Becoming a State Farm Team Member

[rjc9090]

I will be graduating in a few weeks with a bachelor's degree, and I am looking for some kind of sales/marketing/business position. I may have an opportunity to become a SF team member. Assuming I make it through training and land the job, what can I expect? I have read that team members make anywhere from $25,000 to $40,000 annually. Is this accurate? The agent I would be working for will be opening his office Sept 1.

 

[togatown]

Sounds reasonable. You will probably have minimum monthly sales goals to meet to keep your job and/or to earn bonuses on top of your base.
As full service offices, State Farm agents usually expect their team members to multi-line home and auto, then pivot to financial services products such as life insurance, bank, health, etc. Not sure if you will be hired as a specialist in one area or be a generalist in all lines. Some agencies have separate team members for service and sales depending on their size. Bonuses are based on monthly production and usually some year end goals.
Since this agent is new, it will depend on whether they are scratch or taking over a book to determine their main focus. If they inherit a book of business, the focus will be on deepening the products in the existing households. If pure scratch, they will not need any service personnel, and want sales oriented team members that can aggressively pivot and multi-line. Regardless of type of agency they start, all new agents are under a lot of pressure to produce the first year, especially life, health, bank and mutual funds.

 

[Verbgravy]

I've been a State Farm agent, team member, and still actively do consulting and sales coaching for other agents. Realize that you will not be a SF employee, only the agent is. You work for the agent and your compensation is determined solely by him.

The range you gave is accurate. The standard new producer deal in AZ, NV, CO, UT, NM (the SF markets I know best) is a base of $24K and then some sort of production based compensation beyond that. Most commonly it's a volume based bonus plan.

I'm about to give you the best adivice you'll ever get about regarding being a SF team member. Get licensed. I mean get your P&C, L&H, Series 6 and 63. These are the licenses the agents themselves are required to hold. It will set you apart and make you very attractive to agents. You can ask for a higher salary with each license, especially your 6 and 63, the majority of team members don't have or aren't willing to get them. State Farm expects agents to sell auto and home. They want you to sell financial services, life, health, and bank. A huge part of the reason that I choose to leave was so much pressure is put on selling products that they are not competative at and don't market. Agents have to sell these products to unlock their scorecard bonus and make some actual money.

A TICA (new) agent will most likely have you working a ton of internet leads. Older agents really aren't that aggressive in acquiring new business. Factor this in to your production based income.

I loved my time with SF and it is a great way to get a foot in the door. I spent a fair amount of time there and still have a lot of friends that are extremely successful agents, management, and staff. I've also seen a lot of people fail. Please feel free to message me if you want to go over specifics.

 

[rjc9090]

Thanks for the reply. Thats funny you compare inheriting vs scratch because I may have the decision to work for an agent who is inheriting a book (about 40 mins away from home) vs a scratch agent (5 mins away). They both are new agents. Does it make a difference which one I would work for? As far as difficulty of selling and profitability goes.

 

[togatown]

A scratch agent isn't going to have phones ringing with service related issues so you will be doing a lot of outbound calling on direct mail and internet leads. Everyone you quote will be a multiple line opportunity and you will be expected to close them. Getting your 6/63 licenses usually takes about 6 months to get through the pre-approval process including study and licensing exams. You need to be affiliated with State Farm first before they will sponsor you.
An existing book will have many service issues that can be used as an opportunity to deepen the account. The most basic technique is getting clients in for a policy review to determine other needs. If the previous agent was long tenured, he/she probably did not work the book very hard in recent years so there may be a lot of opportunity there. One thing for sure is you need to be very comfortable calling either existing clients or following up on raw prospects . That will be the biggest key to your success. The agent will be under a great deal of pressure to sell life,health, bank and mutual funds the first year.