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"I'd Hate to Think." Shanks rose swiftly, first as an adviser to the Pru's brass on their railroad securities, later as general solicitor for the company, finally in 1939 as a vice president. By 1944 he was the Prudential's executive vice president, second only to President Franklin D'Olier. With D'Olier away much of the time working for the government on the war effort, Shanks gradually became the company's acting president. Typically, one of his first moves was to call his vice presidents together and ask: "All right, now what is our biggest problem?" Everyone had the same complaint: New Jersey taxes. They were levied on the Pru at an annual rate of $5.50 for every $100 surplus in their treasury, far more than New York (where some of its biggest competitors were) and other states charged their companies. It put the Pru in the worst possible competitive position.
Quietly and inflexibly, Shanks laid it on the line to state officials: either taxes come down or the Pru, one of the state's biggest taxpayers, would move out. The fight that followed was so rough that more than one vice president got sick and had to retire. Finally Shanks won: New Jersey reduced the Pru's taxes. Says Shanks: "I'd hate to think what would have happened if I'd failed."
Two years later, at 47, Carrol Shanks was the Prudential's boss. Franklin D'Olier opened a board meeting by announcing that he wanted to move up to chairman. "And here," said he, pointing to Shanks, "is your new president."
Agents & Actuaries. Since then, Shanks's biggest fight has been to revitalize the Pru. When he took over, it was an empire of some 40,000 employees, counted annual sales of $1.8 billion, total insurance in force of $23.7 billion. Yet Shanks thought the company was sitting on its hands. Group insurance sales were only a trickle, and ordinary life was gaining too slowly. Shanks vowed that his agents would be the world's "best trained, best selected and best supervised" insurance salesmen, instituted training courses that last as long as three years for his 18,500 agents.
There is nothing of the soft sell in the Pru's old-fashioned salesmanship. Like Fuller Brushmen, each agent has 300 to 400 families to cover. The Pru man gently but bluntly reminds his customer of the need for a "cleanup" fund to handle funeral expenses, explains what social security and company pension plans will provide. He asks his prospect if he wants to leave his family a home or just a mortgage; He talks about education for the children. "Invariably," says one Pru executive, "the worried prospect lays down a program he can't possibly afford." Then, the Pru agent's job is to match salary and security, start his man off on a sense-making scale, gradually move him up. Result of the Pru's hardheaded approach: 46,500 new insurance policies issued every seven days.