Hello.I have a bit of a story to tell. I am going to post all the facts first and the extra stuff at the bottom for those who want to read about my background.
August 2018 I studied and got my Life and Health license for the state of Missouri. My Fiancé had an old friend who suggested a small local company I sign on with to begin my insurance sales career. I almost immediately signed on with them and took certifications for about 8 major MA, PDP, and med supp companies. I signed about 25 different contracts for all the major Medicare Health insurance companies in the area including about 12 life insurance companies. All having this company as my upline. Yes, I read the contract before I signed it, but I didn’t know what exactly it meant. I will attach the compensation page I agreed to.
So, I finish all the certifications and my other requirements by October 1st. This company sets all the appointments I can ask for. They had “Trainings”, but they mainly just taught about the great platform the company had designed for the industry. The company offers essentially everything from MA, Med Supps, PDP, ancillaries, WL, Term life, Morgage protection, FE, different kinds of annuities, etc... which I thought was great, but rebuttals, voice inflection, and all the points about salesmanship and presentations and approaching a customer weren’t taught as part of the program. Everything I learned about that was in the field. (I don’t mind learning in the field at all by the way, I just felt like I was paying a lot to be trained) They gave me an IPad with their platform, and I began running 4 to 5 appointments a day beginning Oct. 2nd. Since I didn’t really know anything about Medicare and I couldn’t sign anyone up with a plan anyway, at my appointments, I would sit in the house, I learned how to enter their meds on Medicare.gov, how to find the doctors in network, and then tell them that I would be back in two weeks when the plans come out and I’ll be able to get them into a great program. I rescheduled them in home and by October 15th, I had done it enough that I could navigate and translate medicare.gov, and I went back to all those houses and began selling policies. I did Medicare advantage only because I was getting food and comfortable at it, and I couldn’t figure out how to quote and sign people up with med supps and didn’t understand how to do the PDPs either. I ran about 6 appointments a day 5 days a week through most of aep, the last two weeks I ran 4 a day. The company would schedule the appts two hours apart. I sold 81 MA plans and about 20 HIP by the end of AEP. I really enjoyed it. After aep was over I was a bit lost because they began setting “Life” appointments for me, but I didn’t have the faintest clue about selling life insurance. My sales skills were not up to par and I couldn’t figure out how to sell them. Three months go by, I had very few appointments and some trainings were still continuing and I felt like I still couldn’t get the answers I needed. When I had questions I was bounced around in the company until I got tired of asking it. I couldn’t get anyone to take me on a couple rides so I could at least see what a life insurance close looked like. Come March 15th, I hadn’t had income for months, and my lawn care customers were blowing up my phone, like they do every year. So I started doing landscaping again. But winter is coming. I want to completely be successful in this business. I want to begin selling life insurance pretty, run a full blown aep again (learning med supps and pdps this year as well), and continue selling life, and ancillary products through the year instead of just being reduced to AEP. It seems this company I am with now is not interested in my full potential. I need someone who is. I’ll need some training and guidance, as I’ve only been in this business for 9 months, but usually if I see how someone does it, I can replicate it.
I’m looking for someone to teach me a successful way to sell.
I’m used to the concept of running a business from client communication, invoicing, scheduling, work orders, quotes, bids, the jobs themselves, purchasing equipment, equipment maintenance, managing irregular finances, etc. I am sure I am capable of completing all the business aspects in this industry as well, it is just quite different and I want to be taught how. I don’t mind paying, but I need to be learning HOW to do it.
I want to know what direction will allow me to really succeed. I don’t like limits.
The background story:
I was born and raised in St. Louis to a large, very conservative homeschooled family. I successfully started and ran my lawn care business for 12 years. I hired my siblings for the first 10 years and then proceeded to hire three people outside the family. I graduated high school a year early so I could spend more time running my business. From the time I was very young, so many of my customers would say to me, “You are such a hard worker.” and, “You shouldn’t work so hard” I was certainly a workaholic. I believed that if I worked hard enough, it would come back 100 fold. For the first 8 years of my business most of my customers had been hiring me for over 5 years. Two of my customers I still worked for 10 years later. I loved the relationsships I had with my customers. I never went to college, because by the time I was 22 my business was making over 50k per year, and I thought it would be a step back to take all that time away from my business to get a degree. Not that I think education is a waste. I loved school, but I didn’t want to sacrifice my business for it. The only issue with lawn care is I could no longer continue to grow at the rate I knew I was capable. It became quickly apparent that I had to hire and manage crews. I also needed much more capital and real estate than what I could do at the time. I approached several banks about loans for property I wanted to buy. Even though I would have hefty down payments, I was always turned down. I was 20 at the time and had never bought a car from a dealership, so I had no credit built up. My parents didn’t believe in co-signing, so I didn’t know what to do. Two years go by, I still buy my trucks and equipment locally, so I still don’t have “good credit”. I met my Fiancé and he spoke of Insurance Sales and how there is no limit to your production or clients based on the man power you have or how many trucks, etc. Seeing the insurance world was like a whole new universe. Instead of breaking my back and having calluses hands, I could work maybe in a different fashion than I was used to. I could work hard and make an income, but AT THE SAME TIME, be building residual income! That is exactly what I dreamed of. Work hard now, earn large rewards later.
Thanks everyone for reading! I can’t wait to be connected.
Michelle Commean
