On Friday I turned down a job opportunity. And it feels right, despite being in my 4th month of unemployment.
Well, if you can call an insurance company partner wanting me to move to the next step selling insurance a potential job. Commission only. I met the partner at an Over 50 job fair as I was exiting the pretty-much-a-waste-of-time event. It was the seventh insurance company looking for sales people at the fair. But I knew and respected this company; I had done consulting for it in what now seems like a previous life.
The partner saw me slow down, just a tad I suppose, and started a conversation. We spoke for a few minutes about my background, exchanged business cards, and she said it would be great to meet and discuss whether selling insurance could be my next career.
The next week I visited her office to get the pitch, er explore the opportunity. “What did you think about on the way over here,†was her first question. “Getting here on time,†was my honest answer. We discussed the company and how solid it was, how important its products were to people, how lucrative the job could be. How she talks to people about their legacy, what they want to leave their children and spouse. And that it’s about peace of mind for the buyers.
Here’s the licensing exam you’ll need to pass, and by the way pay for (at $100). And we’ll train you. Good, I thought, because I am a skeptical insurance buyer.
In fact, while I had life insurance since I was 30, now I don’t. When money got tight in the past year, first I cut the premium (and coverage) in half, then eventually simply had to stop paying. And I wish I had cut down the policy years ago and I would have thousands of more dollars now.
But I didn’t tell the partner any of that.
The company’s career literature headlines:
“Bring Your Career to Lifeâ€
“In Business for Yourself – But Not By Yourselfâ€
The partner tells me that if I make 8-10 appointments each week and close two, I could make $100,000 a year. Meanwhile, the company literature has a “hypothetical example†chart showing $50,000 in year one and the $100,000 comes in year five. From what I read outside this company’s marketing is that agents use their network, friends and family first, as leads. It’s a one-time call-in-the-favors sales pitch that just doesn’t seem right to me. If I’m going to sell to my network, call in my favors, why would I do it for someone else and not myself?
Obviously, the insurance business not only survives but also thrives globally. The Federal Reserve states life insurance company total assets in Q4 2012 at $5,599 billion. The insurance companies are the ones with long histories, huge skyscrapers, and well-produced commercials on TV. And the blog Insider Monkey says that the future in the U.S. looks good, “Low interest rates have weighed heavily on life insurers’ investment returns and profitability over the past few years. However, as the prospects for higher interest rates improve, so will the outlooks for higher investment returns and earnings of life insurersâ€
But people aren’t buying insurance the way they used to. Ernst & Young reports in its 2013 US life-annuity insurance outlook that in the U.S., “average household expenditures on life insurance have declined 50% over the past decade, a decrease most noticeable among younger consumers.â€
I’m not saying people shouldn’t buy life insurance. I’m just not convinced that selling life insurance is a great business for me to enter now. I don’t think it’s for me -- I don’t believe enough in the products and don’t want to siphon off my people network to fund the coffers of some faraway mammoth institution. It's nowhere near the definition of Fastlane, which was, for a change, in the front of my mind as I made the no-go decision.
Well, if you can call an insurance company partner wanting me to move to the next step selling insurance a potential job. Commission only. I met the partner at an Over 50 job fair as I was exiting the pretty-much-a-waste-of-time event. It was the seventh insurance company looking for sales people at the fair. But I knew and respected this company; I had done consulting for it in what now seems like a previous life.
The partner saw me slow down, just a tad I suppose, and started a conversation. We spoke for a few minutes about my background, exchanged business cards, and she said it would be great to meet and discuss whether selling insurance could be my next career.
The next week I visited her office to get the pitch, er explore the opportunity. “What did you think about on the way over here,†was her first question. “Getting here on time,†was my honest answer. We discussed the company and how solid it was, how important its products were to people, how lucrative the job could be. How she talks to people about their legacy, what they want to leave their children and spouse. And that it’s about peace of mind for the buyers.
Here’s the licensing exam you’ll need to pass, and by the way pay for (at $100). And we’ll train you. Good, I thought, because I am a skeptical insurance buyer.
In fact, while I had life insurance since I was 30, now I don’t. When money got tight in the past year, first I cut the premium (and coverage) in half, then eventually simply had to stop paying. And I wish I had cut down the policy years ago and I would have thousands of more dollars now.
But I didn’t tell the partner any of that.
The company’s career literature headlines:
“Bring Your Career to Lifeâ€
“In Business for Yourself – But Not By Yourselfâ€
The partner tells me that if I make 8-10 appointments each week and close two, I could make $100,000 a year. Meanwhile, the company literature has a “hypothetical example†chart showing $50,000 in year one and the $100,000 comes in year five. From what I read outside this company’s marketing is that agents use their network, friends and family first, as leads. It’s a one-time call-in-the-favors sales pitch that just doesn’t seem right to me. If I’m going to sell to my network, call in my favors, why would I do it for someone else and not myself?
Obviously, the insurance business not only survives but also thrives globally. The Federal Reserve states life insurance company total assets in Q4 2012 at $5,599 billion. The insurance companies are the ones with long histories, huge skyscrapers, and well-produced commercials on TV. And the blog Insider Monkey says that the future in the U.S. looks good, “Low interest rates have weighed heavily on life insurers’ investment returns and profitability over the past few years. However, as the prospects for higher interest rates improve, so will the outlooks for higher investment returns and earnings of life insurersâ€
But people aren’t buying insurance the way they used to. Ernst & Young reports in its 2013 US life-annuity insurance outlook that in the U.S., “average household expenditures on life insurance have declined 50% over the past decade, a decrease most noticeable among younger consumers.â€
I’m not saying people shouldn’t buy life insurance. I’m just not convinced that selling life insurance is a great business for me to enter now. I don’t think it’s for me -- I don’t believe enough in the products and don’t want to siphon off my people network to fund the coffers of some faraway mammoth institution. It's nowhere near the definition of Fastlane, which was, for a change, in the front of my mind as I made the no-go decision.
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