You know how moms are, right?
Lucky me, I’ve got one, too, and ever since I quit my job last year, she’s made it her mission in life to convince me to … sell life insurance. This, despite my many protestations that I literally blog about how to avoid unnecessary products, financial and otherwise.
Full disclosure: my mother is a semi-retired real estate broker / investor, but dabbles in a variety of side businesses, one of which is life insurance. Also, she loves me, wants me to eat, and all things being equal, would probably prefer I have some kind of job she can easily describe to her friends. Pretty sure this is why Asian parents want their kids to be doctors.
To be fair, I don’t have anything against life insurance. Or any other kind of insurance really. In fact, I think insurance is rather important. Not such a big fan of the sell part. Even though I buy what seems like a lot of insurance, I don’t know that anyone has ever sold me any. Good insurance agents take the time to find out exactly what your needs are and then share—not sell—the best product. After all, with a little bit of education, the right product should sell itself, right?
Turns out my aversion to the industry was exactly why my mother thought I should be doing it—it’d be difficult, if not downright impossible, for me not to educate people about what they were buying. She was just using the wrong word. Forgive her—English is her second language.
Canny septuagenarian that she is, she upped the ante by switching from nudging me via text to sell share life insurance to inviting me to join her at the annual three-day agent kick-off meeting convened by her general agency. Also, did she mention the meeting was in February in California and she’d be happy to pay for my airfare and babysitting?
Always fun to find out, isn’t it, exactly what your price is 😆?
In my defense, you know how I feel about free food and lodging … and winter in Wisconsin. Worst case, I’d eat hotel breakfasts—the best!—hang out with my mom, and get a blog post or two out of the trip (All the Secrets Insurance Salespeople Don’t Want You to Know!). This particular general agency’s agents work primarily with Asian clients so I’d likely get to practice my Mandarin Chinese, too.
A bit of background here about insurance sales. Most insurance sales are done through agents, either captive ones who sell the insurance of one carrier, say State Farm, or independent agents who can sell the products of many different companies, those of carriers from Allianz to Zurich. A general agency—such as the one whose meeting I would be sitting through—recruits, trains, and supports a network of independent agents in exchange for a small share of their commissions from policies sold.
The fact that my mom managed to finagle a ticket and lodging for me from the company even though I don’t actually have an insurance license (yet?) tells you a lot about who’s likely doing well in this set up.
Having worked in a lot of companies, the three-day meeting was pretty much what you’d expect from a big once-a-year gathering of far-flung associates—part training, part pep rally, part insurance carrier beauty pageant, their reps touting new and improved products and distributing branded swag (thank you, Global Atlantic, for my new Yeti tumbler).
F. Scott Fitzgerald once said, The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. I’m probably not smart enough to ever sell you insurance, but I can probably manage to share it with you.
Make sure you ask lots of questions.