A Question for You

[Mark]

50% of new insurance agents do not make it 18 months in the business. Most of you are the 50% that did make it.

What made you different from the 50% that didn’t make it? Can you share with us some of what you have learned in the business or how you made it?

What do you think the 50% of agents that didn’t make it did wrong?

 

[STIBROKER]

Most of you are the 50% that did make it.What made you different from the 50% that didn’t make it?

Because I am a crazy mofo........

 

[somarco]

Too stubborn to give in.

 

[xrac]

Too stubborn to give in.

John Savage said: "All you have to do to make it...is last."

 

[Crabcake Johnny]

A total commitment that this was my career.

 

[moonlightandmargaritas]

John Savage said: "All you have to do to make it...is last."

Reminds me of a "Yogi Berra-ism".

 

[souldeux]

Ask me in eighteen months. Then I'll tell you I'll still be around because I'm stubborn, tired of having other people run my life, and I wanted to prove my mother wrong.

 

[somarco]

John Savage said: "All you have to do to make it...is last."

Cal "Iron Man" Ripken played 2,632 consecutive games (a new record) and was asked the secret of his success. His response?

"Show up."

 

[Frank Stastny]

Mark,

I think you are being too generous. I would say, based just in my experience, that closer to 80% don't make it beyone 12 months let alone 18.

My "secret" is that I had a real job before selling insurance and when I started, I treated selling insurance as though it is a "real job".

I went into it with the intent to build a career not just to make money. I was making money at the job I left to sell insurance. A lot more money than I made the first two years I was selling insurance.

I have never been concerned about "making money". If I do what is necessary and then go above and beyond that, the money will follow. And it has, in spades.

I not only learned to "sell", I taught myself to "give good phone" and learned how to prospect. Anyone can sell insurance, the successful agents are the ones who know how to prospect.

In my experience the biggest group that fails the most often are those agents who are not well organized and want someone else to do their prospecting and set their appointments.

 

[moonlightandmargaritas]

What made you different from the 50% that didn’t make it? Can you share with us some of what you have learned in the business or how you made it?

It takes perseverance, resilience, and the discipline to sometimes forgo the short-term reward and take the long-term view to be successful, imho.

While there's a veritable plethora of reasons people don't succeed, I would place unmet, unrealistic expectations, financial pressures, and bad company/agency situations to be at the head of the list.