Hola from Texas

[georgetx]

Well, thank you for the kind words of encouragement. My main drawback right now is that I'm a contract employee in another field, but it may end soon and I'll be cranking away at this full time. Funny you mention STI, I've always wanted to have lunch with him. He's only one neighborhood away from me, too! My favorite line of his (here) was about the stick he uses to get people to fill out their applications lol

 

[Expat]

So many nice replies, thank you!
Thank you Expat, like the screen sharing advice. Is that an option you offer.. the screen share vs visit? How often is the screen share really necessary?

Just ask people whiich method they prefer.
Over a five year period around .01% of my clients chose to have me come and visit. Most people would rather roll around in cow sh** than have to talk to an agent face to face.
The desk top sharing app, is very very useful as you can go over the plan, answer questions etc. But most importantly you can give control to them so that they can sign the application using their own computer (CYA)
I use mikogo, it's free.
PS: Scotts stick story is totall bs. I know he lives in Austin, but that is still in Texas, and who brings a stick to a gunfight.

 

[cyberskeet]

I am looking to make a career change from
Mortgage to insurance. No I am not going to do both, luckily my wife is a LO so she can just write loans for any of my personal referrals that will still trickle in.

I am really liking what liberty mutual is pitching me and I believe it because its a friend of mine and he wouldn't sugar coat it.

Obviously being new to the industry it would be hard to go independent (which I understand is the best way to go if you know what your doing.)

Do any of the Texas folks have recommendations for a new guy? I need serious training and I would think most independent brokers are more focussed on their production than someone that needs training. So starting with a captive as a newbie is probably a good idea so I can get my
License and learn product and industry knowledge.

Here is what I know about their set up. They have been around for I believe 100 years on the dot but maybe a few years out from that milestone according to an angry man on a job review board

But regardless that is impressive and shows me they are in fact doing
Something right. You work your own circle of influence a little but you certainly are not cold calling. They self generate leads but also their managers print out hot lead lists to call. Like people's who's car insurance is about to expire, clients that have auto but not home or life. Ect. So the leads are pretty warm since some of the
Clients I saw in his database go all the way back to 1970 and
Probably further. Also they have support people on site (guess they are called support) but they apparently are very well versed in convincing them to talk to an agent about lowering a premium, renewing a premium, or ideally cross selling them some expensive whole life policy


So here's the deal. 45k base to start during the first 4 months, then it starts tapering off because the way it's structured you should have a good pipeline by 4 months. Because during training it sounds like they want you to call you personal sphere of influence
And let them know I'm about to be licensed. So it's not like you finish training and just have one extra month of the better salary. You already have some what of a pipeline.

I forgot to reiterate my concern today weather or not that 45k is in fact
Salary or a
Draw because that's a
Big difference. Already emailed my buddy a little while ago.

Anyways 12 weeks
Paid training and even after training they still give you 4k your first month on the phones.

I didn't get many commission rates except for what
My niche will
Be and that is hazard insurance to cover the house and term life to cover the mortgage if one spouse dies. At that point they should be putty in your hand. The HOI commission is 7.5 % and I heard 10% is usually what companies pay but with all the intangible benefits I get from things
Like like training and endless warm/hot leads, and advanced marketing and most impressive
To Me is there technology. the system of record that they use looks bery user friedly, web-based and i was suprised about much you can learn about someone's auto insurance and apparently zillow helps ma down how many bedrooms it is and stuff like that.

I can Spare. 25 bps for all that extra hell and training.

My buddy at LB has all sorts of commission tracking spreadsheets and internal stuff but he showed me one spread sheet that I got very excited about. Its all the deals just one referral source sent and he Close over 80% of them sent but i bet he cross sold the **** out of them.

He closed enough Home owners/hazard insurance to get three grand off just that product and on LO. not a lot of money but you'll see why I was impressed now. First of all that was for just one of his many products, but that spreadsheet was from one
Mortgage banker. He allways up sells and cross sales and beefs up that three k, and of course he had the internal leads galore.

If he can make 3k a month in March ( purchase season doesn't really get full speed going till the summer so they are expecting more this summer) one freaking loan officer! Shoot I have 1700 or so LinkedIn contacts and they are all either mortgage
Bankers or realtors. Granted some of us are just friends on the net and lots if them live out of state but if I scroll through my iPhone contacts I see about 40 people that would without a question send me their client for a quote.

Also I wanted one more opinion and I guess it falls under respa. Insurance agents obviously give kick back or gift to anyone. I'v done a little research and it sounds like your industry has to do what we do and we call it an ABA or MSA. That legally allows you to pay them for an office or cobranded marketing or our flyers in their office.

I'm wondering of my buddy is right about respa and having to set up ABA's. I have several large non
Bank Mortgage Companies who are now run by the old countrywide boys I made a killing under.

So I could potentially get a huge scale operation if one of they will sign a
MSA.

I'm just looking for advice and affirmation. At some point I probably will want to buy some leads from you guys and also spend some seriously money on an seo site.

Let me know what you think about the plan. Thanks up and sorry for reading this.



So let me