Management plays the favorites game. I've been on both ends of the spectrum for this. Close a big case and you're the hero for the month. You get all the attention and they talk about you in meetings and use you as the "standard." On the flip side, have a couple slow months and they try to remedy it by constantly policing you on numbers. So on top of the stress of not being able to pay bills and throwing your own money at driving around for appointments, you have managers (who usually used to be agents) breathing down your neck about making a sale. If you ask for help they just talk at you for half an hour and tell you the same schpeel they give you during your first interview.
My big question was always, if being an agent is so lucrative why did they all go into management? I'm sure the word "salary" has something to do with it. The commissions are okay, not very competitive with others in the industry. Benefits are astronomical. They charge way too much for "office fees" regardless of how much you actually utilize the home office.
The whole structure of managing partners and "teams" is a bunch of malarkey. There is little to no support from other people on your "team." Management uses it to have kum-bay-ah sessions where you say what stressed you out about the week and then your manager just roasts you about it. They try and encourage new agents to work with the established agents, but they usually are just old white men who make you do all the work and take 80% of the commission, without any consequences.
I know a personal issue I had was with my licensing, which the admin staff messed up. I ended up having to reapply after having my licenses for two years and had to pay for everything myself with no reimbursement. Because of their mistake.
Management pushes product with literally zero shame. If you aren't selling that much life insurance and focus on other areas instead, you'll hear about it constantly. And god forbid if you don't go along with what they tell you. I have been told multiple times that I "should" be doing certain things, with a tone used to imply that it won't look good for me if I didn't comply. Which leads into my next complaint.
They tell you from day one that YOU are you're own boss. YOU get to make your schedule. YOU set your hours. But then they hand you a class schedule and set up ridiculous amounts of "admin" time that you're supposed to be at. Without getting paid. At one point I realized that they couldn't do anything if I didn't come to certain things. When you tell me to go out and sell, I'm going to go out and sell. On my own terms. I've been reprimanded for setting appointments on Mondays/Fridays only for them to apologize once they realize I've made a sale. It makes no sense.
On multiple occasions on manager would directly contradict another manager on facts and just overall business practice. It comes across as very unprofessional and doesn't help when your questions end up garnering three totally different answers. Also, if you're doing well, they magically don't care if you aren't showing up to anything, even though they preach to "surround yourself with success." So the only people in the office usually are the ones who aren't doing so hot.
The biggest red flag that came up was when one manager told me that part of managements business plan is to bring in a bunch of agents with the expectation that a lot won't make it more than a few months, but still have them selling to their close family and friends. So after they leave, those policies go to, guess who? The established agents! Who are already making six figures because they've somehow managed to make it to that point. It's the very definition of a pyramid scheme and I'm actually surprised more people just don't point that out.
