I Am Thinking of Making a Career Change to Insurance

[tn6301]

I am 27 years old and have been in the car business since 2001. i don't have a college degree but i completed 70 hours of course work in business managment. i have been sucessful in car sales. have been a sales manager and every other manager you can think of. i have a lot of sales experience.
am tired of working everyday and dealerships are cutting commisions and drops and money making ability is taking a huge hit. my back ground is trucks and luxury cars lexus/cadillac. i have talked to colonial life, aflac, mutual of omaha. i have also sent my resume to mass mutual and to northwestern mutual. any advice? what other companys should i look at? i live outside of birmingham al. i have alot of contacts in b'ham, anniston, talladega, pell city and gasden.
i am looking at work site and employee benifts and also life and financial planning.

 

[Mark]

I am 27 years old and have been in the car business since 2001. i don't have a college degree but i completed 70 hours of course work in business managment. i have been sucessful in car sales. have been a sales manager and every other manager you can think of. i have a lot of sales experience.
am tired of working everyday and dealerships are cutting commisions and drops and money making ability is taking a huge hit. my back ground is trucks and luxury cars lexus/cadillac. i have talked to colonial life, aflac, mutual of omaha. i have also sent my resume to mass mutual and to northwestern mutual. any advice? what other companys should i look at? i live outside of birmingham al. i have alot of contacts in b'ham, anniston, talladega, pell city and gasden.
i am looking at work site and employee benifts and also life and financial planning.

It looks like you wish to go captive. Have you also thought about going independent? I think you need to talk to come captive agents and also talk to some independent agents. I know a lot of agents that started off captive and quickly switched to independent.

I think that the captive companies are getting flooded by new green agents. This allows them to be more picky on who they will accept. They can pick from the large group of agents. If they take you, they will have you write apps on your friends and family and as soon as you run out of people you know, you will be out the door. The good captive companies will not need or want a brand new agent. Times have changed. Captive companies use to be good for new agents trying to get support. I like the fact that they were hard on new agents and made you do the things you should do as an agent. They put a lot of pressure on you to produce.

From what I read you are already good at sales. For the post part, sales is sales. If you are what I call a people person, then you should be okay. If you are willing to read everything that you can get a hold of and do your homework you will be fine. Don't reinvent the wheel. There are tons of season agents on the forum that are willing to help you. Call some of them and allow them to show what they are doing or to point you in the right direction.

 

[DJM]

Hello and welcome to the forum.

I agree with Mark, talk to some agents, both captive and independent, get some advice, hear their stories,ect. I am just coming off of being captive myself, and as far as l&h goes, I think its best to get some experience and then go independent. or if you want to start independent , find an agent to mentor you and help you out, which will usually be your GA or MGA,ect. Selling insurance isnt a whole lot different then selling cars, really the only difference is that you have to go find prospects in insurance, while they come to you for buying cars. if you have any questions or anything, shoot me an email, and I will see if I can help you out.

 

[tn6301]

Thanks, guys for the response. I am not against going independent at all. I just don't know that much about it.

you know anything about colonial life? i think they are what you call a semi captive company because they only sell to business's and payroll deduction. i can be independent with individual life insurance sales. or at least that is what they are telling me

 

[srdirusa]

Letterman is awesome!

 

[geminiman_61]

Colonial Life is not captive. You are indy and can sell it on the side as much or as little as you need/want to.