My First Week As A Life Insurance Agent (CRAZY Story)

Alright guys, so in this video I'm going to be telling you guys the story of my first week selling life insurance. If you're a brand new agent who's just kind of getting into the business, this is going to give you an idea of what it's actually like, what to expect and ultimately how to get through your first week. Because I truly believe that, you know, it's, that is one of the toughest part of this business is getting through the first bit of it. And I'm gonna kind of give you guys like an actionable step or a mindset shift that you need to have coming into this business to help you guys succeed. Right? So if we haven't met yet, my name is Tim Shooker. I'm building a life insurance agency. Goal is to get it to $100 million. So that's just kind of like our goal. What I usually do most of my day is work on building that and then my free time. I like to make videos for YouTube like this to help new agents get to the point where they're able to make six figures over the phone. So that's me, that's what I do. When I first got in the business was about three and a half years ago and I was working for this company, it was like an older imo, they had been around for a while. One of the older ones in the, in the country. And basically the model that we were doing is it was direct mail leads, right? So it would give us this stack of direct mail leads. And, and the way that they generated these leads is they were, they were free Walmart gift card leads. And so what does that mean? Basically what they would do is they would send out these cards and on the card it said, hey, you know, send this back. This little check box, it says send this back for a free Walmart gift card. Didn't say how much the gift card was, it was $5. Spoiler alert. But they didn't know that. So they would always be a little bit angry. And then in small lettering on the lead card it then said.

You know, state regulated life insurance benefit. So it was like double, double whammy, Misleading, absolute.

Absolutely terrible lead in retrospect, right? And I didn't know any better at the time. So I was like, you know, gung ho to go and do this. So I would take this stack of leads, right? This was my first week going out of my own. I had a few friends that had kind of like gotten into the business before me. So they were kind of like leading the Path. I had seen what they were doing, and they were kind of like. I saw their experience with it. So I was super excited to get into this because it just. It looked like fun. And so I got this pack of direct mail leads. I think I had, like, 25 of them. And they were for a city called Laurenberg, right? Which is in North Carolina. It was about two, two to two and a half hours away from where I live, right? So I jump in my car, drive out. I had set a few appointments prior, you know, the night before I was going to leave, and basically I had enough leads for about two days in this area. So I was going to go door, knock, run appointments for about two days. So I get there, and all of my appointments are at these, like, wild, wild places, right? This is selling final expense. So, you know, trailers where, like, the walls are caving in, you know, houses where it looks like they haven't had a renovation, they haven't even said the word renovation in the house in, like, 40 years. Just, you know, things falling apart.

You know, the. The front boards missing on the porches, little spindles, like, hanging off on the front of the front of the house, roofs caving in. Like, literally just any. Anything that could possibly be wrong with the house.

I saw, right? Bugs all over the walls, cockroaches. The inside smells like cat piss. And then your occasional just like, super sweet lady that has, like, every single thing in her house is, like, pristine, clean, and she has, like, pictures of her family everywhere, everywhere. So just like, total opposite ends of the spectrum of the senior population that I would run into. And so I remember, you know, going knocking on these doors and, you know, just looking, looking to find somebody that I could help, right? And so I had a few appointments. My first day, I go out and I run these appointments. First lady, she's a sweet lady, probably in, like, her 70s, go to her house, and I remember quoting her, and I show her a few different options. It's like $275 a month, $290 a month, and then like, 315. Those were the options that I had quoted her. And I remember she gave me the objection. She was like, that's just way too expensive. There's no way I'm doing that. And I was. You know, at this point, I had no idea what to say, what to do. I was like, okay, well.

All right. You want to call me back later? I guess. I guess I'll follow up with you. And I remember getting in the car and I call my upline and he's like, you know, hey, you know, tell him the situation. Like, what should I have done? He's like, well, did you. Did you price drop here or a lower price? It's like, no price drop. No, I didn't do that. It's like, yeah, you should definitely. If they say it's too expensive, you should look at showing them a lower option than $300 a month. Yeah, that makes actually a ton of sense. So there's all these, like, little things that I didn't really know that were costing me deals, right? I just remember, like, walking out of houses and being like, God, like, I should have. I should have closed that. That was so that person wanted insurance, and I just didn't have the skill to push them over the line. I remember that feeling so many times. And we just, you know, knock on these doors all day. Eight, eight to 10 hours a day, knocking on these doors and then driving back. And I remember, first day, no sales. I had appointments, no sales. Go back. Go back home. Second day, go back out into the field. I'm knocking on all these doors. And I remember one instance where I went to, like, this trailer park. And this was probably, like, the worst trailer park in town, if we're being honest. Like, there's trash in the front yard. Like, I don't even think that the city served this area because they would just burn trash in the. In their front yard instead of using, like a dumpster or something. So you could just see all this, like, scorched earth of garbage and, like, little trenches in their front yard. This is the way that they dealt with trash. Just absolutely terrible. And I remember, you know, knocking on a few doors there, you know, crazy stories. You know, this one guy, like, was telling me about how he got shot and got in a car accident and then survived. It's like, what on earth? Like, how I didn't understand, like, how these people were still alive and, you know, talking to different people, setting appointments, just trying to. Trying to find some sort of opportunity, right? And I remember there was this one door knock. This specifically stands out to me. And it was at the end of this. The end of the street, right? And I was just. Side note, I was mixing in aged leads and new leads. So some of these leads for. I was, you know, doing this in, like, 2021. Some of these leads were.

Some of these leads were, like, a few years old, and then some of them were new. So I had, like, a mixture of all these different leads. So I drive to the end of this, end of this House or this at the end of the street and there's this trailer park supposed to be there. And while I'm driving down the street, I see a bunch of guys who are, you know, they have like, their pants are sagging, they have bandanas and, you know, bottles of like, looks like it would be like a 40 that you would get from, from gas station. And I walk up to these guys and I'm like, hey.

Do you know where, where this house is? Because I couldn't find it. I was like, you know, oh hell, you know, what the hell, I'll just ask him what's the worst that can happen? And one of the guys was like super friendly, was like, hey, you know, the house is just right there, but you probably shouldn't be here. I was like, okay. And then this other guy walks up and he's like, you know, waving a gun and he's like, hey, you know, you need to get the hell out of here. Like, he's obviously drunk. We don't want, we don't want what the hell you're selling. Like you need to get the hell out of here. And so I got the hell out of there.

Lots of, lots of like, interesting situations like that, right? But no sales, right? Two days in, no sales. And at this point I'm starting to feel a little disheartened because, you know, my friends are making sales, but nothing for me, right? And I'm out here 10 hours a day hustling, right? Like really, like not just saying that, but like actually putting the work in. Like no lunch break, really. I packed my lunch, would eat it like between doorknocks just going all out, right? Not to mention driving two hours away from my house is not, it's not something that you, you know, you take lightly every day. That's quite a commute. Two hours there, two hours back, four hours of driving every day and no sales. And so I'm like, okay, like, you know, what the hell is going on? Third day, I come out.

Start door knocking again. Door knocking, door knocking, door knocking. And I remember it was one lead. It was a three year old lead, right? Three years old. We talk about age leads as like a few weeks or a few months old. This lead was three years old. It was sent in 2018. So I knock on the door and this guy answers, go through the, you know, pitch. Hey, I'm looking for a Ronnie. Yeah, this is Ronnie. Ronnie. It's just him. I was responding to this form that you had sent us here.

It was mentioning, you know, state Regulated life insurance programs. And it mentioned a free Walmart gift card. Does that ring a bell? It's like, no. I was like, well, is this your handwriting? Yeah, that's my handwriting. Okay, cool. Well, you know, I was just basically, you know, stopping by to see what you qualify for and to get you that gift card. You got five minutes right now. Lets me in the house. I go into Ronnie's house. And you know, Ronnie's like. Ronnie's like a good old boy from backwoods of North Carolina. Very, very friendly guy. He's probably a. He was like a vet or something.

But, you know, I ended up just having a conversation with him. Turns out Ronnie needed insurance, Ronnie's wife slash girlfriend needed insurance, and Ronnie's granddaughter needed insurance. So I wrote three policies in one house. My first sale was three sales, right? And what happened is immediately after I made the sale, I go and I had another appointment. Well, guess what? I wrote another policy. And then I started door knocking again for the rest of the day, and I found two more policies. So in one day, I wrote like five or six policies after two days of nothing. And I ended up finishing my first week selling insurance with about 7k in sales.

But if you look at the way that it happened, I had no sales in the first bit. And so the takeaway, the biggest thing that I've noticed from my own first week, from other people's first week, is you have to find that first one. And once you find the first one, all of the rest of it will come so much easier because your confidence just shoots up and it builds. You get this conviction in you, and you. You get on fire. You get that streak, right? Once you get into that rhythm, into that groove, the rest of it comes so much easier because you just start to. You. You start to believe so much more. So if you're a new agent and you're just getting on the phone, you're watching this video to figure out what to expect, expect it to suck, expect it to be really, really hard and come into it knowing that, and just. You just have to stick through it until you get those first few sales. And once you do that, it'll become so much easier because your conviction and your confidence will build. So that's it, ladies and gentlemen. That's the story of my first week selling insurance. Hopefully you guys got some value from this. Again, biggest takeaway, just keep. Put your head down and work and get those first few sales, and the rest will come so much easier. Hopefully you guys enjoyed this video. If you did leave a like down below and hit the subscribe button for more like this. I'll see you guys soon.