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The Best of Both Worlds

Barbara Treadwell had a thriving business in New York City when she fell in love with Savannah’s Southern charm.

By Helen Thompson

After 15 years of counseling terminally ill patients in Alabama and a divorce, Barbara Treadwell needed a change. She moved her family to New York City and set about finding a job. Starting over as a single mother of three in a big, unknown city in the early 1980s should have been traumatic, but not for Treadwell. “I’m a big believer in the law of attractions,” she says. “If that’s the drum you beat, that’s what will happen to you.”

STARTING OVER AS A DIVORCED MOTHER OF THREE IN AN UNKNOWN CITY SHOULD HAVE BEEN TRAUMATIC, BUT NOT FOR TREADWELL.

Treadwell engaged a career counselor and went on informational interviews, feeling out a good fit for her eclectic interests. One day, she answered an ad for “financial sales.” “I failed the test that said whether or not I would be successful,” she recalls. “[The interviewer] told me I had the brains and the personality, but not the instinct I needed to make it in the insurance business.”

If you can make it there …
But something had been kindled in Treadwell. She knew she had what it took, and before long she found herself enthusiastically making cold calls for MassMutual. The initial reality check was harsh. “It was horrible. I just couldn’t believe how rude people were, not returning my calls or hanging up in the middle of a sentence. It was anathema to my entire being,” she says. “I had good product knowledge, but I didn’t know how to sell.”

How did she break out of this common early-career trap? First, she networked, seeking out mentors and relying on a coach to keep her motivated. Two agents took her under their respective wings, and it made a difference. Howard Cowan, her mentor, and Joe Galgano, a senior agent who shared some of his business with her, helped her turn her career around. Education was another key to success: She went on to earn six designations—CLU, ChFC, CFP, CAP, REBC and CSA. Soon, she was thriving.

… You’ll make it anywhere
Fast-forward to 2000. Treadwell took a trip to Savannah, Ga., and fell in love with it. “I think it was Howard who said you can drop an insurance agent in the middle of anywhere and they can make a living, and I didn’t mean to put that to the test,” she jokes. She moved her practice to Savannah, while retaining her business in New York City.

It wasn’t easy. In New York City, everything had been direct, blunt and tough, so it took time to gain the softer touch she needed in Savannah. “You can be anonymous and successful in New York—and I am, but in Savannah it was very important to join and belong,” says Treadwell, a member of Savannah AIFA and of Women in Insurance and Financial Services. In other words, networking was as critical to her prospecting as it was to her ability to find a mentor.

First, she got accepted into a two-year leadership program called Leadership Savannah, where she learned how the community’s social, cultural, political and charitable organizations worked. She became a docent at the Telfair Museum of Art, and met a lot of people that way. And she hired a publicist to help make her name more recognizable. Publicity, Treadwell explains, is information about you, giving you visibility and helping you establish trust by being an expert source. She appeared on talk shows and radio shows, and started giving presentations, seminars and speeches.

Treadwell’s style is to show her clients how money works. “There’s so much hype and opinion out there that they have a hard time making decisions,” Treadwell explains. Her holistic approach allows her to engage a broad client base, working closely with personal finance clients and entrepreneurial businesspeople. In the three years she’s been based in Savannah, she’s seen her business there grow to 20 percent of her total business—and it’s still growing.

Treadwell had no idea when she was seeking her vocation that she would find exactly what she was looking for in the insurance industry, but she did. She loves the discovery process that’s part of meeting people, and she loves the fact that she’s made a great living in a career she adores. But as she says, “I also know that I have made a difference in so many people’s lives. It’s a great feeling.”

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