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There are plenty of shenanigans both inside and outside the insurance world.
Is it just me, or should this be of any concern?
- Thread starter titeye
- Start date
UKTX
Super Genius
- 203
People move to get something better. At least in their eyes.....
I don't think I've ever been in an organization where there isn't drama....of one kind or another.
I don't think I've ever been in an organization where there isn't drama....of one kind or another.
- 5,938
There are plenty of shenanigans both inside and outside the insurance world.
Why is it that sales folks are always so eager to buy...
- 7,137
Perhaps they are modelling behavior they wish their prospects would exhibit.
- 17,077
OK I'll bite. I'll lay out the true story. I've heard so many crazy speculations that are much more ready for the big screen than what really happened. No real drama. Just stuff that led up to the formation of Fex and 360.
This was all stuff back before there was a FexContracting or a 360 Financial. Brad and I were friends. And Travis an I were friends. Travis had never cared for Brad.
In those days Brad's dream was to build an agency. I was happy doing just what I had always done which was sell insurance. Travis had an agency going but he was completely under EFES which he liked the guys at EFES but it greatly limited his control to use the companies that he wanted and to shop for higher commission levels.
We each had a piece of the puzzle. I had hundreds of agents contacting me every week needing assistance with cases and advice about getting into the biz. I had recently built the FexContracting site to try to make some of these agents questions and send them to places to contract without getting screwed. Initially my site was going to reflect the companies on Adam's new FexQuote tool which had around eight companies at that time. The Settlers would contract under me, a couple that Brad had good contracts on went to Brad and others probably went to Todd King or other people that I felt were a good place for those contracts.
This whole time Brad was pitching me hard to partner up with him and build an agency. He had gotten recruiting contracts with a few companies but couldn't get most of the key players yet because he had no production. I had several good companies throwing good contracts at me due to I had many years experience as one of the top PreNeed Funeral agents. But I didn't want downline agents so I was wasting those opportunities.
Then the 5-Star Life deal changed everything. Travis had one of only 5 distribution contracts with 5-Star. And he really couldn't do anything with it because of his deal with EFES. He felt it was a great product and it was basically sitting on a shelf. No one heard of it. And no one was promoting it. So he refers the 5-Star management to me. They give me the contract. I start writing it and it was crazy good. This was a different time and a different world. But it was so much easier to work with than any other company before or sense. It had everything. Great commissions. Great renewals. Great rates. Took debit express AND advanced commissions. Point of sale phone interview was completely optional. Aggressive underwriting. And the worst thing any company could do to itself...no MIB or script check. This was a red hot product and NO AGENT had it.
So after I field tested it I popped it out on the insurance forum. And the world went crazy. Contracts were flying in. I had to slow them down by only giving 50% advances. But I was up to midnight every night shuffling papers after selling insurance all day.
Brad tried to get a deal with 5-Star but they wouldn't take him. They are already starting to grow too fast he didn't have anything going at that time. He was just one of hundreds of guys calling them that wanted it. But they were keeping distribution to just us original five.
So Brad goes under me with 5-Star. I put him 5-points down from me and he's promoting it and building his agency with it. But he's scaring me to death. I'm being very selective about agent's I will accept. If they have credit or background issues I turn them away. Brad is signing up anyone and everyone. He had no concerns at all. This was a big problem to me. I had worked for decades to build up a pretty sizable net worth. And I'm the ultimate co-signer on all these questionable guys on a 5-point spread? And my only buffer was Brad? I don't know Brad's personal finances and I'm sure he is very wealthy today, but back then I'm pretty certain it wouldn't have taken very much debt roll ups to knock him right out. So I had concerns.
So I come up with the plan to approach 5-Star about separating Brad's agency from mine and putting us at equal contracts which we took their top commission level that I had turned down before because I didn't want to commit to that level of production. But combined we were blowing past that.
So now the deal changed to instead of Brad being under me he is a separate agency with the same commission level and I am going to refer most of the agent traffic to him. I wanted to build a small group of high level producers under me but not recruit the masses and not get out of the field myself. (Believe it or not I was always a very high income producer and really never wanted to get out of the field. I also never believed I could make as much money out of the field as I could in it. ) I was going to send the agents to Brad. He was going to pay me a 10% over ride just based on a handshake agreement. He had secured some additional good contracts and I had helped him with some other ones that I had.
So now we are clicking along that way. And all is good. We announced that Brad was now a part of FexContracting which was just the website and brand that was getting all the traffic. In reality the contracting was all going under Brad (I don't think he was using the 360 name yet he was going under the name WIN. At that time 360 Financial was actually some guys up in a Chicago that Brad had done some annuity business with.)
But a short time later, we get contacted by someone with a lot of clout in the industry that heard that we partnered up and were forming an agency. He wanted to invest in us and he had some fantastic industry connections that would be very valuable. I'm not at liberty to say who it was but it was a huge opportunity for us. So OK now with this development we decide we are going to formalize the whole thing and put Brad at 40% me at 40% and the investor at 20%.
Right about that time Travis let me know that he is open to leaving EFES. He was getting frustrated there and was going to just build his own agency. And he was the missing piece of what we needed. Even though I have been very successful selling, I'll be the first to admit that I'm not a great trainer. I've never followed a script or even a standard format. I just go in every appointment and start having conversations. It works great for me but it's not teachable to new agents with little industry knowledge. Travis was the best I'd ever met. The comparisons to Bobby Knight are spot on. People love him or hate him but he has trained, coached and mentored more top performing FE producers than anyone else that I'm aware of. He lays out a repeatable system. And he's great at telling people exactly what they need to hear.
So now we are bringing in Travis into our deal too. So we get together at my office for our 1st formal meeting. It goes pretty well but it was obvious to me from that 1st meeting that Travis and I were more on the same page than Brad was. As our stuff progressed over the next few weeks it felt more and more to me like when I was getting married to my 1st wife. I knew I had a little voice telling me this was not a good match but I already felt committed. That marriage ended in a divorce.
So with Brad I had to make that uncomfortable phone call. But it was better than getting into a partnership that had issues from the get go. I left him with a flood of agents and some contracts that he needed and I've always felt that I set him up for his initial success. Any contempt that I had toward Brad over those next couple of years was because I did not feel that he showed any appreciation for what I had done for him. But we had a few years of not getting along which was mainly fueled by a couple of shit stirring agent's that were with us during those years that fought back and fourth with Brad's main recruiter. Those were the forum wars and they were highly entertaining.
Brad and I met up at a convention a few ears ago and it was like old times. Swapping stories, laughing and very appreciative of how things turned out for both of us. We are still competitors and we would both love to run the other out of business! But I don't think we are the arch enemies that many people think we are. We have both built agencies that we are very proud of.
Life is very good. I don't spend a day of it being mad at anyone.
- Thread starter
- #16
- 7,012
Man that seems like so long ago, but it really wasn't. I remember those days though. I thought Brad had another partner back then??
It was like a divorce. Getting calls from both of y'all trying to decide which way to go. I had no idea either.
Didn't Brad have RGI then too. I remember writing a bunch of 5 Star off some DM leads back then.
It was like a divorce. Getting calls from both of y'all trying to decide which way to go. I had no idea either.
Didn't Brad have RGI then too. I remember writing a bunch of 5 Star off some DM leads back then.
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Didn't you wind up going to one of the gilted lovers from there? . Then one of the Playas put your and Thad's financial deals on blast. Or was the 'you live in a trailer down by the river' guy?
Man, the forum was on Fire back then.
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Yeah. I was not the live in a trailer guy...
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