The job
I sell life insurance, and I bring people in to do the same. I love this job. It is also harder than anybody posting about it will admit, and plenty of people who start it stop. You get both halves from me, in that order.
01 — THE WORK
What this is
I am an independent agent contracted through Family First Life. When someone buys a policy I recommend, the insurance company pays me a commission. That is the entire business model, and it is the same one you would be on.
You are not an employee. There is no salary, there are no benefits, and nobody is going to tell you what hours to work. That sounds like the good part. It is usually the hard part. You are a 1099 contractor running your own thing, and the whole of your income is commission on policies that actually get issued.
You cannot sell anything until you are licensed, and getting licensed costs you money and a couple of weeks before you have earned a penny. That is the first real filter and I would rather you hit it here than three conversations in.
The work, the person, the city
02 — THE PART NOBODY POSTS
Where my interest sits
If you join under me and you write business, I benefit from that. You should know it before you talk to me, not after, and you should weigh everything I tell you about this job against it.
I am telling you because the alternative is you finding out later, and because most of what you have seen about this industry does not tell you. If someone is recruiting you and has not said this out loud, that is information too.
03 — THE ORDER
How it actually goes
You ask questions
Message me and ask me the awkward ones. What does it cost, how long before anything happens, what do most people get wrong. I would rather spend an hour on that than have you quit in a month.
You get licensed
Your state exam, at your cost, on your time. In Texas that is a fairly short process and I have written the whole thing out. Nothing else can start until this is done.
You get contracted
Paperwork with the carriers you will write through. This is where the specifics of the arrangement get put in writing, and you should read them rather than skim them.
You start having conversations
This is the job. Not studying, not watching training, not posting. Talking to people about coverage, most of whom will say no. Everything else is preparation for this and most people never get past the preparation.
Ask me the awkward one
Whether you want to do this job or you are working out what cover you need, the first message is the same: tell me what is actually going on and I will tell you what I would do — including when the answer is that you should keep your money.