You may see many newspaper ads tying to hypnotize a prospective agent stating how easy it is to make $100,000. Moreover, they emphasize it can be done in the first year. Please give me a nickel for the 1,500,000 licensed life and health insurance agents that cannot achieve that. ($75,000 if you are calculating). Before $100,000 of income can be reached, most agents must achieve at least the third if not fourth level.

LEVEL ONE This is the insurance trainee, just starting out and continuing the first 12 months. This level is actually more about survival than it is about earnings. Many insurance trainee agents deplete savings accounts, ask relatives for loan assistance, and even take out a second mortgage on their house. Either they should have never applied for the position or the insurance agency has provided inadequate assistance to ease the agent's burden. In the majority of cases, it is the later. Only 20% of agents struggle by, only to encounter another enduring battle.

LEVEL TWO This is the insurance rookie, who will be facing three more years of uphill challenges. Again, survival appears in the picture, along with enough income to keep from going under. The life preserver is based on both the agent's attitude and selling skills. Selling skills start with finding the right people to focus your attention on. People that fit into your comfort zone and have a need for an insurance product you are familiar enough selling. This leads to giving a sufficient quantity of appointments. However, company provided scripts are a hard way to go when doing a presentation.. Of the appointments made, can the still inexperienced agent produce enough sales for a decent income? Only 8% of the starting agents now remain.

LEVEL THREE These are the insurance innovators with over 4 years experience and under 8. Why are they innovators? To survive the have broken just about all the career company rules of the plan to success. First, they have tossed out the insurance company presentation book, sometimes in favor of a plain yellow legal pad. The company presentation speech has been discarded in favor of a friendly conversation. The insurance innovator uses a lead acquisition system that quickly brings out the highest qualified prospects. This agent has stopped becoming an insurance seller. He now helps guide the prospect to a tailored plan that turns the prospect into a buyer. In addition, the insurance innovator has a valuable base of built up clients for additional sales.

As insurance is now officially a career, few of these agents drop out. Many start to specialize in selling fewer products. A lot now are semi-independent and some even have their own firms. For others they make take a new direction, with a different company or firm that seems much more promising. Incomes are often comparable or higher than the national average.

LEVEL FOUR The true insurance professionals. Numerous pros are fully independent. They have often signed contracts with six or more independent life insurance carriers. Others are semi-independent, who have not quite yet taken the final break away step. Do not assume that all are financial planners exclusively serving wealthy clientele. There are countless professionals selling long-term care and medicare plans to seniors, others are specially in writing employee benefit plans to employer groups. The typical income range is from $70,000 to $110,000.

In insurance, you do not go to college for 6 to 10 years to become a specialist. You learn through trial and error and your intuition. There are no books to study, only some continuing education courses that are product based. You progress with self-learned selling skills plus the severe determination few salespeople possess. It is an insurance career path without shortcuts.