As a small business owner, Debbie Danzi is used to various routine forms from her health insurance broker, but she recalls one that caught her eye: "It came over the fax machine one time with his name, Freedom. We're like, 'Freedom? Who is Freedom Kerl?'" Freedom Michael Kerl, to be exact, is a clean-shaven, three-piece-suit-wearing, 37-year-old sales manager with BeneServ Corporate Benefit Services in southeastern Pennsylvania. But turn the clock back a few years and a different picture emerges. Wearing flame-kissed cargo boots that matched one of his many tattoos, a long-haired twenty-something Kerl would roam the local clubs and college campuses in Chapel Hill, N.C., promoting the band he both played guitar for and managed. "In my mind, there was no other option other than to become a rock star," says Kerl.e_SClBThe efforts resulted in a steady stream of shows, college radio play and even a clip of one of the band's songs on MTV. It was during the height of these gigs that Kerl legally changed his name to Freedom, "purely out of the passion for being in rock-n-roll and the commitment to wanting to be a rock star," before the band returned to their native Philadelphia and broke up.

"I had an identity crisis because for almost a decade I was known as this guy in a rock band," says Kerl. "Now all of a sudden, I'm 30 years old and I'm bartending. What am I going to do?"

Little did Kerl know that his years spent promoting the band had prepared him for what he'd do next. When a former co-worker found success selling voluntary benefits, Kerl decided to dive in. That's when he discovered the value of skills he gained as band manager in overcoming the rejection-laden reality of cold calling.

It was these skills that persuaded Dennis Connor, a principal with Breakthrough Benefits, to give Kerl his first industry job. "I said, 'Mike, what you've been doing for the past 10 years of your life is the same thing that I do ...' says Connor. "I said, 'If you could do what you're used to doing for your band and put that same energy and heart and soul into insurance, you'll just make a lot more money.' I think he was just open-minded enough to believe me."

Paid education

By the time Kerl walked into Russ Carlson's office at BeneServ, he had cut his hair but was still sporting a goatee and the name Freedom. The goatee was quick to go - "I wanted to be as committed to the insurance side of things as I was to the rock-n-roll side of things," says Kerl - but he sought advice about the name. After a relative mentioned that she would be hesitant to buy insurance from someone named Freedom, the decision was clear: It was time to return to Michael. "If 'Freedom' freaks one person out, it's not worth me doing business under the name," says Kerl.

With no college degree or formal education in insurance, Kerl looked at his new job as a paid training opportunity, albeit one that was largely commission-based and not likely to produce much money in the first year. To compensate for the rookie paycheck, Kerl took on a second shift as a pizza delivery man after work. And when a 4 p.m. prospect appointment ran over, it often meant rushing to his 5 p.m. pizza shift a little overdressed.

"The prospect gets talking, and you can't tell them that you have to leave to go deliver pizza," says Kerl. "I show up at work and I have to deliver pizzas in my suit."

All the while Kerl was steadily making progress at his day job by taking any and every lead that came his way. A two-person account that's 45 minutes away and worth $5 a month? Yes, please! "I always called myself the puppy dog at the Thanksgiving dinner table," says Kerl. "Russ would throw the scraps off his desk and I would enthusiastically jump up and take them."

After about a year, Kerl was able to stop delivering pizza altogether "because I realized we were making just enough to pay our bills and that my time would be better spent in the office doing insurance."

The small group leads were a win-win situation, says Kerl, because the arrangement freed up some of Carlson's schedule while giving Kerl an opportunity to develop his interpersonal skills and insurance industry lingo, not to mention logistical matters such as where to put the primary care code on an application.

"All the tiny little nuances ... I take them for granted now because they're so ingrained in my mind," says Kerl. "But when we hire a new broker in the office, I'm reminded that those little things are part of the learning curve. They are so important, but are so overwhelming at the time."

Seven years later, Kerl has more than 100 clients that are two or three-person groups and he appreciates each one. "Those smaller clients refer you up the ladder, and it's amazing," he says. "The largest clients we have in the firm have come from referrals from smaller clients."

It's a small world

Come 2039, Kerl plans to still be active in the insurance business - and he sees his small group clients as an integral part of that future. He is proud to know the owners on a first-name basis, shake their hands and ask how their kids are doing. "The relationships are strong, and as long as I am honest, forthright, responsive and competent, those relationships are going to last a lifetime," he says. "I'm only 37 years old, so I need another 30 years of these relationships to last in order to continue in this business."

Danzi and her husband Tom, who have 21 employees at their auto repair shop, Suburban Collision Specialists, have been with Kerl from the beginning. "We've liked him from when we first met him, and I wouldn't like to deal with anybody else," she says. "He's been very helpful. We call him, and he gets right back to us. He's very professional, but he's also a real easy guy to talk to."

Carlson has no regrets taking a chance on the unusual candidate who walked into his office with the tattoos peaking out. "Hearing some of the stories that he told me about his background, I don't think any other broker would have hired him, especially with the way he looked," he says. "But you can't really judge a rocker by his cover because he's not that persona. He's a gentleman, polite. I'd let him go into any one of my clients. I have full faith in him."

As the office manager of 10 employees at Advanced Chemicals, Katharine Farese says Kerl is much more than "just a rep."

"He makes you feel comfortable. He goes over everything," she says. "He's very thorough in what he does."

All the while, Kerl knows that when his phone rings, "whoever's on the other line isn't calling to tell you it's a beautiful day outside and thanks for all your help." They're calling with a problem that needs to be fixed, and one flub could jeopardize his reputation.

"You have to treat every single person that calls in with the highest level of respect. And that's how good news spreads," he says. "Bad news runs downhill - it spreads real fast. But you have to do 10 or 20 good things for people before someone says, 'Hey, you should call Mike Kerl. You should call BeneServ. They've really done well by me over the years.'"

To maintain his customer service standards, Kerl asks himself one question when he hangs up with a client: Would that person go to his funeral? A little morbid, he admits, but the point is "you're only as good as your last conversation with someone."

Even better than positive phone calls, Kerl looks forward to the "interesting scenarios" he could only encounter with his small group clients. He recalls a fire engine mechanic who let him sit in the driver's seat of one of the emergency vehicles, the time when a client showed him a $15 million penthouse before it was open to the public, and when a home visit to a prospect led to Kerl putting his hand on the man's recently installed toilet seat warmer to proclaim, "Wow, that's really warm!" It's all about being a chameleon in the prospect's environment, he says.

Controlling the clock

Now in charge of three BeneServ agents as well as his own clients, Kerl continues to appreciate the small group clients who got him on his feet, "even though when you have a couple hundred of them, time management becomes difficult."

At least the days of spending all of his time cold calling are long over. But that doesn't mean he can slack off just because the phone is ringing in the other direction now. If a client mentions a friend or relative with an insurance need, Kerl knows he has a limited window inside of which he must get in touch with that person before they talk to his existing client again and mention that he hasn't called them yet.

"I do realize how quickly whatever resources I've gained over the past seven years of referral sources dry up," he says. "It only takes one of those times for that resource to dry up and it could take years to build a relationship where somebody trusts you."

And you have to be accessible. As benefits manager at Montgomery, McCracken, Walker & Rhoads, Marsha Perry has known Kerl for a year and a half. When she was working on an in-house benefits newsletter for the law firm recently, she e-mailed a question for him on possible rate increases on a Friday afternoon. "He sent me back an e-mail on Saturday," she says. "I wasn't expecting to get anything until Monday, but that's an example of how he works."

Not all of Kerl's clients know about his previous life, but Perry heard the story during an open enrollment road trip with him. "I thought it was really cool," she says, adding that after seeing a picture of the now "straight-laced, buttoned up" Kerl "with all this hair" from his rocker days, she was "just dying" with laughter.

However, the revelation hasn't changed her impression of him. "I'm really impressed with the level of service he provides. I expect that because my employees expect that of me," says Perry.

With happy customers and a couple of years under his belt, Kerl started to feel more competent and knowledgeable, but was still feeling a lot of stress from trying to balance all of his ongoing appointments on top of schedule changes and calls from his wife of 14 years to pick up a gallon of milk. "All this stress was coming from all these things I was trying to remember," he says.

That's when Connor, who remains good friends with Kerl, paid for him to attend a FranklinCovey course as a birthday present. One of the fundamentals of the system is a three-month calendar with space to prioritize each day using three categories.

"It has helped me so much," says Kerl. "The course said to write things down so you don't have to remember them, not because you can't."

When Connor and Kerl met for lunch a few weeks ago both walked in with their planners. That "take charge" attitude is one of the things Connor admires most about his friend.

"I've interviewed a lot of people in my life, and I realize that what makes people successful is the willingness to go out and sale [sic]. Most people aren't willing to go out and sale. They're scared of failing, so they'll never be successful," says Connor. "Mike's the kind of guy who's willing to put himself out there. He's willing to go out and make all the calls that are necessary and shake all the hands necessary. He doesn't wait for the business to come to him, which is the mistake that most people in this business make. They just sort of wait around for their contacts to produce business instead of going out and making it happen."

Five stars

Immersed in the small group market, Kerl is aware that it is his clients that lawmakers are attempting to lure away with tax subsidies, exchanges or even a public program. But he's too busy taking care of their needs to put too much thought into it.

"It's not my job to know what the country should do for health care reform. I'm busy enough sitting at somebody's kitchen table with them, telling them their rates are going up 20% and trying to contain their emotion to the point where they can think straight and we can work through what we're going to do," he says. "The problem with health care isn't necessarily the care we receive; we probably have the best doctors in the world. The problem is the cost. Most of the month I'm delivering news to people telling them that their rates are going up, which is frustrating, because you have to deliver that news and at the same time remind the client that you're the messenger and you're not hiding from this news. You're being proactive; you want to sit down with them face-to-face and find a solution to offset these increases.

"I try and stay on top of the issues and follow what's going on. But at the same time I can't worry about bills that haven't been passed yet ... I'm just trying to track some of the recent changes and adapt to them. Whatever happens, whether it's good or bad for me personally, I'm going to have no choice but to adapt to the changes and bob and weave and find my place in the industry post-reform, if we ever see it."

Without thinking about what may or may not take effect in 2013, Kerl watches the news for "any real headlines of change" to prepare himself and his clients for anything that needs to be communicated right away.

For example, as a COBRA administrator, Kerl is on top of a law recently passed in Pennsylvania that expands COBRA for small groups under 20 lives. Terminated employees from companies with two or more employees are now eligible for the coverage. "It's not our decision to back away from any of the new plans that the insurance companies or legislators come out with. It's really just our job to pass that information onto the client in a pretty simple, understandable way," he says.

At Advanced Chemicals, Farese likens any backlash against health insurance brokers in the health reform debate to the way her friend, a claims adjustor for AIG, was treated poorly when that company started to make headlines.

"I guess with the insurance, if people aren't familiar with what an insurance broker does I could see that people could probably get a little angry about it," she says. "But since I deal with somebody that works with the health insurance, I see what he does. And he's always trying to find us ways to save money. Always. He's just one hell of a guy. He loves what he does, and he's good at it. So I give him five stars out of five."

Whether health reform changes Kerl's way of business or not, some things will never change. Like how Danzi still gets a kick out of "Freedom Kerl" whenever it comes across her fax machine. "We kid him about it every time he comes in the office because everyone knows," she says. "He has taken quite a bit of ribbing from us over the years."

Think these rock-n-roll singers were insurance brokers in a former life? Kerl can certainly relate.

"Ain't too proud to beg"
- The Temptations
"Do not be afraid to ask for the business. Make them say 'No' three times before you ask them if you can follow up in six months to see if they have reconsidered."

"The waiting is the hardest part"
- Tom Petty
"A verbal 'Yes' is great, but be sure to define a timeline to seal the deal."

"Can't you hear me knockin'?"
- The Rolling Stones "Whenever cold-calling door to door tell them you thought the 'No Solicitation' sign said 'No Smoking.'"

"Signed, sealed, delivered"
- Stevie Wonder
"Nothing feels better (professionally) than the prospect becoming a client with the stroke of a pen."