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This article is taking form BizWeek-The Star by LUM YI HWA

From football pro in training to the CEO of Prudential Assurance Malaysia Bhd, Bill Lisle tells us why it was cool to clean football boots and why insurance agents are the most rejected lot.

LOOKING at Bill Lisle in his suit, it is pretty hard to imagine this charming 43-year old British man had once called jerseys and football boots his uniform. “I was a junior in the Newcastle United Football Club. Growing up in a place like Newcastle, every boy wants to grow up to play for his local football club,” he says.

Bill was only 13 then when his grandfather got him the entrance audition. He passed and as a junior, spent two years training and “cleaning football boots”.

“It was quite a thrill … on Saturdays, while watching the match with my friends, I’d tell them ‘Hey so and so scored! I cleaned his boots’,” he laughs.

It wasn’t long before he realised that he was not cut out to be a professional footballer and called it quits. “It was clear that some guys really had talent (and some didn’t). I felt like I had disappointed my grandfather when I dropped out,” he says. But Bill continued playing football for his school and did some coaching later in life.

“Football had taught me teamwork and passion. I guess I took that and used it in the work place,” he says. He eventually hung his boots up because he felt he had “too many injuries, was too old and too slow”.

New direction

When his football career did not work out, Bill continued his studies and graduated as a mechanical engineer. But a slight twist of fate crashed that dream as well. “I wanted to apply for a job as an aviation engineer but because of an eye injury I could not pass the medical test,” he says.

His foray into insurance was really by chance. “I think I answered one of those corny recruitment ads. ‘Drive your own Porsche in a year’ or ‘Earn £1000 a week’ or something like that. I started out as an insurance agent,” he grins.

Bill’s enthusiasm for the job is amazingly passionate. According to him, insurance agents are often misunderstood. “Insurance agents are like your TV salesman, they are selling you a product. But I don’t understand why we get rejected all the time. When I started selling policies, I lost some friends. It’s funny that suddenly no one wants to pick up your phone calls. I can bet you that insurance agents face more rejection than any other salesmen in any other industry,” he says.

But he persevered and three months into his job, he got his first true sense of satisfaction.

“I have to admit that I was in it for the money at first. Then, one of my clients got into a bad accident and couldn’t walk for the rest of his life. When I handed him his claims cheque, I realised that the rest of this man’s life will be taken care of because he bought a policy from me and paid four payments. With that money, he bought a single-storey bungalow and equipped it with ramps so he could move around easily in his newly-bought wheelchair.

“He even invited me to dinner once and passed me the remainder of the money (from his insurance claim) and asked me to invest the money for him. I was touched that he trusted me so much,” he says, adding that selling insurance is like giving people hope. “We protect people,” he adds.

Next step

That was the starting point of Bill’s career. He eventually climbed up the corporate ladder as Prudential’s director of agency development for South Asia based in Hong Kong in 2001. And in 2002 he was appointed chief agency officer of ICICI Prudential, India. After two years in India, he was appointed general manager in Malaysia. A year later, he was posted to South Korea and after two years, he returned to Malaysia.

“I love Malaysia. I call Malaysia my home. I was truly lucky that I was able to come back to Malaysia so soon. My daughter was born here and there are just so many good memories here,” he says. According to Bill, his South Korean wife loves it here too. “There is such a big community of Koreans here, it feels almost like home for her,” he laughs.

Local food is his absolute favourite but there is one thing he cannot stand. “I love my nasi lemak, roti canai and mee mamak but I will stop at durians,” he says. He laments that he has gained a few kilos in Malaysia. “I had lost almost 28kg when I was in Korea by going to the gym and maintaining a healthy diet,” he says.

The turning point came when he saw himself in a corporate video: “I knew I had to do something about my weight.”

What really matters

What really matters for Bill now is educate people about insurance. “I bet you are not insured enough,” he says. According to him, most Malaysians don’t have a retirement plan. In fact, 73% of them don’t. And 33% of us don’t know how much we need to have for a comfortable retirement. “Do you know that your EPF contributions could only last you three years after you retire? And wouldn’t you want to retire comfortably in a nice home with enough to spend without having to worry about medical bills and such?” he says.

Comparing the Malaysian insurance market with South Korea, the latter grew much faster. During Bill’s two-year tenure in South Korea, PCA Life Insurance doubled its new business annual premiums from US$260mil in 2005 to US$520mil in 2007.

Part of the challenge he faced during his stint in Korea was cultural: “I had three translators following me at all times. Each translated a little differently and that, at times, stirred some misunderstandings.”

Family First

On the home front, Bill’s family is into golf. “I love playing golf in Phuket and my wife actually plays much more than I do here in Malaysia. I usually play twice a month. My three and a half year old daughter is also learning how to play now,” he says and adds that golf can help instill discipline in children. This veteran golfer started playing golf even before he started playing football.

“My parents were golfers so I guess I learnt it from them. As for my own family, I should just have another child and we have a full flight,” he says with a laugh. Bill frequently visits his parents in England. “The weather in UK is just so dreary. The moment you land in Heathrow airport you’ll see miserable looking people. How I wish I could convince my parents to visit Malaysia. They have never been on a plane,” he says.

Bill says his friends in his home country have a really “warped perception of Asia”. “To them, Hong Kong is still all trishaws and junks. These are the same people who have been to the same vacation spot for the past 20 years. I feel like bundling them into the plane and flying them over here to see how it’s like here,” he chuckles.

As for football, Bill has stopped playing a few years ago. “The last time I played was when Prudential Korea brought a group of orphans to a football camp. I had so much fun coaching the children. Hopefully, Prudential Malaysia can do something like this soon,” he says