Aflac Or Conseco?

[Scott C]

I'll be headquartered in Texarkana, which is on the Arkansas/Texas border. It's half way between Dallas and Little Rock on Interstate 30. Texarkana AR/TX is 70,000 people with a metroplex of about 150,000 people. I know that's small to most of you considering Dallas, TX has a metroplex of over 5,000,000. But I should also mention that Texarkana is the second fastest growing city, for cities under 500,000 in the nation next to Mobile, AL.

 

[Scott C]

Update!

After several short months of working for Conseco, I'm no longer in the insurance business. I've moved on to a regular "W-2" job. It's a liberating feeling!!! I started my career with Aflac, who mass hires. Aflac basically hands you a phone book and says "Go Get 'Um." I would go into a business cold calling, only to find out I was the fifth agent they had seen that week. I then tried my hand a medicare supplements part-time. It too was a saturated market. I was then referred to Conseco by a friend. They told me in my initial interview they would provide me with pre-set appointments with government and credit union accounts. In other words, no more cold calling. But what they conveniently "forgot" to tell me in the interview was that these government accounts also allowed a lot of other insurance companies to sell to their employees. Each of these government accounts would have an insurance enrollment scheduled about every week with one insurance company or another.

If I could sum up the insurance profession in one word it would be "saturated." The problem is not Aflac, Conseco, or any other insurance company. The underlying problem is that insurance is a saturated market. There's several reasons for this saturation.

First, insurance companies mass hire. They don't care if there are too many agents for any one agent to have enough business to have a viable long term career. All they're concerned about is that they have a lot of naive "worker bees" opening new payroll accounts and servicing existing accounts. A new agent sticks it out for several months, but starts going into debt because most of the payroll accounts have already been "nabbed." He or she thinks about quitting, but his or her manager tells him or her they're not working hard enough or they need to give it just a little more time. The truth is that most managers know the person will eventually quit, but they try to get a few more accounts and policies out of the person. They don't care if the extra time they coerce the person to stay causes them to go into crazy debt or even bankruptcy. They're only concerned for number one.

Second, it only takes a one week class (most states allow you to complete online) and a single test to get licensed. There's no barrier to entry to keep the profession from becoming saturated. Don't get me wrong. There are a lot of smart people selling insurance. But this lack of a barrier of entry causes every unemployed person that can read and write to try their hand at insurance.

Before I get flammed, I'm not bashing any company, type of insurance, or the insurance profession in general. I'm just stating what I observed from two years of selling insurance. I understand there's a lot of variables in selling insurance such as the personality, education, work ethic, etc. of the seller. But you can be the most talented person and not make a go of selling insurance because there's not enough clients and payroll accounts that haven't been "nabbed." I understand that there are people everyday that make it in the insurance business. But I also understand they're few and far between.

I'm Out!

 

[VolAgent]

I hate to be the one to tell you, but your problem wasn't how hard you worked, or which company you went with. It was how smart you worked.

Of course cold calling on businesses is going to be frustrating. Particularly when you work with companies that hire the masses and send them out specifically to cold call. The people who succeed, particularly in work-site, find a different way to approach the business owner.

As a whole, the market isn't saturated, far from it in fact. Every year there are fewer agents per capita. The problem is too many start out cold calling and don't have a clue how to be effective. So, a certain segment of the market gets pounded, which discourages new agents. A few make it, and most fail. Thus, more and more of the population goes under served. Assuming you never canvassed your neighborhood, why don't you try going door to door and just ask them the last time an insurance agent called them or knocked on their door. Tell them you are not an agent, that you've recently left the business. Tell them you made a bet with a friend, you bet that everyone of your neighbors gets called on at least once a week. I bet you'd be surprised by how many have never been called upon.

That said, you probably still would have failed had you gone door to door. You are just another salesman, just another annoyance. Instead you had to find a way to get a favorable introduction to those people.

 

[Guest]

I bet you'd be surprised by how many have never been called upon.

Same with selling to individuals. How many times have any of you been called or approached by someone selling life, DI, annuity, or LTC?

I've lived in the same house in an upscale zip code for 29 years and except for recent AARP mailings I have not ever had a phone call, a card, or a letter about life insurance from an agent.

I've recently been getting "plate licker" seminar invites from various "financial planners" but never a call from someone wanting to sell me term or WL. I've only been agenting for 4 years, but prior to that I owned a number of businesses... and never a call.

Now that I call my own neighbors they have told me the same thing... that few of them have had many (or any) calls in the last ten or fifteen years.

Go figure.

Al
InsuranceSolutions123 Agency

 

[Scott C]

"I hate to be the one to tell you, but your problem wasn't how hard you worked, or which company you went with. It was how smart you worked."

It's a little presumptive on your part to assume my problem was that I didn't work smart enough. How do you know what approach I used??? I'm not saying you're necessarily wrong, but I have Bachelor of Business Administration degrees in Accounting and Finance and a Master of Art degree in a non business related field. I used to work for a law firm that did legal and accounting work for millionaire clients before I was laid off because of the down turn in the economy. I'm also an officer in the military. I had better sense than to simply knock on as many doors as possible everyday like a chicken running around with its head cut off.

I don't know what area of the country you've been working in, but it's a saturated market where I live. The Aflac state manager where I live sends out a new Do Not Call list every week. The list usually contains letters he received from business owners or their attorneys they've hired. The letters state that they don't want any insurance agents on their premises. The letters all state that the business management is continually disrupted from their jobs about five to ten times a week by having to come out and tell insurance agents to leave. Insurance agents want tell the receptionists what they're really there for. So she tells the management that someone needs to speak to them. They think it's an important customer. So they stop what there doing. They could've been in the middle of an important conference call or something. The insurance agents keep coming back and "annoying" the business management thinking they'll eventually "Wear 'Um Down" so they will say yes. But they don't realize that the business management are smarter than they give them credit for. The business management are very adept to the "Wear 'Um Down" strategy.

So in most cases of failure, it's because of saturation, not because someone didn't work smart enough. But what do I know? I'm just the 800 pound gorilla in the room.

 

[maximas]

Scott C. - while you were working at Aflac, did you ever "compete" for the duck? One of the creepiest things I ever saw. The agents in the office would all line up and have a competition to see who could get past the "gatekeeper", which was normally the district manager. The agent that most slyly got past the "gatekeeper" got a duck. They did this for hours. Needless to say, that was enough for me. Grown *** men competing for a stuffed duck was bad enough, hoisting the little bugger above your head as if it were the triumph of all triumphs, was insane.

I left that office feeling very unsure about the future of the human race... and even more confused that I did not heed the warning given by more than one person on this board.

 

[VolAgent]

It's a little presumptive on your part to assume my problem was that I didn't work smart enough. How do you know what approach I used???

....

So in most cases of failure, it's because of saturation, not because someone didn't work smart enough. But what do I know? I'm just the 800 pound gorilla in the room.

How do I know, because you just told me. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like you were using the same exact techniques everyone else at Aflac was using. You were just trying to get past the gatekeeper. You're also assuming I said you were stupid, I didn't. I said you worked stupid, big difference. You simply didn't know better, and Aflac wasn't going to teach you better.

Did you ever call on your old clients, tell them what you are doing, ask what challenges business owners face, and ask them to give you a favorable introduction to other business owners? Did you ever call your friends and do the same, ask what challenges business owners and families face, and ask for introductions? Note, I didn't say call on them for business, but for introductions.

Did you ever attend networking events, with the intention of building centers of influence that could introduce you on a favorable basis to business owners? If you left on good terms, did you ask your former boss for help, introductions to their peers? Did you ever try to team up with a group benefits broker to get introductions to his book of business?

I'm willing to bet the answer to most of these questions is no. That's why you failed. In the past you could cold call enough and maybe get lucky enough to succeed. But not now, not in this economy. Trust me, there are tons of business owners that have never talked to an Aflac agent, their gatekeepers are too good. They might even be interested in allowing Aflac into their business, but you'll never reach them the way Aflac teaches.

The market is far from saturated for life and health products. It is just saturated with Aflac agents that don't know how to effectively prospect.

 

[ptercar]

do I dar to post in hear or wheel I bee attached as well

ha ha.......

 

[arnguy]

do I dar to post in hear or wheel I bee attached as well

ha ha.......

With that example of spelling prowess you fit right in----welcome aboard!

 

[Yoda]

Speaking of Conseco..........Didnt get my renewal check last month and have got a big check coming this month........ No need to panic yet. Just got a feeling this might be the long anticipated snakerooski Ive been expecting for years.