Christian was an active member of a sorority in college and is a very social person, so when she started working as an accountant at the Marriott after she graduated, she wasn’t comfortable. “That job was behind closed doors,” she says. “It didn’t allow me to go out and be the social person that I am.” Insurance quickly became appealing to her because it allowed her to meet with people on a constant basis, permitting her to utilize her naturally outgoing personality. Plus, it “was the closest thing to finance.” After applying to several agencies, Christian began working for Farmer’s Insurance. “I chose Farmer’s because they allow you to pass the agency down to your children,” she says. “A lot of other companies don’t do that.”

When she started out, Christian was working long hours at the office, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. four days of the week and doing what she refers to as “cold calling”—telephoning individuals and inquiring about their current insurance plan. “It was very hard to do it that way, but I knew I had to grow, even if it was one policy at a time.” Now, Christian’s agency holds about 3,000 policies, nearly triple the agency average of about 1,700.

Christian attributes her successes partly to her husband. She met Vince Martinez, also self-employed and working as an attorney, at a Chamber of Commerce mixer in Albuquerque. They have been inseparable ever since. “We’re the exact same age; we graduated high school the same year; we started on the same foot together,” she says. Christian and Vince attempt to maintain a healthy and close relationship with each other and their two children, ages 2 and 4. “We have lunch together every day at noon. That’s our together time.” Being married to a successful attorney is very beneficial to her career as well. “A lot of the law-oriented stuff I deal with I learned from my husband,” she says. Vince is even sure to go the extra mile with Christian. “I insure people all over the state,” Christian explains. “My husband takes time off of work so he can go with me and make sure I am safe.”

But having a family and a demanding career can be challenging. “At first I just wanted the flourishing career; I didn’t even want children,” she explains. “But working women’s priorities change.” Now, she balances both that flourishing career and a full household. “My staff at work is really supportive of me having a family,” she says. “The first year that I had each of my kids I brought them to work with me. My staff helps me so much.” Her hard-working staff has quickly become much like a family to Christian. One employee started working for her directly after graduating from Sandia High School and has been at the agency for seven and a half years. Recently Christian hired a commercial specialist with 22 years experience, who has turned out to be very beneficial to the company by being a Spanish-speaking customer service representative.

Christian says she tries to share the same dedicated relationship with her customers that she does with her family and staff. “I have three goals with my customer,” she says—“to educate them, gain their trust, and motivate them to stay with us.” Christian works in all lines of business in insurance, and she takes pride in being able to “secure a household” with life insurance and financial services, or to point customers in the right direction when it comes to auto coverage. In this way, she is able to build a relationship with her customers that both instructs and protects them.

Christian explains that the majority of people do not understand insurance, and they become what she calls “cost driven.” For this reason she stresses education. She believes by explaining insurance to her customers and answering any questions they may have, simply and entirely, she can both save time and build trust. “If my customers understand what they are receiving, there is a greater amount of trust between me and that person,” she says. “There is also a greater amount of awareness.” Christian focuses her ideology around informing people about what they should know. “So many people are underinsured. With a full service agent comes education.”

Through educating her customers, Christian has taught herself a few things along the way. “When I started this, I didn’t know anything about insurance. I basically started from scratch.” Working little by little, Christian quickly learned that in order to be successful you have to make certain sacrifices. “That meant no new clothes, no new purses,” she says, giggling. “I put all I had into my insurance agency so that I could grow as I have been.” After saving for13 months, Christian and her husband were able to purchase the building where her office is located, renting out the extra office space to other businesses. Christian has practiced financial sensibility all her adult life. “I have grown without debt on my current income,” she states.

As for the future, Christian is open to challenges. As an insurance company she faces a lot of competition from like businesses, but uses this as a motivation. “I will continue to grow and to help people,” she says. According to Christian, the insurance business is “cyclical”, meaning rates are always changing. For this reason, she prides herself in keeping “excellent customer service” even with existing competition. One of her objectives for the future is to learn Spanish. “This will help me with the Spanish-speaking community,” she mentions. “They are one of the largest emerging markets.”

Included in her list of goals is to continually support her staff. “I want to make my employees rich,” she says, smiling. “I want to care for them as much as I care for my agency. I want to make it so that they don’t have to worry.”

Christian continues to immerse herself in education, taking classes with her husband in subjects like law, real estate, and insurance. She is also consistently brushing up on information from the insurance journals she reads daily. Christian also has an astounding outlook on life itself. “If you have a believe-in-yourself attitude, and you think you can achieve anything, then you can,” she says. “I never once thought, ‘I can’t do this’.”

This enormously inspirational viewpoint makes Christian much more than a business owner. A supporter of motivational books and lots of traveling, Christian has fulfilled her dream of “taking advantage of the time I have now with my family” and “being happy in the moment.”

Farmers’ Insurance
Christian Slayton, MBA
www.farmersagent.com/cslayton
(505) 294-2009 x101