I am new to this forum and in the VERY beginning stages of trying to become a state farm agent. This thread started out optimistic and positive and as I kept reading turned a little negative and there seems to be some tension.
Although I do have a very successful agent as a friend and mentor I also have cards stacked against me... age, credit, and education... I have a lot of sales, management and entrepreneurial experience though, I have a strong business plan and I am numbers driven. I have literally dropped everything in my life to focus on getting my own agency- but not just any agency... I have fallen in love with State Farm culture.
Now, back to the process... does anyone have suggestions for business plans, the interview process, a time line from start to finish ect? From your experience what worked well and what didn't. I'd just like to gather other opinions besides my mentor's to make sure I'm as prepared as possible.
Thanks so much!!!!
Birdie
Don't take this as negative. It is realistic.
It is very easy to get infected with the idea. I did, and to some extent still am.
It gets complicated, but it has everything to do with the new contract. The one you are given 30 minutes on in training but don't really understand until you've been in the game awhile and realize it is designed to cut your pay every single year you don't put up what can be unrealistic numbers.
If reality is negative, so be it.
I still love the co, to. Just take off the blinders and make them teach the contract to you. Or not, because if you ask too much (a lot of s,e, & cs don't understand it either).
All of my Dafo management was still in debt from agency.
Aside from the contract being unfair, you have to deal with state farm employees getting agency assigments for their career tracks. I know a former recruiter who is "serving time" as an agent. Guess how many autos he was assigned? 4500!! not kidding. Yet, if you are from outside the farm, you rarely get 300. When he goes back to corporate in Bloomington, guess some other lucky internal candidate will get his book. We can all hear about how successful they are in the current contract!
To become an AFE, you have to be an agent. Common practice.
This isn't because the company is evil, it is because they want to try and match the commissions so the person won't be taking a huge hit in income.
I have seen this with AFCs, but I had no idea recruiters were on this path as well. Recruiters aren't thought of very highly with the Field Leadership I've come into contact with. It is a relatively new position.
They didn't need them before the new contract. People were lining up on their own prior to that.
To be fair, coming from a State Farm family where the 97 isn't even understood, I went in with huge blinders....
Not all opportunites are equal, that's for sure. I took over an agency small by State Farm standards (950 auto & 350 fire) in 1998. I am on the aa97 contract, of course.
Other agents that started at the same time got much larger books of 1500-2200 autos, but they were in more saturated markets. In my county, I am the only SF agent. Others passed up the agency I took, but I've grown by an average of 160 autos a year and have gone from having one staff person in my second year to having two in 2001 and three since 2005. I would go into debt...until getting the bonus the next spring.
I'm in a rural market, so premiums are low, but I've been netting $100,000 to $130,000 for a few years now. And every year I add another 200 cars is another $20,000 pay raise (unless they lower premiums again)
The problem is that any contract is a one size (read commission) fits all situation. Agents in areas with high premiums in relation to expenses have it easier, of course. If the company would pay a higher commission on the first chunk and then decrease after a certain amount ($1000/year) indexed to inflation (similar to the way work comp is done) the agents in areas with lower premiums would have more success and the rest would still be plenty rich.
What I've noticed over the years is that insurance agents in general do not understand the math of ROI, direct mail, staff investment, etc. It is good to be in a business where so many of your competitors are so uncreative and really so poor at analyzing the numbers. If you are good at these things AND at managing a team AND at keeping customers happy and your area's demographics (agents per population, competition, premium levels) are in your favor, you can do really well.
Every day I see State Farm give our customers the benefit of the doubt, trying to be as fair as possible. They have been very fair with me and I am not "connected" not having any relatives as higher ups in management or even agency. I love what I do, although it is difficult at times. Glad to be a State Farm agent and can't imagine being with another company.
Here's how things have changed. In my trainee agent year, I had two staff. We were told to do 16 life or health apps a month back then. I started 4/1. We did 45-55 life policies a year from '98-'05 while I focused on growing my P&C book (and before the present scorecard bonus warranted hiring a 3rd staff). Then I upped my expectations of my team and we began qualifying to travel. On time for the 3rd consecutive year.
Of course, the funny thing is...it's easier to make numbers when you have a larger book. Now that I have that, I can make the numbers!
I realize that the amount of production that I and my contemporaries achieved back then would not get us our contracts now. Again, timing and particular situations have so much to do with it. I was in Illinois, not Indiana or Missouri where management was tougher on trainees back then. Other regions/zones are very different from each other or at least were 10 years ago.
I think the public is somewhat postcarded OUT at this point.
Good to now that varying styles of management are not relegated to my zone.
I had 3800 autos, but it required at least 4 to service, and I would have needed another staff +myself to really grow.
Of course, with my size assignment, came higher expectations. Another new agent got almost 5K cars, inherited a great sales team, and is making bank and a name at the top nationwide. Believe it or not, but he's written on average 35-45 Life per month for 8 consecutive months.
I didn't do that well. I hired 3 existing team members who come to find out had so poorly underwritten the book over the years (agent had not been involved for half a decade), that when we got the DAFO UW (stricter) they blew a gasket and rebelled, mostly behind my back.
I grew, wrote lots of auto in an uncompetitive market, lots of life (on time for travel, + other awards), but in the end when it came down to going after the team members for stealing business (I let then go month 8), my afc met with him, they told him all kinds of BS, and I was canned without ever getting to speak OR having them even meet the great team I put into place.
I'm accepting responsibility for that bad hiring decision, but I'm a little peeved at my managment. They came to my office 3 times in a year. Had no advice over phone while we were trying to clean the book up.
Silly me for thinking they wanted somebody to turn the profitability around. The DAFO here chews you up and spits you out. Year 2 agents fall flat, without exception in my market.
Trying to look at it as a blessing, now everything is making sense. One of the last meetings I had with my C I was asking about the semi-monthly variable comp piece in year 3-4...and what I could do to avoid that because my market was past saturation and non-competitive.
Now that look he gave is making sense. He knew the Kool-aide had worn off.
I love SF, and some guys have it really great.
BE VERY CAREFUL WHERE YOU GO AND WHO THE MANAGEMENT IS. That being said, it is impossible to pick managers and locations, I've had 2 vpas, 2afes, 2afcs and 3afs in ONE year.
Everything is either urban or rural to them. Don't try to figure out the best bang for the buck or ask too many questions.
[COLOR=blue]Sorry if I misread your prior post. This post I 100% agree with. I did travel year 1 and 2. You know rumors are rampant that they are going to do something for the AA05/TICA agents that started 1/1/06 or after but if you started before 2006 then you are SOL. This company is losing agents in record numbers and they know it. The DAFO will tell you anything and when the real numbers come in they will just tell you to "Sell More."[/COLOR]
[COLOR=blue]FYI I saw several that did not make year 2, and now there are times I wish I had not. I could have moved on. They made a lot of promises and came through very little[/COLOR]
Originally Posted by SFTICA
Did you travel your first year?
The DAFO today just emphasizes Life Life Life, Travel Travel Travel - AT ALL COSTS.
If you became an agent today and had only one team member - even scratch and did not qulify for travel your first year, no matter how rural your market you'd be fired and never see year 2.
Guys like me go broke paying 3 sales people and sending out 10,000 post cards a month just to make something happen to possibly get our TICA renewed.
I actually got far less than that. I increased auto by about 700 in a year, half that due to my 20K in marketing to a 40% saturated market, 1/2 because they chopped off 500 or so cars that came back.
Biggest difference is Average Annual Premium. Mine was 50% lower than the book I cut my teeth in due to the fact my book very rarely had comp/collision and was carrying state minimum liability limits.
They did have high expectations. Right now the #1 agent in the country is a C who they gave 4500 too. His annual premium is a LOT higher, and he's in a one agent town. I out spent him, but he is a better agent than I. He is blowing Scott Foster clean smooth out of the water on Life Production, averaging...get ready....40+ Life apps a month. Every month.
I did well, but holy bajeebus not anywhere close to that. I also have a tendency to shoot a little too straight with managment...Asking tough questions about how do I avoid losing $60K in year 3 when I can't write fire....
I was not a problem child, or at least I should not have been considered one if that is that case. I'm all for marketing, continuing to grow, etc....I just wanted to track things and figure out how to get the best bang for the buck...
NOTE TO ANYONE READING THIS: DO NOT ASK QUESTIONS AFTER YOU START, ONLY BEFORE YOU COMMIT
Maybe I should have drank an extra cup of Kool-Aide during that last Peer-to-Peer
Originally Posted by SFTICA
Sweet Baby Jesus!
You got 3800 cars???
No wonder you got canned.
They probably saw you as "management material" and now they put another golden boy in there because your golf average dropped or something. Someone's nephew probably wanted your book.
I guess scratch never gets fired because no one wants a small book.
Year 2 your agents fall flat because they sign their ICA and they are fat and happy with that amount of auto and just pay bills and laugh because they never intended to be recognized year after year, only to achieve the SF dream of collecting renewals because they can't get fired as an ICA.
.....Maybe I should have drank an extra cup of Kool-Aide during that last Peer-to-Peer
Definitely sounds like the situation. I know plenty of people who haven't made it in this business and plenty that didn't make it with certain companies but I never known anyone who were in deep debt except through their own stupidity except you SF guys.
Sounds to me like the SF contract is currently the worst thing going. You are doing all the things and spending all the money that entreprenuers do and spend but are at SF's mercy and they can take it all away on a whim or political reason. It is a bum deal when you have ownership responsibilities but no ownership or vesting.
I guess scratch never gets fired because no one wants a small book.
Year 2 your agents fall flat because they sign their ICA and they are fat and happy with that amount of auto and just pay bills and laugh because they never intended to be recognized year after year, only to achieve the SF dream of collecting renewals because they can't get fired as an ICA.
Depends on where you are. Depends totally on your C and E. Within my zone we have the DAFO split into 2. One is run by some great people, SUCCESSFUL agents, that wanted to teach others. The other side is a revolving door of career ladder climbers that "do their time" until a market spot opens up...
They fire scratch at will. Even higher producing ones. Another unspoken facet is "diversity". Even I have learned enough not to approach that subject in detail here. Very uneven playing field.
A newbie coming in from the outside has to be careful....remember, I had 2 VPAs, 2 AFEs, 2AFCs, and now that I think about it, 2 AFS.
No relationships built, no respect from the TICAs (or the market for that matter) and they will can you for any little thing that slips out of your mouth that can be perceived as contrary to the Competencies...with no real work facts to back them up.
They weren't "out to get me", that isn't how I roll. They did make quick judgements that ruined people's lives without thinking about what was coachable and what was not.
No leadership. No coaching, just negative motivational techniques.
I've said it one, I'll say it again. I take ownership for "not playing the game". Everyone has facets that they can work on, get better at.
The DAFO is failing because, at least here, they are too overburdened with emails and reports, too many agents, etc. And in my case, they didn't know leadership.
The DAFO should exist to get people through the intern program, and through field development. That model has no place for the real world in the trenches with varying marketing conditions, with no real insight into anything but numbers.
The contract, of course, is another biggie. They will fix it or they will lose agents, period. Allstate adjusted theirs, but not for everyone, only noobs.
Definitely sounds like the situation. I know plenty of people who haven't made it in this business and plenty that didn't make it with certain companies but I never known anyone who were in deep debt except through their own stupidity except you SF guys.
Sounds to me like the SF contract is currently the worst thing going. You are doing all the things and spending all the money that entreprenuers do and spend but are at SF's mercy and they can take it all away on a whim or political reason. It is a bum deal when you have ownership responsibilities but no ownership or vesting.
If I am going to continue to be a success in this business, I think my performance can be enhanced a bit by getting a coach and working on the PC side of things a bit. I can be that way with clients, but probably let my guard down too far when speaking with people I trust. I am naive that way. I also trusted people I should'nt have. My mistake.
Not a SF bash, either, Allstate guys are having it pretty tough right now, too. Since you either buy or go in debt because of the storefront costs + being scratch, they are selling out in record numbers, EVEN if they are competitive and writing tons of business.
A top local Allstate guy, TOP, says he can't see the end of the tunnel for about 10 years.
Neither one of these captives are the deal the 20 year guys have. And they never will be again.
I've been contacted by new guys, old guys and everything in between over the past month. SF is different for all of them. In the old days they treated agents with respect. Some even have the right to some due process in front of a board of their peers.
Right now, it is anytime, for any reason. It's been that way for the past couple of contracts, but it wasn't used much in theory.
[COLOR=darkred]IMO they would rather the agents hired in 2004 and 2005 just go away. Probably 1500-2000 agents were hired then, the worst time to be an agent with this company. The agents before had a better deal and the agents 2006 and after get a better deal (first two years anyway). Maybe in the long term they have a 30 year plan to phase out all agents and they do it by making it where you can't make any real $. Leadership will lie to you. They dictated to us what was required as far as overhead and expenses and we all knew it, do it or no contract. Now they say we should have controlled our expenses more. Poston is such a liar and he doesn't care. He has his big house in Bloomington and his healthy salary and for doing what ? Lying to us and doing nothing for us.[/COLOR]
I do not believe they want you 04-05 guys to go away. I do not how vocal you guys are, or if they are having meetings with you to address your concerns as a group or not. Now they may wish if you guys are vocal about it for you to sit down and shut up...that is entirely possible.
There is good leadership and bad. Very good and very bad, and everything in between. Even with the good, however, they are powerless to adequately address agents in your position. Career suicide.
Make no mistake, this corporate culture is unique in it's fierce loyalty, but this trait can be very good if pointed in the right direction, or very detrimental if not. In the case of the Agency Opportunity, it is detrimental to say the least.
I think with you guys it was much more vocalized what their expectations are. I can't believe (they probably can't, either) that they were stupid enough to give out those projections. I can't believe they openly made you guys hire at that level and buy $30K furniture/office packages.
Nowawdays, the same holds true, the expectation is very much the same, they just don't put it on paper anymore. They still want you to do those things, but they've wised up and now it is wink/wink.........but there behind the scenes.
I don't know who Poston is, but IMO you'd be better off refraining from naming names or talking about his house and salary. Granted, you are more than welcome to your opinion, and I'm with you, but in the spirit of this thread, you message would be better served to those looking to commit like we did by giving out the kind of information that at least might have a chance to distill the very powerful Kool-Aide candidates have already drank.
Only reason I'm saying, there are a few other boards where people are trying to ask about the opportunity, and the extreme negativity from some causes the noobs to discount their opinions entirely, and thus the efforts for others to become better educated are entirely lost.
Not trying to beat up on you at all, please know that. I'm sure my negativity shows through fiercely all of the time. We wouldn't be human of we let the supreme disgust and total and complete destruction of the agency model that took this company to #1 not affect us.
IMO, they are looking for smart people with money to invest and kill themselves in pursuit of the American Dream.
I do agree with your post and I was quite angry when I made the last post due to the info we had recently recieved. We had found out that relief was coming but only for agents hired in the last 2 years. Agents hired in 2004 and 2005 were left out of it. I agree no names should have been posted here. We have been vocal, but I will say as a group not enough. As for leadership my "E" does not care at all. He is probably close to retirement and totally out of touch with reality. He couldn't even explain the latest contract the first year it was out.Leadership blames us for not controlling our expenses the first two years, but they are the ones that basically told us do certain things or we wouldn't get our contracts. The deal is better now than it was then and all we want is to be treated the same as new agents. I was told 2 years ago that if the contract was ever improved I would benefit from it and I did not.I will say as always if you are considering this "opportunity" please visit 10 agents that were hired in 2004 and 2005 before signing up. Thanks
Originally Posted by frmrTICA
Z,
I do not believe they want you 04-05 guys to go away. I do not how vocal you guys are, or if they are having meetings with you to address your concerns as a group or not. Now they may wish if you guys are vocal about it for you to sit down and shut up...that is entirely possible.
There is good leadership and bad. Very good and very bad, and everything in between. Even with the good, however, they are powerless to adequately address agents in your position. Career suicide.
Make no mistake, this corporate culture is unique in it's fierce loyalty, but this trait can be very good if pointed in the right direction, or very detrimental if not. In the case of the Agency Opportunity, it is detrimental to say the least.
I think with you guys it was much more vocalized what their expectations are. I can't believe (they probably can't, either) that they were stupid enough to give out those projections. I can't believe they openly made you guys hire at that level and buy $30K furniture/office packages.
Nowawdays, the same holds true, the expectation is very much the same, they just don't put it on paper anymore. They still want you to do those things, but they've wised up and now it is wink/wink.........but there behind the scenes.
I don't know who Poston is, but IMO you'd be better off refraining from naming names or talking about his house and salary. Granted, you are more than welcome to your opinion, and I'm with you, but in the spirit of this thread, you message would be better served to those looking to commit like we did by giving out the kind of information that at least might have a chance to distill the very powerful Kool-Aide candidates have already drank.
Only reason I'm saying, there are a few other boards where people are trying to ask about the opportunity, and the extreme negativity from some causes the noobs to discount their opinions entirely, and thus the efforts for others to become better educated are entirely lost.
Not trying to beat up on you at all, please know that. I'm sure my negativity shows through fiercely all of the time. We wouldn't be human of we let the supreme disgust and total and complete destruction of the agency model that took this company to #1 not affect us.
IMO, they are looking for smart people with money to invest and kill themselves in pursuit of the American Dream.
[quote=Numbers Man;94875]Here's how things have changed. In my trainee agent year, I had two staff. We were told to do 16 life or health apps a month back then. I started 4/1. We did 45-55 life policies a year from '98-'05 while I focused on growing my P&C book (and before the present scorecard bonus warranted hiring a 3rd staff). Then I upped my expectations of my team and we began qualifying to travel. On time for the 3rd consecutive year.
Of course, the funny thing is...it's easier to make numbers when you have a larger book. Now that I have that, I can make the numbers!
My problem is that I did it backwards from you. I spent the first several years focused on traveling and growing financial services (one-time sales) and did not focus on P&C. Now I am hurting and wishing that I had more P&C and less travel trophies. I'm having to make some big decisions in the next few months concerning where I want the focus of my agency to be.
[COLOR=darkred]Leadership basically had us with 3 staff and pushed us to have 1 or two part time staff. We were told that we had to have certain compentencies to get our final contracts. We were also told we had to do other things that have already been discussed. We sold over 100 life apps our first year and over half of them were permanent apps. Made travel by August and thought all was good until the 2 year default came off. Many had borrowed to much money and then there compensation was cut some as much as 1.5% on P&C and that hurts. Some were making 3% less on auto and 5% less on fire policies (less than 97 contract agents) and that really hurts. [/COLOR]
[COLOR=darkred]I am NO longer concerned with travel either. I just want to pay some debt and grow my P&C and I want the same contract you have . Leadership has given a much better deal to new hires but left us out in the cold. They can't even tell us why we were left out, and I keep seeing more and more of my fellow agents that started in '04 and '05 leaving for other opportunities and that is awful.[/COLOR]
[quote=fastrack1;97950]
Originally Posted by Numbers Man
Here's how things have changed. In my trainee agent year, I had two staff. We were told to do 16 life or health apps a month back then. I started 4/1. We did 45-55 life policies a year from '98-'05 while I focused on growing my P&C book (and before the present scorecard bonus warranted hiring a 3rd staff). Then I upped my expectations of my team and we began qualifying to travel. On time for the 3rd consecutive year.
Of course, the funny thing is...it's easier to make numbers when you have a larger book. Now that I have that, I can make the numbers!
My problem is that I did it backwards from you. I spent the first several years focused on traveling and growing financial services (one-time sales) and did not focus on P&C. Now I am hurting and wishing that I had more P&C and less travel trophies. I'm having to make some big decisions in the next few months concerning where I want the focus of my agency to be.
[COLOR=darkred]I talked to a few more agents this week hired in 2004 and 2005 this week and 2 of them are on the brink of bankruptcy. They did the exact same thing as well. They traveled the first two years only to realize that they had not grown enough on this current contract to maximize the variable P&C compensation. You MUST reduce expenses and do everything to grow your P&C. Your AFE will want you to travel because it benefits him/her. Leadership is right on with what corporate has told them. They recently had a conference call to E's, VPA and told them to keep the forgotten 04/05 Agents "in check" because they were not changing the contract for us. [/COLOR]
[COLOR=darkred]The time for our silence is over[/COLOR] .
Originally Posted by SFTICA
I so echo the last post. ESPECIALLY if you start scratch. I am 4 years out and only have 900 cars because the DAFO thinks people just walk in and buy auto and all they ever hounded on was travel travel travel.
Now I have a small book and may need to go down to one employee and stop paying my rent.
My AFE would sooner die then assign any cars to an existing agent. He said existing boojks are only to attract and recruit new agents.
State Farm is looking for licensed agents with $$$$$. If you have money, credit and the proper license, anyone can become an agent. I was going to persue the opportunity myself but due to a divorce a couple years ago I had to file bankruptcy. So now im in the non captive league.
State Farm is looking for licensed agents with $$$$$. If you have money, credit and the proper license, anyone can become an agent. I was going to persue the opportunity myself but due to a divorce a couple years ago I had to file bankruptcy. So now im in the non captive league.
Obviously you were considering going captive with SF and only didn't due to the divorce, so what do you think of the non captive agency? How are you doing and do you think that process is easier or more difficult than if you had gone with SF?
I've always been curious about the true difficulty of starting an independent agency vs. a captive agency like SF. It seems the future rewards are greater, but that the initial failure rate is much higher.
Re: Becoming a State Farm Agent
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