Becoming a State Farm Agent

[Numbers Man]

Here's how things have changed. In my trainee agent year, I had two staff. We were told to do 16 life or health apps a month back then. I started 4/1. We did 45-55 life policies a year from '98-'05 while I focused on growing my P&C book (and before the present scorecard bonus warranted hiring a 3rd staff). Then I upped my expectations of my team and we began qualifying to travel. On time for the 3rd consecutive year.

Of course, the funny thing is...it's easier to make numbers when you have a larger book. Now that I have that, I can make the numbers!

I realize that the amount of production that I and my contemporaries achieved back then would not get us our contracts now. Again, timing and particular situations have so much to do with it. I was in Illinois, not Indiana or Missouri where management was tougher on trainees back then. Other regions/zones are very different from each other or at least were 10 years ago.

I think the public is somewhat postcarded OUT at this point.

 

[frmrTICA]

Good to now that varying styles of management are not relegated to my zone.

I had 3800 autos, but it required at least 4 to service, and I would have needed another staff +myself to really grow.

Of course, with my size assignment, came higher expectations. Another new agent got almost 5K cars, inherited a great sales team, and is making bank and a name at the top nationwide. Believe it or not, but he's written on average 35-45 Life per month for 8 consecutive months.

I didn't do that well. I hired 3 existing team members who come to find out had so poorly underwritten the book over the years (agent had not been involved for half a decade), that when we got the DAFO UW (stricter) they blew a gasket and rebelled, mostly behind my back.

I grew, wrote lots of auto in an uncompetitive market, lots of life (on time for travel, + other awards), but in the end when it came down to going after the team members for stealing business (I let then go month 8), my afc met with him, they told him all kinds of BS, and I was canned without ever getting to speak OR having them even meet the great team I put into place.

I'm accepting responsibility for that bad hiring decision, but I'm a little peeved at my managment. They came to my office 3 times in a year. Had no advice over phone while we were trying to clean the book up.

Silly me for thinking they wanted somebody to turn the profitability around. The DAFO here chews you up and spits you out. Year 2 agents fall flat, without exception in my market.

Trying to look at it as a blessing, now everything is making sense. One of the last meetings I had with my C I was asking about the semi-monthly variable comp piece in year 3-4...and what I could do to avoid that because my market was past saturation and non-competitive.

Now that look he gave is making sense. He knew the Kool-aide had worn off.

I love SF, and some guys have it really great.

BE VERY CAREFUL WHERE YOU GO AND WHO THE MANAGEMENT IS. That being said, it is impossible to pick managers and locations, I've had 2 vpas, 2afes, 2afcs and 3afs in ONE year.

Everything is either urban or rural to them. Don't try to figure out the best bang for the buck or ask too many questions.

Ask me how I know.

 

[AgentZ]

Sorry if I misread your prior post. This post I 100% agree with. I did travel year 1 and 2. You know rumors are rampant that they are going to do something for the AA05/TICA agents that started 1/1/06 or after but if you started before 2006 then you are SOL. This company is losing agents in record numbers and they know it. The DAFO will tell you anything and when the real numbers come in they will just tell you to "Sell More."

FYI I saw several that did not make year 2, and now there are times I wish I had not. I could have moved on. They made a lot of promises and came through very little

Did you travel your first year?

The DAFO today just emphasizes Life Life Life, Travel Travel Travel - AT ALL COSTS.

If you became an agent today and had only one team member - even scratch and did not qulify for travel your first year, no matter how rural your market you'd be fired and never see year 2.

Guys like me go broke paying 3 sales people and sending out 10,000 post cards a month just to make something happen to possibly get our TICA renewed.

It is no way to live.

 

[frmrTICA]

I actually got far less than that. I increased auto by about 700 in a year, half that due to my 20K in marketing to a 40% saturated market, 1/2 because they chopped off 500 or so cars that came back.

Biggest difference is Average Annual Premium. Mine was 50% lower than the book I cut my teeth in due to the fact my book very rarely had comp/collision and was carrying state minimum liability limits.

They did have high expectations. Right now the #1 agent in the country is a C who they gave 4500 too. His annual premium is a LOT higher, and he's in a one agent town. I out spent him, but he is a better agent than I. He is blowing Scott Foster clean smooth out of the water on Life Production, averaging...get ready....40+ Life apps a month. Every month.

I did well, but holy bajeebus not anywhere close to that. I also have a tendency to shoot a little too straight with managment...Asking tough questions about how do I avoid losing $60K in year 3 when I can't write fire....

I was not a problem child, or at least I should not have been considered one if that is that case. I'm all for marketing, continuing to grow, etc....I just wanted to track things and figure out how to get the best bang for the buck...

NOTE TO ANYONE READING THIS: DO NOT ASK QUESTIONS AFTER YOU START, ONLY BEFORE YOU COMMIT

Maybe I should have drank an extra cup of Kool-Aide during that last Peer-to-Peer

Sweet Baby Jesus!

You got 3800 cars???

No wonder you got canned.

They probably saw you as "management material" and now they put another golden boy in there because your golf average dropped or something. Someone's nephew probably wanted your book.

I guess scratch never gets fired because no one wants a small book.

Year 2 your agents fall flat because they sign their ICA and they are fat and happy with that amount of auto and just pay bills and laugh because they never intended to be recognized year after year, only to achieve the SF dream of collecting renewals because they can't get fired as an ICA.

 

[xrac]

.....Maybe I should have drank an extra cup of Kool-Aide during that last Peer-to-Peer

Definitely sounds like the situation. I know plenty of people who haven't made it in this business and plenty that didn't make it with certain companies but I never known anyone who were in deep debt except through their own stupidity except you SF guys.

Sounds to me like the SF contract is currently the worst thing going. You are doing all the things and spending all the money that entreprenuers do and spend but are at SF's mercy and they can take it all away on a whim or political reason. It is a bum deal when you have ownership responsibilities but no ownership or vesting.

 

[frmrTICA]

Sweet Baby Jesus!

I guess scratch never gets fired because no one wants a small book.

Year 2 your agents fall flat because they sign their ICA and they are fat and happy with that amount of auto and just pay bills and laugh because they never intended to be recognized year after year, only to achieve the SF dream of collecting renewals because they can't get fired as an ICA.

Depends on where you are. Depends totally on your C and E. Within my zone we have the DAFO split into 2. One is run by some great people, SUCCESSFUL agents, that wanted to teach others. The other side is a revolving door of career ladder climbers that "do their time" until a market spot opens up...

They fire scratch at will. Even higher producing ones. Another unspoken facet is "diversity". Even I have learned enough not to approach that subject in detail here. Very uneven playing field.

A newbie coming in from the outside has to be careful....remember, I had 2 VPAs, 2 AFEs, 2AFCs, and now that I think about it, 2 AFS.

No relationships built, no respect from the TICAs (or the market for that matter) and they will can you for any little thing that slips out of your mouth that can be perceived as contrary to the Competencies...with no real work facts to back them up.

They weren't "out to get me", that isn't how I roll. They did make quick judgements that ruined people's lives without thinking about what was coachable and what was not.

No leadership. No coaching, just negative motivational techniques.

I've said it one, I'll say it again. I take ownership for "not playing the game". Everyone has facets that they can work on, get better at.

The DAFO is failing because, at least here, they are too overburdened with emails and reports, too many agents, etc. And in my case, they didn't know leadership.

The DAFO should exist to get people through the intern program, and through field development. That model has no place for the real world in the trenches with varying marketing conditions, with no real insight into anything but numbers.

The contract, of course, is another biggie. They will fix it or they will lose agents, period. Allstate adjusted theirs, but not for everyone, only noobs.

 

[frmrTICA]

Definitely sounds like the situation. I know plenty of people who haven't made it in this business and plenty that didn't make it with certain companies but I never known anyone who were in deep debt except through their own stupidity except you SF guys.

Sounds to me like the SF contract is currently the worst thing going. You are doing all the things and spending all the money that entreprenuers do and spend but are at SF's mercy and they can take it all away on a whim or political reason. It is a bum deal when you have ownership responsibilities but no ownership or vesting.

If I am going to continue to be a success in this business, I think my performance can be enhanced a bit by getting a coach and working on the PC side of things a bit. I can be that way with clients, but probably let my guard down too far when speaking with people I trust. I am naive that way. I also trusted people I should'nt have. My mistake.

Not a SF bash, either, Allstate guys are having it pretty tough right now, too. Since you either buy or go in debt because of the storefront costs + being scratch, they are selling out in record numbers, EVEN if they are competitive and writing tons of business.

A top local Allstate guy, TOP, says he can't see the end of the tunnel for about 10 years.

Neither one of these captives are the deal the 20 year guys have. And they never will be again.

I've been contacted by new guys, old guys and everything in between over the past month. SF is different for all of them. In the old days they treated agents with respect. Some even have the right to some due process in front of a board of their peers.

Right now, it is anytime, for any reason. It's been that way for the past couple of contracts, but it wasn't used much in theory.

Now they use it all of the time.

 

[xrac]

At least the Allstate agents can try to sell their book at SF you didn't have that opportunity.

 

[AgentZ]

IMO they would rather the agents hired in 2004 and 2005 just go away. Probably 1500-2000 agents were hired then, the worst time to be an agent with this company. The agents before had a better deal and the agents 2006 and after get a better deal (first two years anyway). Maybe in the long term they have a 30 year plan to phase out all agents and they do it by making it where you can't make any real $. Leadership will lie to you. They dictated to us what was required as far as overhead and expenses and we all knew it, do it or no contract. Now they say we should have controlled our expenses more. Poston is such a liar and he doesn't care. He has his big house in Bloomington and his healthy salary and for doing what ? Lying to us and doing nothing for us.

 

[frmrTICA]

Z,

I do not believe they want you 04-05 guys to go away. I do not how vocal you guys are, or if they are having meetings with you to address your concerns as a group or not. Now they may wish if you guys are vocal about it for you to sit down and shut up...that is entirely possible.

There is good leadership and bad. Very good and very bad, and everything in between. Even with the good, however, they are powerless to adequately address agents in your position. Career suicide.

Make no mistake, this corporate culture is unique in it's fierce loyalty, but this trait can be very good if pointed in the right direction, or very detrimental if not. In the case of the Agency Opportunity, it is detrimental to say the least.

I think with you guys it was much more vocalized what their expectations are. I can't believe (they probably can't, either) that they were stupid enough to give out those projections. I can't believe they openly made you guys hire at that level and buy $30K furniture/office packages.

Nowawdays, the same holds true, the expectation is very much the same, they just don't put it on paper anymore. They still want you to do those things, but they've wised up and now it is wink/wink.........but there behind the scenes.

I don't know who Poston is, but IMO you'd be better off refraining from naming names or talking about his house and salary. Granted, you are more than welcome to your opinion, and I'm with you, but in the spirit of this thread, you message would be better served to those looking to commit like we did by giving out the kind of information that at least might have a chance to distill the very powerful Kool-Aide candidates have already drank.

Only reason I'm saying, there are a few other boards where people are trying to ask about the opportunity, and the extreme negativity from some causes the noobs to discount their opinions entirely, and thus the efforts for others to become better educated are entirely lost.

Not trying to beat up on you at all, please know that. I'm sure my negativity shows through fiercely all of the time. We wouldn't be human of we let the supreme disgust and total and complete destruction of the agency model that took this company to #1 not affect us.

IMO, they are looking for smart people with money to invest and kill themselves in pursuit of the American Dream.

Just not too smart.