BY MAGGIE LEYES
L ife
o f a
Top Producer
Thwack. A stack of
newspapers lands
on the dining-room
table. The New York Times, The Wall Street
Journal, the Chicago Tribune, the Milwaukee Journal-
Sentinel, USA TODAY, Investor’s Business Daily, the Financial Times. To that pile, he will add
printouts from CNN Money, WashingtonPost.com, Bloomberg.com, Economist.com. And on
goes the TV. It’s 5 a.m. and Van Mueller, LUTCF, is just starting his day.
He will spend the next hour or so scanning these periodicals to find his “talking points” for
the day or the week. He cuts out a dozen or so articles and adds them to the daily pile, which can be
five or six inches high. It’s here-and-now fodder for his client visits, newsletter and industry talks.
He wants his clients, fellow agents or audience to see their present and future reflected in those
stories. In this way, they can “arrive at a place without telling them what to do,” he says.
