What’s Wrong With Being An Insurance Agent?

Talk about a profession that has received a raw deal.  Insurance agent has been on the butt end of more jokes than it has been on job applications.  Remember the scene in Groundhog’s Day?  “Watch that first step! It’s a doooozy!” 

I am currently recruiting Benefit Representatives for one of the world’s largest and most respected supplemental insurance companies, and I cannot find people to fill the positions!  I talk to people all day long who respond to our job postings on the Internet.  After a short phone interview, half of them say, “Eh…I don’t really want to sell insurance.”  First off, I want to ask, “Well, why did you respond to the ad then?”  But what I really want to ask is, “What’s wrong with being an insurance agent?”  This is one of America’s most important professions, but often disregarded.

This will not be a popular statement amongst my law enforcement friends, so I will preface it by saying that I have more respect for police officers, firemen and EMT’s than any other occupations.  With that being said, I receive more protection from my insurance agent than I do from my local police department.  And guess what?  So do you!

Think about it.  If someone breaks into your house and steals all of your jewelry, it is very unlikely that the police will recover and return the property.  Your insurance claim, however, is likely to pay off.  If you are attacked on the street and unable to work, the police might find and arrest your assailant, but there is no guarantee.  If you have been paying your disability premiums, there’s a guarantee that you will not have to go without income while you are out of work.

Seriously, it’s not only time to pay a little more respect to our insurance agents, financial advisors, benefit reps, etc., but it is also time to start rethinking career choices.  This is a respectable and profitable position.  So many people pass on the opportunity.  Meanwhile, I am surrounded daily by blissful human beings working at the supplemental insurance office.  Happy to be working a flexible schedule…thrilled to be making a ton of cash!  Perhaps someone should create a TV show about insurance reps.  Then maybe more of our young people will want to get into this business instead of overpaying for criminal justice degrees with the hope of becoming private investigators.  

What's Wrong With Being The Garbage Man?

When I was a kid, I had a friend named Kirk.  Kirk idolized the garbage men.  He would follow the truck up and down the alley.  On rainy days, he would watch for the garbage truck from his bedroom window.  Kirk thought everything about the garbage men was fascinating.  I think Kirk grew up to be an accountant or something...I really don't know.  I do know that he is not a garbage man.

I can remember the adults in my neighborhood seemed almost envious of the garbage man.  At the ballfield or in the backyard, the dads would say things like, "Who do you have to know to get a job on the garbage truck?" or, "Do you know how much money those guys must make an hour?" 

Garbage man used to be a coveted position.  What happened?  I recently met with a Waste Management recruiter who told me that they are struggling to find drivers or drivers' helpers.  I logged onto the company website (www.wm.com/careers) only to find dozens of vacant positions in and around the Pittsburgh region.  I talked with a friend of mine who runs a staffing agency.  They staff positions at a Waste Management recycling facility.  He told me that they have open positions on a daily basis that they cannot fill.  Now granted, these may not be the most glamorous positions within the company, but they are entry level positions into one of America's largest businesses!

When and how did America become a top down nation?  Remember when you had to start at the bottom and work your way to the top?  Jobs that were once classified as 'good jobs' are now looked down upon.  It's almost as if CEO's and top execs are envied to the degree that everybody thinks they should be one regardless of education, job experience, talent and ability.  This line of thinking has left a void in the value of work.

Protect Your ASSets

Ask most people, "What is your greatest asset?"  Some will say their house or the car.  Others might refer to a savings or some kind of investment vehicle.  They're all wrong.  A person's greatest asset is their God-given ability to get up, go to work and earn money everyday.

Think about it.  If you wreck your car tomorrow, insurance will help you fix it or get another.  If, God forbid, a house fire occurs, you can eventually rebuild or buy a new home with the help of insurance.  But consider this: You are injured in the car accident and can no longer work...or you are injured in the fire and can no longer work.  Worst case scenario, an accident is tragic and a loss of life occurs.  How do you earn?  Who pays the bills?  How does a spouse or partner recover financially?

We insure everything from our homes to cars to jewelry to personal collectibles.  But we go to work everyday and do not cover our greatest asset.  People will read this and say, "Well, I have a life insurance policy through work," or, "My company has a short-term disability plan."  Most people go bankrupt or lose a business because of medical bills. People only lose their homes when they can no longer afford to pay their bills.

If you are in business for yourself, you have to think about this.  If you have not asked yourself questions like those outlined above, you are setting yourself up for failure.  Anyone working everyday should be asking their HR rep to review benefit plans.  A short term disability may be only 90 days.  What happens after that?

People may also turn a blind eye towards supplemental health plans.  Those people should look into the cost of a COBRA Health Insurance option then ask themselves not if they could afford it, but if they can afford not to have some kind of supplemental protection.

Food for thought.

Five Reasons Entrepreneurs Fail

So many young enterprisers take business advice from other people who have never owned or operated their own business. There is so much more to running a business than just a good business plan. Only those who have been through the ups and downs can truly show others the pitfalls, risks and common mistakes. Take it from an entrepreneur who has failed: The expression, “Had I known then what I know now,” is not just an expression.

This webinar will point out the most common mistakes that usually produce tragic results. After nearly a decade of self-employment, Scott Albert will share 5 Reasons Why Entrepreneurs Fail. Many learned through experience…others through observation…all avoidable.

Seating is limited! Register today!

Click link for registration information https://student.gototraining.com/r/4820575986846902784

MGIF

Every Monday morning, I make a weekly agenda for myself.  Nothing extensive…just a few important items on which to focus for the week.  Every Friday, I am discouraged at the fact that so few items are crossed off of the list.  It seems like my weekly agenda rarely changes.  This is a problem that many self-employed people or small business owners experience.  While most workers embrace the notion of TGIF, small business owners live in the notion of MGIF, My Goodness It’s Friday!

As a small business owner, my number one priority…day in and day out...is the development of new business.  New business keeps me in business and assures that I can make monthly payroll.  A few core products or services will keep the doors open, but only new business can contribute to expansion or growth.  I am certain that any business owner or commissioned sales rep can sympathize.  As such, our daily grind includes cold calls, lunches, meetings over coffee and evening networking events.  It is a 24 hour a day task chasing down leads and possibilities.  I love it.  But what happens to everything else?

It is common to wake up on a Saturday morning and realize the phone bill was due on Wednesday.  Often we are responding to last Tuesday’s emails while we drink our Sunday morning coffee.  And, how many of us are up proofreading proposals at midnight while Jay Leno makes jokes in the background?  I also teach college courses two to three nights per week, coach my daughter’s softball team and play guitar in a local blues band!   Enterprisers have to live this way.  It is our nature.  So, good enterprisers must develop strategies to avoid the MGIF trap.

First and foremost it is critical that enterprisers hire opposites.  They say in relationships that opposites attract.  I have learned that in business only opposites survive.  When I first started hiring employees and consultants, I had a tendency to hire people just like me.  We ended up with a bunch of scouts trying to defend a fort!  Nobody was taking care of the day-to-day operations.  I learned over time to seek out people who like to do the things I do not like to do or simply do not have the time to do.  Now, I look for investigative characters, people who like to mull over data and think about daily problem solutions.  I seek out conventional workers, who are organized and very systematic; they are critical to new projects because they take care of all the nuts and bolts. 

A lot of my thinking was based on a career development theory set forth by John Holland.  Holland broke down the world of work into six categories: Realist (hands on workers), Investigative (thinkers), Artistic (creative people), Social (those who help others), Enterprising (leaders & risk takers), Conventional (organized and systematic.)  Using these definitions, I thought about which were most like me.  Knowing myself better than I did before and recognizing my deficiencies has helped me better identify opposites.  I am very Social, Enterprising and Artistic by nature.  Therefore, when organizing a training or taking on a new project, I seek out those with the opposite characteristics.  It is a work in progress, but I find business slowly becoming more efficient and effective having deployed this hiring strategy.  I still experience those MGIF moments.  Still, I did find time to write this article on a Friday morning.

Workforce on the Web!

http://myemail.constantcontact.com/Workforce-on-the-Web-.html?soid=1112173962602&aid=MljD2-AAl58

Small Business Dilemma

Many of my colleagues and/or competitors would include education institutions, government agencies and even non-profits.  It is very difficult to compete as a for-profit company when most of my competitors are not-for-profit, which makes them eligible for many grants and contracts for which I am not.  You would think this might be the biggest challenge, but it is not.

As a small for-profit consulting agency, I am not restricted by bureaucracy, branding or a traditional way of doing things.  This, as many of you probably know, allows for some outside the box thinking.  But here’s an example of what happens.  At the end of 2012, as a courtesy, I approached a large government training institution about a concept to conduct a virtual workforce development conference, but was basically told they were not interested.  So, my company launched the project independently.  It turned out to be relatively successful, but not as successful as it could have been had I had an institutional partner to co-sponsor the conference.

Yesterday, I received an announcement that the same agency who told me they were ‘not interested’ will be conducting a virtual workforce conference this summer!  This happens all of the time in my business.  Large, non-innovative agencies will just wait for the little guy to be creative and then steal their concepts.  I’m curious.  Is this just specific to the workforce development industry or do other small businesses experience the same thing?