Greetings,
I've got an interview with a California Farmers insurance team next week to fill the role of their Life Insurance agent. There are 3 agents in the office and none of them do currently do Life.
I wanted to talk to the experts (that is all of you
) to see what questions I should ask during the interview.
It's been 10 years since I let my license expire and I never actually spent any time in the industry so if you all could keep the terms as layperson as possible I would appreciate it.
A little back story:
After school I was planning on doing health insurance sales so I got my license. I ended up taking a position with a sales company that does consulting and face to face sales for various business to business product companies (non insurance). I've been with my employer 10 years now and I really enjoy my work. We do exclusively cold calling face to face canvassing stuff and I've worked my way up to manage a national team that is trending to bring in a large chunk of revenue into the parent company this year.
Even though I manage a group I like to pound the pavement solo for a few days every quarter to assess the real environment my sales reps are experiencing. It helps me coach them and drive the kind of results I want. At any rate, earlier last week I went to a Farmer's location to pitch my service products. I got along really well with the group of people that worked there and ended up closing them on my services.
In the midst of the discussion they asked if I'd ever thought about selling insurance. I mentioned that I used to have my Life/Health license and they told me that they really needed someone with my skills to work with them on Life. I've knocked on thousands of businesses in my tenure and many insurance groups have tried to recruit me (and have failed because I love my job and already make great money) but I really connected with the people working here. Our personalities just seemed to work together well and we found ourselves laughing nonstop.
Their pitch seemed too good to be true:
No one does Life (although the owner is licensed, she sticks to Health)
They are currently referring their customers to another firm across town when they want Life. If I were to join them they would give me all their leads/referrals/etc... for that type of insurance.
They encouraged me to keep my day job- since they said I could meet with clients during the evening hours.
The owner is awesome. She was in her 60's, owned the business since the early 80's, very professional and well spoken, and drives a pristine 1950's Chevy. She said her hobby was working on classic cars and she has personally restored around 40. She said a couple other things that I really liked about being frugal with the office space, her car, and her own living expenses. I've been around countless sales people/managers that spend ridiculous amounts of money on trivial objects instead of investing that money in their business. It was refreshing to talk to someone with her disposition.
We chatted briefly about commissions and she said she would give me 85% until she hit her bonus, then she would pay me 100% and she would just keep the bonus. (I am not too familiar with Insurance pay outs but this sounds great).
The owner said that she can sell other policies besides Farmers and I would have access to a substantial product set. Again, I'm not too savvy on the Insurance lingo but I imagine this is good also.
What do you all think? What should I ask/clarify when I meet them?
Thank you for your help.
I've got an interview with a California Farmers insurance team next week to fill the role of their Life Insurance agent. There are 3 agents in the office and none of them do currently do Life.
I wanted to talk to the experts (that is all of you
) to see what questions I should ask during the interview.It's been 10 years since I let my license expire and I never actually spent any time in the industry so if you all could keep the terms as layperson as possible I would appreciate it.
A little back story:
After school I was planning on doing health insurance sales so I got my license. I ended up taking a position with a sales company that does consulting and face to face sales for various business to business product companies (non insurance). I've been with my employer 10 years now and I really enjoy my work. We do exclusively cold calling face to face canvassing stuff and I've worked my way up to manage a national team that is trending to bring in a large chunk of revenue into the parent company this year.
Even though I manage a group I like to pound the pavement solo for a few days every quarter to assess the real environment my sales reps are experiencing. It helps me coach them and drive the kind of results I want. At any rate, earlier last week I went to a Farmer's location to pitch my service products. I got along really well with the group of people that worked there and ended up closing them on my services.
In the midst of the discussion they asked if I'd ever thought about selling insurance. I mentioned that I used to have my Life/Health license and they told me that they really needed someone with my skills to work with them on Life. I've knocked on thousands of businesses in my tenure and many insurance groups have tried to recruit me (and have failed because I love my job and already make great money) but I really connected with the people working here. Our personalities just seemed to work together well and we found ourselves laughing nonstop.
Their pitch seemed too good to be true:
No one does Life (although the owner is licensed, she sticks to Health)
They are currently referring their customers to another firm across town when they want Life. If I were to join them they would give me all their leads/referrals/etc... for that type of insurance.
They encouraged me to keep my day job- since they said I could meet with clients during the evening hours.
The owner is awesome. She was in her 60's, owned the business since the early 80's, very professional and well spoken, and drives a pristine 1950's Chevy. She said her hobby was working on classic cars and she has personally restored around 40. She said a couple other things that I really liked about being frugal with the office space, her car, and her own living expenses. I've been around countless sales people/managers that spend ridiculous amounts of money on trivial objects instead of investing that money in their business. It was refreshing to talk to someone with her disposition.
We chatted briefly about commissions and she said she would give me 85% until she hit her bonus, then she would pay me 100% and she would just keep the bonus. (I am not too familiar with Insurance pay outs but this sounds great).
The owner said that she can sell other policies besides Farmers and I would have access to a substantial product set. Again, I'm not too savvy on the Insurance lingo but I imagine this is good also.
What do you all think? What should I ask/clarify when I meet them?
Thank you for your help.
