NAA or Look Away?

...I agree with alot of what you said except the only important part... it can be extremely profitable. They have several millionaires and countless $100k producers, which is far beyond the results of most companies. Their model works, but tbere are definitely better options for more savvy business builders.

So they say at all of the conventions. Most of those folks are actually barely paying their lead bills after all of the "lead overrides". Just ask their ex National Sales Director who is now at Securus.

I observed it first hand when I was there. My agency manager often claimed to make $200k-$300k. They were featured at all of the conventions. It turns out they were barely scratching out a living.
 
...I agree with alot of what you said except the only important part... it can be extremely profitable. They have several millionaires and countless $100k producers, which is far beyond the results of most companies. Their model works, but tbere are definitely better options for more savvy business builders.

I know this is my first or second post and doesn't carry much weight..I've been lurking for about a year as I learned more about the business - my dad & grandpa both were life agents and pounded how important learning from successful agents is..but I am very familiar with MLMs and have limited experience with NAA. When I saw this statement from Joeseph I had to reply. It's statements like these from MLM companies that deceive uninformed people blinded by the idea of quadrupling their income into joining companies without the skills required to succeed, setting them up to fail.

So they say at all of the conventions. Most of those folks are actually barely paying their lead bills after all of the "lead overrides". Just ask their ex National Sales Director who is now at Securus.

I observed it first hand when I was there. My agency manager often claimed to make $200k-$300k. They were featured at all of the conventions. It turns out they were barely scratching out a living.

Steve, you hit the nail on the head. The problem isn't giving people the hope or opportunity to earn more money, those are good things. It's that those income figures are wildly inflated, and therefore deceptive, because they are gross income, not net. Once you take out the extremely high expenses like leads, a myriad of training & motivational materials, gas & travel, conferences, clubs, etc. then their net income goes down to paltry levels, barely enough to live on.

MLM-truth.org compiles industry and company stats, and groups NAA with other companies in which only about 0.1% of reps actually make a livable income, and only 0.04% - those at the VERY top - make the kinds of money advertised at "opportunity meetings", conferences, and websites. The odds of someone just getting into the business passing 99.96% of the agent force is statistically absurd. The rest of the so-called millionaires and 100k+ earners are just a lie, smoke and mirrors to show the illusion of success: the "fake-it til you make-it" crowd.

The other problem is that if what you say is true, and those agents theoretically did net $100+ incomes, NAA's results still wouldn't be "far beyod the results of most other companies". For example, I have the income breakdowns for two Career GA's in my state, one shares Michigan with to other GA's from their company (my dad's former firm). Both have average producer incomes of $125k per year. The first has top 25% of incomes in the $300 range, and top 5% above $1m (roughly 500 producers). For the second, the Top 1,000 (33%) make about $250, Top 500 earn $375k, and Top 50 earn $1m on average per year. As far as the one's I've talked to, the independents have similar average producer incomes. I can't speak to indys selling mainly FE & Mortgage/term life, but unless I'm totally missing something, I'd assume that successful agents can expect to see similar incomes or they'd move into higher paying markets, which isn't happening around me. Regardless, I can't see how NAA is "far beyond the results of most companies".

Now, I have no way of knowing exactly how many people in NAA truly bring home 6 or 7 figure incomes, though I'd be more interested in the number who net these amounts. For the sheer size of NAA, if it's anything like you say I'd say the results aren't great, and average producer compensation, even excluding part-time agents, is not $100+ or the turnover rate wouldn't be so high or reputation so poor with agents.

I don't mean to offend or attack you personally, and agree that it is possible to make money with NAA if expenses are kept minimal. Usually when the MLMers I know talk about how much Reps can make they're just repeating what they were told by their upline, website, at a convention, etc. and aren't trying to deceive anyone. If NAA or any other MLM works for you, generates positive net income, and makes you happen then more power to you, I wish you success!

However, the "fake-it til you make-it" self-deception can run deep; a friend of mine from grade school has done several MLM opportunities, and asked one day to meet with me because he expects a to be making a huge, I mean HUGE amount of money within the next year (about $100k per month personal income) from his newest MLM.

The first thing he tells me is he wants to sell his restaurant that he's owned for 8 years, at a loss, for less than he makes in annual profits because he doesn't "need it anymore", which I said was nuts. Well, after looking over his MLM income and savings, I politely told him he'd be absolutely insane to sell: he hadn't even turned a profit yet, despite being fairly successful by company standards. He was so convinced that his $1.2mil annual income was coming within the year, despite having lost money at the time, that he was willing to throw his profit-generating business for about 75% annual profits.

That's the self-deceptive power of MLMs and their manipulated, deceitful income figures. I just want to make it clear for prospective NAA agents looking for more information on the opportunity what those figures really represent, and hopefully save one or two from a truckload of debt and risking their careers.
 
I know this is my first or second post and doesn't carry much weight..I've been lurking for about a year as I learned more about the business - my dad & grandpa both were life agents and pounded how important learning from successful agents is..but I am very familiar with MLMs and have limited experience with NAA. When I saw this statement from Joeseph I had to reply. It's statements like these from MLM companies that deceive uninformed people blinded by the idea of quadrupling their income into joining companies without the skills required to succeed, setting them up to fail.



Steve, you hit the nail on the head. The problem isn't giving people the hope or opportunity to earn more money, those are good things. It's that those income figures are wildly inflated, and therefore deceptive, because they are gross income, not net. Once you take out the extremely high expenses like leads, a myriad of training & motivational materials, gas & travel, conferences, clubs, etc. then their net income goes down to paltry levels, barely enough to live on.

MLM-truth.org compiles industry and company stats, and groups NAA with other companies in which only about 0.1% of reps actually make a livable income, and only 0.04% - those at the VERY top - make the kinds of money advertised at "opportunity meetings", conferences, and websites. The odds of someone just getting into the business passing 99.96% of the agent force is statistically absurd. The rest of the so-called millionaires and 100k+ earners are just a lie, smoke and mirrors to show the illusion of success: the "fake-it til you make-it" crowd.

The other problem is that if what you say is true, and those agents theoretically did net $100+ incomes, NAA's results still wouldn't be "far beyod the results of most other companies". For example, I have the income breakdowns for two Career GA's in my state, one shares Michigan with to other GA's from their company (my dad's former firm). Both have average producer incomes of $125k per year. The first has top 25% of incomes in the $300 range, and top 5% above $1m (roughly 500 producers). For the second, the Top 1,000 (33%) make about $250, Top 500 earn $375k, and Top 50 earn $1m on average per year. As far as the one's I've talked to, the independents have similar average producer incomes. I can't speak to indys selling mainly FE & Mortgage/term life, but unless I'm totally missing something, I'd assume that successful agents can expect to see similar incomes or they'd move into higher paying markets, which isn't happening around me. Regardless, I can't see how NAA is "far beyond the results of most companies".

Now, I have no way of knowing exactly how many people in NAA truly bring home 6 or 7 figure incomes, though I'd be more interested in the number who net these amounts. For the sheer size of NAA, if it's anything like you say I'd say the results aren't great, and average producer compensation, even excluding part-time agents, is not $100+ or the turnover rate wouldn't be so high or reputation so poor with agents.

I don't mean to offend or attack you personally, and agree that it is possible to make money with NAA if expenses are kept minimal. Usually when the MLMers I know talk about how much Reps can make they're just repeating what they were told by their upline, website, at a convention, etc. and aren't trying to deceive anyone. If NAA or any other MLM works for you, generates positive net income, and makes you happen then more power to you, I wish you success!

However, the "fake-it til you make-it" self-deception can run deep; a friend of mine from grade school has done several MLM opportunities, and asked one day to meet with me because he expects a to be making a huge, I mean HUGE amount of money within the next year (about $100k per month personal income) from his newest MLM.

The first thing he tells me is he wants to sell his restaurant that he's owned for 8 years, at a loss, for less than he makes in annual profits because he doesn't "need it anymore", which I said was nuts. Well, after looking over his MLM income and savings, I politely told him he'd be absolutely insane to sell: he hadn't even turned a profit yet, despite being fairly successful by company standards. He was so convinced that his $1.2mil annual income was coming within the year, despite having lost money at the time, that he was willing to throw his profit-generating business for about 75% annual profits.

That's the self-deceptive power of MLMs and their manipulated, deceitful income figures. I just want to make it clear for prospective NAA agents looking for more information on the opportunity what those figures really represent, and hopefully save one or two from a truckload of debt and risking their careers.


I went through this repeatedly with another poster not too long ago so I'm not going to get into another debate but if you know about MLM's as you claim then you would know that NAA is not one. They are an insurance IMO. They are no more of an MLM than any other IMO.

There are certainly better IMO's for the agent to chose from than NAA but that doesn't make them something they are not.
 
I went through this repeatedly with another poster not too long ago so I'm not going to get into another debate but if you know about MLM's as you claim then you would know that NAA is not one. They are an insurance IMO. They are no more of an MLM than any other IMO.

There are certainly better IMO's for the agent to chose from than NAA but that doesn't make them something they are not.

I believe what makes them a "MLM" where other IMOs are not is that NAA requires you to recruit and build to move up to a semi-decent contract. In that past you have even acknowledged that is what drove you to leave. They push recruiting more so than they do producing. Most IMOs push producing. They share the same similarities as any other MLM out there. Opportunity meetings, conventions, pushing recruiting, etc.
 
They have several millionaires and countless $100k producers, which is far beyond the results of most companies


Not true at all.

Every major captive out there has lots of $100k producers. They also all have $1mill+ producers.

That is hardly unique to NAA. And I will bet my next commission that NYL, MM, Guardian, Met, LFG, ON all have many more $1mill+ producers than NAA has.

And at the major IMOs a $100k per year producer is nothing special at all.

Overall in the life insurance world, there are far less big producers at NAA than at other IMOs or companies.
While at NYL I met an agent that was going to bring in around $10mill for the year... his best year was $15mill. And he wasnt even the top producer for the company.

NAA might tell you they are special... and they are... just not in a good way!
 
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I believe what makes them a "MLM" where other IMOs are not is that NAA requires you to recruit and build to move up to a semi-decent contract. In that past you have even acknowledged that is what drove you to leave. They push recruiting more so than they do producing. Most IMOs push producing. They share the same similarities as any other MLM out there. Opportunity meetings, conventions, pushing recruiting, etc.

They do not "require" you to recruit. I never recruited while I was with them. They wanted me to recruit and to attend the rah rah meeting but I didn't do either.

Nor was I fired by them. I left of my own accord.
 
I went through this repeatedly with another poster not too long ago so I'm not going to get into another debate but if you know about MLM's as you claim then you would know that NAA is not one. They are an insurance IMO. They are no more of an MLM than any other IMO.

There are certainly better IMO's for the agent to chose from than NAA but that doesn't make them something they are not.


Idk how you could NOT call NAA a MLM scheme!?

I spoke to a NAA "agent" just the other day. She tried to recruit me to her "team" lol.
She was 2 weeks into NAA.
Had no Insurance License yet, and knew next to nothing about life insurance.

Yet NAA had this yet to be licensed "agent" out recruiting a team to work under her!

While it might not be a traditional MLM scheme. It is certainly the Insurance Industry's version of a MLM scheme.

Idk what else you would call an IMO that focuses on recruiting more than selling.

And while NAA is technically an IMO, they are not like any other IMO out there. No other IMO will tell a yet to be licensed agent to go out and recruit agents for their "team". Its a joke.
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They do not "require" you to recruit. I never recruited while I was with them. They wanted me to recruit and to attend the rah rah meeting but I didn't do either.

Nor was I fired by them. I left of my own accord.

Yes, but they push new agents to recruit more than they push them to sell.

While you might not have drank the cool-aid, it doesnt mean they werent serving it up by the gallon.

And from what I hear they focus a lot more on the recruiting now than they used to. I have spoke to many NAA agents or potential recruits around my area. All of them were pushed to recruit more than they were pushed or taught to sell.
 
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I am not familiar with the current NAA model. I went to a meeting many years ago and I know something was wrong. The biggest draw previously was to write life insurance as mortgage protection and do it at a lower commission. I went into the senior market but have since been able to reproduce their mortgage leads on my own. If you are looking to do Mortgage protection there are better ways. As with any business start up you will have to invest time and money and I would recommend being trained by somebody. If you are considering NAA then message me and I might be able to help. No...I am not selling anything and don't have a downline.
 
I am a exp. Appointment Setter who has called for NAA, their leads are SOOOOO Old, older than dirt.

The top dog is the one who will get the good, Warm leads, the agents who are just starting out will get the leftovers.

Trust me, I have tried calling for 3 differant agents in 3 differant states, it is impossible to set appts. So I did some investigating on my own, I have been told this from other agents about NAA leads.

They can't keep their appt setters, they are hireing all the time.
If you are going to call for yourself Good Luck.

If I were you too many good agencies out there, find another one. :mad:
 
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