As a "side hustle"?

[axeman462]

You can't "side hustle" insurance.

It's a full time gig.

I agree.

Go all in or dont do it. Selling insurance is a business, and needs to be treated as one.

Quit your job, and invest real time and money into insurance, and build your business. If you do it any other way, you will burn out, and end up quiting and/or losing money. You will never take it seriously as a side hustle, especially if you have a family.

 

[Life Hawk]

I agree.

Go all in or dont do it. Selling insurance is a business, and needs to be treated as one.

I'll second that. Toe dippers rarely make splash.

It requires too much commitment.

 

[Travis Price]

I agree.

Go all in or dont do it. Selling insurance is a business, and needs to be treated as one.

Quit your job, and invest real time and money into insurance, and build your business. If you do it any other way, you will burn out, and end up quiting and/or losing money. You will never take it seriously as a side hustle, especially if you have a family.

Um, yeah.. part time agent here. I call BS to all of this; however, I may be an exception and not the rule. That being said, you have to really take stock of what YOU want out of this business prior to starting it (it's called goal-setting.)

You can spend 1 hour a day on marketing and long term be just fine. The difference between full time agents and part time, for me, is that I have time and breathing room to be patient.

I don't have to take advances or write bad business to eat or pay my bills. I also don't have to chase people down to try to sell them something. I can spend 20 hours a week building my marketing foundation. I can spend less than full-time agents and be successful, but I also acknowledge that I'm not going to write a ton of business up front.

Straight up, you have to have a passion about this business to make it work. To me, you have to be a financial services nerd to stay passionate about this long term.

Secondly, you have to treat this as an investment. You are going to spend money and time on this. It will pay off, but it may take a bit of time.

It's about mindset. If you have the right goals, expectations, and motivation and acknowledge this is going to be a challenge, then don't let anyone on this forum tell you that you can't make it work.

 

[goillini52]

Um, yeah.. part time agent here. I call BS to all of this; however, I may be an exception and not the rule. That being said, you have to really take stock of what YOU want out of this business prior to starting it (it's called goal-setting.)

You can spend 1 hour a day on marketing and long term be just fine. The difference between full time agents and part time, for me, is that I have time and breathing room to be patient.

I don't have to take advances or write bad business to eat or pay my bills. I also don't have to chase people down to try to sell them something. I can spend 20 hours a week building my marketing foundation. I can spend less than full-time agents and be successful, but I also acknowledge that I'm not going to write a ton of business up front.

Straight up, you have to have a passion about this business to make it work. To me, you have to be a financial services nerd to stay passionate about this long term.

Secondly, you have to treat this as an investment. You are going to spend money and time on this. It will pay off, but it may take a bit of time.

It's about mindset. If you have the right goals, expectations, and motivation and acknowledge this is going to be a challenge, then don't let anyone on this forum tell you that you can't make it work.

There are several on here that started part time and doing well. Dave Duford and Josh Jones(HoosierLife) both started part time.

 

[BADTROUT]

Your mindset has to be full time and you'll always be on call, but make no mistake... you can have an insurance career part time.

Certain products lend themselves better to it than others and certain people can balance it better than others.

As long as you put full time seriousness to the profession you'll do fine.

One last thing, I understand in local vernacular hustle or gig or whatever is understood, and we all know what you mean... insurance specifically is a career path where one must NEVER assume your client knows what you mean. It's just a good habit to say things exactly as they are.

Best of luck and quiet the haters who for most people arent wrong, by being sucessful.

 

[BADTROUT]

There are several on here that started part time and doing well. Dave Duford and Josh Jones(HoosierLife) both started part time.

I did too.

 

[goillini52]

I did too.

And there are others on here that started that way. Those are the 1st 2 that came to mind.

If you want it bad enough, you find a way to make it work.

 

[pfg1]

It can definitely work on the side. I know a number of folks that have done well starting that way. The key to being successful in this business is to find out what you want to sell, and partner with someone that can help and train you. The faster you learn the better off you will be. Its very tough trying to learn on your own.
Stay away from MLM type companies, they will rob you blind and brainwash you into believing their way of thinking is the only way. I met a guy last week who had been with WFG for 12yrs, finally saw the light on how badly he was getting screwed. So he resigned to move on to indy and now they won't pay him his trails. Awful.

 

[UKTX]

Naturally there are some folks who could make anything work, whether part time or full time. They are just good at what they do.

My mentor told me when I first started in insurance "this is the best full time career, but the worst part time one".

She was probably saying that to make we work full time

I have seen a number of agents come and go, most of the part time ones that I have dealt with don't make it, they wash out pretty quickly.

To me, the costs of being in this business make a part time option prohibitive.

 

[Travis Price]

To me, the costs of being in this business make a part time option prohibitive.

IMO, the role of the insurance agent is changing. Cold calling isn't dead, but it's much more difficult. Direct Mail is becoming very expensive and takes a decent amount of time and money to start before you start getting results.

Content Marketing, however, is way cheaper. It takes about 6m to get it pumping, but that works for a PT agent; provided they're able to put in the work, it's cheaper and will market for quite awhile for them.

There are some guys online that do affiliate marketing videos on Youtube, The Income School. If you substitute leads for affiliate marketing, you can definitely use their process to drive traffic. Also, basic Local SEO works much faster.

Being completely transparent here:
For my website, I spend roughly 10-15 hours a week on content and revisions.

Monthly spend

I spend 7.99
7.99 for Wordpress plugins
47.99 for customer facing quote tool
18 for live chat
41.66 for the scholarship I offer
9.99 for local citation database listing with Moz

Total 133.62 a month.

So, for the cost of 2 weeks DM and 6m, I can have a a fully functional website that pulls traffic to me.

I can afford to wait.