Questions

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Good luck and see you at the top!