Climan Stone, born in 1902. His father died when he was very young, and his mother was a saleswoman for an insurance company.
Climan Stone is the chairman of the United Insurance Company of America and a well-known businessman in the business circles of the United States and even Europe and the United States. Stone made extraordinary contributions to society through his own struggles. Based on his own experiences, he tells the world the secrets of success and the meaning of a happy life it brings.
Cleaman Stone followed Napoleon Hill to learn the art of creating wealth. From a young man with only 100 US dollars, he became an eye-catching rich man by his own efforts.
Stone has been engaged in sales all his life, not only selling insurance, but also selling beliefs and methods to make people successful. In order to spread his ideas and beliefs widely, he co-wrote the book "Achieving Success with a Positive Attitude", which sold 250,000 copies. In 1962, he wrote "The Way to Success That Never Fails", which was also a bestseller. In order to spread his beliefs on a larger scale, he also founded the magazine "Unlimited Success". Stone's biggest move in the publishing industry was to buy Hawthorn Publishing Company in 1960.
At this point, Stone held three positions - chairman of American Hybrid Insurance Company, director of Abbot Company, and chairman of Hosne Company. He became one of the richest men in the United States, with assets worth $400 million in the 1960s and 1970s.
Stone sold newspapers as a child. Stone was kicked out of a restaurant several times while he was selling newspapers, but he kept sneaking in again and again. Seeing his extraordinary courage, the guests discouraged the restaurant staff from kicking him out again. The result was a painful kick in the butt and a pocket full of money.
This incident inevitably made him think deeply: "What did I do right?" "What did I do wrong? How should I handle the same situation next time?" He has been thinking about it all his life. Ask yourself this. ’ Stone’s father died when he was young, and he was raised by his mother. His mother had a profound influence on the formation of his personality.
Stone's mother sewed clothes for several years and saved a little money. When Kleeman was a teenager, she invested money in a small insurance brokerage in Detroit. This insurance brokerage sells accident and health insurance for American Casualty Insurance Company of Detroit: it receives a commission for each policy sold. The insurance brokerage house had a small, rented, dusty office. There was only one salesperson, Stone's mother. She didn't get any results on the first day. Then, she went to the largest bank in Detroit. A senior employee bought insurance and allowed her to move around the building freely. As a result, 44 people bought insurance from her that day.
This brokerage agency has developed. The summer when Stone was 16 and in high school, he also tried to sell insurance. His mother directed him to a building and explained it to him from beginning to end. But he was frightened. At this time, the scene of selling newspapers reappeared in front of him, so he stood on the sidewalk outside the building, trembling and silently reciting the motto he believed in: "If you do it, there will be no loss, and there may be some." Great harvest, then start doing it right away!”
So he did it. He walked into the building as boldly as he had when he was selling newspapers. He wasn't kicked out. He went to every office. Only two people bought insurance from him that day. In terms of the number of sales, he failed, but in terms of understanding himself and his sales skills, he gained a lot. When Stone went home, he had made a few dollars in commissions and felt good about it. He knew he had the courage to overcome his fear, and he had figured out the techniques to overcome it.
The next day, he sold 4 insurance policies. On the third day, 6 servings. His career began.
During that holiday and subsequent holidays, he continued to sell health insurance and accident insurance for his mother. He actually achieved a good result of 10 servings a day, then 15 servings a day, and then 20 servings a day. He analyzed himself: Why did he succeed? He finally discovered that it was because he had a "positive outlook on life" (PMA).
When he was 20 years old, Stone moved to Chicago and opened an insurance brokerage, the "United Registration Insurance Company." Soon he had more than 1,000 insurance salesmen in every state. Moreover, each state has a sales manager who leads the salesmen, and he manages the sales managers in each region. Later, a headquarters was set up in Chicago, and several deputies under the headquarters helped Stone take charge of the overall situation. Stone was less than 30 years old at that time.
But at that time, the entire United States was enveloped in an economic panic. For a while, Stone seemed to be on his way out: no one had the money to buy health insurance or accident insurance, but those who were really rich would rather save their money just in case. This difficult period gave Stone several mottos on how to deal with difficulties: "If you face difficulties with a determined and optimistic attitude, you can find benefits from them", "Successful sales depend on the salesman, not the salesman." Not a customer”.
To prove that what he said was not an empty slogan, he walked out of the office and went straight to New York State to sell it. During the worst period of the Great Economic Panic, the number of transactions he made every day was actually the same as in the previous heyday.
But since the 1920s was an era of economic prosperity, when almost anything could be sold, he did not pay much attention to each salesman and his sales methods and attitudes. Now they are really tested, and the result is that they are not good enough. So Stone started the first lesson of his sales lecture, explaining to the salesmen the importance of "positive attitude" (PMA), plus some sales techniques. He spent 18 months traveling around the country, talking to salesmen who encountered difficulties, going out with them to sell, and showing them: "Everything depends on the attitude of the salesman, not the customer."
At the end of 1938, Kliman Stone became a millionaire.
He began to think that maybe it was time to organize his own insurance company. He found a plan that was nearly perfect. The once-profitable Pennsylvania Injury Company went out of business due to the economic panic, and its owners wanted to sell it for $1.6 million. What interests Stone is its potential value—it still has business licenses in 35 states. The next day, he headed to Baltimore to find the people at the Business Trust Company, the owners of the damage company.
"I want to buy your insurance company."
"Okay. $1.6 million, do you have that much money?"
"No. But I can borrow this money."
"With whom?"
"With you."
After several verbal exchanges, the commercial trust company. Still agreed.
It became a foundation for today's Kingdom of Kliman Stone. It has gradually grown from a small insurance company to today's huge American United Insurance Company. Its business scope not only includes the United States, but also extends abroad. In 1970, its sales were 21.3 billion U.S. dollars, with 5,000 salesmen, each Every salesman knows PMA. According to statistics, 20 of these 5,000 people are millionaires.
While Stone was engaged in insurance companies, he was also engaged in other profitable businesses. In 1955, a young man named Lemona Lavin came to Stone to borrow a sum of money, claiming to open a small cosmetics company. Stone thought his words made sense, but instead of lending money directly to LaVine, he guaranteed the repayment of a $450,000 bank loan for LaVine in exchange for his 1/4 stake in LaVine's new company. The company founded by LaVine is called Aladu-Carver. Stone's stake, in which he had not invested a penny of capital, was worth about $30 million by 1969.
At the same time, Stone was also engaged in another career: publishing. In 1960, Stone wrote a book called "The Way to Success Using a Positive Outlook on Life." He co-wrote this book with Napoleon Toure, who had previously written the best-selling book "Use Your Brain to Make a Fortune". The book sold 250,000 copies. In 1962, he took advantage of it and wrote "The Insurance Tycoon's Ace". Many people who want to be tycoons have bought this book.
To continue to promote his philosophy, Stone later founded the magazine "Success Unlimited".
The articles in this magazine are all about successful people; sometimes Stone himself writes articles to promote PMA.
Stone's greatest achievement in the publishing industry was the purchase of several branches of publishing companies in 1965, merging them into Hawthorne Company. Today, although Hawthorne is a drop in the bucket compared with Union Insurance Company and Allado-Carver, it is also very profitable and is Stone's platform for promoting the PMA.