FREEDOM LIVES HERE!

Which company has the most million dollar earners?

2011-10-30T13:18:00.000-04:00

The answer is simple: Primerica Financial Services.

Don't believe it? Do your research and you won't find any other company with people earning 7 figure income every year. Primerica has a proven track record of success. You will be a fool to not look at the business opportunity.

Not only does Primerica has the 7 figure income earners, it also has the most 6 figure income earners as well.

Long live Bob Safford Sr.

2011-09-05T00:15:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, Bob Safford has passed away at age of 77. I barely knew him, but I seen him do training couple times for the Keith Otto Hierarchy. The things he taught has greatly improve my business. He taught the 3rd party referral system. The last time I saw him do training was probably in 2008 in Bushkill, PA.

I remember he was the most excited and energetic person I ever met, especially for his age. I don't remember his entire history. I know he grew up poor above some bar when he was a child. I think he served in the military. Then he built a very successful insurance company. Then he joined Primerica long time ago (I think it was in the early 1980s) and built an amazing business.

Primerica is awesome!

2011-08-14T13:45:00.001-04:00

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/05/us-primerica-idUSTRE7743BW20110805

I don't want to work!

2011-08-14T13:42:00.000-04:00

There some people out there that feel when they join a MLM (multi-level marketing) company, they don't want to work because every time they get paid, their uplines get paid too. So basically they are selfish and want to keep all the money to themselves OR they are just lazy. But you know what? They are only hurting themselves by not going to work and fighting for their future. They won't make any money and their business won't grow. Their uplines will make money whether their downlines work or not. Why? Because the uplines can do the work themselves and also they will continue to recruit more people. If you take a look at the larger picture, everyone are independent business contractors. You work for your own business. It doesn't matter if the person who recruited you is also earning profits from the production of your business. You have the same opportunity to recruit more business associates.

Also, commission rates are base on your sales level. In MLMs, there are several sales level. Everyone starts at the bottom and they have the opportunity to move up to the highest paying sales level. It's their choice on whether to stay at the bottom or work their way up. When you make a sale, you are paid a certain percentage base on your sales level. Every time you make a sale, the company pays your uplines an override. An override is the difference between your sales level and your upline's sales level. There is no split-commissions, unless more than one sales agent was needed to make the sale.

What if you do reach the top? Your uplines will still continue to earn overrides off your business. It will be a small override, but it will be a very big paycheck. People at the top are usually earning 6 to 7 figure incomes. I know that in Primerica, people at the top earn 7 figure incomes or close to it. Guess what? Most of them are not even working. They are enjoying life. If they die or wish to retire, they can pass their business to their kids and grand kids or sell it to another agent.

Can you do any of this at your job? Can you even earn this kind of income? If you can earn this kind of income, are you able to enjoy your life by doing things you want to do at any time? I know for a fact that in a job, the more money you earn, the more stress and responsibilities you have. Also, if you earn too much income at that position, the company has the right to fire you and hire another employee with a lower paying salary. You could be the best employee, but you have to know you are an expense to the company. In MLMs, everyone is a profit to the company because everyone is a sales agent. Every time someone makes a sale, the company earns a profit. So the company has no incentives to terminate the agent's independent business contract.

i wish my movie theater was like this

2011-07-31T11:42:00.003-04:00

cool picture of the stage from PRI convention 2011. http://www.bizbash.com/primerica_meeting_uses_times_square-style_video_ribbons_to_educate_entertain_sales_staff/newyork/story/21102

Convention almost here!

2011-05-25T00:13:00.001-04:00

The convention is about 3 weeks away and the person who started it all, Art Williams, is going to be there! If you been to the previous Primerica conventions, you have no idea what this convention is going to be like. Primerica is running the show now since the company is an independent financial company.

My advice, get to work and go to the convention with a good feeling. Don't go there alone. Bring people with you. This event can change your life forever. Then come out with a great feeling to take your business to the next level.

Take a look at this article: http://insurancenewsnet.com/article.aspx?id=264671

Is Primerica a Scam?

2011-05-24T23:59:00.001-04:00

I don't know how many times I answer this question but if you really did the research, you will eventually find out that Primerica is not a scam, a pyramid scheme, or a ponzi scheme. I will provide the facts to you on how Primerica is not a scam, but first lets define what a pyramid scheme or a ponzi scheme is.

A pyramid scheme as define by the Securities Exchange Commission is where participants solely make money by recruiting new participants into the program. The hallmark of these schemes is the promise of sky-high returns in a short period of time for doing nothing other than handing over your money and getting others to do the same.

The fraudsters behind a pyramid scheme may go to great lengths to make the program look like a legitimate multi-level marketing program. But despite their claims to have legitimate products or services to sell, these fraudsters simply use money coming in from new recruits to pay off early stage investors. But eventually the pyramid will collapse. At some point the schemes get too big, the promoter cannot raise enough money from new investors to pay earlier investors, and many people lose their money.

In other words, people pay money to join and this money goes to the recruiter and to all the people above that recruiter. Eventually the pyramid will get to big where there isn't enough people joining to pay off everyone already involve. In Primerica, this does not happen. In Primerica, it cost $99 to cover licensing fees and a background check. The recruiter or the company does not earn income from this. I recruited lots of people and I never got paid for recruiting. The $99 goes to the state department of insurance. If you were to get a life license, a securities license, and a mortgage license, its going to cost you almost $1000 or more on your own. At Primerica, its only $99. $99 to have an opportunity to build a business and earn unlimited income is a joke because most people who join the company don't treat their opportunity as a business. They treat it as a hobby or something to do on the side. So they won't work as hard as they need to. If they open their own business that's going to cost at least $100,000 to start up, they would work hard every single day to earn that money back and it will take them at least2 years to finally break even and start seeing profits. At Primerica, you can earn that $99 back by helping one family, which takes 4 hours of work. With my first client, I earn $300 by replacing a variable universal life insurance with a 20 year term insurance. I saved the client over $600/year and double their coverage.

What is a ponzi scheme? The SEC has full information about it. Web address is: http://www.sec.gov/answers/ponzi.htm Primerica has over 25,000 registered representatives, the largest mutual fund sales force in North America. They market mutual funds from well known companies such as Legg Mason, Fidelity, Inveco, American Fund, Oppenheimer, and many more. Primerica has done very well in regards in providing customer service. They have won the Dalbar Service Award every year since 2004.

So what is Primerica? It is a multi level marketing company (MLM) and there are thousands of companies that are MLM in the United States. It is estimated that over 1 million people are currently involved in MLM companies. People who have problem with a MLM company are usually people with a job and they are stuck with a job mindset. But people with a business mindset will say that Primerica is the best business opportunity in America so far that is worth trying.

Anyway, I'm here to discuss on how Primerica is not a scam. Here is a list of facts about Primerica:

1) There are over 100,000 life licensed representatives in the company, the largest marketing organization in North America.

2) Primerica been in business since 1977.

3) There are currently over 4.3 million clients in Primerica. That's lots of clients for a company that you think is a scam. Not only that, clients has invested over $28 billion through Primerica in various mutual funds and money market funds.

4) Primerica has marketing agreements with various companies. They market Citicorp Trust Bank debt elimination loans, Metlife's Variable Annuities, ING 401(k), Genworth Financial's Long Term Care, Auto&Home Insurance referral program for Answer Financial Inc, mutual fund companies such as Fidelity, Legg Mason Partners, Oppenheimer, American Fund, Invesco, and so on. Primerica Financial Services owns their own life insurance company called Primerica Life and an investment company called PFS Investment Inc. It markets term life insurance for National Benefit Life in New York.

5) Primerica has over 5000 offices in USA and Canada. The home office itself (located in Duluth, GA) is over 1 million square feet and it has its own zip code.

6) Primerica spun off from Citigroup on April 1, 2010 and is listed on NYSE as symbol "PRI". Prior to this historic event, Warburg Pincus has agreed to invest $230 million in Primerica (which by the way spent $10 million researching Primerica), owning roughly 23% of the shares. Citigroup will own 50% of the shares. 12 months later, Primerica was named the best IPO of the year.

7) Every financial company in America has to hold an annual compliance meeting. Primerica holds their Annual Compliance Meeting in the month of November. Every representative in those companies that are licensed in life, mortgage, and/or securities must attend that meeting. The purpose of this meeting is to keep representatives up to date to rules and regulations set by the federal government. By having this meeting, it protects the consumer as well as the representative.

8) Primerica representatives are require to get certain licenses in order to talk about certain financial products. For example, if you wanted to solicit life insurance, you need a life license or a producer license. If you want to talk about mortgages or debt consolidation, you need a mortgage license. If you want to talk about investments, you need a securities license. These licenses are only issued by the state or the federal government (mostly state, except for the securities which is issued by the federal government), they are not issued by individual financial companies. To get these licenses, you have to pass a test. After you get your licenses, continuing education is required.

9) Besides the fact that Primerica has over 100,000 licensed representatives, they also have about 2000 employees.

10) Primerica has its own TV network that does live broadcast every Mondays and Wednesdays at 12pm. The broadcast usually has Co-CEOs or the President of Primerica speaking first. Then after they speak, successful leaders in the company does live training.

11) Over 60,000 people attends the Primerica convention, which occurs every other year on an odd year. I'm not sure if they will still hold it at the Georgia Dome in the future since the company is getting bigger and bigger. I've been to every single convention and that dome is packed from the seats to the field. Its the most amazing event where everyone gets together. "One team. One dream."

12) Primerica is member of the Better Business Bureau, which gave Primerica a business rating of A+ (as of April 1, 2010)

13) Winner of Dalbar Service Award in since 2004

14) Primerica is member of Insurance Marketplace Standard Association (IMSA). More info can be found about IMSA can be found at: http://www.imsaethics.org/Content/AboutIMSA_46.aspx

15) Member of American Council of Life Insurers, as association of 377 companies representing 91% of total life insurance assets in the US, 90% of life insurance premiums, and 95% of annuity considerations.

16) Listed on Russell 3000 index and Russell 2000 index as of July 1, 2010. The Russell 3000 Index measures the performance of the largest 3000 U.S. companies representing approximately 98% of the investable U.S. equity market. The Russell 2000 Index measures the performance of the small-cap segment of the U.S. equity universe. The Russell 2000 Index is a subset of the Russell 3000® Index representing approximately 8% of the total market capitalization of that index. It includes approximately 2,000 of the smallest securities based on a combination of their market cap and current index membership.

17) Named as a perfect business model in the book "ABC of Making Money"

But if you think Primerica is still a scam after all this proof, I got news for you. You are either ignorant to information or someone who really hates Primerica. No matter what you think, Primerica is here to stay for generations to come because the company always do the right thing with their clients. If you seen what I seen, you will be heart broken by how so many people out there screw up their finances. What's even worse, many people don't know they are financially hurt or they think their problems will go away. Its not that these people wanted to be in that position, they just don't know there are far better options out there.

I believe there is no company out there that is better than Primerica. I help people save money on their life insurance and providing them 2 to 5 times their current coverage. I help people get out of debt. Banks want people to stay in debt for the full term so they can collect all the interest. Primerica helps people to get out of debt faster, therefore paying less interest and saving time. I remember helping one client pay off the mortgage 14 years sooner. He had 26 years left to pay on the mortgage and now he has 12 years to pay off all his debts. I help people build wealth toward retirement and other goals by investing in various mutual funds. There are all kinds of mutual funds that is right for any investor. There are mutual funds for the conservative investor who don't like to be exposed to high risks in the market and there are mutual funds for the more aggressive investors who are willing to accept high risks for potential of higher returns. On top of all this, I provide a free financial needs analysis to all my clients to help them reach their goals. I even take it a step further by inviting them to the business opportunity.

Some additional sources for you to look at:
Primerica Financial Services
Better Business Bureau
Federal Trade Commission Comment (pdf file. Adobe Reader required)
S1 Registration to Securities Exchange Commission (Final Prospectus)
Primerica Scam: The Real Picture
American Chronicle "The Escalating Mortgage Crisis"
IPO VIEW-Primerica IPO, despite problems, could sell
Insurer Primerica poised to break away from Citi IPO

Last edit on May 25, 2011

Its spelled Primerica, not Prime America or Primeamerica

2011-05-01T16:34:00.001-04:00

Do you know there is really a company called "Prime America" and they don't deal with any financial products. They are delivery service company that deliver goods across the US. Check them out at http://www.primeamerica.biz

Why having a job sucks

2011-04-30T22:22:00.000-04:00

If you have a job, you already know why a job sucks. If you ever got fired or laid off from a job in the past few years, then you really know how much a job sucks. Perhaps you need to be reminded about what a job is really about:
1) You are an employee
2) You have a boss telling you want to do
3) Your entire life evolves around your job. If you wanted to take time off to see your kid play sports or perform at a school play or visit someone who is in the hospital, you have to take sick days or vacation days.
4) Your life style is dictated by the fixed salary you earn at your job. This includes your home, your clothes, the food you eat, your car, your vacation, the schools your child attends, and so on. You know there's a higher quality, but you can't afford it.
5) The US government take taxes out of your paycheck before you get paid.
6) You can be fired in an instant without warning. You live with this fear everyday. As you get older, employer's tend to get rid of old people and hire younger and more energetic employees with a smaller salary.
7) A job is not going to teach you how to be successful. I believe the reason why is that they don't want you to be successful because you could be their competition if that happens.
8) There is no such thing as happiness at a job. You are delusional if you think having a job makes you happy because you will always live in constant fear. Your job such as working in a hospital may do good things for the public, but deep down you complain how long your hours are and sometimes how dangerous your job can be.

From 2008 to 2010, you have witness the death of American jobs and the worst financial crisis since World War 2. If you were affected by it, why go back and search for a job? To be fired later again? Why continue to do business with companies that put America and the rest of the world in a bad situation and yet the government bailed them out? To be screwed and ripped off by these companies again? Primerica didn't need a bailout. In fact, Primerica has survived every financial crisis since the company was founded in 1977. Primerica has zero profits. Primerica's clients didn't face a recession because Primerica teaches clients to invest monthly using dollar cost averaging, shows their client how to get out of debt, and educate clients the difference between cash value and term life. By the way, these companies that were bailed out are still screwing the consumer because they need to make lots of profits to pay off their government loan. How they make profits is by selling very expensive products such as cash value life insurance to the uneducated public who don't know a thing about these products work, but are very gullible to people who hold a formal title such as "financial planner" or "financial advisor." While the government has implemented tougher regulations against mortgage companies, I bet these mortgage companies will find some way to screw average and ordinary American citizens once again. Its in their culture to do so. If it wasn't, Americans would have lots of money saved, have very little debts, and maybe many of them would own their own business.

What you should really be doing is be open minded about going into business or go into business opportunities such as Primerica. At least with business, you own it and you are your own boss. You control your destiny and how much income you want to earn. You also get tax benefits of owning a business. If people say you are crazy and telling you not to do it, don't listen to them. They want to be losers for the rest of their life who will keep having a job and live in misery, but do you want to be like them? Do you want to work for the rest of your life at a job and get nothing in return? Do you know that in the early 1900s in America, there were 10% laborers working for 90% of business owners? Today, 90% of laborers work for 10% of business owners. It shows me that most of America has lost its ability to dream and fight for financial freedom. America needs to change, but there is so many obstacles in our way that prevents Americans to pursue their dream of owning a business. Do you know that most, if not all, colleges are funded by corporations? If you go into a college, you are very likely being brainwashed into getting a job. In fact, your own parents are even influencing you to get a job. If your parents are like my parents, they would say go to school, get good grades, and get a good job with benefits. Good job with benefits? What kind of crap is that? Benefits that comes out of your paycheck? That's not a benefit if you are paying some of it. Even today they still tell me the same thing. Know what? I don't care about what they want, this is my life. I choose to go with Primerica because I see the opportunity and know great things will come my way as long as I keep working and growing my business. I earn enough income that I can buy my own benefits such as health insurance, my own retirement plan called an IRA, and so on.

Primerica celebrates 1 year anniversary

2011-04-02T14:06:00.004-04:00

Yesterday, Primerica celebrated its 1st anniversary after becoming an IPO on April 1, 2010. Yesterday, the company labeled it "Freedom Friday." Sounds corny, but Primerica is all about freedom. What does freedom mean to you? In essence, it means more time and more money. Anyone can achieve freedom, but not everyone is willing to pay the price to earn it. I don't think its possible for anyone to achieve freedom if they have a job. There is no freedom in a job. Its impossible. You work on someone's else time and they pay you a salary. You fear everyday that you will lose your job or that someday, you will not have the ability to perform at your job.

I have been in Primerica for few years now and I grow more and more passionate about what I do. I love how this company gives ordinary people such as myself to build a business within their company. I get to start part-time and earn some extra income and still be able to keep my full-time job. Eventually, my business grew and so did my income. My part-time income at Primerica eventually replaced what I earned at my full-time job. I now don't have a job, but I own a business at Primerica. I am not a Regional Vice President yet in the company as I don't have enough people, but I have some people working consistently and they do it voluntarily. I don't tell them to work or force them to work. They do it on their own. Every time they get paid, I too get paid. Its called an override. If people don't want to work, that's their decision. I'll make money whether they work or not.

This was taken from insurancenewsnet.com:

The largest financial services marketing organization in North America with 95,000 licensed representatives
#1 rank in term life insurance premium (2009)
$656.8 billion in life insurance protection in force – among the industry leaders
$74.4 billion in face amount life insurance issued in 2010
Paid an average of more than $2.6 million in life benefit claims each day in 2010
$34.9 billion in client account values in investments and savings
Opened 3.5 million client IRAs since 2000

Is Primerica life insurance really more expensive?

2011-01-14T19:18:00.001-05:00

Some people say Primerica's term policies are expensive. While I do agree, they forget to mention that Primerica adds value to their clients and how much money clients are saving overall. People who say Primerica's term life insurance are expensive are only focusing on the life insurance aspect. It is also probable that some of these people sell whole life or universal life insurance and trying to bash Primerica and confuse the public. Whatever the case is, Primerica does the right thing for their clients. They help families get out of debt, get the right amount of life insurance coverage, and become financially independent. By showing clients how to get out of debt faster, the client would be savings thousands or tens of thousands of dollars from the total interest payment. Every Primerica's client gets a free, customized, and confidential financial needs analysis. Do other companies do this? I don't know any companies that does.

Primerica sells term insurance 100% of the time. When the term expires, the client can renew the policy every 5 years until age 75. After 75, it renews every year until age 95, which is when the policy expires. At age 75, who really needs life insurance? If your youngest child is 40, you have no debts to pay, and you are retired, making your savings last for the rest of your life is more of a concern than having life insurance. Primerica clients can also convert or exchange their term policies into another term policy. Primerica teaches their clients to also save or invest their money for the future.

With other companies, when the term expires, the client can renew every year or convert to whole life or universal life. If you don't know by now, whole life and universal life are more expensive than term insurance and if you study how they works (or if you have one, just read your own policy), you will see it is a total ripoff. Most companies don't teach their clients anything. They just sell products and its their clients that is getting screwed.

So who is really paying more? Primerica clients or the competitor's clients?

ABC's of Primerica

2010-09-06T05:00:00.002-04:00

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.

Why I love Primerica? OVERRIDES!

2010-08-20T03:19:00.002-04:00

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.

The numbers are the numbers...

2010-07-27T01:32:00.005-04:00

... 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.

Primerica joins Russell 3000 and Russell 2000 Index

2010-07-12T03:55:00.004-04:00

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.

One man's idea of "pyramid scheme"

2010-07-02T00:38:00.003-04:00

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.

CNBC's review of Primerica IPO

2010-07-01T02:01:00.000-04:00

Check out this video: http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/video/default-ap.aspx?cp-documentid=efdcfc57-94b6-4bd9-a960-769d9aa9ecc2

I'm a financial doctor

2010-06-24T22:17:00.002-04:00

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.

Primerica Convention June 15-18 2011

2010-06-20T15:53:00.002-04:00

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/

A Simple Way to Become Wealthy

2010-06-18T03:45:00.003-04:00

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

Response to Anonymous Comment

2010-05-10T00:26:00.004-04:00

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.

Huge Primerica Banner covers New York Stock Exchange

2010-04-01T12:22:00.002-04:00

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"

One editor's view on Primerica's IPO

2010-03-26T23:14:00.001-04:00

Check this article out: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/feedarticle/9006904

Primerica qualifies for IMSA renewal

2010-03-25T14:45:00.001-04:00

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

Warburg Pincus to Invest in Primerica

2010-03-15T22:55:00.001-04:00

"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

Primerica reveals new company logo

2010-02-13T14:07:00.002-05:00

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.

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

2010-02-09T18:29:00.003-05:00

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.

Why recruit ?

2010-01-24T14:27:00.003-05:00

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.

Questions

2010-01-06T12:58:00.006-05:00

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!

A historical moment in Primerica

2009-11-07T23:24:00.003-05:00

http://news.primerica.com/public/news/citi-announces-primerica-ipo.html Just a little FYI: Primerica is not public yet and nothing is finalize. There will be media reports about it and you should know that some of their facts may be inaccurate, so just be careful on where you get your source from. If you want to get the facts, get it from either Primerica press release or from the Securities Exchange Commission website that will have the latest report on the progress.

Here's the link of the preliminary prospectus: http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1475922/000119312509225601/ds1.htm

Just reading it shows how great this company really is. You will notice many blanks in the prospectus because this is only a preliminary document and its the first step to file for IPO. There will be several meetings to be followed between Primerica's executives and the SEC. How long will that take? I don't know and I'm not going to focus on it and wait. I'm going to keep building my business and help more families. It is what I do best and any incentives that Primerica's gives me is just an extra boost for me to work harder.

Finally seeing positive gains on my investments

2009-10-08T19:56:00.006-04:00

Back in January 2009, there was approximately a $2000 loss on my investments. I invested in various mutual funds through Primerica and I keep track of them on Quicken 2009 software. While $4000 is alot of money, I truly didn't lose anything since I didn't sell my investments or pull out of the market. Instead, I kept investing every single month. I maybe young and naive, but knowing how the market generally performs over time, I expect the market to rebound and see growth. During the entire time that the market was down, I was buying shares at a very low price. I am happy to report that there's now a $150 gain on my investment. Of course, the market can change in an instant, so I maybe back in the negatives again. But it doesn't matter to me what the value of my account is. It only matters when I retire in 30 to 35 years. All it matters to me right now is how many shares I can own.

To be honest, I really don't know what I'm doing when it comes to investing. But I listen to advice from others who have millions of dollars in their accounts and how they went from having nothing saved for retirement to having millions. These people I talk to were ordinary middle income people just like you and me, but did what other millionaires did to be financially independent. Here are some tips they gave me:
1) Set a long term goal. Investing is a long term strategy. Don't expect to see a huge return in one day or a month or a year.
2) Diversify your investments. Don't put all your money in one company. Invest in several companies.
3) Be discipline. Remember why you are investing and keep your eye on the prize. Don't listen to headlines. Present or past information does not predict future results.
4) Pay yourself first. Every time you get your paycheck from work, the first payment should be yourself. I personally max out my Roth IRA contributions every year and I also put money into other investments. I put away almost 30% of my monthly income into investments.
5) Use dollar cost average. By investing on a monthly basis, you will eventually lower the cost per share you own.
6) The more income you make, the more money you should put away.
7) Live below your means. Basically this mean don't try to live a life style you can barely afford by trying to show off how much money you make by buying expensive things, but have nothing in your savings. If you are funding your life with debt, you really need to sit down with a Primerica representative to help you get out of debt and do a budget for you.

I only been investing for 3 years and if I never met these people, I would of probably made some bad choices with my money. In fact, I would of kept all my money in the bank getting a lousy 0.50% interest on it and then pay tax on top of that. If investment choices were offered to me, I would of put my money in money markets and maybe bonds and get maybe 3 to 5% interest. But since I understand how Rule of 72 works and how powerful compound interest really is, I put money into more aggressive mutual funds and some conservative funds.

Fitch gives Primerica Life's IFS rating of A+

2009-08-31T22:29:00.003-04:00

Here's the link to the report: http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssFinancialServicesAndRealEstateNews/idUSN2838287620090828

The Insight of Primerica trips by FOX News

2009-08-31T22:18:00.002-04:00

Here's a video from Fox News about how Primerica's trips are funded:

Citi doesn't pay for any of Primerica's expenses. Primerica pays everything and Citi just takes in a share of Primerica's profits.

What is Primerica all about?

2009-08-27T22:15:00.002-04:00

I personally believe Primerica is a company that is about building and developing people to become business leaders so that they can eventually own their own business someday. In Primerica, they are not a company that is about financial services. They are a company of distributing financial products. Everybody needs what we do. We help families get the right amount of income protection, help them eliminate debt, and become financially independent. We provide a customized, confidential, and complimentary Financial Needs Analysis, which is a financial tool to help people reach their financial goals.

I listen to many successful people in this company earning million to four million dollars a year and one message I commonly hear from them is that you don't need to be an expert in finances to be successful in Primerica. You just need the commitment or dedication to fight for your future. You need to be careful who you associate yourself with. Are you associating yourself with people who are broke and unsuccessful and still talking about how high school was great? Or are you associating yourself with people who are highly successful and teaching you how to become successful? You also need to have a positive attitude. People want to work with people who are positive and excited. If you are not positive and always complaining or just in a bad mood, your attitude will affect the people around you. Another thing they say is get started now and let your trainers do the rest of the work for you until you feel confident enough to do everything by yourself. As you do more and more work, guess what? You also learn more and gain more experience and also earn more money.

There's only 2 reasons why people in Primerica don't get to work: 1) They don't understand the fundamentals or 2) They are lazy. No one in this world can change you if you are lazy. Only you can make yourself get to work. If you don't understand the fundamentals, your uplines will help you understand it.

Anyway, Primerica is a company that is about developing people to become business leaders. Guess what? They done a pretty good job with that with over 2400 reps earning 6 figures and over 60 reps earning 7 figures. I believe there's more successful people in Primerica than any other financial company. While you can make tons of money in other financial companies, do you have the same freedom as these successful Primerica reps are? All these successful Primerica reps don't have to work and still get paid. Can you do that at other companies? In Primerica, we can recruit our clients to give them the opportunity to earn extra income and build a business. What can other financial companies do if their clients have a shortfall of income to meet their financial goals? They would say you have to somehow earn more money or lower your goals. There's no one can do what Primerica can do.

Primerica increases Metlife's Variable Annuities sales

2009-07-30T19:14:00.006-04:00

This portion of the news report was taken from Reuters titled, "Metlife Posts $1.4 bln quarterly net loss":

MetLife said its annuities business saw a 43 percent increase in deposits in the quarter, stemming from a record $4.5 billion in variable annuity deposits.

Life insurers are seeing increased demand for annuities as Americans begin to deploy cash more actively into retirement investments.

Variable annuities are much like mutual fund investments, except they include features such as a guaranteed stream of retirement income.

But MetLife's strong balance sheet is helping it stand out against rivals.

"MetLife, unlike some of the other companies, is benefiting from a 'flight to quality,'" said Morningstar's Rambaldini.

Unlike half a dozen of its peers, MetLife never asked to be included in TARP, a federal funding program originally intended for banks, instead tapping capital markets when it needed to bolster capital.

The company's net worth, or the book value of its equity, rose about 18 percent in the quarter to roughly $25 billion.

While the report don't say why or how Metlife's Variable Annuities business is growing, a regional sales manager from Metlife said Primerica sells more variable annuities than Metlife's sales force. Its no shock to me. Primerica has the largest securities licensed representatives in North America. I believe Metlife's Prime Elite variable annuities is the best kind of variable annuity out there with its low fees and guaranteed features associated with it such as guaranteed growth for several years and access to hundreds of mutual funds.

I have sold a few variable annuities by either doing a 1035 exchange with a cash value life insurance policy or a 1035 exchange with a variable annuity. My parents once owned a variable universal life insurance policy. One policy with $30,000 coverage had about $8,000 in net surrender cash value and the other policy with $100,000 coverage had $15,000 in net surrender value. Their total annual premium for a total of $130,000 coverage was $2400. Both of them bought this life insurance policy when they were 40 years old.

At the time I sat down with my parents (both at age 56), I found out they were under-insured, meaning they didn't have enough coverage to cover their financial needs. I gave each of them a 20 year term with $100,000 coverage each for a total of $200,000 coverage. They had health issues and rated "non-tobacco" instead of "preferred", so their annual premium is $1621/year. If they bought the 20 year term when they were 40 years old (they were healthy back then), it would of cost them $299/year, saving them $2101/year. If they invested the difference for a period of 16 years (from age 40 to 56), they would of have about $87,000 in their account at a 10% rate of return. In their variable universal life policies, they only had about $23,000. That's almost a $64,000 difference!

After the term policy was issued, I did a 1035 exchange with their variable universal life policies and moved the cash value into a variable annuity. My parent's original retirement plan was relying on social security and government programs, if they even qualify for government assistance. I did not want my parents to retire poor and downgrade their life style. Besides opening variable annuities for them, I also open a Roth IRA for both of them. They both plan to retire at age 64, so they only had another 12 years to invest. Both of them invest $300/month into their own Roth IRA (a total of $600/month) and with a 8% return (because they are conservative investors), each of them would have about $72,600 in their retirement account for a total of $145,200. $145k is not alot of money to retire on, but at least its something. Plus, they don't pay any taxes on this and all withdrawals are tax-free because that's how a Roth IRA works.

Anyway, so their new retirement plan now includes social security, income for life from their Metlife's variable annuities, and their Roth IRA and from me who is currently earning over $90,000/year and soon to earn over $100k/year with no stop in sight. This is why I love Primerica. Helping families, building a business, having freedom, and being able to support your loved ones with no worries about money. Everyone who is in Primerica has the same opportunity, but it requires hard work, small sacrifices, and focus to achieve these goals.

The good will overcome evil

2009-07-23T21:56:00.003-04:00

I was thinking to myself and was wondering why is Primerica not affected by certain circumstances such as the recession while many other companies are taking a hard hit? The answer is simple, Primerica does the right thing for their clients. "When you do the right things, events don't overtake you. You overtake events."

For example, lets take a look at the mortgage industry. Many mortgage companies got involved in selling exotic mortgages such as Adjustable Rate Mortgages in the past few years. While it generate lots of profits for those companies for a short period of time, many of those companies are now gone or have been bail out by the government. Guess what? They are partly to blame for the economic mess that the world is in right now. At Primerica, they stood by one type of loan and that's a fixed rate loan. Of all the clients in Primerica who own Primerica's SMART loan (which stands for Save Money And Reduce Taxes) during the past 10 years, less than 0.7% of them ever foreclosed their home. Primerica's SMART loan business continues to grow while many other companies doing mortgages continue to struggle to survive.

Some of you are asking what about Citigroup? Yes they received government bailout money, but there's no connection between Primerica and Citigroup. The only connection between these two companies is that Citigroup takes some of Primerica's profits. Citigroup doesn't pay for any Primerica's expenses or any other companies that are part of Citigroup. Think of Citigroup as one big financial supermarket. A supermarket sells all kinds of stuff. But does the supermarket pay for the expenses of making those products or pay those employees or expenses of those companies? No. They earn money by selling those products. To me, its kind of a sucky deal to be part of Citigroup. There's been lots of chatter about Citi trying to sell Primerica and I hope someday that day will come true. But in a shaky economy we are in right now, I don't think any company is willing to pay about $7.5 billion to buy Primerica right now. Believe me, there's lots of companies out there that is interested in Primerica, just that its not the right time.

Now, lets take a look at the life insurance industry. Primerica is member of the "Insurance Marketplace Standards Association, a self-policing compliance group established by life insureres. In January 2000, there were 241 members. In May 2009, there were only 88 companies. It proves one thing that Primerica continues to do what is right for their consumers. Primerica lowered their rates in the year 2007 and many companies did the same. But when the going get tough and companies need to generate more money, they need to raise their rates or reduce the number of agents. At Primerica, they kept their rates the same and the sales force continues to grow. There's no company out there that can compete against Primerica.

The bottom line of my message. Good companies that do the right thing will strive and get stronger and companies that takes advantage of people will fall or be affected by economic conditions. Primerica been in business for over 30 years and the company continues to get bigger and stronger, even during rough economic times.

I love Primerica

2009-07-18T22:06:00.005-04:00

I just want to say that I love Primerica for:
...giving me the opportunity to grow and build my business on my own terms.
...the opportunity to earn any amount of income I want to earn.
...the tools I need to grow my business
...the ability to educate and help families that desperately need our help.
...the unbelievable support system. Without it, I will be lost.
...putting together big events such as conventions and the most recent Builder's Summit they held in the past month.
...having awesome Co-CEO's John Addison and Rick Williams for putting so much love, support, and excitement into the company.
...being able to listen and learn from all the great leaders in Primerica.
...doing what is right for families 100% of the time.
...being a motivation in my life. Its not the company that motivates me, its the people in it from the employees who process all my paper work and answering all my questions to the great business leaders like Keith Otto, Frank Dillion, Jimmy Meyer, Bob Safford and many more, to the top executives of Primerica. One big company where everybody is heading in the same direction of growing big and doing what is right all the time and get more people to financial independence.
...for being able to bring new technology that I could use.
...for the amazing financial education. Without the education, I would still be putting all my money in a savings account and not invest a single cent in the stock market. I would probably be sold on whole life or universal life or whatever expensive crap these money-craving life insurance vultures are selling. With the education and guidance, I'm expected to be financially independent by the time I'm 50 years old just by investing. Factor in the income I earn from my business, I can be financially independent by the time I'm 40 years old or earlier.

Thank you Primerica for this amazing opportunity!

Why majority of the financial industry hates Primerica

2009-07-14T01:30:00.003-04:00

This is just a theory, but I was thinking to myself about the difference in philosophy between Primerica and the rest of the industry. Primerica helps families by educating them, while the rest of the industry sells products that may or may not make any sense to the client. Take a look at this:

Primerica shows people how to get out of debt by educating people that they can control how long they can be in debt. Banks on the other hand, advertise interest rate like crazy, which keeps people in debt for a very long time. There's a simple mathematical formula where Total Interest = Principal x Rate x Time. Banks control the interest rate, but you can control the time. Its not the interest rate that will get you out of debt, its the rate at which you pay. If you were able to pay off your debt faster, that reduces your total interest, which then gives you the net effective interest rate.

Primerica educates people to keep life insurance and savings separate by "Buying term and invest the difference." The entire life insurance industry sells whole life or universal life insurance, which bundles your life insurance and savings together. Since when should people trust insurance companies with their savings? You only have the need for insurance if:
1) It is required by law to have it (such as auto insurance).
2) You don't have lots of savings right now, so you need insurance in case something happens. In other words, insurance is a financial tool that can provide income to you or your beneficiary (depending on the type of insurance) when a major event happens such as your house being caught on fire and homeowner's insurance will cover the damages OR you die, and life insurance will provide income to your beneficiary.

Primerica helps people invest their money for as little as $25/month or $50/month and get on the road to financial independence. Big investment companies will tend to ignore anyone who has less than $100,000 to invest. In fact, some say go to their website and invest online, but you have to pick on your own and where to invest. Primerica provides guidance on where you should put your money.

Primerica does a customize, confidential, and complimentary Financial Needs Analysis (FNA), which is a financial tool or financial guide to help you reach your financial goals. Many companies will charge you anywhere between $500 to $2000 or more.

At Primerica, they do what is right. I believe this is the main reason why the rest of industry don't like Primerica because they want to take in as much profits as possible by selling very expensive products. But Primerica's profits continues to grow because they do what is right 100% of the time.

Oh the truth hurts!

2009-07-03T23:54:00.002-04:00

The last post I made really made several agents of the PRO-cash value life insurance really mad and pissed off. Some say its all lies and untrue. Some say its illegal to write that. Some say I should have my license taken away. First of all it is all true since it says so in the life insurance policy. I don't make this stuff up. I read over 500 different life insurance policies and they basically say the same thing (in less or more words). Are they saying that a life insurance policy has no truth behind it and what they (the agent) is saying is true? If that's so, then who should really lose their license? The agents who are ripping people off or honest person like myself who cares about the client's financial situation?

I know what my clients are going through and how tough it is to live in America. Middle income families such as myself have to work very hard just to get by in life. We have bills to pay and debt always seem to follow us wherever we are. We're not too sure about our future. Most of us don't even know if we will ever be able to retire. But I have solutions to all these financial challenges. There's always different ways to earn more income legally. One way is to look at the Primerica's business opportunity. Another way is to get a 2nd job. As for debts, I have several different programs that can get people out of debt in less time and save them tens of thousands of dollars toward interest payments. As for retirement, its good idea to start now and there's several investment plans where your money can grow tax-deferred. Do you honestly think that life insurance agents really care about your financial needs? They only care about how much you can afford and how much commissions they can make. After that, you probably will never hear from them again.

As for being illegal to write it, it is legal since I have the right to write it and there's nothing you can do about it.

Another look at life insurance

2009-07-02T17:27:00.002-04:00

Its a fact that any life insurance that builds cash value is a ripoff and should be a scam. Generally how cash value life insurance works is that your premiums are paid for two parts in the policy, which is the insurance and the cash value. The fact that these types of life insurance have more than one parts to it should be a red flag to you. After all, look at the other types of insurance out there such as auto insurance or homeowner's insurance. Why is that only life insurance builds cash value and the other types of insurance don't?

Cash value life insurance policies are very expensive. If you own it, you will realize that you have pay lots of money for a very low coverage. An average 30 year old with $100,000 coverage will pay about $1000/year.

Many life insurance agents or financial advisors may tell you that life insurance is a great way to save for your kid's education or a great way to save for retirement. If you keep the policy long enough, you can take out the cash value. But did you know that when you take money out, that you are borrowing your own money? Did you also know that the company has the right to deferred you loan up to 6-9 months? That means, they put a hold on your loan request. When you get the money from the cash value, the insurance company will charge you a loan interest of anywhere between 5-8%! And when you pay the loan back, the interest portion of the payment does not go back into the cash value. It is kept by the insurance company as profits. If there is insufficient cash value in the policy, your policy is in high risk of being lapsed. If this happens, all that loan you have taken out will now have to be reported to the IRS and you will pay income tax on that loan. If you die while there's a loan balance due, the loan balance plus interest plus and missed premiums will be deducted from the death benefit. For example, if you had $100,000 coverage and there's a $20,000 loan and you die, your beneficiary will receive less than $80,000.

People selling this garbage may also say its a great way to build tax-deferred savings! FACT: There is no life insurance policy out there that has done better than a 5% rate of return. FACT: It only grows tax-deferred because the total amount of premiums you paid is always greater than the value of the cash value. How do you pay income tax on a loss of return? You don't! But if somehow the cash value is greater than the total amount you paid, your life insurance policy will be considered a "Modified Endowment." This means that any growth on the cash value will be subjected to income tax and that the death benefit will also be subjected to income tax to the beneficiary.

Let's say you paid all your premiums on time and never taken a loan out and then someday, you die. All the cash value in the life insurance policy will be kept by the insurance company while your beneficiary will only receive the death benefit.

You are probably wondering why anyone would want to own a cash value life insurance? The main reason is that they don't understand how it works and the person selling it makes this type of life insurance very attractive to the buyer. When the client receives the policy, majority of them never read it.

The solution: Buy pure life insurance that doesn't build cash value, which is Term Insurance. Term insurance can provide you lots of coverage for a low amount of premium. An average 30 year old with $100,000 coverage will pay about $600/year (compare to the $1000/year for a cash value life insurance).

Since it doesn't build cash value, you have the opportunity to save your money wherever you want. Whether its in a safe , inside your home, at the bank, or at any financial institution, you have easy access to your money. There's no such thing as "borrowing" (unless you have a 401(k) and you want to borrow from that. But at least the interest portion you pay goes into your investments, not to the investment company).

If you do the smart thing with your money by investing it in the right mutual funds, you will achieve a higher rate of return than any cash value life insurance policy. There's many mutual funds out there that has done a 10% or greater return in the past 10 years, even during all the tough times in the economy in some of those years.

If you die during the term, your beneficiary will get the death benefit. All the savings you built up will be paid to your spouse or family members. (Its always a good idea to have a Will setup for yourself so that your assets is properly distributed to the right person(s)).

If you live to the end of the term, you have options on what to do next. If you believe you still need life insurance, then you can renew the term for another one to 5 years, regardless of your current health conditions. You may be able to do a policy exchange into another term policy, but proof of insurability maybe required (depending on how much coverage you are asking for). Or you can cancel the term policy and save the money for retirement.

If you die after the term is up, at least your family will receive your savings. If you buy term and invested your money since the start, that could be lots of money for your family. If you invested $400/month for the next 30 years and the average rate of return was 10%, you will have $911,730.

Keeping life insurance and investments separate just makes sense, doesn't it?

Primerica Presents Six Reasons a Roth IRA May be a Good Investment

2009-06-27T21:43:00.001-04:00

THIS WAS TAKEN FROM AN ARTICLE ON PR.COM. LINK: http://www.pr.com/press-release/159201

Primerica, a financial services industry leader, presents six reasons why opening a Roth IRA may be a great way to prepare for the future. In fact, Kiplinger’s Personal Finance magazine labels today’s Roth IRA as “Best all around retirement account.”

Duluth, GA, June 18, 2009 --(PR.com)-- For the first time in a long time, Americans are saving more and spending less – and many economists expect that savings trend to continue rising.1

Primerica, a financial services industry leader, presents six reasons why opening a Roth IRA may be a great way to prepare for the future. In fact, Kiplinger’s Personal Finance magazine labels today’s Roth IRA as “Best all‑around retirement account.”2

Clients pay less tax on savings. For older savers, this means an IRA can help rebuild any losses to their nest egg. Younger savers stand to gain even more, because they have more time to invest their savings and let them grow tax‑free.

Contributions and earnings can be withdrawn tax‑free after age 59 ½. This applies to accounts that are at least five years old – making it a great choice for long‑term savers.

Families can tap earnings early to pay for college or buy a first home.

Savers can withdraw contributions (but not any earnings) to a Roth IRA tax‑free and penalty‑free at any time. This benefit could come in handy if an unexpected major expense or emergency arises. Of course, by withdrawing funds early, the client also gives up future earnings on that cash.

For 2009, you can contribute up to $5,000 into a Roth plus an additional $1,000 for clients age 50+, subject to income limits.3

As growth in a Roth IRA may be tax‑free, clients are encouraged to consider converting a Traditional IRA to a Roth IRA. During 2009, the opportunity to convert a regular IRA to a Roth IRA is only available to those who have a modified adjusted gross income of $100,000 or less. However, this income restriction is scheduled to be completely eliminated in 2010. A conversion has tax consequences. If you are considering this option, you should consult your tax advisor.

For young people just starting out, the Roth IRA is an excellent choice because it allows them to enjoy tax‑free growth with the flexibility to withdraw contributions (excluding earnings) any time, tax‑ and penalty‑free. Older savers can enjoy a special “catch up” provision that allows them to save an extra $1,000 in a Roth.

Primerica helps clients make an informed decision about how to best utilize their money. Clients are encouraged to visit www.PrimericaFNA.com to learn more about Primerica’s free, personalized financial snapshot.

1Foxnews.com, February 1, 2009
2Kiplinger’s, December 2008
3For the year 2009, married individuals who file jointly can contribute $5,000 ($6,000 if 50 or older) to a Roth IRA if their modified adjusted gross income (MAGI) is below $166,000. If their MAGI is between $166,000 and $176,000, then they can contribute some amount less than their full limit. If their income exceeds $176,000, they are not eligible to contribute to a Roth IRA for 2009.
Securities offered by PFS Investments Inc. 3120 Breckenridge Blvd. Duluth, GA 30099

###

Primerica Financial Services, headquartered in Duluth, Georgia, is the largest financial services marketing organization in North America, with more than 100,000 licensed independent representatives. The company provides its 6 million clients with quality financial products and services, including term life insurance, mutual funds, variable annuities, loans, auto and homeowners insurance and long-term care insurance. Primerica conducts business in the US, Canada, and Puerto Rico; the company also operates in Spain as PriEuropa.

Additional information about Primerica is available on its web site: www.primerica.com.

A new program to eliminate debt

2009-06-13T13:37:00.003-04:00

Primerica has teamed up with Equifax to give clients a tool to pay off debt in the most efficient way. It takes information from your credit report from Equifax and provides step by step game plan to pay each and every single debt you have. This is a web-base program, so internet access is required and you can watch your progress anytime you want. You can also setup to receive alerts if there are changes to your credit report.

Also, it will give you your credit score and explains why you have that score. You also can run a simulation about what will happen if you apply for a new loan or apply for more credit or close an account.

Remember, this is a tool to help you eliminate debt. It is not a bill payment center, so you have to pay your bills directly. Primerica representatives does not do any credit counseling services or negotiate with creditors.

I have couple loans I want to pay off, so I'm going to sign up for it and see what's the game plan is. I'm very interested in learning more about my credit score and how it compares to the national average and what improvements I can make to make the score better.

If its not pppular in US, go to India

2009-04-07T17:58:00.002-04:00

Does anyone notice that the great whole life insurance or universal life insurance that once dominated the markets in US have grown more popular in India? In US, people are starting to realize that term insurance is the best type of life insurance. But in India, the same ripoffs that happen (and continues to happen) in US is now prevalent in India. Life insurance agents in India are selling cash value life insurance policies as a savings or investment vehicle, which every licensed person in the industry knows it's just life insurance that protects your income. The so-called "savings" in the life insurance policy is really an added protection for the insurance company. That's why if you want to use the savings, you have to borrow it and pay interest on it as well.

I can see why insurance companies are targeting India. After all, India has the 2nd largest population in the world with 1.1 billion, which is not too far behind from China, which is 1.3 billion. In United States, its around 304 million.

Happy belated New Year

2009-01-17T14:23:00.002-05:00

I've been busy in the past month and I'm 17 days late to say this, but HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Message from John Addison

2008-11-24T19:29:00.002-05:00

Download and listen to John Addison's message that was sent out on Gosolo on November 21, 2008

http://www.supload.com/sound_confirm.php?get=532987913.wav

Main message:
Primerica is separate identity of Citigroup. Whatever happens to Citi has no affect on Primerica. Primerica is a fundamentally strong company and it is destined for greatness.

Life is short

2008-11-22T16:39:00.003-05:00

About a month ago, a client of mine died at the age of 33. She was in perfect health. She had no prior history of any medical conditions. She is married and has 2 kids, age 4 and 11, and have a mortgage to pay. I met this family about 3 years ago. At the time I met her and her husband, she had $52,000 coverage for few years and her husband had no coverage. I'm not sure how that life insurance agent came up with $52,000. Anyway, I replaced her old life insurance policy of $52,000 and gave both of them $250,000 coverage, for a total coverage of $500,000.

If I did not meet this person, her husband would only get $52,000. How long will this $52,000 last? They still have a mortgage to pay, the kids are still very young, and have other bills to pay as well. This $52,000 would probably last at most one year. But with $250,000, this paid off the mortgage and there was still $20,000 left over. With no more mortgage payment, this family is not in a financial mess.

Why I'm writing all this? Its because there are many families out there who don't have life insurance. Those who do have life insurance are very likely not to have adequate coverage. I've been looking at the ACLI 2008 Fact Book and the number of policies being issued and in force has been on a steady decline. But the interesting fact is that the total coverage on individual life insurance policies has been increasing. Even more interesting is that the number of life insurance companies in United States have been declining as well since 1985 (where there were 2261 companies). By end of 2007, there are only 1009 companies left. By the end of 2008, I assume there will be less than 900 companies.

The Environment is our friend

2008-11-07T00:06:00.002-05:00

While Barack Obama is picking people for his cabinet, I was thinking he should pick Al Gore to run the Environmental Protection Agency. After all, Al Gore is serious in protecting the environment and I think he would be perfect for the job.

Primerica is not for everyone

2008-11-03T08:27:00.002-05:00

For all your Primerica fanatics out there such as myself, you have to accept the fact that the Primerica opportunity is not for everyone. However, everyone who is legally able to work is given a chance to try this business out. If the business didn't work out for the person who joined Primerica, its not because of the company. Its the person himself or herself who made themselves fail. The Primerica's business model works and there's thousands of successful people in Primerica who can back that up. There are many possible reasons why a person would choose to fail in Primerica and I'm going to list some of them:

1) They heard Primerica is a scam and they believed it. Even though they saw the company overview or the opportunity meeting, they go home and tell everyone about it in their own words. Guess what their friends or family are going to hear: "Primerica = life insurance = something FNA = $99 to join." OR they do "research" online and see several forums or blogs saying that Primerica is a scam. Forums or blogs have no true credibility behind them and if you wrote a paper about Primerica and you listed these websites as your reference, your professor will either give you a "F" or make you get better references. I don't even you recommend you listing my blog as a reference, even though I'm a Primerica representative.

2) Their friends and/or family members say they can't do it and so, they make themselves believe they can't do this business. I believe everyone can do this business if they are given the chance. When I started, I was the shy and quiet type. I thought to myself there's no way I can talk to people. Now, you can't shut me up. If my new business associate says he or she can't do it, I would point out the facts. One, they don't have any experience. If you started a new job, were you confident enough to do your job correctly or were you nervous? My solution to this challenge is get the new associate out in the field and witness a presentation. Doing the presentation is simple and easy and once they see how its done, they could see themselves as being able to do it too. I felt confident after witnessing a few presentations done on various clients.

3) The upline didn't stay in frequent contact with their new business associate, so the business associate doesn't see value in this business and feels neglected. Communication is vital in this business. If my upline didn't stay in frequent contact in the beginning, I probably won't be in this business. Today, I'm calling my upline more than he calls me for advice on certain matters.

4) They fail the pre-licensing exam (PFSU) and/or the state exam and thought it was the end of their career. If you were applying for a job that requires a certain license and you fail to get it, you would be fired. In Primerica, this isn't a job. Its your business and it doesn't matter how many times you fail. Its the number of times you succeed that matters.

5) They want instant results, which is not even possible in the real world. Building a business requires patience and time. You can't build a city over night. You need to put effort into this business and have some people help you expand it. The work you put in now, results will come in 2 to 3 months.

6) They didn't go to weekly training. You can't succeed in this business if you don't go to weekly training. Thats like competing at an event and having no clue what to do. If you never played golf before and you never went to practice and you were competing against golf player who did practice, do you think you can actually win?

7) They weren't coachable. Only the person can change him or herself. If they don't want to listen or follow the system, there's nothing anyone can do about it.

8) They won't change themselves to make improvements in their life. There are people in this world who don't like change. They don't like to get out of their comfort zone to make their life better. If you want to improve yourself, you have to make certain sacrifices. For example, if you want to look fit and be healthy, you would go to the gym instead of watching TV. You would eat less junk food like potato chips and more healthy foods such as an apple.

In conclusion, not everyone is going to join Primerica. Everyone who did join Primerica, some of them are not going to stick around long enough to see success. Those who do stick around and continue to fight for their future will see success.

Tomorrow is election day in the United States. On my ballot, I see at least 10 people running for President. In America, every legal citizen of legal age (I believe the legal age is 35) can run for President. Not everyone is going to do it, but they are allow to do so as long as they meet the requirements to be the President. I'm not going to tell you who I'm going to vote for, but I'm going to vote for the person who can lead this country in the right direction.

Secrets to staying thin

2008-10-23T21:19:00.002-04:00

I was reading this article from MSN Health section and it talked about 10 Secrets of the Effortlessly Thin. I've been thin my whole life and some of it is true. Here are the 10 secrets:

1) They don't diet.
This is very true for me. Its not the amount of calories I intake, its the choice of food I eat. Base on several studies I read, most diet plans don't even work. Diet food is one big scam. Even though its less in calories than regular food, people tend to eat twice the amount of it. Since it says "Diet" on it, it makes people feel good to they think they on track to a healthier life style.

2) They keep track of their weight.
I do this about once a year because I'm curious. Year after year since high school, I still weigh the same.

3) They exercise regularly.
Ha! I haven't exercise since high school.

4) They don't solve problems with food.
What they mean by this is that people tend to eat when they are emotional such as being depressed, upset, or angry. I take perspective of problems that arise and figure out what I can do to make the situation better.

5) They stop eating when their full.
This is very true for me. While some people like to finish everything off their plate, I stop when I feel full. Plus, I don't like the feeling of being overly full or "stuffed."

6) They don't surround themselves with temptation.
Is your kitchen surrounded by lots of junk food? Mine isn't. There is some, but not a whole lot.

7) They allow themselves treats.
Mmm... I love chocolate and I do eat a couple pieces of it about 3-4 times a week.

8) They eat breakfast.
I eat breakfast every day, except Sunday. I usually sleep until 11AM on Sundays, which is basically near lunch time. The article state that 80% of successful weight losers eat breakfast every day and within 1 hour of waking up. Your metabolism doesn't start to kick in until you put food into your system.

9) They move, stand, and fidget more.
I never notice this, but realizing what I do every day, I do move and stand often. As for fidgeting, I don't I do that unless I'm nervous.

10) They don't skip meals.
I eat 3 meals a day (except for Sundays). Breakfast around 7AM. Lunch between 12PM to 1PM. Little snack around 5PM. Then dinner around 8PM-9PM. If you don't eat anything for more than 6 hours, you slow down your metabolism.

If you don't know what metabolism mean, it basically means that your body breaks down whatever you eat to create energy. Energy that is vital for your body to function properly.

If you are traveling to a different country

2008-08-17T14:46:00.003-04:00

Don't bring cash, but a credit card. If you do bring cash into a foreign country, make sure you exchange it. I was in Canada the other day and many stores undervalue the price of a US dollar. For example, a product in Canada may cost $2 in Canadian dollars, but if you pay with US dollar, it cost $2.10. I went to McDonalds in Canada with my family and total price in Canadian dollars was $9.56. I didn't have Canadian dollars with me, so I pay with $10 US and my new price was around $9.90. I got a Canadian dime (10 cents) back as my change.

During the week I stayed in Canada, the currency exchange rate was $1 US = $1.10 CAD. So one US dollar is worth $1.10 in Canada.

Anyway, I did use my credit card for many of my purchases. For example, on my receipt from Canada, it says $47.22 (CAD), but on my credit card statement, it says $45.71 (US). If I paid by cash, I would of paid around $50 (US).

Its the best time to invest

2008-07-15T21:57:00.002-04:00

So you hearing bad news after bad news about the US economy and wondering where to put your money? You heard of IndyMac, the largest bank in California suddenly collapsing and went out of business. You think that your bank is going to do the same. Mortgage crisis is still looming and the housing market isn't that hot. Foreclosures are a common scene in America as more and more people are force to give up their homes because of bad mortgage lending. Oil prices are at an all time high, costing all goods and services to also go up.

Today, the DJIA fell below 11,000 points for the first time in over 2 years. What is an average person such as you and myself to do?

I'm no financial planner or investment advisor, but I would not let fear take control over my decisions. When prices of stock or shares of mutual funds are falling, what is the initial reaction for most people? They think "Oh my god! I'm losing money. I need to sell everything before it goes any lower and put it in the bank or under the mattress." By pulling out of the stock market, you are accepting loss. By not pulling out of the stock market, you are not accepting any losses. You will only realize your gains or losses when you actually sell your shares. Right now, the price per share or stock is low. What are your choices?

Well, this is what I would do. Though, I'm not hinting that you should do what I would do. I'm just saying this is what I would do in time of this crisis and my logical reasoning behind it
1) As a young investor and where retirement is 30 plus years away, I would continue to invest and to buy as many shares I can afford. I know that the stock market will worth more in 30 years than what it is today (base on the past history of the stock market in the past 50 years).

2) If I was a mature adult, say someone in the upper 30's to early 50's, I would still coninue to invest, but making sure my investments are diversified. I still have some time left to save money for retirement, so I wouldn't worry about the stock market conditions.

3) If I was retired, I wouldn't be investing at all. I would be withdrawing money from my investments. But I wouldn't withdraw too much during this time until the market is performing well. So I would watch my spending habits closely. After all, I don't want to outlive my money.

As any investment expert would say (again, I'm no investment expert. I just do what is logical), the best way to lower your risk to market exposure is to follow the 3 D's.
1) Diversify your investments. Don't put all your money into one company or one sector of the economy.
2) Be discipline. Don't let fear take over judgement and logical reasoning.
3) Dollar cost average. Invest on a monthly basis. This is a way to pay yourself first before paying others. By dollar cost averaging, you lower the cost per share you own over the long run.

Guess where I learn all this? From my own personal investment experience and through training at Primerica Financial Services.

An old message from Art Williams

2008-06-29T20:16:00.004-04:00

I got this message in my GoSolo from my RVP the other day and I thought this message was pretty interesting. It may sound retarded to some of you, but the main message is that winners do the things they say the are going to do until the task is done. Some of you say you are going to do something, but you never get to it. It could be as simple as saving for retirement, but you put it off day after day, year after year, and then you finally realize that you are going to retire broke. Are you a winner or a procrastinator? So here's the link to download the message: http://www.supload.com/sound_confirm.php?get=1150207308.wav

So just get to work and finish whatever tasks you say you are going to do.

Alexander Berardi's interview with Art Williams

2008-06-23T00:34:00.001-04:00

Check out video here: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=9199011170812025764&q=art+williams&ei=FiVfSImCC4amrwLo8umIAQ

AM Best gives Primerica Life a rating of A+

2008-06-09T18:53:00.001-04:00

To see story go here:
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/am-best-affirms-ratings-primerica/story.aspx?guid=%7B40016672-5FBA-488F-BA7A-C43F3F23AF0E%7D

Citi or Citigroup is restructuring

2008-05-10T13:02:00.004-04:00

I'm not quite sure what is going on with Citi, but I think everything that is happening in that company is coming from several factors. For one, the mortgage mess dropped Citi's stocks from $40-something to $20-something a share. This forced Citi to cut its dividends. Because of the mistake that Citi invested into bad debts (over $40 billion of it), former CEO Charles Prince resigned. The new CEO has no clear vision or he is being really quite about what he has plans for the company. And now, Citi is now doing one big restructuring plan that is worth $400 billion. Despite all this, Citi is still worth over $2 trillion.

About a month ago, Citi sold Citistreet to ING for $900 million. Citistreet is a company that does benefit plans for businesses (both big and small). I see that as good news for it will create large opportunities for Citistreet to grow its organization. Will this affect Primerica? I don't believe so since Primerica still has marketing agreements with Citistreet to offer business retirement plans.

Citi also plans to sell some other companies including Primerica. I believe Primerica is planning to buy itself from Citi. I don't have all the details yet but when it does happen, great things are going to happen to Primerica. For one, Primerica can start selling their company stocks once again. They use to sell their stocks long ago and the value of the stocks doubled every year during the 1990s. Then the company got bought out by Citigroup. Second, Primerica can focus on its own goals. Third, it will create huge opportunity for Primerica to expand its market. Forth, no more oversight of Citigroup looking over Primerica's shoulders and no more sharing of profits with Citigroup too.

Almost had a car accident..

2008-04-18T00:28:00.002-04:00

Hmm, red light mean stop, correct? As I was approaching an intersection (my light was green), this stupid truck driver decided to go on the red light. I had to come to a complete stop to let the truck go. Stupid driver! The car behind me almost rear ended me...

Just a thought...

2008-03-31T18:27:00.002-04:00

Agents from other companies don't like how Primerica is just randomly recruiting people. The way I see it, any one can be good as any of these so-called financial experts out there. With proper training and education, a Primerica representative can be good as any financial agents out there and ten times better than any life insurance agent. That is the agent does go to training and complete the licensing process. Thats my opinion anyway. When I first started, I knew very little about finances. The only thing I know was bank accounts and some general idea about credit cards. Now I know everything about life insurance, mortgages, mutual funds, annuities, and investment accounts (such as IRAs, 529 plans, Coverdell, custodial accounts, etc.). Things that an average American really don't know too much about.

Anyway, why is that other companies don't recruit the way Primerica recruits? My theory is that other companies don't like sharing profits among their agents. In other companies, there is one agent doing all the work and he/she gets paid a nice commission and the company makes money too. But the problem is that the agent has to constantly work and find clients to make money. Eventually, this agent will either max out his/her time or burn out.

A difference between financial rep and insurance salesman

2008-03-24T00:06:00.002-04:00

This is in my own words and is not taken from a dictionary, but base on my experience as a Primerica representative.

A financial representative is someone who takes a look at the client's finances and gathers information for a financial analysis. He/she would look at what areas the client can spend less on so that the client can achieve realistic goals. For example, if a client was spending $1000/year on life insurance and the financial representative can offer life insurance that costs $500/year for the same coverage, that would save the client $500/year or $42/month. If the client was spending $2000/month on debt payments and the financial representative can offer a debt program that would cost $1800/month, that would save the client $200/month. That's an extra $242/month savings. The financial representative would then figure out how the client can use the $242 savings effectively. A portion would be applied toward the debt payment and the rest would be invested in one or more saving vehicles (IRAs, college plans, money markets, etc.) This is what a Primerica representative does for clients. The goal of a financial representative is to help the client increase the net worth over time. A majority of my clients don't spend a penny more after I sit down with them. If they are already spending whatever amount they spend a month, my goal is not to have them spend a penny more. Of course, there are some situations where clients do need to save more money and the client would need to cut spending on certain areas (such as entertainment or cable or magazines subscriptions) in order to reach whatever goals they have.

An insurance salesman is someone who tries to figure out what is the client's income and from there, figure out what the client can afford. The primary purpose of the salesman is to sell the product, even if it's not suitable for that client to buy it. Its even worse when the salesman doesn't even own that product him or herself. Why is that majority of life insurance people that sell whole life or universal life or variable life don't own these products themselves, but own term insurance or no life insurance at all? I tell you why. They know that those products are crappy to own and that term insurance is the best life insurance product out there.

Insurance salesman really don't have the same passion as a financial representative. Insurance people are more focus about the commissions. Financial representatives are more focus on helping the client achieve his or her financial goals.

Life takes Visa..

2008-03-21T22:35:00.002-04:00

it sure does! Visa or any credit cards put you into debt. For how long? That's depends on how fast the person pays it off. The way I use credit cards is that I pay off the full balance every month. For many others, people make minimum payment on their cards. So they have a left over balance remaining. You would think that interest will be charged on the remaining balace. That is totally untrue. Companies charge interest on the average daily balance of your credit card. If you borrowed $1000 today and pay $500 of it next month, interest is not calculated on the remaining balance (the $500). It is actually $1000 plus any other new purchases you made with the card.

You can do an internet search, "how is interest calculated on credit cards?" (remove quotation marks when you type or paste it in the search box), to learn more on how companies calculate the interest on your credit cards.

A little bit of rain....

2008-03-20T17:52:00.002-04:00

and the entire highway becomes a nightmare... why is traffic so slow on rainy days? Even when it drizzles, traffic comes to a near stand still.

Primerica needs to do more to help people in the mortgage crisis

2008-02-27T00:43:00.007-05:00

While other companies and homeowners are struggling with the mortgage mess, Primerica is not doing enough to help families with the mortgage crisis. Despite that the company consolidate debt of almost $9,800 per minute, Primerica is not even making a small dent in the debt problem in America. It is estimated that over $460 billion of adjustable rate mortgages will reset in 2008. That means many people will have to pay more every month to keep up with rising interest rates or face foreclosure. Primerica's clients are not worried about their mortgage being adjusted because Primerica's loans are always fixed-rate 100% of the time.

George Boelcke, FCI wrote an article about the mortgage crisis in the American Chronicle and he wrote, "Primerica has never originated any ARMs with their refinance products (done through Citicorp Trust Bank). Their clients are watching the mortgage crisis from the sidelines and the safely of a fixed-rate term and consolidation, thinking: 'that could have been me in a foreclosure…'" You can read the full story at: http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/52696

About a month ago, Oriental Financial Group entered into an exclusive mortgage alliance with Primerica Financial Services. Primerica will function as a new distribution channel for Oriental mortgages in Puerto Rico. The primary focus of the effort will be Primerica's long term, fixed-rate mortgages provided by Oriental as a means to consolidate debt at attractive terms. Primerica has approximately 400 full time and 2000 part-time financial representatives in Puerto Rico. (Source: CNN Money Jan 29, 2008).

Primerica is doing something great that is helping families bring back financial stability. The problem is that Primerica's agents needs to do more before more families goes into foreclosures. I wish I can do more, but I can only do so much in such little time. That's why I and many other Primerica's agents recruit. Its to manage our time effectively and get more things done.

FTC comment on Primerica's business opportunity

2008-01-21T03:40:00.000-05:00

Check out this 56 page document written by the Federal Trade Commission. Its a .pdf file, so you need adobe acrobat to open this file.

Primerica Wins Fifth Consecutive Dalbar Award

2008-01-12T00:36:00.000-05:00

For the fifth year in a row, Primerica has been awarded the prestigious Dalbar Service Award for top-notch customer service in mutual funds.

Since 1997, Primerica Shareholder Services (PSS) has made its shareholders’ needs a top priority and has focused on becoming a leader in customer service. And now, for the fifth consecutive year, that commitment has been recognized. Dalbar, Inc. is a client service rating organization focused on raising the standards of customer satisfaction and quality in the financial services industry.

Buy Term and Invest the Difference WORKS

2008-01-03T23:02:00.000-05:00

30 years to date, Primerica still stands by its philosophy of "Buy term and invest the difference." As for the rest of the life insurance industry, they just keep changing their approach to the marketplace by creating and re-inventing life insurance policies that don't work.

In 1970s, other life insurance companies were selling whole life insurance.
In 1980s, Universal life insurance was created.
In 1990s, Variable Universal Life was created.
In 2000s, Return of Premium Term Insurance was created and now they are going back to selling whole life insurance again.

Would you put your financial future in the hands of a company lacking a clear direction?

Three decades. One timeless principle. We stand for something!
Primerica has always believed families need affordable protection for today and control over building wealth for tomorrow. Our “Buy Term and Invest the Difference” approach to personal finance puts families in position to achieve their goals in life! We’ve never had to change our approach in the marketplace … because it works!

Duties of a Primerica Representative

2007-11-26T23:19:00.000-05:00

Some of you are wondering what does a Primerica representative do? And some of you who are in the company are still trying to figure that out yourself. You have to understand that all Primerica agents are independent business agents. That means they are in business for them self, but they don't have to work by them self because there is support system to help them grow.

Anyway, the duties of a Primerica representative includes, but not limited to:
1) Scheduling guests for business opportunity
2) Scheduling appointments.
3) Interviewing guests.
4) Doing the appointments.
5) Do the financial needs analysis (FNA)
6) Setup 2nd appointment and go over the FNA with client.
7) Get referrals from client.
8) Follow up with old guests.
9) Be in constant communication with teammates.
10) Follow up with old clients.
11) Attend weekly training.
12) Prospecting
13) Read self-help books that can help make his/her business grow.
14) Stay compliant with federal and state laws
15) Be motivated.
16) Be positive.
17) Be consistent.

As you can see, this list describes what every business owner should be doing. The great thing about Primerica's business model is that there's no large overhead costs for the agent. There's no rent to pay, no salary to pay, no equipment to buy, and so on. Only thing the agent needs to pay is for licenses, which most of it is paid by Primerica (such as securities license). The agent doesn't need to spend money on advertisement (and if they do want to spend money on advertisement, they need to check with the compliance department to get approval). But the agent shouldn't spend any money on advertisement because most people ignore them. The best way to advertise is through word of mouth. Its free, its efficient, and if you say something wrong, no one is going to remember what you said in the first place.

Its bad!

2007-11-21T18:41:00.000-05:00

1) Whole life, Universal Life, Variable Life, Variable Universal Life, or any type of life insurance that builds cash value. These are BAD products! If you spend time to research these products, you will see they are bad. Stick with term insurance.

2) Adjustable Rate Mortgages, Interest-Only Mortgages, Balloon Mortgages or any type of mortgages where your monthly payment is not fixed for life of the loan are BAD! If you plan to live in the house for the rest of your life or forever, get fix rate loans and make sure it says fix rate on there.

3) Leavings lots of money in your home is a VERY BAD idea. You are losing purchasing power and your money has no growth. Leaving lots of money in the bank is also a BAD idea since most banks give interest rates that are below inflation rate. Not only that, you also pay income taxes on the interest. Investing in tax-deferred mutual funds is a good idea as long as you know what you are doing.

4) Raising a family with no life insurance is a TERRIBLE idea. If you bring significant amount of income to the family and god forbids something happens to you, how would your family survive without your income?

11 reasons why people don't make it in Primerica

2007-11-18T22:38:00.000-05:00

1) Can't overcome fear.
Fear is just a mental mindset. If you take a look at kids, they have no fear of talking to people because they don't care what other people think. The best way to overcome your fear(s) is attack it. For example, if you are afraid of roller coasters, all you need to do is hop on the ride and after that, you are no longer afraid and want to ride all the roller coasters. That is what happened to me because I used to be afraid of roller coasters and now I'm not.

2) No discipline.
You need to go to training on a weekly basis. You need to stick to your schedule and do it.

3) No people skills.
You need to be a type of person who everyone wants to be friends with and the type of person people feel comfortable being around with. If you avoid people or just hate life in general, you need to change that.

4) Your work is non-transferable or non-duplicable.
If a person on your team believe he/she can't do what you do, its because you are not showing and telling that person what to do. Not only does he/she need to see what you do, but he/she needs to do it himself/herself. For example, you should let the person do the appointment and you watch and sit back. When he/she is in trouble, jump in and help out.

5) Poor communication skills.
Don't worry, you are not alone. There are many people with poor communication skills in Primerica. Some don't even speak English well. But you know what? You just got to keep practicing.

6) No specific purpose.
What is your purpose for doing this business? What do you want to achieve? Why are you here?

7) Lack of accountability.
Great leaders always stay accountable to their upline. They call them and report their activities, even if they don't have any activities going on, they still will call.

8) Poor follow-up.
You spend lots of time trying to get people into the business and spend lots of time putting in business, but you need to constantly stay in contact with your new recruits and once in awhile (at least once a year) follow-up with your previous clients.

9) No personal development system.
Do you want to make a change in your life? Do you want improve your mindset and take your business to the next level? Then you need to read books and listen to CDs and audio tapes that can help you grow your business.

10) Being lazy.
If you are lazy, you need to make a decision to change. Either you go get a job and be a slave to your boss or start building your business and fight for your freedom.

11) Not crusade driven.
Primerica's crusade is to help families eliminate debt and become financially independent. If you don't have the passion to help families, then you need to see more appointments to get a real understanding of what is going on in today's families.

McDonald's food is crap

2007-11-17T22:57:00.000-05:00

I remember when I was little, I used to love to go to McDonalds and order their chicken nuggets and the hamburgers and the french fries. Don't forget the happy meal that has a free toy in it. I think the toy excited me more than the food. That was during the late 1980's to early 1990's.

I've been going to McDonald's once in awhile when I'm in a rush to go somewhere and I'm hungry. I try not to go, but McDonald's is all over the place. I don't know what happen over the years, but does anyone noticed that McDonald's food is getting smaller and thinner?? Not only that, the food does taste different. I tried the chicken nuggets and that was crap. I'm not sure when they changed it from dark meat to white meat. The hamburgers are not even real size hamburgers. Its like a pancake. Its thin and it falls apart. The fries has changed as well. There's just something not right about the french fries and I can't pinpoint what it is. Then again, all the food in McDonald's is made from all sorts of mystery ingredients. All I have to say is that McDonald's food is poor quality. I think the only thing I like is the salad. Everything else is just crap.

So why I still go there sometimes? Its convenient, its all over the place, and some of them are open 24 hours. If there were more of the other fast food restaurants around such as Burger King and Wendy's, I would go there instead. I love Burger King's whoppers and onion rings. I also love Wendy's chicken nuggets and chicken sandwich.

Anyway, I don't go to fast food restaurants often. Some people go to fast foods everyday for lunch and maybe even dinner. I don't know how they can stand eating that crap everyday. I make my own lunch and dinner and when I don't have anything to cook, then I'll go somewhere to eat. If I'm in a hurry, I would go to a fast food restaurant and get something quick. If I got plenty of time, I go to one of the local restaurants. I like eating at Italian and Chinese restaurants.

Primerica stays true to its fixed rate loans

2007-11-12T16:21:00.000-05:00

While many companies are dealing with the mortgage crisis because they gave bad loans to people such as interest only or adjustable rate mortgages and putting people into bad debt, Primerica continues to stand strong by giving only fixed rate get out of debt loans. Primerica could of offered the bad loans that the rest of the industry was giving and that would of increased business sales. But there is always a cause and effect. If you get greedy, people will get hurt. Now these companies are facing financial troubles and some even filed for bankruptcy.

If you are a Primerica agent, you are in the right time at the right place to find people who are about to lose their homes because of increasing interest rates and increasing monthly payments. You can help someone refinance and put them into a debt elimination plan. You know that Primerica loans are unique because its the only loan that have a equity builder plan that is free to the client. The equity builder is what gets people out of debt sooner.

Term life insurance objections

2007-09-15T20:36:00.001-04:00

Here are some objections or questions I get from clients about term insurance.

1) What happens at the end of the term?
Your life insurance policy will renew itself. When it renews, your new rates will be based on your current age. The premiums will remain level at 5 year intervals until age 70. After that age, your premiums goes up every year until age 95. At age 95, you will no longer be covered.

At the end of the term, it is possible for you to exchange the current term policy to another term policy. You do not need to provide proof of insurability unless you are increasing the coverage.

2) At the end of the term, my premiums goes up.
True, but that won't happen for another 20, 30, or 35 years (whatever level term you have). By that time, you probably won't even need life insurance. Why? Take a look at your current situation. You may have a mortgage and some other debts to pay. You may kids dependent on your income. You probably don't have lots of money saved. But in 20-35 years, your kids becomes adults, your mortgage should be paid off, and hopefully you built enough savings to retire on. At Primerica, they teach clients to buy term and invest the difference. Why? So that you can rent wealth (which is term insurance) and accumulate wealth (the investing side) at the same time.

3) I heard that less than 2% of term policies rarely pays up.
While this may be true for other companies, Primerica pays an average death claim of $2 million/day. An average face amount of Primerica term policies is around $280,000.

Basically the phrase "less than 2% of term policies pays up" is a sales tactic used by agents trying to sell you a cash value life insurance policy. While everyone wants to live for a long time, stuff happens and you can't predict when you are going to die. In fact, there is no real evidence on either type of life insurance that says what percentage of life insurance policies gets paid out. If there is evidence, who done the study? Was the study done by a group back up by insurance companies or independent researchers not influenced by any companies?

4) My agent or advisor says that my life insurance builds savings and I can use it anytime.
If you take a look at your life policy, you would see how it is the worst way to build savings. If you wanted to withdraw money out of it while keeping the policy enforced, you would have to borrow it and pay loan interest on it. If you take a look at the total amount of premiums you paid and the amount of cash value accumulated over time, you would see that you are paying at a loss. The time you may break even on your investment is when you are around 100 years old. At that age, your policy may cancel and you will get all your cash value.

If you have a universal life insurance policy, you will see that your cash value starts to grow and then it starts going down. At the end, you see the word "lapse." Even though premiums are level, the cost of your insurance increases internally every year. If you continue the same premium payment plan, your policy will lapse. The only way to avoid the policy being lapse is to pay more premiums than what is required.

At Primerica, they teach clients to always keep life insurance and investments separate. By keeping them separate, there is no such thing as borrowing and paying loan interest. You can withdraw money out anytime and don't have to put it back. If you worry about taxes when you accumulated 6-7 figures on your investments, you are only worrying about it now because you don't have 6-7 figures saved and you always seem to owe taxes when you do your income tax every year. If you talk to any wealthy person out there, they are not even worried about their taxes because they have so much money. Plus the government always seem to keep lowering taxes or giving tax incentives for the wealthy class.

Hypocrites

2007-09-08T22:35:00.000-04:00

Definition: (noun) a person who pretends to have virtues, moral or religious beliefs, principles, etc., that he or she does not actually possess, esp. a person whose actions belie stated beliefs.

I find that most life insurance agents and the so-called "financial advisors" are the biggest hypocrites in the financial industry. How can they recommend others buy some sort of life insurance that builds cash value such as whole life and they don't own it themselves? Most people who recommend cash value life insurance either own term insurance or no life insurance at all.

My company (Primerica) believes in term insurance and thats the only type of life insurance they sell. While some companies are selling term insurance, they are doing it wrong. Other companies sell very short term policies that either renews every year or convert into a cash value life policy. At Primerica, their term policies only converts into term insurance. Primerica offers level term policies for 10, 20, 25, 30, and 35 years.

If you are selling life insurance, you better own it yourself before telling others to buy it. That way you understand your product. If you are an agent that owns whole life or universal life, you should ask yourself why you bought it when you know that term insurance is better? I own a 30 year term insurance because its going to take me awhile to build enough savings in my retirement account where I can be financially independent.

As for those who thinks is a good idea to build savings in a life policy, you are a completely brainwash by what others say. If you kept your savings in a life policy, the only way you can access it is by taking a loan or surrender the policy and pay surrender charges. If you die someday, you may lose all your savings in the life policy (you want to check your life policy on what it says about your cash value when you die). There are so many better ways to put your savings. At Primerica, they teach clients to invest in mutual funds. Mutual funds has historically have an average rate of return of 12% in the past 25 years. You can withdraw money from mutual funds anytime and if you die someday, your beneficiary will either get your investments or take control of it. So, if you have investments, you want to make sure you name a beneficiary or beneficiaries on them (you don't want the government to take control of it and decide who should get the money).

Primerica agents teaches clients to invest on a monthly basis by using the systematic investment plan. Well, if you are a Primerica agent, you better be investing on a monthly basis yourself before telling others to invest monthly. I invest $333/month into my Roth IRA and my average rate of return on my investments in the past 2 years is around 14%. How will it do in the future? I don't know, but I'm betting the stock market will never hit zero.

So, it is safe to say I am not a hypocrite because I own term insurance and investments and thats what I tell my clients to do. It is the right thing to do. It is the logical thing to do. It is the smart way to protect our love ones while building wealth.

Possible reasons why people didn't make money in Primerica

2007-08-14T14:29:00.001-04:00

Here are two possible reasons why people didn't make money in Primerica:

1) They are lazy. No one can't help you if you are lazy. You need to find a reason why you want to do this business and find that spark.

OR

2) They don't know how to do it. If you don't know how to do it, all you go to do is ask for help. Your RVP wants to help you grow. The more money you make, the more money your RVP makes. The more money your downlines make, the more money you make.

Primerica Convention 2007

2007-08-11T17:06:00.000-04:00

This is the 2nd time I went to the convention and this time I was more focus by listening to what some of the successful people said and taking notes. At my first convention in 2005, I was goofing around and being amazed of all the people cheering and clapping. I had no clue what was going on or why people are so pumped up or excited. I wasn't paying much attention to the speakers and I didn't learn much from it.

At the 2007 convention, I was prepared. Though, I didn't get much information from the speakers that spoke in Georgia Dome, I jot down one message from Mike Sharpe, who is a $5 million earner. He said, "You don't build leaders. You find them." Reflecting on that message, I see so many people focusing on trying to build leadership on their team and trying to get their guys to do something. Most of the time, they listen, but they won't take action. So the only thing a person can do is continue to motivate them and repeat the same message again until they decide to take action. What else they should do is keep recruiting until they find someone who will take leadership and pursue their dreams and goals.

I didn't attend any workshop that was there such as Technology Workshop or Women in Primerica. But I did attend the "District Leader" workshop, which I think it was the best workshop than all the other level workshops such as "Division/Regional Leader" or "Associate" workshop. In 2005, I was in the "Associate" workshop and the main focus was to get to District Leader and utilize your uplines for help. In the District Leader workshop, they talk about building Districts, duplicating yourself, when you should go full time, mastering the presentation, and self improve yourself. District Leaders are the foundation of your business. If you get 6 District Leaders, you qualify for the Regional Vice President contract.

Anyway, here are some videos from YouTube of the Primerica Convention 30th Anniversary. None of these videos are mine and I don't know who posted videos. All I have to say to the people who videotaped the convention is "Thank you for sharing the videos."

OPENING CEREMONY

JOHN ADDISON, CEO of PRIMERICA FINANCIAL SERVICES
(have you seen any other company where bunch of people cheered on for their CEO??)

CHARLES PRINCE, CHAIRMAN and CEO of CITIGROUP

CLOSING CEREMONY

THE DAY AFTER CONVENTION (Sunday, August 5, 2007)

If I was an agent for another company, I would be thinking, "Damn. Primerica is going to dominate the financial industry! Why isn't my company building like that? Why can't I recruit and override people? Why doesn't my company give out such recognition or put together an event like this?"

Things that makes Primerica unique

2007-08-06T14:37:00.000-04:00

This topic is for all the current representatives or people who want to know more about Primerica before pursuing this career. Keep in mind that this is a business opportunity, not a job opportunity. I truly believe that Primerica is the best business opportunity and there is none like it. In order for this business to work, you need to get off your butt, get out of your home, talk to people, schedule an appointment, do the appointment, do the Financial Needs Analysis, schedule for a 2nd appointment, present the FNA, get referrals, invite client to see the business opportunity, then finally close the sale.

Here are some of the things that makes Primerica unique:

1) Primerica's sales force continues to grow while other companies are growing stale and their sales force are getting old. There are over 100,000 representatives in this company. How many representatives in other companies have?

2) Primerica is the only company that sells term insurance 100% of the time.

3) Primerica has the lowest term insurance rates in the entire industry with the new Custom Advantage Term Insurance that came out in 2007, which also includes Preferred Plus rates. Before, Primerica rates were pretty competitive and some companies were able to beat Primerica rates. Now, Primerica rates are 20-40% cheaper than our top competitors.

4) Primerica is the first company to use TurboApps. Agents can fill out life insurance, loans, and IBAs on a hand held palm pilot. This avoids all paper work and clutter. To read full story, click here.

5) The corporate Primerica and the sales force has a unique positive relationship. Sales force brings business in and the corporation is there to support the sales force.

6) Primerica is backed by a trillion dollar company called Citigroup.

7) Primerica has a communication service called GoSolo where the sales force can listen to messages sent out by the company and representatives can reply back to the message.

8) Primerica has sold more variable annuities than Metlife's sales force. All variable annuities are underwritten by Metlife and Primerica has a marketing agreement to sell those variable annuities.

9) Primerica has the largest securities sales force in North America with about 28,000 registered representatives. They sell more mutual funds than any other financial company.

10) Primerica is one of few companies that does kitchen table presentations, meaning the agent sits in the client's home.

11) Primerica does not advertise on newspapers, TV, radio, internet, or any other types of media. This keep costs low to the consumer and pays more commissions to the sales force.

12) CEO of Primerica talks to the sales force on a weekly or monthly basis using EPN-TV and GoSolo. CEO's from other companies rarely speak to the sales force.

13) Primerica rewards its sales force by holding company trips two times a year. About 2000 people can go and each person can bring one extra person for free. The trips are all inclusive. Transportation, food, hotel, and entertainment are all paid by the company. To win the trips, the sales force has to compete with one another. There are numerous categories which a representative can win.

14) Primerica has its own corporate television called EPN-TV that airs every Monday and Wednesday afternoon. Live and previous shows can also be watched on PrimericaOnline.com to subscribed users.

15) Regional Vice Presidents has access to Virtual Baseshop. Virtual baseshop allows RVPs and Representatives in that baseshop to effectively communicate with one another online and view productivity reports.

16) The only financial company that offers a business opportunity for just $99 (before it was $199). $40 of it will be go to the FBI to do a criminal background check, the rest will go to the state to start the licensing process.

17) Registered representatives can access Morningstar Hypothetical Portfolio Builder for free! People who use this program at other companies have to pay $2000-$5000/year. At Primerica, registered representatives can use it for free. Read the news.

18) Representatives can learn the products online by accessing PrimericaOnline.com under the "Field Instruction" tab and clicking on the sub-heading "Mastering the Product".

19) Representatives can bring a partner into the business, whether its a spouse, a brother, a sister, a child of legal age of 18 or older, a girlfriend/boyfriend, and so on.

20) Entire family can participate in the business. Imagine your family working together as a whole toward one goal, which is being financially independent. What would you and your family life be?

15 Characteristics of an Ideal Business

2007-07-25T14:43:00.000-04:00

This excerpt is taking from the book "ABC's of Making Money" by Dr. Denis Cauvier and Alan Lysaght. The authors said that there's only one company that has all 15 characteristics and that is Primerica Financial Services.

1. Sell to masses.
At Primerica, our market is infinite.

2. Fulfill a fundamental need for many people.
Primerica provides financial services. Everybody has a need for what they do. Kids need college funds, families need to get out of debt and save money, old adults need a way to preserve their savings as long as possible.

3. Be low risk.
Primerica agents don't have any risk. There is no quota and there is no time table. If agents want to take off from work, they can and nothing will happen to their business. Only thing they have to worry about is keeping their license active, which isn't a problem at all since agents know what to do to renew their licenses.

4. Provide the opportunity for ongoing passive income.
At Primerica, agents can make passive income 2 ways. First way is by recruiting and making overrides. Second way is getting a securities license and get paid on securities business forever.

5. Require a low staff component.
At Primerica, you don't need to hire any employees. You can run the entire business by yourself because there is already 2000+ employees at the home office to help you process your paperwork.

6. Have a stable, growing, long term demand.
Financial services is going to be in high demand for a very long time because many people are in a financial mess.

7. Have a low overhead cost.
At Primerica, there is no overhead cost since you don't need to buy any equipment. The only incurring cost you may have is traveling and communication service such as GoSolo.

8. Have a low startup cost.
At Primerica, it only cost $199 to startup.

9. Have a unique quality, making it difficult for competitors to copy.
While there is many other financial companies out there, they only do parts of what Primerica can do. Primerica does it all! They do financial planning, life insurance, mortgages, debt elimination, investments, retirement plans, college plans, prepaid legal, long term care, and auto and homeowner's insurance.

10. Have a positive cash flow and low inventory cost.
Even though it cost $199 to startup at Primerica, you can make all that money back by doing business with one client. As for inventory, your only inventory is purchasing brochures, which is optional and they cost as little as 5 cents each.

11. Have a high profit margin and rate of return.
You can make profits if you get to work. There over 50 people who makes 7 figures in a matter of 10-25+ years. There are over 1000 people making 6 figures as well.

12. Have minimal government regulation.
Primerica is a very regulated industry, but they have very little or any government agents interfering with daily business activities. Why? Its because Primerica agents follow the rules and laws.

13. Be portable.
At Primerica, you can move or open your business anywhere in your country.

14. Be fun, challenging, and satisfying for the business owner.
At Primerica, it is fun because you are hanging out with people who wants to be financially independent. It is challenging because you face skepticism and objections. It is satisfying when you realize that what you do helps people.

15. Provide an opportunity to uncover other money making multiple sources of income.
At Primerica, you can use your money to do other things. There are several people who use the money they make at Primerica to purchase real estate. One person bought a shopping mall, some condos, and other properties and make money from that.

Why Primerica is the best business opportunity

2007-07-13T15:02:00.003-04:00

1) Low overhead cost. Only $99 needed to start this business.
2) No rent.
3) No equipment to buy other than a pen and a notepad.
4) No salary or wages to deal with. All paychecks are handled by the company.
5) No status quotas to meet.
6) Great way to earn some extra income.
7) No need to quit your full time job.
8) You create your own schedule.
9) No boss. Only coaches and mentors to help you build.
10) You are allowed to recruit people.
11) You can earn passive and residual income.
12) You can make overrides.
13) We have a huge market. No one is helping middle income families, which represents 95% of the American population.
14) Financial education.
15) Unlimited income potential
16) Tax benefits
17) Company trips
18) Equal opportunity.
19) Company support system.
20) You have ownership.

Some misconceptions about Primerica

2007-07-11T01:11:00.002-04:00

Here are some of the misconceptions that some people say about Primerica. You have to know that most of the hatred that people have against Primerica are agents from other companies. Primerica teaches clients about keeping life insurance and savings separate. By keeping them separate, this lower the cost for life insurance and increases the rate of return on the savings. Other companies rather bundle life insurance and savings together. By bundling them together, the premiums are higher and the rate of return on the savings is very low. Who you think the client is going to side with? Primerica or these other companies? Primerica because the client sees more value by keeping life insurance and savings separate. So this is one of the main reasons you may see things on the internet or hear bad things because nobody likes having Primerica taking their clients away.

Here are some of things I read online. Keep in mind the internet is not regulated and anyone can post whatever they want. If you want the truth about Primerica, go to the company directly and get your answers from there.

1) Primerica is a scam. I've been in this company since August 2004. There is nothing about Primerica that makes it a scam. I have a state life insurance license and a state mortgage license. I have a federal securities license. If Primerica was a scam, the state and federal government would not issue these licenses. Primerica been in business since 1977. After 30 plus years, do you truly think Primerica is still a scam?

2) Its a pyramid. Frankly, I don't understand what a pyramid is. Most people who say its a pyramid can't even explain it themselves. What is a pyramid??? It is one of those Egyptian things? Its not a pyramid. Its a business opportunity. In a pyramid, you are usually stuck at one level and the chance of you moving to the top is very slim. At Primerica, its an upside-down pyramid. In the beginning, you make very little or no money. As you gain more experience and put more effort into it, your income is unlimited. You can make as much money as you want. At a job, isn't there a salary cap limit? You may be the best employee in your department, but you are still getting paid the same as the worst employee in your department. The only difference is you have a better chance of keeping your job while the worst employee may get fired. At Primerica, the more experience you have, the more money you can make. If you work really hard and build a large team, you can earn more money than your upline. The fact that you are able to make more money than the person who recruited you proves that Primerica is not a pyramid. At a job, are you able to a higher salary than your boss? Of course not. Because your salary is base on position, not on the person. At Primerica, your income is base on how hard your work.

3) Its a pyramid scheme. The only reason why someone would think that is because they saw the $199 and didn't understand it. They either think its a job opportunity and no one should be paying a fee to get a job OR the recruiter will earn commission on the $199. This is not a job opportunity, but a business opportunity. There is a difference between the two. A job is where you build someone's else business. A business opportunity is where you get to build your own business. The $199 that people see is the state licensing fee. While the actual cost of the state license is more than $199 (about $100-$300 more), Primerica pays the difference. If you want to build a business, you have to show your commitment that you are serious about building your business and Primerica will show its commitment to you by giving you the best support system they have. So no one in the company is making profits off the $199. The company is actually making a loss by paying most of the licensing fee for you.

4) Primerica products are expensive. If you were the client, you wouldn't be saying that. But an agent from another company will. I don't see how Primerica products are expensive. If they were expensive, how would anyone afford it? If you comparing life insurance, I think Primerica's term insurance is competitive to the rest of the industry. Is it the cheapest? I don't know. There are so many life insurance companies out there. But when you compare term insurance to cash value life insurance, term insurance is the cheapest. When comparing term insurance to term insurance, you have to compare the type of term insurance is it. Are they both the same level term? Or is one just an annual renewable term and the other is a level term? What happens at the end of the term? What features does the term policy has? What are the riders attached to it?

If you are comparing loans, there is no way that other companies can compete against Primerica. Primerica loans are customize debt solution loans that show clients on how to get out of debt sooner and for less money. If you take a few years off your debt, this would save you thousands of dollars on interest payment. You go ahead and try to find other companies that will do this for you. They rather keep you in debt for the full length of the loan rather than have you pay it off sooner.

5) Primerica's mutual funds suck. First of all, Primerica doesn't own any mutual funds. Primerica markets mutual funds for other companies such as Legg Mason Partners, Fidelity Advisor, Van Kampen, Pioneer, AIM, American Funds, Alliancebernstein, MFS, Oppenheimer, Putnam, and Franklin/Templeton. Majority of the mutual funds offered by these companies are rated 4-5 stars by Morningstar. Saying Primerica's mutual funds suck is really saying, "all these mutual fund companies suck." If you think so, then you shouldn't be investing at all. But I'll tell you this, all wealthy people invest their money. They don't keep lots of money in the bank account.

6) Primerica got sued. In the beginning, Primerica was called A.L. Williams. We were only able to sell 20 year term insurance. Since the company was replacing cash value life insurance policies, almost every single life insurance company were suing A.L. Williams. No one likes having their clients taken away by another company. These companies even made death threats to Art Williams. That's how bad it was in the beginning. In the 1990s, many life insurance companies got sued by the United States Government from deceiving and lying to consumers about cash value life insurance. Being sued by the government is worse than being sued by another company. Many life insurance companies haven't been able to recover from these fines, so they either closed or merged with other life insurance companies or another life insurance company bought them out. Other companies pay off the fines by selling shares to its current policy holders. If a company says it will give dividends, then you know that company was sued by the United States Government. As for Primerica, they were not affected by the ruling because we sell term insurance 100% of the time.

7) Primerica was fined by the SEC. There was just one incident where 4 agents in the same office were involved in a Ponzi Scheme from 1991-1994. They were selling unregistered securities (investments not offered by Primerica), which is completely prohibited by Primerica. Primerica has failed to supervise and resolve complaints against these agents, so the SEC fined the company in 1998. Since then, Primerica has made lots of improvements in supervision and constantly keeping agents informed about the rules and regulations.

To make sure all securities licensed representatives follow SEC laws and regulations, Primerica holds annual compliance meetings. If representative fails to attend the meeting, he/she would lose his license. Primerica even sends quarterly newsletters reminding agents some of the rules and regulations and puts updates and notices on primericaonline.com website.

In the past 4 years, Primerica has the received the Dalbar Service Award for its top notch customer service in mutual funds. Dalbar, Inc. is a client service rating organization focused on raising the standards of customer satisfaction and quality in the financial services industry. Dalbar develops ratings for: Mutual funds, brokers/dealers, life insurance, and more. Would you rather do business with a company that has the best customer service or a company that puts you on hold or transfer you to some tech guy in India? Primerica's customer service are all located in the United States. The company has made its number one priority to resolve all issues and concerns as soon as possible. I even call them a few times and within a few minutes, all my concerns were resolved.

8) Primerica rips people off. I don't know how that is even possible. Would you rather pay $2000/year for a whole life insurance or just $1000/year with Primerica's 30 year term insurance? Would you rather be in debt for the next 30+ years or be in debt for just 20 years with Primerica's SMART loan? Would you rather pay 2% annual fees on your mutual fund or just 1% with most of mutual funds offered through Primerica? Would you rather go on with life without any financial plan or get a free financial need analysis at Primerica? Did you see anything here that can rip people off? I didn't and I've been doing this for many years. Its those other companies that actually rips people off. Primerica goes in and helps the client save money and build wealth. Other companies focuses on making profits. If they advertise, they spread the cost of it to its consumers. Primerica has not spent a single cent on advertisement, that's why the company is able to keep it costs to the minimum.

9) Majority of Primerica's agents don't know anything about finance. In the beginning, most of them don't. That's why there is a system in place to help train these agents. When a new agent goes out in the field to see a client, he/she always bring a field trainer. The field trainer does all the work, while the new agent watch and learn. Eventually, the new agent will become experienced enough to go see clients on his own and soon be qualified to become a field trainer. Most of the offices hold weekly training to help agents learn about the different types of financial products out there and learn how to build a business. At Primerica, you don't need a college degree. A college degree doesn't mean anything in real life. It just shows you are willing to work hard to earn more money. But if you are not experienced, most companies won't even hire you. When someone says Primerica agents are not educated or not fit to work in the financial industry, the truth is we actually know more than 95% of the population. We know everything about life insurance. We know everything about mortgages. We know everything about mutual funds. We know everything about how money works and how you can have money work for you rather against you. The average person doesn't know any of this stuff. Other agents from other companies can't even comprehend half the stuff what a Primerica agent can do.

In closing, people can say whatever they want about Primerica. Some people been saying bad things about the company for over 30 years. But you know what? None of these things affect Primerica. In fact, it made the company even stronger. Where does the competition stand? While all our other competitors have gone stagnant or losing their sales force, Primerica continues to grow its sales force and build a larger client base. Primerica is a strong financial company and is in position to dominate the financial industry. There is no other company that can match what Primerica can do. They are able to do parts of what we do, but they don't fully do everything for their client.

My first opportunity meeting at Primerica

2007-07-10T00:55:00.000-04:00

It was August 2004 when I first saw the business opportunity at Primerica. It was a Saturday morning at 9AM. I got there at 8:30AM. Keep in mind, I had no clue what is going on. I just wanted a job to earn some money. I did not know that this was a business opportunity. All I know was that Primerica is a member of Citigroup and who wouldn't want to work for this gigantic company? I was 22 years old at the time and just graduated from college.

So the meeting started at 9AM. First speaker talked a little bit about Primerica. Primerica has over 100,000 representatives and been in business since 1977. They have over 6 million clients in USA, Puerto Rico, Canada, Spain, and UK. They are a member of Citigroup. Citigroup is listed on the NYSE as symbol "C". They are one of the DJIA companies. Citigroup has more than $1 trillion in assets and been ranked #1 in the Forbes Global 2000.

Then the next speaker talked about some financial concepts. Remember, I was 22 years old at the time and none of the stuff they talked about made sense to me. I don't know debt was. All I know that its bad to have and the only way to get rid of it is to pay it off. The speaker talked about the Rule of 72, which I was familiar with, but didn't know how to apply it in real life. The Rule of 72 is a mathematical formula that tells you how long it will take for your money to double given the interest rate. For example, if you get a 3% interest, it would take 24 years for your money to double. With 12% interest, it will take 6 years. How you get 12%? Simple, you invest your money into mutual funds. At that time, I had very little understanding of mutual funds. The only thing I knew about mutual funds was that it invests in many different companies. Then the speaker talked about how money works and the power of compound interest. Then he talked a little bit about life insurance, which I didn't pay any attention to.

Then another speaker came in and was tying in those financial concepts with their products. He talked about life insurance, the debt solution, and the financial needs analysis. None of it made any sense to me. I was 22 years old and single and none of this stuff did not relate to me. I don't have a family. I only have a student loan debt. And I wasn't too sure about investing.

And finally, there was one more speaker. He did a brief recap and talked about compensation and the business opportunity. This is the part that got me excited about Primerica. I joined Primerica because of the overrides and ownership. An override is the difference between my sales level and my downline's sales level. Then there was something about the $199 I didn't quite understand. They say its for the state licensing fee and the background check. I'm like, "huh?"

I knew nothing about business or know the cost of starting one because I'm not exposed to it. Most of us are taught to graduate from high school, go to college, and get a good job. Is there really such a thing as a "good job?" You work so hard to get an hourly wage, which the government taxes you on. You take home what's ever is left over and then you pay your bills. You have a boss that keeps telling you to do stuff and you may or may not like it. You have to wake up the exact same time every Mon-Fri. You eat lunch at the same time and you leave at the same time. You try everything to impress your boss because you think you will get promoted that way (sometimes it works, but most of the time, you are stuck at the same position). You may get an average salary increase of 3%, which may excite you, but really, its not even keeping up with inflation. The longer you stay at that job, the more experienced you are, but you will soon become a big liability for the company. Your salary increases over time and if your company provides health insurance, the cost of those premiums goes up as well. If you worked at the company for 20+ years, you know you are going to be replaced by someone younger and less experienced than you. Then what are you going to do after that? You are too old to work for any other corporation, so you have to work at a low end job such as Walmart, McDonald's, and so on.

I look at my parents, brother and sisters, and my relatives. They all have a job and none of them are happy about what they do. They complain about their pay, about their co-workers, about their boss, about the commute, and bunch of other stuff. I'm like, "shit, I don't want that kind of life style." They are so negative in life. So that's why I joined Primerica because I want freedom and be able to enjoy my life.

In my next blog, I will talk about some of the things people told me and what I read online about Primerica.

PRIMERICA FOR EVER!

2007-03-06T18:34:00.001-05:00

P = PASSIVE
R = RESIDUAL
I = INCOME

IN AMERICA!