission income
coming my way, which helps me to become financially inde-
pendent and also helps me achieve all my goals in my life
along with the golden honor of being one of the top advisors
in the world.
It is not just the money that motivates me to qualify for
Top of the Table, but it is also the purpose behind the pur-
pose, which I see today as being also important to qualifying
for Top of the Table.
While my first purpose is earning money, the real pur-
pose behind the purpose is that I am going to make many
lives worth a purposeful living. I am going to make many
entrepreneurs financially independent. I am going to create
value for many individuals. I am going to make individuals
feel relaxed during critical times, such as financial turmoil,
topsy-turvy upheavals in the market conditions, any untow-
ard incidents happening, or any financial emergencies arising
accidentally. Our job is to have answers ready for individu-
als during accidental situations and emergencies that come
without warning.
I have faced difficulty many times being in the insurance
industry over the last 25 years. In other words, I have seen
with my own eyes how people suffered when they didn’t plan
their financial buffers for emergencies or sudden contingen-
cies. I have witnessed how the death of the breadwinner in
the family creates lengthy and burdensome issues in the lives
of the dependents. A small laxity in taxing away the earnings
©Million Dollar Round Table
How to Reach the Top of the Table and Stay There 351
for a rainy day will vex the burdens of the dependents in the
case of an unforeseen contingency happening.
When you undergo this situation with your clients, there
is a big lesson to learn. Losing someone important in a family
and the sufferings a family undergoes—one needs to see it to
believe it. We need to see it, feel it, and experience it before
it actually happens to us. We are in the insurance profession,
and the things we see and experience, our clients don’t.
In a way, I have a reason to say that the secret of success
in the insurance trade lies in bringing out the understanding
of our business prospects, the experience and feelings of life’s
turmoils. There should be a scientific process through which
slowly, definitely, systematically, and surely we can make the
prospects realize the value of life, emotionally through the
heart. Therefore, I always take clients through the process I
call the R-Factor questionnaire in the first meeting through
which I am able to determine whether the prospect is quali-
fied or otherwise.
To be a successful insurance advisor, one needs to be a
face reader. Every body movement of the prospect should ring
warning bells in our thought process during the sale process.
In other words, it is like an “eyeball selling” concept. The
human body is like a 24-hour broadcasting station that trans-
mits “You thrill me,” “You bore me,” “I love that aspect of your
product,” or “That one puts my feet to sleep.” We need to set
the hidden cameras behind our eyeballs to pick up all of our
customers’ and prospects’ signals. Then we need to plan our
pitch and pace accordingly. If we practice this concept, why
not Top of the Table? One can be double Top of the Table!
Knowing the prospect is qualified, the next task is to show
value creation. It is a value creation, a significant incalcu-
lable human life value in monetary terms, that the prospect
owes to his family in particular and the society in general.
Therefore, I make the prospect stay focused and motivate
him or her to cooperate with me to go through the process
of value creation.
I start my process working on a sheet called the DOS
worksheet. In this worksheet, I talk about the dangers,
opportunities, and strengths of becoming a financially inde-
pendent person with a feeling of value or a good leader in the
process. Before I actually begin, I tell them the significance of
transformations in life and the escalations in individualistic
wants and desires. The purpose is to establish an emotional
chord with the prospect over an elaborate discussion, ini-
tiating an intuitive, inquisitive dialogue to understand his
experiences and share my personal experience. I make sure
he is ready for this process, which he feels is magical.
Annual Meeting Proceedings | 2017
352 Focus Sessions: Top of the Table
Therefore, I tell the client that I will be asking certain per-
sonal questions that he needs to answer and that which will
be just between him and me strictly within the four walls of
the room where we are seated. Once he is confident that all
the information he is giving is to remain confidential, I take
out my fact-finder sheet. Further, I tell him that this fact-
finder sheet is going to help me create a proposal for him.
I take him through the process, make him feel confident,
overcome his skepticism and cynicism using all my wisdom
to make him feel like, “Yes, here is the king of value creation
I was looking for.” So I provide direction, confidence, cre-
ativity, and value for him.
To have a successful carrier and to reach the top and
remain there, a few principles need to be adopted: Convert
your sales to big, bigger, and biggest ticket-size sales.
Usually, when an insurance professional approaches pros-
pects or clients, most of them want to run away from him or
avoid meeting him. The reason is that most of the time, the
professionals do not use the right approach, and the pros-
pects or clients see them as hard-core salespeople.
It is obvious why an individual wants to keep himself
away from any salesperson. Hence, the approach method
must be different. And by doing so, there is a higher level of
acceptance. As Mr. Shiv Khera says, “Winners don’t do dif-
ferent things. They do things differently.” One who practices
this different approach will have faster acceptability, and as a
result, sales will become easier.
In the insurance sales business, your thought process has
to be customer centered. Everything you think should be
focused on the customer’s benefit and should use very com-
mon and customer-oriented language. When you are talking
Annual Meeting Proceedings | 2017
to the customer, he has to feel that you are talking his lan-
guage and you are there to solve his problems. So it is not
that you are selling the product; you are solving problems.
When it comes to solving problems, the customer is now
interested and ready to listen to you and ready to give you a
huge amount of premium. This is the reason that if you take
an average of any insurance company in the world, 80 per-
cent of people bring 20 percent of premiums, and 20 percent
of people bring 80 percent of premiums.
Focus on your personal, unique ability and use it to the
maximum to make it successful. Nothing is more powerful
than an idea. If you want to be a successful person in the
world, have more and more ideas and keep acquiring more
and more ideas, and different ideas.
Most people are complacent about success. It is nothing
but a stepping-stone. I dare to say simple success, or an ini-
tial success, is dangerous for anyone. If the success does not
multiply day after day, month after month, year after year,
do not carry your mistakes around with you. Instead, place
them under your feet and use them as stepping-stones.
Success should be a habit. Every small success gives finan-
cial freedom to the person. Loads of success is something
everyone should look for. Once you reach the upper floors of
success, you reach a position of excellence (Top of the Table).
I am sure, from the bottom of my heart, everyone wants
to reach the position of excellence, but the key is making it
happen as desired. I am confident that the above formulas
and success stories combined with the methods I explained
will surely lead everyone to excellence.
Excellent people never think of the past, nor the future; they
function in the present situation.
©Million Dollar Round Table