The 3 Reasons Why Many New Insurance Agents Fail

You know, despite what many would have you think, the insurance industry is truly a highly noble profession. But why is it that so many insurance agents come and go? Why do so many new insurance agents fail? And why do many experienced agents plateau? Well, I'm going to discuss that today. In fact, I'm going to talk about three reasons why many new insurance agents fail on today's Agent Leader podcast. Hi there, friends. This is Brent Kelly with another episode of the Agent Leader podcast. I'm so excited you're with me today. Well, today I want to talk about something that is really important in the industry and very personal to me. You know, the insurance industry offers amazing career opportunities for those who seize it. I've known a lot of people have been very, very successful in the insurance industry and it's especially true for insurance producers. In fact, I spent 15 years as a property casualty agent. I had many ups and I had many downs. I had moments of great success, right? Writing that big account or having that great week. And I've had other days where I simply wanted to throw in the towel, call it a career. But here's where I think the industry is today. I mean, we desperately need some new young talent and strong leadership. But unfortunately, young people aren't flocking to become insurance agents, right? This has been a problem and been written about in many publications. And even for those agents that do take on the challenge of becoming a new insurance agent, many of them fail, right? So people, well, you know, don't try the insurance thing. You know, they just, they just flush people out, right? In and out, all the turnover. And I started digging into this and why is it, why do so many new insurance agents fail? Now, I think there's lots of reasons, right? You can't narrow it down just to three reasons why insurance agents fail, but I think there are three things that kind of stand out that I have seen in my own career and working with people and now as a full time speaker and trainer and coach in the insurance industry and working with agencies, things that I see all the time. So here are the three things that I see. Number one, I think agents expect too much too soon. Let's face it, we are in the see it, want it, have it generation, right? And that's not to be critical of those in that generation because I have a lot of those tendencies myself, right? Think about just television or watching a show, right? It used to be you would have to wait for the actual show to come on and then it got to the point where you could DVR it or TiVo it when that came out. And then now we have Netflix and Hulu. And Hulu. And it's all on demand. And even better yet, it's not on demand on your tv, on demand on your phone. So we see something that we like and we want it, and then we must have it right away. And this is also very true when we look at successful people, right? There's just a mentality where we see people and we think, well, that must be nice. I sure wish I was that successful. But here's the wake up call that's really important to think about. Why insurance agents fail and new insurance agents fail in particular, is that successful people work their tails off. Oftentimes it's 20 to 30 years of really hard work. It looks like an overnight success. You know, I get the opportunity to meet a lot of very successful people and I love to pick their brain and talk to them. And not one of them, not one. I said, you know, Brent, what happened was, is I was just thinking one day that I'd like to be really successful and rich, and then the next day, boom, it just happened for me. Right? But that's the thought of many young agents. You know, again, I've been there. I've done that. But we start off in the first year or two of our careers, and we expect to be driving the nice car and have the nice house and play golf about 100 days a year. Maybe that was just. Maybe that was just one of mine. And there's nothing wrong with those things, right? I mean, there is nothing wrong. I think every one of you, if you're listening to this and you're an agent, I want you to have a nice car and a nice house and take time for vacation with your family, of course. But first you got to pay a price. You got to give up to go up. You got to sacrifice to win. You've got to put in the time and the effort. The insurance business is tough, and like every profession, it takes time, it takes effort, and it takes failure to become a master. Let's face it, you've got to be able to get kicked in the teeth and make mistakes and have bad days. And there are going to be some days where you're going to question your sanity. Before you ever achieve a level of high success, you're going to have to overcome adversity. You're going to have to, as my mentor, John Maxwell, says, you're going to have to fail forward. Now, listen, this doesn't mean that the first few years have to be Awful. I'm not trying to scare away young agents, but young agents often expect too much too soon. So let me give you some advice. Learn and master your craft. Read, practice, grow, build good habits. It's like the rule of 1%. If you can just get 1% better every week, can you imagine what your success will be over a period of time? You don't go from 0 to 100. But if you start adding 1% every week, guess what? Things will get better pretty quickly. Maybe not as fast as you're thinking, but they will happen for you. Understand, the insurance business, it has to be looked at like. I always like to imagine a crock pot versus a microwave, right? A microwave heats up fast, but let's face it, the food doesn't always taste the best. The crock pot, however, it takes longer, right? It's got to simmer and sit all day. But when you get to it, that's really good. Or you come back, and at least I do come back in the house, there's something in the crock pot, smells good. You don't get that with a microwave. Now, this doesn't mean that you can't have positive results quickly, right? I know some people, you can have some quick results. But a young agent, they must understand that a successful book of business comes from developing meaningful relationships. It comes from daily growth, and it comes from building good habits, consistency. And by the way, all those things take time. So again, the first thing, why do. Why do many new insurance agents fail? Well, I think it's that we expect too much too soon. Number two, this is kind of a pet peeve of mine. Lack of quality training and education. You know, I often speak with young insurance agents who are frustrated with their job. In fact, I can think back of conventions I've attended, you know, and you network and you're talking to other people while I was an active agent. And I'd say, how's things going? How's your business going? And they're like, well, you know, I'm a little frustrated. It's not going so well. I can't write the business, you know, all those kind of things. And what happens oftentimes when I ask more questions, I'm like, well, what support are you giving at your agency, right? Who's helping you? Do you have a mentor? Did you get educated? Do you have training? What do you do? And they're like, well, no, I was given a phone and a computer and maybe a lead sheet. I'm like, really? No wonder you're struggling. Those are the People, of course they're going to fail. That's like taking a person who's never golfed, right? A person who's never golfed, walking them out to the course. You give them a club and you go, go do it. And then you can't figure out why they can't break a hundred. Every successful professional has a mentor and or a coach. Agents are no different. Young agents need training and they need mentoring. They need quality education. Every one of us does. The world class athletes have coaches. There's a reason why now there are some great programs out there to help agents get a start. There are insurance association groups, there's formal classwork programs, or there's training from a lot of insurance carriers, right? There's some good stuff out there. You just got to look for it. But most importantly, I really think that every young agent needs to find a mentor. You know, I know early in my career I had a few guys in my office who I could kind of shadow, who I could go out in calls with, who I could pick their brains with. Better yet than to have one, have two or three. And someone who's had success in the industry and is willing to help new agents is very, very purposeful and it'd be very, very helpful. But mentorship, it could come from your office, like I mentioned. It could come from a business professional, it could come from an outside mentor, a coach dedicated to your success. I'm part of a program called Agents of Growth. That's exactly what we do. We work coached and mentor agents. No one has ever achieved anything worthwhile on their own. It just hasn't happened. Now you can also find people across the country through social media, right? You can learn from them. There's all kinds of ways and all kinds of things to help agents new and experienced maximize their own potential and get better results. Just a couple that I'll mention, you know, I mentioned Agents of Growth, which I'm proud to be part of. And we help agents with leadership and communication, sales, production, attitude and mindset. All those places where agents get stuck. But it's also been some really good things I've been part of. I was one of the first participants in the National Alliance Producer School. That's a great program for new agents. And also the program that I did was part of that was the CIC designation. So there's a lot of things that you can, you can do. Just look around now it's a two. There's two sides to this coin, right? Number one, agency owners support your agents, right? If you Bring people on and go, well, I hope they figure it out. Some make it, some don't. It's up to them. Strong, survive. Well, you're going to have a very difficult, very, very difficult chance getting the results that you want. At the same side, if you're a young agent, it's up to you, right? You need support, but you also have to be the one to go seek the support. People aren't always going to come find you. You know, I found early in my career, if I would find successful people and I would say, hey, you know what? I really respect who you are and what you're doing, would there be a chance I'd grab a cup of coffee or a quick phone call? Not everybody's going to say yes, but some do. And that's important that you take the initiative on that, because without quality education, training, and mentoring, young agents are much, much more likely to fail. All right, number three, I think a reason why young agents fail, and I think really any agents fail, is that they're focused on the wrong thing. They're focused on the wrong thing. You know, if you're on the insurance, if you're in the insurance agent business just to make more money or just to make a lot of money, leave. Leave. I'm serious. If you go, I've heard the insurance industry is good because you can make money. I'm going to go do that. Leave. Right. You will not succeed if you're in this business simply to make money. Now, maybe in the short term, you can have some success by doing that, but over a period of time, prospects, customers, they're going to see right through you. Your team's going to see right through you. They're going to know you don't care about them, and the only person you care about is yourself. See, this is 100% a people business. This is a relationship business business. This is a service business. And if you don't understand those three principles, you will fail, Period. I've known many insurance agents, producers, who've come in with the idea that I'm going to make good money. And they can't figure out why they're failing because they're focused on the wrong thing. If you focus on the people, money will come. But if you focus just on the money, the people will go. You get it. You focus on the people, money will come. But if you focus just on the money, people will go. Because you can make a terrific income as an insurance agent. Right? It's a great opportunity. Provides you freedom, it provides you flexibility, residual Income is terrific. There is no doubt about that. Great agents do, and they should make a wonderful living. Part of my passion is I want. I want to see agents achieve their maximum potential and go do the things that they want to do. They work hard. Good agents help many people. They help businesses. However, successful agents do not earn this income by focusing on money. They focus on the people they are serving. Yes, great agents set financial goals. You should. But they also understand to hit those goals. The only way they're going to do that is by focusing on helping people. So here's the bottom line. I mentioned three reasons why new insurance agents fail. And by the way, this could be really any insurance agents that fail. Number one is I think they expect too much too soon. They'll want it, see it, have it now. It's a process. It's a great business, but it does take time. Now, you can speed up time, but you still got to put in the time. Number two, lack of quality training, education. You've got to have a mentor. You've got to have training. You got to have a coach, someone there to help you, to push you along the way and to lift you up when you fall, because you will fall. And the last thing is a focus on the wrong thing. They're focusing on the money and not the people. So here's the bottom line. As I said at the beginning in the intro, I firmly believe that an insurance agent is a highly noble and a critical profession. I'm passionate about helping insurance agents. I love it. There's so many good people in this industry and they do so many good things. It's vital the industry not only find new and young talent, but also give that talent the necessary tools to help them succeed. For new agents, understanding these three areas of why many agents fail will be critically important to critically important to you to make sure that these talent agents will be there in the future. Right? I say this many times in my keynotes, in my workshops. This industry, the insurance industry, is desperately seeking leaders and you are one of those leaders. To serve others with passion. To serve others with your knowledge. To serve others with your integrity. Thanks so much for listening to another episode of the Agent Leader podcast. Again. My name is Brent Kelly and I'm absolutely excited and humbled that you took some time out of your day to listen to my podcast today. If this podcast gave you value, if it added something to your business or to your life, please go to itunes or Stitcher Radio and leave me a positive review. It's a great way for me to grow the podcast and share this with more people. Each and every episode of the Agent Leader Podcast is brought to you by Agents of Growth, which provides purposeful and intentional business growth for insurance professionals. You can check Agents of growth out@agentsofgrowth.net that's agents of growth.net until next time. Remember, this industry is desperately seeking leaders. We need you. Go be a leader today.