 
By Lisa Singh
The story begins in a college dorm room with a fax machine. It’s 1998, at California State Polytechnic University, and a senior named Jason Dudum is faxing and receiving insurance applications from his room. Not for himself, though. In between finishing up his degree in finance and accounting, he’s been working out of this small space selling life insurance. He already has a handful of clients.
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“You’re focusing on building a friendship versus making a sale, but in the end that’s how you get quality referrals.”
—Jason Dudum, five-time MDRT qualifier |
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Fast-forward to 2006 and you’ll see that Dudum has come a long way—in a relatively short period of time, too. Dudum, a member for the past six years of NAIFA-Mt. Diablo, now heads Dudum Financial and Insurance Services, a company that he and his younger brother, Keith, started in 2001. It’s based in Lafayette, Calif., and has over 2,700 individual clients, including professional athletes and musicians, as well as group clients ranging from small start-up companies to Fortune 500 corporations. Dudum’s company, which is licensed in 15 states and will open a second office, in La Quinta, Calif., by summer’s end, has also sold over $1.9 billion in individual life insurance. As for Dudum the man, he is not yet 30, but already has been recognized for his work in the industry: He is a five-time MDRT qualifier and recently qualified for Top of the Table. His secret to success: no cold calls. From day one, he has worked through referrals. “It’s not something that happens quickly—it takes time,” says Dudum, speaking from his office where he works with four assistants. “You’re focusing on building a friendship vs. making a sale, but in the end that’s how you get quality referrals.”
In the beginning …
Before he started his business, Dudum interned and later worked full-time at a major life insurance company. “I realized that my future was not being a company person—my future was starting a company and being on my own,” he says. So in late 2001, he and his brother, Keith, then a stockbroker with Morgan Stanley, decided to build a business together. Working out of a small office with a handful of phones, Dudum named himself CEO; Keith, president.
“I think our biggest challenge was that we were kind of on our own,” says Dudum, who adds that no one else in his family had worked in the insurance and financial industry. “A lot of people, when they start in the business, have a mentor, a training program.” Even when he worked at a company, Dudum had no mentor. Running his own business would take even more initiative. “We learned by doing, that’s the best way to put it,” he says, “and by keeping things simple.” Instead of spending most of his time gathering information on products and services, Jason honed in on the needs of his clients and then found ways to meet them.
Dudum found clients by pounding the pavement, rather than picking up the phone: “We just went to people we supported—our dry cleaner’s, our barber, the car wash—and we’d say, ‘We’d like just 10 minutes to tell you what we’re doing.’”
And that’s really all he and Keith did—tell people what they were doing. “Our whole approach was not to sit there and make a sale,” he says. The reward would come later, because, he says, “we were friends with people, [so] they would want to introduce us.” Here’s one example of how that strategy has paid off: The day before Dudum spoke to Advisor Today, he sold life insurance and various financial products of a “sizable amount” to a professional athlete on the East Coast. “He’s actually a good friend with a client of ours out here,” says Dudum.
In the end, his company has carved out a niche for itself by touting an old-fashioned business philosophy of dedication to customer service. For instance, his office often gives San Francisco Giants tickets to clients, and clients, in turn, routinely invite Dudum and his team for Christmas parties. That client-centered approach has carried Dudum far from his days of doing business out of his dorm room, and he’s excited about what the future holds for him and other young advisors. He says, “It’s just so encouraging to see how many opportunities there are at such a young age to build a business.”
JUNE 2006
Reach for the Top
Zoom, Zoom, Zoom-a Zoom
Manners Matter
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