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Association Member Benefits Advisors
- Thread starter Bob_The_Insurance_Guy
- Start date
Can you tell me why it was a waste of time? they want me to go to a 5 day training course. Is this really necessary?
While you are at it, pay attention to the date of the post(s).
Run far far away from AMBA, as fast as your legs can carry you. I know of a few individuals that went to their Fast Start University, worked for a few months and eventually left due to charge-backs, too frequent mailings, etc. The gig could be a good one, except the managers have hiring quotas and dilute the lead quality.
Main reason for this is the owners get all the residuals from the churn and burns. The top reps definitely do well, as they get the majority of the leads and thus give credence to the opportunity for success.
A young person wishing to break into the insirance biz would probably be best served going with one of the better companies, learn the process and then move into better pastures. Just keep in mind, this outfit predicates its manager bonuses on hiring quotas, never a good idea for a place of employment.
Main reason for this is the owners get all the residuals from the churn and burns. The top reps definitely do well, as they get the majority of the leads and thus give credence to the opportunity for success.
A young person wishing to break into the insirance biz would probably be best served going with one of the better companies, learn the process and then move into better pastures. Just keep in mind, this outfit predicates its manager bonuses on hiring quotas, never a good idea for a place of employment.
LTCAdvisor
New Member
- 1
My wife got the same mailing, retired teacher. They are selling the Mutual of Omaha policy. Association offer 5% discount. The AMBA nor TRTA have any official connection with teachers or TRS or any other teacher organization. They are an agency and this is their shtick.
I attended Fast Start University. It was a total wast of time. The days were real long and got a ton of paper work to take back with me. Was told we would be making sales in the first week. Made no sales, wasted a ton of gas. It was door to door sales. Also I ran a quote on myself and than had my buddy with another insurance company run the quote. My buddy insurance company was quote was a fraction of the price they were. I would not recommend this. Also most of the leads don't have phone numbers. I would not do this again.
Did you have to pay for your training expenses and license - getting there, food, hotel, etc.? I am considering working for this company, but through the interview process and the post interview process a few red flags have caught my attention. I would really appreciate your insight and experience with them.
Rockrhecrust
New Member
- 1
I actually do work for them now. My experience has been very positive. It is a commission sales job, so there are ups and downs. They do reward you for performing though. You are a 1099 associate and they expense nothing out for you. Operating costs are up to you. There are two divisions, senior and workplace. I am in workplace and am provided with at least four schools or public offices every week in which to sell. My manager is very supportive and I have recieved all of the back up I have needed. You do have to put the time in, but it is rewarding and does pay. If you don't put the work in or have a bad manager, like other jobs, you won't succeed.
I joined this site just to reply on my experience with this company.
I worked there for about 3 months and washed out that fast. Here's my story. (this is all with the senior division, I feel like the workplace division actually has a better job than senior).
I applied on career builder and got a call from a DM. He sounded very enthusiastic and it was infectious. Scheduled an interview and went in. This is what should have been the first red flag: they were trying to sell the company and job to me. I should've realized if you have to keep telling me everything is wonderful, something has got to give. The first interview was pretty much "Rah Rah Rah our company is great, do you think you would like working here"(while nodding head). Of course the answer is yes.
Came to next interview. I actually got to ask questions. They tell me that these sales are almost unfair to the clients theyre so easy to make if you "follow the system". Everything they sell is outlined in some of the other posts. It's to the retired teachers and state employees associations(more on those later). I'm thinking "this is awesome so I don't have to sell to my family and friends". I was told about the training in Austin,TX and that I'd have to get licensed(all on my own dollar). "but OH, there's a catch, if you sell a certain amount in premium in the first week or two, you get all that money reimbursed."
So I take the test, get licensed and drive to Texas. Getting there, I'm given a presentation script that I have to memorize. I did and was damn good at it too. I could still give that thing in my sleep. That was pretty much all you learn along with some goofy psychological principles about keeping people's attention on you during the presentation. You also meet the executive management. I won't say who is who, but one of the guys was someone I wouldn't mind drinking a beer with and hanging out. The first thing the other person told us about was how he was excessively rude to a salesman who came to his door, not exactly what you want to hear. And the first and nicest thing anyone (who worked at the company for any amount of time) could say about him was that he is "extremely professional" which to me translates to not personable at all. More on that one later.
So I pass the training with flying colors, still have dollar signs in my eyes. Get back home and on my first day of work I am given a phone script that was never mentioned to me and given a list of people to call. So call...after call... After call is made. I almost went through the whole list before someone actually scheduled a meeting with me.
Before I go further let's talk about these associations. When you call the retiree, you are saying "I am your benefits advisor" and all that. These people think you are from their retirement system and you are going to be telling them how their benefits are changing. Most of the time you talk to them they are scared out of their mind. You aren't, you're not even from a union. The association that endorses you is actually just a lobbying group to help pass legislation that helps the retirees, most of them haven't even heard of these associations.
The phone script is very misleading and at some points is almost downright false. But let's assume you get the meeting and are meeting with "Mrs. Jones". You schedule meetings at fifteen minutes after the hour(to make yourself sound more "busy") and you tell them that you just come over, drop off info, answer questions and move on to the next retiree. You make it sound like you have stuff for them and you're going to be there for 10 minutes....you'll be there for 1.5-2 hours if they don't have too many objections.
Giving the presentation is actually the best part, but probably the thing you're going to spend the least amount of time doing as you need to be "hitting the phones" virtually nonstop. The closing process though is the most awkward thing in the world. Their motto for that is "ink on the app". If you keep writing and get in and out as fast as you can, maybe you can sell something before they realize they've bought something.
Something else that happened to me. On my first day, I called a retiree, went word-for-word from the script, and scheduled a meeting. The lady proceeds to call her retirement system who handles her benefits to ask if she knows who I am and who the company is. They have no clue. Her husband calls me back threatening my life if I come to their house. So I do what any smart person does, I didn't go. No need to involve the police, just let it roll off my shoulder.
Little did I know, the retirement system called the association that had endorsed us and didn't have anything good to say. The head of the association called the company (see the above "very professional" guy) and he flys in to correct any misunderstandings. We go out of town to the meeting and he proceeds to sit me down in front of the entire state and say that he was "this close" to firing me and basically embarrass me in front of close to 25 people. The said event happened on my FIRST day and I was reading directly from the script HE had a part in writing. Needless to say I didn't officially quit then, but I basically stopped working. I still made a couple of sales and I know if I would've actually put in 50 hours a week and tried I couldve sold a few more, but I just didn't care at that point. about 2 and a half months later I just stopped taking calls from them until they got the hint.
The company's culture is....annoying at best. Very Rah Rah, always talking about being "sports-minded", always saying that the best sales people only want straight commissions. They do have a lot of contests with awesome prizes and trips and all that jazz. They're not lying with that. They also have a good awards program. They will try to wow you with a very nice office and people wearing thousand dollar suits and all that. The thing I had to ask myself was "do I really want to be like the people here?" all the successful people were basically the same person with a few differences. And my answer to that was a resounding no. There is potential to make money here, but there is working for any insurance firm. I would rather make 30k a year and be happy than have to go back to that company, but that's just me.
I'm glad I worked there for the brief amount of time I did because it showed me something I definitely did not want to do with my life. I hope this helps anyone considering working for this company....honestly, you'd do better with a Northwestern Mutual or even Primerica who is known as a straight revolving door.
I worked there for about 3 months and washed out that fast. Here's my story. (this is all with the senior division, I feel like the workplace division actually has a better job than senior).
I applied on career builder and got a call from a DM. He sounded very enthusiastic and it was infectious. Scheduled an interview and went in. This is what should have been the first red flag: they were trying to sell the company and job to me. I should've realized if you have to keep telling me everything is wonderful, something has got to give. The first interview was pretty much "Rah Rah Rah our company is great, do you think you would like working here"(while nodding head). Of course the answer is yes.
Came to next interview. I actually got to ask questions. They tell me that these sales are almost unfair to the clients theyre so easy to make if you "follow the system". Everything they sell is outlined in some of the other posts. It's to the retired teachers and state employees associations(more on those later). I'm thinking "this is awesome so I don't have to sell to my family and friends". I was told about the training in Austin,TX and that I'd have to get licensed(all on my own dollar). "but OH, there's a catch, if you sell a certain amount in premium in the first week or two, you get all that money reimbursed."
So I take the test, get licensed and drive to Texas. Getting there, I'm given a presentation script that I have to memorize. I did and was damn good at it too. I could still give that thing in my sleep. That was pretty much all you learn along with some goofy psychological principles about keeping people's attention on you during the presentation. You also meet the executive management. I won't say who is who, but one of the guys was someone I wouldn't mind drinking a beer with and hanging out. The first thing the other person told us about was how he was excessively rude to a salesman who came to his door, not exactly what you want to hear. And the first and nicest thing anyone (who worked at the company for any amount of time) could say about him was that he is "extremely professional" which to me translates to not personable at all. More on that one later.
So I pass the training with flying colors, still have dollar signs in my eyes. Get back home and on my first day of work I am given a phone script that was never mentioned to me and given a list of people to call. So call...after call... After call is made. I almost went through the whole list before someone actually scheduled a meeting with me.
Before I go further let's talk about these associations. When you call the retiree, you are saying "I am your benefits advisor" and all that. These people think you are from their retirement system and you are going to be telling them how their benefits are changing. Most of the time you talk to them they are scared out of their mind. You aren't, you're not even from a union. The association that endorses you is actually just a lobbying group to help pass legislation that helps the retirees, most of them haven't even heard of these associations.
The phone script is very misleading and at some points is almost downright false. But let's assume you get the meeting and are meeting with "Mrs. Jones". You schedule meetings at fifteen minutes after the hour(to make yourself sound more "busy") and you tell them that you just come over, drop off info, answer questions and move on to the next retiree. You make it sound like you have stuff for them and you're going to be there for 10 minutes....you'll be there for 1.5-2 hours if they don't have too many objections.
Giving the presentation is actually the best part, but probably the thing you're going to spend the least amount of time doing as you need to be "hitting the phones" virtually nonstop. The closing process though is the most awkward thing in the world. Their motto for that is "ink on the app". If you keep writing and get in and out as fast as you can, maybe you can sell something before they realize they've bought something.
Something else that happened to me. On my first day, I called a retiree, went word-for-word from the script, and scheduled a meeting. The lady proceeds to call her retirement system who handles her benefits to ask if she knows who I am and who the company is. They have no clue. Her husband calls me back threatening my life if I come to their house. So I do what any smart person does, I didn't go. No need to involve the police, just let it roll off my shoulder.
Little did I know, the retirement system called the association that had endorsed us and didn't have anything good to say. The head of the association called the company (see the above "very professional" guy) and he flys in to correct any misunderstandings. We go out of town to the meeting and he proceeds to sit me down in front of the entire state and say that he was "this close" to firing me and basically embarrass me in front of close to 25 people. The said event happened on my FIRST day and I was reading directly from the script HE had a part in writing. Needless to say I didn't officially quit then, but I basically stopped working. I still made a couple of sales and I know if I would've actually put in 50 hours a week and tried I couldve sold a few more, but I just didn't care at that point. about 2 and a half months later I just stopped taking calls from them until they got the hint.
The company's culture is....annoying at best. Very Rah Rah, always talking about being "sports-minded", always saying that the best sales people only want straight commissions. They do have a lot of contests with awesome prizes and trips and all that jazz. They're not lying with that. They also have a good awards program. They will try to wow you with a very nice office and people wearing thousand dollar suits and all that. The thing I had to ask myself was "do I really want to be like the people here?" all the successful people were basically the same person with a few differences. And my answer to that was a resounding no. There is potential to make money here, but there is working for any insurance firm. I would rather make 30k a year and be happy than have to go back to that company, but that's just me.
I'm glad I worked there for the brief amount of time I did because it showed me something I definitely did not want to do with my life. I hope this helps anyone considering working for this company....honestly, you'd do better with a Northwestern Mutual or even Primerica who is known as a straight revolving door.
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