""How many people don't make it here?""

I can’t tell you how many times I have heard that question from potential recruits over the last 16+ years. Sometimes it is an honest question and asked with the purest intentions. Other times I think they are asking it because they are very skeptical and are basically saying, “This sounds too good to be true.” These are the same people that read reviews about careers with the various carriers on sites like glassdoor.com.  They not only read the “reviews,” they believe them. I’ve read some horror stories of the way recruits were neglected. Now I’m not naive enough to believe that it doesn’t ever happen. All I can speak to is my own personal experience, the leaders that have reported to me have never displayed that type of behavior.

The potential recruit probably have a pretty good idea that the “washout rate” in Voluntary Benefits is fairly horrific. (On a side note, that is one of my main motivations for this site, my writing, and the podcast. I am crazy enough to believe that I can help new Agents hold on!!!)  Perhaps they are hoping that I will give them an excuse not to pursue a career that could literally change their life. I mean, if they don’t ever start, then they can’t fail…..right?!?! WRONG! The great Wayne Gretzky famously said, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”

Whatever their intentions are, it is a question that demands (and quite frankly deserves) to be answered. Here is my response: Every. Single. Time. 

“Listen, Rudy Recruit. We lose people for the exact same reasons every organization does.

• Their husband gets transferred across the country.
• Their mother is diagnosed with cancer and they feel they need to take care of her.
• They get a call from SeaWorld to work as a dolphin trainer. (Yes, this really happened to me. I can’t compete with SeaWorld and their life-long dream of teaching flipper to juggle beach balls.)

Tim’s Three Failure Factors

Having said that, we also have people “fail out” of this career. But what I can honestly say is this, in the 16+ years that I have been doing this, I have never seen anyone who:

1. Was coachable and trainable.

2. Went to work every day.

3. Actually completed their training.

And failed.  Not one time!”

If they “failed out” it always boiled down to at least one of those three things.

• They felt they were too smart to run the system we know is proven to work. So instead they decided to reinvent the wheel. (See Spare Me Your Creativity) Early in my sales leadership career, I would sometimes hire very experienced sales people that were used to making $150,000 or more. Their attitude was always, “Just teach me your product, and get the @&%$ out of my way! I’ll be your best salesperson inside of 90 days. What’s the record? Because I’m going to shatter it!!!”  I’d like to be able to give you their names so you could call and ask them yourself, “Why weren’t you successful?” I’d really like to, but I can’t. And no, the reason I can’t give you their names isn’t HIPAA. It’s simply because I don’t even remember their names. They weren’t here long enough for me to get to know them. They left very quickly once they realized their old ways of selling weren’t going to work.
• Or they thought that since no one was looking over their shoulder, and they were in complete control of their own schedule, they could get away with working 15 hours a week. Their motto was, “I know I started late today, but I’ll make up for it by going home early…”
• Or they were a victim of early success….Maybe they opened up a 45 life case their first couple of weeks (by calling on their uncle’s cabinet manufacturing company.) They were able to parlay that into a couple of sweet referrals. Now they are too busy to come to that class they registered for when they first started. Unfortunately, they miss an idea that could have made them an additional $50,000 in commissions this year. Why? Because they refused to move the enrollment that will net them $1,000 in commissions. Perhaps the class they missed might have given them an idea that helped them stick and stay…but we’ll never know because their wife told them that they had to go get a “real job.”

Is it possible someone could do all three things above and still “fail out” of this business? I guess it’s possible…. But highly unlikely! If it was going to happen, I think I would have seen it at least once out of the 2,000+ VB sales people I have hired and trained over the last 16 years.

I conclude this topic with Ruby Recruit by saying this, “What I do know is this: The insurance industry statistics for retention of agents during their first two years is embarrassingly horrible. But of those that make it to one year, 80% eventually retire from the industry. In other words, it’s not for everyone, but for those that do what we ask, when we ask, and as often as we ask, have a great likelihood of success.

Conclusion: It does no good to achieve only two out of the three items listed above. What good is it if you are coachable and trainable but don’t actually show up for training? You have also wasted everyone’s time (including yours) if you are front and center at every training, but never actually apply what you learned in the field (go to work).

Question: Which of the three challenges you the most? I promise, that if you are really honest with yourself, one of them is a challenge. Will you be vulnerable with this community and share?

I really do want to hear from you and help any way I can! I answer every question and acknowledge every comment! Let’s continue the conversation below!!!