| Topic Name: |
agency |
| Message Name: |
Thanks... |
| Date Posted: |
03/08/2006 |
| In Reply To: |
When I ??pathed back?? as they called it then, I was immediately approached my another AFE who wanted me to join his team as an agent. By that time I just wanted out and was done with it all. At the time I recognized that this was a turning point in my career and remember saying to myself that I would know in 5 years whether I was better or worse for the situation.
It has been close to 7 years now and I can say being fired was probably the best situation for me. I??ve kept in pretty close contact with my peers I went through the program with and strongly believe that I am in a much better situation not only financially, but also in my personal life as well.
After leaving SF I started my own business with several partners, who I bought out after a couple years. I ran the business on my own and ended up selling the business after 5 years of ownership. Currently I am part of a partnership in the process of purchasing another business. We are in transaction now and should have complete ownership in a year or two. In addition, my family is intact while several of my peers have had divorces and others from what I understand are on the verge.
The reason why I advocate caution when approaching becoming an agent with SF is because you are investing $30K of your own money as well as a great about of time and effort. It is not a guarantee, and like my situation, poor management or location can play a huge role in your success or failure.
You really need to know what you are getting into. The majority of your sales will be geared toward financial products. So why not just get appointed with Edward Jones? You will be building a book of business on your own. Why not open your own shop and get appointed with Safeco, Allied, Progressive, Unitrin/Kemper. The benefit is that by going this route you will build equity in what you build and can sell it when you are ready to retire. This is a huge benefit!
Hope this helps.
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| Message: |
Thank you very much for your story and reply. Wow, that whole situation really sucks!!! At least you were able to pull some worth from the training.
My situation is very different from yours. The agency I'm taking over is an E.S.P. office. No agent, he already retired. The staff there is one from his office that I like, and two that I had referred to the E.S.P. office to hire. They are licensed (by SF) and I had a lot of imput on where the new office was placed. The furniture, computers, sign etc. were paid for by the esp office fund. The office is 5-10 minutes from were I grew up.
My area has no current restrictions on any products and my A.F.E. calls to bounce any idea he has off me for the office before moving forward. He doesn't have to, but he does.
I already have focused certian team memebers towards specialization and the courses and classes they need for that. (also all paid for)
I've looked into it, and Edward Jones pays a lower commission then SF on financial products and you only have about a third of the products (overall) to sell.
Progressive and Gieco pay by the hour (salary for managers) and it really isn't much. I've thought about being independent but the trade off in marketing and advertizing is a no thinker.
The book of business I'm taking over is rather large. They don't break it up like they used to because they don't spoon feed your bills anymore when starting. They say to come in with 30k, but all the agents I've talked to say I will only use about 15k and that's not a big deal really. They give you an 18k walk-on bonus when you open your doors to help. So one month later I will start getting checks from the original book of business for overhead.
The agent I'm taking over for had no financial services licenses, so that decent size book is wide open for that. Matter of fact the team members are telling me that in-book customers ask almost everyday if I'm going to offer those services when I take over.
My wife and I started with nothing and built a business from the ground up that made almost a million dollars in sales the first year. As far as the strain of starting a new business and the time investment requirements it takes is nothing new to us. Pressure has only made my marriage stronger through the process. Since our first business we started two others that we have managed by others that are doing fairly well. We couldn't live off of them yet, but they pull about 20-25k a year profit after expenses.
I will most likely sell them in the next three years.
Like I've said before, I'm very involved in the community. I have hardly told anyone about what I'm getting into and I still get about two calls a day from other business owners wanting to know when I can start signing them. I've seen the numbers of what my AFE wants me to hit. I use to sell telecommunications in a completely cut throat business both from within and without and those numbers look like something I could almost do in my spare time.
All of my bills are paid through my other business. So if this doesn't work out, then like you, I'll have pulled some free...mark that...paid training and knowledge. If it does work out, then everything I make will be invested A. for my kids college B. my retirement. So my situation is a little differnt from yours. I really don't see what I have to lose since in reality I can walk away anytime I want.
Back to your point about selling the business or book later. If any of you are right about everything going internet, then there wouldn't be anything to sell in about 20-30 years anyway....
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