Our Mission, Should You Choose to Accept It...

Universal misssion statement...Treat every customer (client, patient, passenger, subscriber, guest, member) in such a memorable way that when the transaction is complete, the customer tells someone else how great it was!--Jeffrey Gitomer

I recently finished Jeffrey Gitomer's book, Customer Satisfaction is Worthless, Customer Loyalty is Priceless: How to Make Them Love You, Keep You Coming Back, and Tell Everyone They Know, which contained the quote above. I like it, and don't think I can write a better mission statement. I realized that although I have a motto ("We work for our customers, not for the insurance companies"), I don't really have a "mission statement". Time to fix that.

My mother compelled me to focus my energies on health insurance. I didn't realize it at the time so we never discussed it, but since she has passed away, I have often wondered if cost was part of why she chose not to do chemotherapy. The doctors recommended it, saying that chemothereapy would dramatically reduce the chance of her cancer returning after surgery. However, she chose not to go through chemotherapy, saying, "If there's a 40% chance it will return, that means there's a 60% chance it won't return." Unfortunately, it did return and she died from it just over a year later.

The original tumor they removed had been growing 10 to 15 years, according to her doctors, before she experienced symptoms that caused her to seek medical attention. Had she gotten a routine colonoscopy, they would have caught it early. There's a very good chance she would still be with us.

So here's my mission statement specific to my business, which is in addition to Gitomer's universal mission statement: "Promote prevention and remove financial considerations from the health and wellness decision-making process."

That's optimistic, but still seems kind of "doom and gloom" to me. As I often say, "If you're into life and health insurance, people are going to die and people are going to get sick". That's why I use a lot of humor in my work, and also why I promote making the most of the limited time we have. Look for more regarding that in future blogs and a program I'm working on, "Live Until I Die".