At this time last year David LeNeveu had a first row seat at the Stanley Cup Final, backing up Rangers’ goalie Henrik Lundqvist when New York lost in the finals to the LA Kings.
After a stint in Russia playing in the KHL, the former Phoenix Coyotes draft pick started his career as a life insurance advisor.
“Last year I went over to Russia and still haven’t been paid for the time I was over there,” he said. “It didn’t turn out very well unfortunately.”
But the former Cornell University undergrad had a backup plan. The summer after the Stanley Cup finals he passed his life insurance licensing exam.
“I knew coming back from (Russia), having not received a paycheque for over a year now, that I really had to start going on this business to make sure I had income coming in to pay the bills,” he said.
He had already got the business going the previous summer, by contacting Cory Kozlowski, his friend and the broker he bought his life insurance from when he was 22. Kozlowski had started a company called CK Insurance in Nanaimo, B.C.
“He said ‘why don’t you get your license and we can partner up,’” he said. “I got my license real quick and he said, ‘well here’s what we’re doing, you might as well start contacting people right now.’”
He started off by contacting family and friends through Facebook and had success with that, but he was focussed on developing his and the company’s social media presence and website.
“While playing hockey when you have downtime you’re either watching TV or reading a book so I spent my downtime doing something a little more useful and getting this business up and running,” he said.
It hasn’t been easy for him letting hockey go, though. “I’m definitely missing the hockey a lot,” said LeNeveu. “I’m missing the team aspect, doing a job that I’ve done my entire life.”
But his transition to his new life has been helped by his new career that he’s very passionate about.
“The thing that I like the most is I personally believe in absolutely everything I’m giving to the client,” he said. “I know when I go to bed every night and get up every morning I’m pursuing a product that I believe deep down every single individual should have for certain reasons. Because I believe so deeply in it the passion in it shows when you’re explaining it to a client and it makes that job so much easier.”
But as is the case for most new advisors, his main struggle has been getting time with prospects. “It’s not easy,” he said. “The biggest thing is getting in front of clients. It’s great once I can sit down with a client and go over the stuff.”
LeNeveu, 31, is confident in his selling abilities thanks in large part to his hockey career and the hockey schools where he’s instructored at, where he’s had to tailor his methods to make sure each individual goalie he worked with grasped the concept he was trying to teach them.
“It’s the same thing with a sale,” he said. “You have to be able to adjust your sales method to each individual.”
That means if you’re a numbers person, you can delve deeply into the numbers with them, but if they’re not a numbers person and they just want to keep it simple, then you need to adjust your strategy accordingly.
“I’ve been teaching my whole career and I take that mindset in when I go see a client,” he said. “I’m educating them on a product.”
