Milton Godwin, affectionately known by those of us back in the day as Uncle Miltie, was an aging Houston insurance agent back in the 80’s who specialized in bidding on cities, counties and school districts.
Uncle Miltie would go down to the Houston public library every week and read all the newspapers from across the Texas and beyond, searching for advertisements for insurance related RFP’s. He would request a copy of the RFP be sent overnight to his home address which he would pre-pay for them. Then he would resend the RFP to every carrier active in the market in an attempt to lock up as many markets as he could.
This was before fax machines and the internet.
He directed each market to send their RFP response directly to the group with a copy to his home address.
Uncle Miltie always made sure to attend every RFP opening no matter where it was. He would drive in the day before in his late model station wagon, find an appropriate parking spot, then settle in for the night in the back of his “mobile” home office.
I can’t count the number of times I would arrive for an RFP opening and find Uncle Miltie brushing his teeth and combing his hair in the parking lot after a restful night in the back of his mobile home office.
Uncle Miltie’s shotgun approach paid off big for him. He even got a large state insurance contract. Once a sale was made his job was over and the mailbox money rolled in like clockwork.
The practice of locking up the market continues to this day but in a faster, more efficient way. All it takes is an insurance license, internet access, a bank account and an email data base of every insurance company on the planet.
Homework Reading Assignment For Today: The Klement Letter
