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While sales were an obvious choice for Allen, insurance wasn't. The first insurance company he interviewed with told him simply, "You wouldn't be a good fit. Forget it, it's not going to happen."
Allen chose not to forget it, and landed a position as an agent for MetLife in April 1969. While he "had no idea what he was doing at first," he soon found that insurance was actually a good fit for him. "I've always been a people person, and I like communicating with people and helping them," Allen says. "I found it was a way I could really help people and at the same time, make a good living."
Helping people and cultivating meaningful relationships, both professional and personal, have driven Allen's success for the past 38 years. He has progressed from the MetLife agency, where he stayed until 1978, to operating independently while housed with another agency, to incorporating his practice in 1984, and focusing primarily on financial planning with his own independent insurance and financial services firm, A.R. Bruce and Company, Inc. Along the way, he has earned the Chartered Life Underwriter and Chartered Financial Consultant designations.
"My ideal relationship with a client is to have that client always consult me before making any significant financial decision," Allen says.
Allen has assisted his 600-plus clients with a variety of insurance and financial planning needs, but he now focuses mainly on retirement planning. "Most of my clients are between the ages of 55 and 75, and I am helping them to take what they have accumulated over their lifetime and position it in a manner that will provide them with a retirement income over the balance of their lives," Allen says. At age 59, he recognizes the need himself.
"When I got into my 50s, I realized, looking at myself and others, that we need to get ready and a lot of people are not ready. There was a definite need among my clients, who are my age and who grew up with me, to get their plan in place for the rest of their lives," Allen says.
Allen's work with his clients in retirement planning encompasses various types of investment products, long-term care insurance, life insurance, and estate planning. "I'm a catalyst and coordinator," he says. "For example, I take them to an estate planning attorney who will assist them with preparing the correct documents -- wills, trusts, whatever is appropriate for their situation. And we provide life insurance to fund estate settlement costs." Allen also provides securities and investment advice to his clients through his broker-dealer, H. Beck, Inc.
Recently, Allen convinced one of his longtime clients, Diane Franklin, to begin the retirement planning process. A client of his for over 30 years, Diane met Allen when she was a newlywed. Getting involved in the real estate market, Diane has established a thriving business in sales and development in the Washington, D.C. and Baltimore markets. Allen has helped Diane create an estate plan and put long-term care insurance and life insurance in place for her, and is working on a defined benefit pension plan. "The process isn't complete, but we will continue to work with her and monitor her situation and help her accomplish her goals," he says.
Diane's children have become clients of Allen's as well. "It's a great joy to me to remember when these children were born --- this is the second generation that I'm working with now. I've watched them grow up and now I'm working with the kids. Our relationships are deeper than client-adviser. When we get together, it's almost like being a family."
The close relationships that Allen forms with his clients have also been vital in his other main business focus, working with the owners of small and medium-sized businesses on their retirement and business succession plans. While he encourages the business owners to address business continuation needs, Allen also understands the importance of delving deeper into the owners' personal needs as well. "In most small-to-medium sized businesses, you can't separate the business from the personal side," he says. "You can't just address the business side and leave it there. You also have to look at the individual's financial needs."
Allen believes that his dedication to each client and his or her needs has been the biggest key to success. "My focus is on taking care of my client. It's not on making a sale, or on how many cases I can sell, or how big of a case I can sell," Allen says. "My focus is on helping clients solve a problem and accomplish their goals. Someone gave me wise advice many years ago: 'Take care of your clients and they will take care of you.'"
Over the years, Allen's allegiance to his work and his clients has been recognized with awards such as the 1996 Washington, D.C., Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors' Bernard L. Wilner Memorial Award for a lifetime of contributions to his community and the industry. He was also the president of the D.C. Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors in the late 1980s.
But he believes his biggest industry achievement has been his involvement in the Million Dollar Round Table, of which he has been a life and qualifying member for the past 30 years.
Allen attended his first MDRT meeting in 1977 and began volunteering in 1981. "Once you volunteer, you're hooked," he says, and he has served on numerous MDRT committees, chaired several of them, and was a divisional vice president twice. In the fall of 1997, he was elected to the board of directors of the MDRT Foundation. Then, in early 1999, Allen was selected to go through the chairs of the foundation, a nomination that caught Allen, with his unassuming nature, completely off guard.
"When they told me, I almost ran off the road," he remembers. "I said, 'Me? You're kidding me.' I was flabbergasted. I never expected to have the opportunity to serve in that capacity."
Allen's subsequent election to the presidency of the MDRT Foundation in 2001-2002 is one of his proudest accomplishments. "The MDRT Foundation is about helping those who can't help themselves. And to have had a part in the further development of what was already a great organization was the most gratifying thing for me."
His involvement in the MDRT has allowed Allen to form many close relationships and grow in his professional career. He is a member of a study group, The Achievers, that was started at the MDRT annual meeting in Boston in 1993. The group meets once or twice a year to "share our ideas, our burdens and celebrations, our victories and temporary defeats."
The people Allen has met from all walks of life, and the lessons learned from them, resonate far more for him than any sales ideas he comes across. "At this point in my career," he says, "it's not so much sales ideas, as it is how can I operate my business better? How do I take care of my clients?"
Allen relies on a great office staff to help him operate his business well. Maria Williams, who processes all new business and serves as securities coordinator, has worked for Allen for three years. His assistant, Cindy Beckwith, has worked for him for seven years, having become an employee after being a longtime client. And then there is Allen's wife of 35 years, Julia, who serves as his office manager, bookkeeper, and voice of reason.
"As an entrepreneur, we tend to make decisions on our own, without consulting others as we ought to," Allen says. "I have learned that if I listen to my wife, I am far better off. Some of the biggest mistakes I've made came from not consulting with my wife. In recent years, I've amended that, and it has served me well --- listening to my better half."
Faith and Family
Allen's close relationship with his family is extremely important to him. With two grown children, Lateef and Kamilah, and a 6-year-old grandson, Keishon ("he is pop-pop's favorite guy"), he makes sure his work commitments don't overshadow them.
Because Allen knows how hard it can be to separate the business side from the personal side of life, he has worked hard to live in both dimensions according to the same beliefs and values.
"My faith in God is the basis for my life. It directs my personal life and the way I conduct my business," Allen says. "The decisions I make are based upon that faith, so it makes it easy to abide by the CLU creed, that is, giving my clients the advice that, if I were in their position, I would give to myself."
Allen believes in never cutting corners or giving less than his all to his clients. Even so, he acknowledges that one of the mistakes he has made over the years is spreading himself too broadly in the areas of potential business. He is in the process of turning his group benefits business over to another firm, as it is an area he has gradually moved away from.
"I want to work only in the areas I now focus on, and where I have the highest level of expertise."
Future Plans
As Allen reaches the point in his life where his major focus, retirement planning, is becoming more personally relevant, he is beginning to consider the future of his company. He ultimately wants to establish an affiliation with a younger financial adviser who could take over some of his clients. He sees many of his colleagues facing this same issue.
"I believe that's the greatest challenge that financial professionals face today, because more financial professionals are over 50 years old, over 60 years old," he says. "A lot of them are my peers and we all face the same dilemma -- how do we ultimately wind down and still take care of our clients? The only way to do that is to identify a successor who you can groom to deliver the same service to your clients as you have."
When Allen finds a successor -- he is always keeping an eye out for that person -- he may have more free time to focus on other activities of importance to him. He has been involved in community outreach at his church for years, "an area I've dedicated a lot of my life to," and loves to play tennis, participating in a doubles group every Saturday, where "my biggest competition is with myself."
But years from now, even when Allen has found a successor to his business and is well past retirement age, don't expect to see him stop working.
"People ask me, 'When are you going to retire, when are you going to hang it up?' I don't have the desire to ever retire because I love what I do. I love the people I work with and being able to help them," Allen says. "As long as the good Lord gives me the strength to do this, I intend to keep doing it. I can see myself at 85, coming into the office one or two days a week, because I love what I do."
