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Chris commenced his professional life in his mid twenties by joining Colonial Mutual
in 1986 as a tied agent, and transferred to National Mutual in 1987 on the promise of better training and
support… mmmmm. He worked in the family sector and built what was in his own words a modest client base
over his four years there.
However, he developed serious misgivings about the future of the tied agency force and indeed
whether he even wanted to continue in the sector.
"I was frankly sick and tired of struggling to find good prospects, close decent sales and
working most nights! I’d had a guts full, but didn’t know what else to do."
He decided that if he was going to continue in the sector, he needed to establish himself as an
independent adviser and radically change the way he went about his business. He resigned from
National Mutual in September 1991 leaving behind his clients and 1,000’s in deferred and renewal
commissions, and shortly after joined New Zealand’s then largest dealer group Antony James.
"It was in working closely with one of its directors Jim Sherlock that I started my crusade to
revolutionise my business, and after leaving Antony James and joining the Prosperity Group,
working closely with David Haak of Sovereign Assurance and later his then successor Mike Barns".
"I set goals to radically improve my standard of living, reduce night appointments and work a
maximum of four days per week". "Dave became my mentor holding me accountable to achieving those
goals and later Mike".
To achieve these meant Louisson had to radically increase the value of his sales, the quality
of his clients and deal with people who in the main he could see during the day. The obvious
solution, Louisson explains, was to work with business owners.
"The only problem was that I knew really very little about business and absolutely nothing about
business insurance! To make matters worse, I couldn’t find any processes or technologies to acquire
or anyone who could teach me".
In 1993 Louisson commenced development of his data capture and needs analysis systems, developing
questionnaires, analysis methodologies and client report templates. However, Louisson explains that
the deeper he burrowed into his development work the more intrigued and captivated he became by
needs-driven sales processes.
"What started in desperation became an insatiable passion for me" he says.
The upshot of all of this was that Louisson say’s he increased his business production 3 to 4 fold
over time, wrote fewer but much larger cases, reduced night appointments to less than one per week,
and worked "in" his business only 2-3 days.
"I spent the balance of my week absorbed in developing my systems or occasionally going sailing".
Chris is married to Katrina who is also involved in the business. Katrina is responsible for guided
software tours, training and support and follow-up, Chris responsible for corporate relations, marketing
and sales, software design and business analysis. They are the proud parents to four wonderful and
capable children and reside in the lovely town of Rotorua.
Chris and Katrina are passionate about risk management, developing and enhancing sales and analysis
tools and supporting advisers in improving the quality of their advice and bottom lines.
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