Preston Diamond
Mission: Teach, test, certify, train, and mentor insurance agents in the rules of workers’ compensation to help employers achieve the unthinkable, zero-experience modification and their lowest possible cost.
American businessman Diamond Jim Brady stated, “You can have the best product, but if you can’t sell it, you still own it.”
Inspired by Diamond Jim, the Institute’s work starts after the training to help Certified Advisors turn their intellectual capital into financial capital.
The 22-year history and growth of the Institute of WorkComp Professionals proves it disrupts the Workers’ Comp Status Quo. Certified Advisors who work to put the Institute’s 20-step copyrighted process into action have become big winners along with their clients. Employers now understand WorkComp is not simply a mandated coverage over which they have no say. They finally feel in charge, in financial control, of at least one aspect of their insurance.
The newest Institute initiative, Conquering Zero®, distills the Institute process into a 164-page “easy to put into action” manual, backed by Advisors’ and their employer clients’ password-protected website.
Changing the Conversation: The days of the sound–the–same, look-alike approach are over.
Defining Pres are the principles of the University of California, Haas School of Business- (http://www.haas.berkeley.edu/):
“Question the Status Quo Confidence Without Attitude
Students Always Beyond Yourself.”
Add how the Kolbe Assessment describes Pres. “Natural Advantage, Innovator. Your conative creativity is intuitive, visionary, and highly original. You have a knack for finding alternatives and discovering unique ways to get things done.” (http://www.kolbe.com/assessments/)
His 66-year (1957- 2023) insurance career has taken him down many winding roads. Pres started as a college junior with The Provident Mutual Life Insurance Company Campus Program. These winding roads trigger the Haas Defining Principles and his Kolbe Assessment.
Personal Motivation Relishing in clients and their clients’ results. ▪ “If you can’t explain it to a six-year-old, you don’t understand it yourself.” – Albert Einstein ▪ So, keep it simple. Make it fun. This is how Pres approaches business and clients and how he believes agents should approach their clients. It’s extraordinarily simple. You lose when you confuse. The key is to turn insurance technobabble into “plain-speak.” Why should a homeowners policy be so many pages?
Pres turned this technobabble into 6th Sense Proposals for the Insurance Pro. 6th Sense is a visually driven, plain-speak business and personal presentation that creates insurance understanding.
Rules of the Road: Pres takes the first Principle from his Alma Mater, Question the Status Quo, two steps further- “Challenge the Status Quo and Disrupt the Status Quo.” Insurance does not sell insurance until it does. Focus on the person, not insurance. You cannot ask for the order until you are positioned to earn a Broker of Record Letter.
Activities: Agency principal ▪ Creator Assisted Living Mass Marketing Program ▪ Formed specialty EQ and High-Value HO Wholesaler after selling retail agency ▪ Insurance instructor at a CA Community College ▪ Chaired CA Big I Advanced Agency Management Conference for three years ▪ Voted Most Outstanding Presenter one year. Built ISU Personal Lines System ▪ Created the courses leading to the Credentialed CPIA Designation Program ▪ Consulting: Visited 350+ agencies while working with Holgate & Associates and for insurance companies ▪ Speaking engagements: Local, state, and national insurance meetings/conventions. CIC Ruble Instructor
Author: Pres’ articles have appeared in many insurance and business trades. Since 1995 Pres has written The Wisdom Letter, a one-page (video now) disruptive client “getter and keeper” newsletter ▪ Co-Founder Institute of WorkComp Professionals ▪ Founding Member National Association of Professional Organizers.
Pres was elected to the Insurance Business America Hall of Fame Class of 2019
Personal: Met wife Karla when returning a ticket on her first day as a travel agent. This “new ticket” has been an excitingly continuous partnership journey ▪ Three daughters, seven grandkids, one great-grandchild, and Margalit, our soft coated Wheaten Terrier ▪ Family ▪ clients, ▪ travel ▪ reading business books, legal thrillers, non-fiction ▪National Guard activated during Watts Riots 1965 ▪ Recreational sports played – table tennis, tennis, basketball.
“Logic will get you from A to Z. Imagination will get you everywhere.” -Albert Einstein (Pres has a 6 -foot Standee of Einstein)