-they over exaggerate how much you can make and what it takes to make it
-by the time you factor in gas, costs to attend conferences, leads, hotels when you need to run appointments in a different state; there is very little left over.
-the learning curve is steep. If you have never done insurance before you do not want to start with this company. If you are a seasoned insurance person than this company has good leads and overall good company culture compared to other brokerage firms.
-If you want to make the big bucks you will need invest $20,000 of your own money to make it work. This is not an exaggeration. I was doing well, one of the best in my group (who was being managed by someone who was a bit of an exaggerator) and I was still barely scrapping by.
-If you want to get started just do it once a week - do not quit your day job - until you understand and trust the manager you are with and the system.
-You won't know who the good managers are until you are already invested in the company. Unfortunately, the guy that I was working with who was supposed to train us wasn't truthful about the amount of money that was needed to invest in the company. In fact, he himself, was deeply in debt. I pushed myself financially taking on debt to reach different targets and I am still trying to get myself out of the hole I dug myself into due to unrealistic expectations.
-There are definitely exceptional managers there but there isn't a review section for each 'division' or manager and this makes a massive difference. Some managers just want to hire as many people as they can and bank their money off the enthusiasm of new recruits. Others will literally fly across the country to train a recruit who is going through a slump and train them. Others will just pat you on the back and not really be able to offer you much and are pleased if you are consistently writing policies, but barely surviving. It is a mixed bag of what kind of manager you will end up with and you could lose a lot, a lot, of money if you end up with one that is all talk. If you are interested in signing on ask the person hiring you how long it took them to 'break-out' and what their story is. If they took too long (more than a year) I'd pass on them. You want a manager who gets it and can train you hard because they know the game instinctively not someone who just pushed and pushed until they made it. You want a mentor in this game who is a natural.
-You are an independent contractor so you have no health insurance.
