Ashe Abebe

Agent
Wenclewicz Insurance
Indianapolis

Age: 31
Guilty pleasure TV show: House of Cards
Favorite beer: “I’m more of a bourbon drinker.”
Favorite social media: Facebook

Why insurance?

I graduated college in 2007 and I moved down to Indianapolis in 2008. The economy was just awful—there were absolutely no jobs. I was working hard just to try and find anything to do. After a year of delivering furniture and realizing that was not my calling, I literally hopped on Craigslist and was just looking for jobs in the sales industry, because in delivering furniture, from time to time I’d be asked to help out on the sales floor. Even though it was a retail setting, I enjoyed that part of the job way more than delivering. I saw a posting for a sales agent for State Farm Insurance and got the job.

While I was at State Farm, I got to know Mark Wenclewicz, one of the other agents that works at my current agency. We both went to Goshen College—we only overlapped one year, but we both were in athletics, so we knew of each other. Mark recruited me for two and a half years, almost my whole time at State Farm. I eventually realized it was hard to be tied to one option.

Motivator?

It’s about trying to raise the bar on a daily basis. How can we make the process better? How can we make it easier for our clients? How can we amaze them each and every day? What is it that we can do to make everyone happy and satisfied and come back to us and send us a referral?

You can’t just say, “This is going to work” and stick with it and think it’s going to make you successful. I just don’t think that’s the model anymore. You’re working with so many different types of people—people who have never had an agent before, people who have strictly gone online, people who have had an agent before and maybe had a captive agent, people who had an independent agent before and they had a terrible experience. You have to be able to adapt to each type of person you’re dealing with and make the experience customizable to them.

Biggest role model?

Muhammad Ali, not only for his achievements in the ring as a boxer, but more for his stance and his beliefs. He was stripped of his title because he refused to go into the Vietnam War. I don’t know if we have athletes like that today who are willing to give up the prime years of their sporting careers for something they truly believe in. Being an African-American too, he’s someone who, as I’ve gotten older, I read a ton about and I love watching documentaries about. He’s someone I very much look up to.

Work/life balance?

Last year was probably one of my most challenging years. I don’t think there was a day I wasn’t in here at 6 a.m. and I didn’t leave until 6 or 7 p.m. Monday-Friday, plus coming in on Saturdays. I made the adjustment this year to focus on my health more, so now I go to the gym Tuesday and Thursday mornings at 6. 

Life is always changing; work is always changing too. You just kind of roll with it. I definitely lost out on a lot of social stuff last year. Even early on in my career when I wasn’t making a lot of money, there were friends’ weddings and bachelor parties I couldn’t go to because I just couldn’t afford it. There are times when you’re working really, really hard to hopefully be at a point where you can just not have to worry about it. But it’s tough in the interim. It’s tough in the middle when you’re trying to figure it out.

Most annoying millennial stereotype?

That we’re lazy. I think back to when I graduated and I had a college degree, but it was like I would do anything. I couldn’t get a part-time job as an assistant at a public library. I was literally looking for and applying for every single job out there. I don’t think I’ve ever been lazy in my life, ever.

Millennial stereotype that fits you?

The ability to adapt and change. Even the State Farm agency I was at was very old school—that was 2009-2012 and we were still using filing cabinets. In the last four years I’ve been here, there’s been a ton of change, whether it’s adding new people or the way our procedures and processes have changed so many times. Even this year alone, it’s been on sometimes even on a monthly or weekly basis that we’ve updated things. It’s not always the most popular thing to do, but in the long term, if it’s going to make us quicker and better at our jobs, we’re going to find the way to make it more functional.

This article is the first in a series that profiles 10 millennials in independent insurance, based on IA’s July cover story. Keep an eye on IAmagazine.com and upcoming editions of the News & Views e-newsletter for more insights into how young people are working to secure the future of your industry.

Jacquelyn Connelly is IA senior editor.