Monday, September 6, 2010

ABC's of Primerica

You will hear this often in Primerica: What is the ABC to building a business?

A-Always Bring People. Every opportunity meeting should be pack with guests. If you are not bringing people, you are not growing your business.

B-Be a student. Attend training and take notes. Instead of writing them, you should bring a recorder and record every training. Read self-help books and improve your way of thinking. Some day, you will own your own office and need to do training. Some day, you will be out in the field training others on how to do the appointment.

C-Cheerlead the system. You need to be enthusiastic about helping people. You need to get people excited about getting promoted. Encourage them to do the work. As stupid as it seems, people like positive people. If you are not excited about your business, then people you recruit won't be excited.

Friday, August 20, 2010

Why I love Primerica? OVERRIDES!

I should of posted this earlier in my career, but earning overrides is the best thing that has ever happen to me as I progress my career in Primerica. What is an override? To simply put it: "It's income earn when people in your business helps other people." Every time when someone on my team who is licensed and helps a family on his own, not only does he get paid full commissions, I too get paid by the company. Its unbelievable. There is no cut in commissions that is split between everyone. You get paid base on your sales level.

For example, an average annual premium on life insurance that a client pays is about $1000/year. If I was a District Leader in the company, I would get paid $500. My Regional Vice President, who train me, will get paid $450. What if I was a RVP doing the same work? I would earn $950 plus bonuses. What if I was a RVP who had 10 District Leaders and each District Leader helped out a family? I would earn overrides of $4500! As you can see, there's no split in commissions. Its only straight commissions (work you do) and overrides (work you didn't do).

As one Senior National Sales Director put it, "overrides = freedom" and its true. I hope that someday I will earn enough overrides that I'm comfortable with and stop working. My goal is to earn consistent overrides of $20k/month and stop working. I'm still young (less than 30 years old), so I still got lots of time until I retire. Hopefully I can get this done in 10 years. Right now, my goal is to get myself to RVP and then get more people to RVP position. How I plan to do that? By getting people to become District Leader.

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

The numbers are the numbers...

... and you can't beat the numbers and the numbers can't beat you.

10 invites = 4 guest = 1 IBA

What are you doing to get 10 invites?
2 invites/day for 5 days/week = 10 invites/week = 4 directs/month

8 appointments = 5 FNAs = 3 Life insurance sales = 1 recruit.
Having 8 appointments in a month is ok for part-timers, but not acceptable for full-timers. I believe full-timers should be able to do 8 appointments in a week. I know people who can do that in 1 to 3 days. Why not you? What can possibly be more important than making money, helping families, and building a future for your family? Stop wasting time staying at home and watching TV or using the computer. If you work hard every day for the next 3 to 5 years, you can retire if you want, but its very unlikely that you will as you will become RVP and want to get more people promoted to RVP.

Understand the numbers and accept them. When you get the IBA, help that person grow their business. Get them on the fast start, help them get their bonus as soon as possible, and help them get their license. Show them how to get to District Leader. You just need to get 6 District Leaders and you pre-qualify for Regional Vice President promotion. If you are serious about getting your RVP contract, you need to have consistent monthly production. You should be fully license (life license, series 6, series 63, series 65, series 26, mortgage license) before getting your RVP contract. If you are in Primerica, just go to POL to learn how to get your next promotion or ask your RVP.

Monday, July 12, 2010

Primerica joins Russell 3000 and Russell 2000 Index

Story link from MarketWatch.com: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/primerica-joins-the-russell-3000-and-russell-2000-stock-indexes-2010-07-01?reflink=MW_news_stmp

Primerica Inc, the largest independent financial service company in North America, has joined the Russell 3000 and Russell 2000 index. Russell 3000 is made up of the 3000 largest companies in the United States, making up 99% of the US equities market. Russell 2000 is subset of Russell 3000 that measures the performance of small-cap companies in the US.

I laugh at all the people who are still wondering if Primerica is for real or is it a scam or needs to do research. I think the only thing people should research is themselves. They should look at whether or not if they are able to build a business. Are they hard workers or are they lazy? Are they able to handle objections? How would they react when someone says no? Are they willing to make sacrifices and reap the rewards later? There's nothing to research about the company since the work has already been done by lawyers, attorneys, government agencies, non-affiliated organizations such as Better Business Bureau and Ripoffreport.com, investment firms, and large corporations. What more of a proof do people really need to finally be convince that Primerica is legitimate company? "Some will, some won't, so what." That's all I have to say to people who want to research. Waste your time and let this great business opportunity pass you by. It will be very rare if this opportunity comes their way again. I've been in Primerica since 2004 and haven't met another Primerica rep on the streets who prospected for me.

Friday, July 2, 2010

One man's idea of "pyramid scheme"

Take a look at this:

"And if this person actually gets their license and sells insurance, you, your immediate supervisor/mentor, the owner of the business, his boss, the regional manager, and so on up the ladder will get a piece of the commission. Hence the appearance of pyramid scheme." from "Mr.Prefect" from Yahoo Answers

This guy obviously has no clue what he is talking about. I've been in the business for years. When I make a sale, no one gets a piece of my commission. I get paid whatever my level is at and everyone else above me gets paid an override. An override to me is money earn when someone else does work. Hence, not an appearance of a pyramid scheme, but an appearance of a working business. You got to be crazy if you don't like overrides. If no one was getting overrides, there will be no point of recruiting. All business are structure this way, even in the corporate world. In corporate world, the CEO makes all the money. The entry-level employee gets paid very little and yet they do all the work. CEO earns all the profits from the work the employees does, which is one big override. Imagine that the CEO was not earning any overrides from the entry-level employee. Then the CEO wouldn't need employees and do all the work by himself. Eventually the CEO will either max out his time or burn out from all the hard work. Then the entire business will fall.

Thursday, June 24, 2010

I'm a financial doctor

Doctors find out what problems you have and find solutions to fix the problem. If the doctor is able to help that person, that person will show lots of gratitude and will trust you forever. This is basically what I do as a financial representative at Primerica. I see a client. Find out their needs and goals. Put together a financial needs analysis for the client. Present solutions that meets their needs and goals. Everyone goes home happy. The only difference between the doctor and I is that I don't charge any fees. If I help the client, the company pays me.

Sunday, June 20, 2010

Primerica Convention June 15-18 2011

Woohoo! The Primerica Convention is scheduled for June 15-18 2011. Check out the report at: http://www.askprimerica.com/primerica-heads-home-to-the-dome/

Friday, June 18, 2010

A Simple Way to Become Wealthy

Check out this simple advice to investing for retirement from US News & World Report, "A Simple Way to Become Wealthy"
http://www.usnews.com/money/blogs/On-Retirement/2010/6/15/a-simple-way-to-become-wealthy.html

If you are young or don't believe you have enough money to invest, you can open a Roth IRA and invest as little as $25 or $50 each month in a mutual fund. I don't recommend you invest $25 or $50 every month. You should max out your Roth IRA contributions every month. If the maximum contribution allowed for the year is $5000, then divide $5000 by 12, which is about $416.66/month. I highly recommend you setup an pre-authorized checking with your Roth IRA account. Its quite simple and its the best way to make sure you are the first bill to be paid. Most people don't treat themselves as a bill. So they don't create a habit of saving money.

I put away $300/month into my Roth IRA.

To learn more about Roth IRA, check out this article: http://finance1o1.blogspot.com/2007/02/roth-ira.html

Monday, May 10, 2010

Response to Anonymous Comment

I was recently recruited by Primerica and went to the initial meeting and received an invitation to a second meeting. The recruiter told me to do as much research I needed to to make sure I wanted to pursue this, and being a journalism major I had no problem digging to find out what Primerica is really all about.

My sister was also recruited a couple years back and she saw right through the recruiter and decided to pass on the "opportunity." One of my mom's friends was also recruited and she went through with it but never made any profit.

The fact of the matter is Primerica charges too much for the "training" because a background check and "insurance" would not cost that much. That's how they make the majority of their money. If you do the math (quoted from scam.com [the company charged him $199 instead of $99, you can do the math with either number, though. The results are still startling]):

"For every 10 people you recruit, 6 will quit and 4 will pursue their life license. Of the 4 that pursue 1 will fail the test and quit, 1 will pass the exam and never sell insurance, 1 will pass, do 2-3 transactions and quit and 1 will become a "success." So, for every 10 recruits, 7 do nothing with the $199.

Let's do a little bit of math for the month of February. 16,500 divided by 10 is 1650. There are 1650 groups of 10. According to the "formula of success" 7 out of the 10 will not use the $199 they paid. 1650 multiplied by 7 is 11,550 people who did not use their $199 fee for licensing. 11,550 times $199 is $2,298,450. The goal for March is 30,000 recruits. 30,000 divided by 10 is 3000 times 7 is 21,000 times $199 is $4,179,000. In one month off of recruits alone Primerica made enough to pay the "guy on the CD who makes 2 Million Dollars a year" his money for the year and some change."

Is there money to be made in Primerica? Probably. Are their claims on how easy the money will come misleading? Absolutely. I personally will not be working for Primerica because as my sister put it, who is a college graduate and already banking over $55,000 a year out of college, "Anything you have to pay to do is a scam." Do your research, and keep in mind that a blogger with their own experience with Primerica is more credible than a business rep who is paid to write good things about the company.

Also, the Better Business Bureau lists Primerica with only 2,000 employees. Where'd the other 98,000 go?


For being a journalist, you seem to be an amateur since you clearly don't know what you are talking about. Prior to August 2007, a new representative would have to pay $199 to cover the cost of the state licensing fee for life insurance. Individual states charge anywhere from $300 to $500 to obtain this license, which covers pre-licensing school, books for the school, background check, licensing fees, and other fees that the state may charge. I join the company in 2004 and paid $199 to join this business. The remaining costs was covered by the company. After the company convention in August 2007, the company provided two options for new representatives. They may pay either the $199 or $99 plus $25/month. Whether the new recruit pays $199 or $99, this money goes to the state insurance department.

What does the $99 plus $25/month cover? It covers everything that I previously said and much more. With the $99 plus $25/month option, it encourages new representatives to be engaged in their business and get full access of the company support system. Besides covering the cost of a life insurance license, it also covers the cost of a securities license, which cost almost $500. A new representative must qualify for District Leader in order for the company to pay for the securities license. Other requirements apply.

The $25/month part is a full online subscription to the company support system called Primerica Online or POL. POL has tons of information and resources to help representatives build their business. There are training videos, life insurance exam simulator, Morningstar program (for securities license reps only), help desk, virtual baseshop, contest information, legal department, and a downloadable software called Call Atlanta. Call Atlanta is a financial tool where the representative can complete the financial needs analysis. It is also a place where client information is stored. In short, think of it as an online office manager. If representatives have a mobile device that supports Windows 6.1 or higher, they can make transactions without the need of having paper applications. For example, life insurance applications can be filled out on the electronic device and it can either be transmitted wirelessly to the home office or through their computer that has Call Atlanta installed. Is the company making money from the $25/month subscription? They probably are. Then again, it does cost lots of money to keep these servers running and keeping them secured. How much? I really don't know since I don't work for the company. The company works for me. The $25/month subscription can be canceled anytime, but speaking from experience, it will be very difficult to build without it. To me, its worth the money to have it if you are serious about building a business. You also get your own Primerica web page that you can show to the public.

If you were to hire you own office manager or have legal questions or need to manage your clients or employees, it would cost you lot more than $25/month. Primerica Online is the one-stop resource center for all Primerica representatives.

All these expenses that a Primerica representative pays can be a tax write-off. Primerica reps that earn income of at least $600 will get a 1099-MISC form. Therefore, they pay taxes at the end of the year because they are consider business owners or self-employed.

As for your sister who says "anything you have to pay to do is a scam" is somewhat right and somewhat wrong. It all depends on the situation. In business, you have to pay to get it started. Is that a scam? In real estate, you have to pay to get your real estate license. Is that a scam? With Primerica, you have to pay $99 to get your life license and your securities license. Is that a scam? The answer is no. However if you pay to join a company and someone earn a profit from it, then that falls in classification of a pyramid scheme. In Primerica, the company or the representative does not earn a profit by recruiting. As I said before, the $99 is paid to the state.

As for the 2000 employees you mention, there are also over 100,000 licensed representatives. The 100,000 licensed representatives are not employees. They are independent business contractors. Employees are hired by the company. Representatives voluntarily join the company for the opportunity to build a business.

Your sister may be earning $55,000/year, but what if she gets fired from that job? Is your sister really worth $55,000/year? If she trains someone, does she get compensated? I have the opportunity to earn unlimited income at Primerica. The harder I work, the more I will earn. I also have the opportunity to earn overrides. Every time someone I train gets licensed and helps a family, he or she gets paid full commissions base on their sales level. Every time they get paid, I get paid too. That is an override. Anyway, your sister made her choice on working for someone else than to work for herself.

Is there money to be made in Primerica? The answer is yes. Primerica serves middle income families. Majority of middle income families are struggling with debt, have no savings plan, and either have no life insurance or lack adequate coverage. Primerica helps families in all these areas. As big as Primerica is, the company has less than 2% market share. There's a tremendous opportunity for anyone to build a business in Primerica. They just got to get to work.

If you are a journalist, you should visit the company's headquarters in Duluth, GA to get all the information you need. The editor of Ripoffreport.com spent nearly a year investigating the company and wrote a statement on his findings on the website.

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Huge Primerica Banner covers New York Stock Exchange

One of my RVPs with bunch of other millionaires and top producers in the company are currently at Wall Street right now. The company has finally gone public and the stock prices has been increasing all day today. He forward me a pic to my cell phone on what appears to be a huge Primerica banner that is covering the New York Stock Exchange.



Its awesome to be in a company that has done wonderful things not only for me, but for many people in the company and the clients they serve. In my opinion on why Primerica is an awesome company is because this company was built by middle income families that serves middle income families.

Check out this video from CNBC, "Primerica Strong Debut"

Friday, March 26, 2010

Thursday, March 25, 2010

Primerica qualifies for IMSA renewal

IMSA is the premier standards-setting and compliance solutions organization for the life insurance, annuity and long-term care insurance marketplace for individually sold products. Qualified companies commit to maintaining high ethical market conduct standards and to being fair, honest, and open in the way they advertise, sell and service their products. For more information and a list of IMSA-qualified companies, visit www.IMSAethics.org

"Achieving IMSA qualification is a tangible demonstration of a company's ongoing commitment to high standards of ethical market conduct and fair and honest service to customers," said IMSA President & CEO Brian Atchinson. "We applaud Primerica on its dedication to exemplary business practices," said Atchinson.

Full story at: http://www.pr-inside.com/primerica-completes-national-ethics-qualification-r1797274.htm

Monday, March 15, 2010

Warburg Pincus to Invest in Primerica

"Private-equity firm Warburg Pincus has agreed to invest $230 million in Primerica Inc., the life-insurance and mutual-fund sales unit of Citigroup Inc., according to securities filings." -Wall Street Journal Online, March 3, 2010.

Full story can be found at: http://news.primerica.com/public/news/warburg-invests-in-primerica.html

Saturday, February 13, 2010

Primerica reveals new company logo

John Addison, Co-CEO of Primerica, revealed a new company logo on February 8, 2010 in Maui, Hawaii. You can view it at Primerica website at http://www.primerica.com It is my understanding that the three rings stand for unity where clients, the sales force, and the company work together as one team to help people achieve their goals and dreams. The three rings represent Faith, Hope, and Enthusiasm.

Its a new day in Primerica. Primerica is a strong company and its about to get even stronger as the company separate itself from Citi in the coming months. I don't know when, but its going to happen this year. It might even happen in one or two months.

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Primerica wins Dalbar Service Award for the 7th Straight Year!

See the article at: http://www.askprimerica.com/7-year-wonder/

Winning this award year after year shows Primerica its commitment to meeting excellence in quality customer service.

Sunday, January 24, 2010

Why recruit ?

There are some people out there wondering why Primerica is big on recruiting and I'm going to write my view on why I recruit. In order for any organization or business to grow, they have to constantly recruit or hire people. If they don't, the business will eventually die. While you can run a business by yourself, how long will that last? You are doing all the work by yourself and you will either burn out or max out on your productivity. If you want to expand your business and lighten the load of work on yourself, you need to bring some people into your business. Then you have to train them on how to do the tasks. If your business only had 5 people and your competitor had 20 people, who will make more money? You or your competitor?

If you ask any Primerica agent on why they recruit, you will get all sorts of answers. You will hear answers such as "To build a business' or "earn overrides" or "to help people." While they are all correct answers, the bottom line on why anyone recruit is to get freedom in their lives and to earn unlimited income. The more people I recruit, the more people that gets license. The more licensed recruit I have, then more families are being help. For every family that gets help, the licensed recruits earn income. For every licensed recruit that earns income, I earn income as well. As you can probably see, recruiting gives freedom and unlimited income.

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Questions

So someone ask me bunch of questions and rather than replying directly to him, I decided to post his question here and answer it:

I've recently met with a Primerica agent about a possible career opportunity. I met with both a VP and the National Director of Sales. The interview was informative yet I'm still a bit skeptical. I trust the VP I met with, as she is a friend's sister. However, I'm still a bit uneasy with transitioning to a 100% commission based career. I left the meeting without a clear and concise answer to how much I can expect to make in my first month, 6 months, year. I understand that this all depends on how quickly I obtain each licensure. I am a hard worker with a tremendous amount of drive. I plan on obtaining my series 6 and 63 within the next month. What I am asking you is, given that I obtain at the very least my series 6 by the end of the month, what can I expect to earn in my first month? Let's say hypothetically that we are scheduling 8 appointments a month and we closing on 3 of these. I understand that the logistics of each new account are a determinant in calculating commission but I need a realistic idea of what to expect.
It was also suggested to me that I come aboard part time to start. I'm sure this is a good idea to keep my income level at least static but I was wondering how long, if at all, you stayed part time. Also, how long did it take you to obtain your series 6, series 63? Another question, were the majority of your first clients friends, family, cold calls, or were the leads provided to you?
Thank you for any/all help you can provide!

You should of ask all these questions during the meeting. Your RVP has every intention to help you succeed. Anyway, since you understand that your income is base on your own efforts, which is commissions, how much income you make depends on how quickly you get your licenses and how much effort you put into your business. There's people who made $100k in the first year and there's people who didn't make anything in their first year. I only made about $1000 in my first year working part-time. So the answer on how much income you can make depends solely on you and the size of your organization. You can expect that people who decided to go full time make more money than those who go part-time. The choice to whether go full time or part time depends on your situation.

So lets do a hypothetical example on how much you can make in a month. An average client (both husband and wife) pays $1000/year for their life insurance. I don't know what state you are from, but the average value of a home in my area is $300,000. Lets say the national average is about $175,000. And lets hypothetically say that you help a client invest $10,000 and setup a monthly investment plan of $200.

So if you help out 3 families in a month using my example with average value of a home of $175,000, as a starting representative, you would be making about $1000 per family or $3000 per month. As a District Leader, you would be making about $4300/month. If you become a RVP, you would be making around $10,000/month. But keep in mind, you are not going to do business with every family, so your income maybe less. I think the average is that you need to schedule 8 appointments, to get 5 FNAs, to get 3 life insurance transactions, to get 1 SMART loan, and 1 Recruit. If you get your securities license, you will get paid on that transaction forever. Imagine you were a District Leader and had 10 people investing $200/month? That's an extra $30/month. If you were a RVP, that's an extra $60/month. Some mutual funds pay out 12b-1 fees, so you will get income from that as well.

The very first clients I saw were my parents. What I found out was that they own a variable universal life policy. My mom had $30,000 coverage and my dad had $100,000 coverage. They bought the policy at age 40 and was paying $2400/year for it. When I sat down with my parents, they were both 56 years old. My mom's life insurance had about $8000 in cash surrender value and my dad's life insurance had about $15,000 in cash surrender value. What I did was replace their life insurance policies with a 20 year term and gave them both $100,000 coverage. They had health issues, so they were rated Non-tobacco user and paid around $1600/year in premiums. So I nearly double their total coverage and still save them $800/year. With the cash value, I did a 1035 exchange for both policies into a variable annuity. They had no debts to pay either. So I made a total of $600 for helping my parents as a Representative. (Full story of complete details of what I did can be found by clicking here).

The next client was my sister and we did a SMART loan for her. The loan size was $165,000. She had 27 years left to pay on her mortgage and was paying about $1000/month. With the SMART loan, I took her from 27 years to 21 years and her monthly payment was only $800/month. With the extra $200/month, she applied it to toward the principal and got out of debt even sooner from 21 years to 17 years. By doing this, she saved over $150,000 in total interest. I got paid about $500 by helping my sister.

During my first year, I also invited my friends and relatives to see the opportunity. Of the 30 people I had on my list, only 10 showed up and 2 joined, which they later quit the next day. No clue why they join and then quit.

After that, I had nowhere to go. I was new at the time and didn't understand how to get referrals. My upline didn't know either. What I did next was go to job fairs and collect resumes. I even did some prospecting where ever I went such as buying food at the supermarket or getting gas or whatever I was doing. Prospecting is scary and nerve wrecking at first because you have all these questions going through your head and you keep criticizing yourself. What if they say "no" (which many will), then what? Don't take it personally. Just keep doing what you are doing and move on. From these activities, I recruited few people and my upline did the training appointments. My new recruits also recruited some people and from there on, the recruiting never stops. I still recruit people even today because the top leaders in this company that makes millions of dollars a year say that the more directs you have, the more money you make. Width = wealth.

Few months later after my last appointment with my sister, I learned the Bob Safford's 3rd Party Referral System. From that knowledge, my activities grew and my income grew as well. I highly suggest you learn the 3rd Party Referral System.

If you are just starting with the company, I would find out what you need to do to get yourself promoted. The best place to get that answer is by asking someone who have already done it, which is your RVP. I'm not going say what you need to do to get your next promotion because my answer can be completely different than what your RVP said. After all, I'm only a Regional Leader in the company.

Good luck and see you at the top!