| Topic Name: |
agency |
| Message Name: |
My Story II |
| Date Posted: |
03/08/2006 |
| In Reply To: |
I am extrememly interested in your experience from being motivated going into it (even the reasons of desperation)to being disenchanted and negative about the experience. I have had almost zero time with SF AFE's and AFC's. They have a developmental AFO during your training period now. I've had very little exposure to anyone leading in this compacity. I haven't had any company line crammed down my throat (yet). Being in business and having a library of business books, this is just how I talk.
If you could walk us down the agency road you took from training to agency to where you are now...and what changed along the way, I for one would be grateful.
For those of us that are going to do it regardless, I can see where you are coming from with the support structure, and you are probably closer to the truth then we would like to admit.
Hinging from that knowledge, could you advise what you would have done different to make it a better experience, and any suggestions that we could use to get us started on the right path/foot.
You had to have known agents that liked agency and what they did to continue to enjoy it, motivate themselves, and continue to challenge themselves. This is not in anyway a knock on you as everyone is just built differently.
Your time and experience is of great value here and I thank you in advance.... |
| Message: |
Back then, they appointed new agents when agents were planning on retiring. They would give you a small piece of the book of business to work as you developed your own book. I worked in the AFO while waiting for the agent to retire making cold calls at night collecting x-dates and during the day I scouted possible locations, hired and trained staff and did more cold calling. While still waiting for the agent to retire, my AFE thought it would be a good idea for me to move into another agent??s office. My staff and I moved and were there a little over a month when my AFE thought that my being in this office wasn??t a great idea and had me move into and share the same office as the future retiring agent.
My staff and I move again. He was a smoker and his office was absolutely disgusting. I soon learned that although he gave notice that he planned to retire, he wasn??t ready to vacate the premises. There was no where for me and my staff to sit or work, yet we were expected to sell and hit our production goals. I finally was able to locate a location for my office and oversaw the negotiating the lease and the office build out. After about a month the agent finally accepted that he was retiring. I started working his book of business, calling to introduce myself, set up FIC??s, meet with the client and probe for needs, make recommendations which always included life insurance, and use features and benefits to support our recommendations which were supposed to fulfill the needs I uncovered. When I think about it now I find the whole needs based system of selling life insurance pretty funny, yet sad. ??Tell me Mr. Johnson, would your family have enough money to maintain their current lifestyle, go to college etc if you up and kicked the bucket tomorrow??? I had one guy say ??what do I care, I??d be dead.?? I had another tell me that he didn??t want life insurance because he enjoyed life and ??didn??t want to tempt his wife.?? These were some real class people here. Anyone who did recognize a need either couldn??t get it because of health reasons (SF does very tight underwriting on their life policies and rates or rejects applicants other companies have programs for) or had a policy with a financial services house. Others had also been approached by the prior agent as well so they felt hounded to buy it. Of course I sold it but I had to go though a lot of prospects.
I finally moved into my office, but by that time I had my key staff person quit in frustration over the whole situation. Needless to say my production was not that great, but it wasn??t all that bad either. It was improving. By this time one of my peers had already been canned by his AFE and two others were on their way out as well because of low production. I had been in my new office for about 4 months and my production was just about where it should have been when I was sent packing by my AFE.
I had put in 2 years of my life and career only to get 7 months to prove myself, of which a good portion of that time was spent moving offices etc?? all of which were the consequences of my AFE??s poor decision making. The cherry on the cake was when I was moving out of the office, I took a bunch of promotion items I had purchased with my own money. My AFE accused me of stealing these items.
They put me back into the company and I quit SF about 9 months later. I got the royal shaft from my AFE and the VP of Agency knew it. Unfortunately he took the route of supporting my AFE and didn??t have the balls to go against her decision making.
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