Becoming a State Farm Agent

[AgentZ]

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

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.

Just not too smart.

 

[frmrTICA]

My leadership was clueless..about leadership and the contract.

I agree...anyone had better talk to a bunch of new agents, and none of the old.

It is a different day wearing the red jersey, unfortunately

 

[fastrack1]

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.

 

[AgentZ]

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.

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.

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.

 

[AgentZ]

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.

The time for our silence is over .

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.

 

[upnsmoke2005@]

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.

 

[fastrack1]

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.

 

[Numbers Man]

All profit is profit

I think some of you have found the problem with the business model. Executives SHOULD be bonused on helping agents achieve overall success, i.e., profit. Profit from P&C, life, bank, health. A dollar of profit spends the same, no matter where it is derived! Management's primary goal should be advising agents on how to maximize profits from selling and retaining. Instead, it sounds as if it's all about selling, with or without profit. And that is just plain idiotic. If a goal is designed to benefit their bonus, while putting you in the red year after year, that's just greed and our country has seen too much of that lately.

Successful agents draw other high achievers into the fold, making life easier for all of us.​

 

[AgentZ]

I would say it means try to keep us quiet. Some AA05's have been sending e-mails to a certain AVP. If you are not a TICA they really can't fire you for terminating an employee. If a TICA they will threaten you on not getting your AA05 if you do not do certain things. I know some agents that were hired in 2004 and 2005 that have ZERO staff, and many (the really smart ones) have cut to one staff just to survive. They have made it much better for the first two year agents than when we started but they will still end up with the current contract which is really bad.

What does keep em "in check" mean? Patronize or just tell em "tought!". Or did namagement say its no big deal if they quit because they are burnt out and you can get new positive people in on good contract and assign their books?

Can they fire me if I lay off an employee? I am an AA05 now.

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My leadership doesn't care if I am profitable, doesn't care how far in debt I am or how difficult it is these days. Won't even discuss most of it. This person just wants to talk about how hard it was when they started as an agent. ALL they seem to care about is if I travel and that is how they get their bonus. I have traveled the first 3 years and could travel again this year, but I will turn it down. They charge a crazy amount as income for these trips. They charge 2-3 times what I could go it alone as income and I don't want to go on vacation with people who do NOT have my best interest at heart anyway.

I think some of you have found the problem with the business model. Executives SHOULD be bonused on helping agents achieve overall success, i.e., profit. Profit from P&C, life, bank, health. A dollar of profit spends the same, no matter where it is derived! Management's primary goal should be advising agents on how to maximize profits from selling and retaining. Instead, it sounds as if it's all about selling, with or without profit. And that is just plain idiotic. If a goal is designed to benefit their bonus, while putting you in the red year after year, that's just greed and our country has seen too much of that lately.​

Successful agents draw other high achievers into the fold, making life easier for all of us.​

 

[AgentZ]

Another agent I met/knew who had started in 2004 just left the company this agent basically said that they are leaving due to lack of continuing financial resources that the AA05 contract affords them. Again here is where they raised our expenses and lowered our commissions and wonder why 2004 and 2005 agents are dropping like flies.