Pluspunten
I'm currently one of the most tenured sales agents in the Chicago office and I'm sick of seeing the negative reviews that make our team seem like a job from hell. I've been here over 3 years, and I've had my shares of ups and downs. But overall this place has changed my life. Before I started here I was digging holes for $12 an hour, 12 hour days, Now I've been able to make a living for myself, get my own place, and become totally financially independent AND support my mother in just a few years WITHOUT a college degree. It is extremely challenging to find a job that offers half of what we do without at least a bachelor's degree, let alone at the entry-level. So I wanted to give a real honest review for any potential employee's looking to start their career here: Pros: - Great compensation. $20/hr starting hourly, plus uncapped commission (paid out as a monthly bonus) - Great benefits. 401k w/ match, decent health insurance / dental / vision + free $25,000 employer-paid life insurance. PTO & Sick Time is easy to use and accrues over time. - The best asset this company has is, by far, it's people - I moved to Chicago for this job and now my entire social circle is filled with people I've met while working here. You will be surrounded by young, motivated professionals working toward a common goal and supporting each other every step of the way. You'll make friends fast. It is essentially a social life in a box, and you get paid to do it! Not only that, you can network and make connections that could help advance your career even further. Aside from this, middle and upper management is mostly comprised of former entry-level agents like yourself who know the product and who know the process. If you listen to them, and you put the work in, you will succeed. You get what you put in, and there are plenty of opportunities to climb the ladder for promotions like they did. - You might be afraid of applying because you're unsure you'd be able to excel at sales - but i assure you, the training team is amazing. I know them all personally and they will give you every tool you need to become a great agent and hit the goals you set for yourself. They're very hands on in the beginning, but only to help you develop. Give yourself some time, and once it clicks - you'll be rolling and you'll be selling plans left and right and making good money, and go home and feel proud of yourself, knowing you've not only helped our clients, but you've proven to yourself that you can do something challenging. - Many of the negative reviews on here talk about micro-managing, but this is largely due to new agents who needed the help, and they assumed they'd be watched closely their entire tenure, and left before they could really succeed. Trust me, you'll be managed closely for a few weeks or even a month, they're just there to help you get started. Listen to their advice like I did, learn the product, and if you put the work in I promise you will learn to fly. Just be patient, and once it clicks, they will let you do your thing, and you'll find your own way to manage your day without someone in your ear every 10 minutes. Communicate with your manager. They are on your side. - We have a Compliance Department that yes, audits your calls and may give you a bad score every now and again, but they're ultimately there to protect you. They shield you from complaints and will handle any sort of carrier inquiries themselves, allowing you to focus on doing your job. - Finally, It's worth mentioning that you're given a massive array of software tools and applications that will help you with the sales process. We have an immense amount of software and applications that many other firms do not - from your own CMS account that instantly pulls beneficiary enrollment data, to medicaid verification portals across 4 carriers and 28 states, to a simple client management system (CRM) to help you keep track of your clients / prospects, and create a pipeline and see your work on "paper" Many other captive agencies like this don't have these luxuries and it's worth appreciating how much the executives / licensing / operations teams and members go through to get us these tools that streamline the sales process and, with practice, will make you incredibly efficient, unlike other brokerages.
Minpunten
- As a sales role, some days will be extremely difficult and you'll leave wondering if you've made a mistake. Dont. You will have good and bad days, no doubt about it. I've worked here for 3 years and have had periods where I was an elite seller, middle, and times when I was at the bottom 1/4 of the company - regardless, I've always come with a positive attitude and never gave up. I'm listing this as a con because not everyone has the ability to work a job with such instability. This will be mentally taxing, and you have to be prepared for it. You need to be an emotionally stable person to succeed here, and be able to cooperate with your team members even when you're having a hard day. - You're not going to be given your sales. It's up to you to close. So many other negative reviews claim you'll be "forced to downgrade people's insurance" or "mislead people into worse plans" - that is not the case. The call is yours, and it is absolutely possible to sell at a high level while being compliant, but that requires 2 things: Talent, and Sweat. There are some calls that are just a walk in the park, but for most of your sales you'll have to earn it, and you're going to need to be the kind of person who can think on your feet if you want to succeed. You either have it or you don't, at the end of the day. If you're not the kind of person that can perform under pressure, or you're not competitive & self-motivated, this is not the role for you. But if you're hungry and you want to make some real money with a bunch of cool people while making some friends along the way, then you belong here. - Micro-managing is a possibility even as a veteran agent. I've had almost a dozen different "managers" or supervisors, and the ones who I've performed the best under were the ones who gave me respect and let me run my day how I wanted, They let me do my thing and in return I gave them the production they needed. When I'm given freedom I feel excited to come into work knowing my manager had my back and that I wasn't going to be scrutinized on every detail of my work. I've also had micro-managers who tried forcing me to fit into their mold of what an agent should be, and those were the ones I've performed the worst under. In trying to help me they've only made me perform worse and feel unappreciated, making me call off more, less motivated, etc. - Con: Time management is taken very seriously. You're expected to be on call for at least 65% of the day, and you're only given 30 minutes of "personal" or break time - which you must use even for the bathroom. Depending on your manager, their expectations may be different so make sure to communicate often. - Final Con: This is a very competitive industry. Our clients are getting calls from several other companies every day, offering the same thing. This means that a decent amount of your clients will get switched by another agency before it starts, meaning you dont get paid on that sale. Even if you do everything perfectly, another agency might call them 2 weeks later and lie just before your plan starts, it's just the nature of the game. So you'll have to keep an eye on your retention and track your sales to make sure your plans effectuate and you get paid, because nobody is going to do that for you.