Newly Licensed and Not Sure where to Start.

[NSRH]

No base. There may be some kind of "new agent financing"... but it's very short-term. The last base I heard of was the old Met Life agency and it also lasted about 12 weeks.

Actually, you're right. I was thinking about my experience with Western and Southern. It was a 13 week guarantee, but it came out of future commissions.

Its been so long, and I only knew it because I was recruiting away so many agents from them. All of them quit their 14th week with them, go figure.

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If I had it to do over, I would not have started independent unless I had a REALLY good mentor, that could show me and teach me. I did not, and it was a rocky road. Learning the business and how to do the business by someone who's been there and done it has alot of value, imo.

If youre going captive the ONLY reason you would is to have a good mentor. I completely agree.

 

[DHK]

Some captive (or semi-captive) companies talk about plenty of BSO's (Bright Shiny Objects). I admit that I was enamored with them initially and that was a reason I originally chose MassMutual. I had heard great things about the LEAP system from another forum and I wanted to learn that. I just didn't know what I didn't know - how expensive it was, how time-intensive it was (6 meetings!), how steep the learning curve was, and how little the people in the agency knew themselves.

So beware of the BSOs. They're nice... but only after you get solid training. As was posted by someone else recently, this person wasn't going to get good training from their MassMutual office, as was my experience. They essentially outsourced their agent training to LEAP... for $700 per session with a LEAP trainer + $2,500 per year for the system itself. It was good, but very expensive and a steep learning curve.

 

[BeeSelective]

It will,probably take more than 2 years before you earn 1,000,000, but you might be an exception. Good luck whichever direction you choose.