>> My name is Robert Puff.
I work with New York Life Insurance Company.
Basically I have my own franchise through New York Life.
My main job is to make sure that my clients are -- their assets are protected.
So at the end of the day, I provide peace of mind financially
and just socially within their communities.
I got a lot of different people that are, you know,
millionaires and people that have 10 dollars.
So at the end of the day it's somewhat charity and somewhat high finance depending
on how you look at it but at the end of the day my clients have all of the same needs.
They want to make sure that their bills are paid and that they can send the kids off to college
and have some money left over to retire with.
So I usually get to the office between 8 and 9 depending on the day.
I'll make my client calls in the morning try and reach
out to whoever I'm going to be seeing that day.
I'll have a couple of client meetings during the day depending
on what time my clients are available.
I'll do some prep work.
I'll prepare some solutions I need to meet with for people later
in the day depending on the nature of the business.
We've got some office meetings that happen depending on the day of the week.
Usually Monday, Wednesday, Fridays are busy days for us in the office.
And that night I'll follow up with calls or additional client meetings.
I hope to be home 7, eight o'clock.
So New York City kind of demands that.
So, you know, with most of other companies what they're going to have you do is they're going
to have you cold call and just reach out and dial the phone as much as you can.
We take a much more person to person approach.
So with our company specifically what we do is we teach you out how to go out
and meet different people within your national market.
People that you might know that you don't necessarily know through family,
through friends, the local pizza guy.
People that you talk to all the time that you see but you don't necessarily think
of as somebody that might be a client.
We get involved with our communities
through different volunteer work, little league, softball.
Things that you might enjoy doing whether it's sports or hobbies.
It's just a good way we volunteer and we just give back to the community and by doing that,
we're able to recognize people that need what we do.
I mean it's definitely a unique situation.
I mean coming to UConn I never would have imagine running my own business
but my dad's a business owner so it kind of is in my blood.
And here I am.
I'm in business for myself but I'm not in business by myself.
The company's there.
I've got great resources.
I've got great managers and people that I can talk to.
So I'm only 4 years out of school but I've got people that have 100 years
of experience combined behind me that if I don't know something I can talk
to them and they've got the answer.
So yes I own my own franchise.
I run my own business but at the end of the day the resources and the people I need
to give me the answers if I don't have them are available to me.
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