Success Stories - Secure American Insurance

CFOE AV TE UR R E REGINA MARTINEZ —continued from page 11

with Secure American Insurance, she can work from anywhere and choose her own hours. “There’s been a lot of times where I needed to be able to work from somewhere other than my desk,” Regina explained. “When my dad passed away and when my niece was killed. Recently, my brother got hit by a train, and with Secure American, I’m able to go to the hospital and tend to him. I don’t need to be stuck in an office. I can bring my laptop and work from here. Or if I go on vacation, I can take work with me without asking permission from somebody, whereas before, I had to ask and shut down the office for the day. I missed out on a lot before. I missed a lot of my kid’s basketball games or wrestling matches because I couldn’t take off or leave early.” Make it easy for people to do business with you. As a captive agent, Regina recalled people struggling to get away from work and rushing to make a call before 5 pm. By listening to her prospective customers’ complaints about other agencies, Regina structured her business to address these concerns, which makes people want to do business with her—and also makes them happy customers. Plus, because of the freedom to run her business when she wants, she now makes herself available after 5 pm and schedules appointments with people when it’s convenient for them. “When people are looking for an agent, a lot of people tell me, ‘They’re talking at me and not to me,’” Regina explained. “They also talk a lot about not being able to reach someone, having to call an 800 number, and never getting the same person. Here, I can design my own hours, so I stay open a little later than normal.

simplifies the process, so they get the best rates and truly know what their coverage is. The fact that she is on her fourth generation of customers and that customers hunt her down to get her to represent them speaks volumes. Understand the difference between a captive agent and an independent agent. Captive agents work for a single company, while independent agents work for many insurance companies. With Regina’s first start-up agency, because she was a captive agent, she was limited to what she could offer her customers by the few products the company provided. Therefore, she found there were many customers she couldn’t help, which was reflected in her 35% closing rate. Now, as an independent agent, she has many options and policies she can offer. This allows her to find the right fit and help significantly more people. As an independent agent, she closes 90% of the time. “With the previous captive insurance company I worked with, it was either their product or nothing,” Regina said. “I was like, ‘Oh my God! There’s so much business walking out the door!’ Now I have so many options that I can help a lot more people.” As an independent agent, she also retains customers better because even if a policy increases or is no longer a right fit for a client, there are many options she can transition them to in order to meet their requirements. Consider when and where you want to work. With captive insurance, Regina was required to work from an office within the traditional hours of 9 am to 5 pm. As an independent agent

Customers also like that they only need to make one call for all their insurance, and they always get a familiar voice on the other end of the line. I have old customers from when I was with my old agency that will contact me and say, ‘Hey, I found you on Facebook. It’s been a few years, but I’m back.’” Choose self-imposed sales goals over quotas that penalize you. As previously mentioned, missing quotas implemented by the captive insurance companies Regina worked with caused her to lose thousands of dollars in commissions. “They have quotas,” Regina lamented. “It sounds easy enough, but when you’re under the gun, it’s different. With the agency I was with before, you had to sell, sell, sell, and you never knew if you were going to meet the quota until the very end of the month. Then, when you find out you have to forfeit $30,000, $40,000, and $50,000 in premiums that you sold, that’s hard. In my three years with the previous company, I had to forfeit commission because I missed it by one policy. That’s my dollars, so I didn’t like that at all. While I still set goals and know I need to produce, if I miss my goal, I’m still going to get paid. I sell more now than I ever sold before because I don’t feel that pressure.” Avoid starting out with debt. When Regina had to start over, she interviewed multiple companies, which required a substantial buy-in to get started. While she understands there are costs associated with a business, she cautions that there are many companies that can be excessive in charging you just for the “privilege” of writing policies for them. “I would be walking into debt with all the other companies before I even started,”

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