A Day In The Life Of An Insurance Agent Starting Out

Hi there,
I was wondering if any experienced insurance agents could let me know how "a day in the life of" was for you starting out.

For example:

1) What did you do to find your clients when starting out? Did the company provide any help? (side note: now that we have a do not call list, how do you reach consumers?)

2) What were your main activities?

3) What would you have done different if you were to start again?

4) What are/were the most effective ways to find new clients?

All good responses appreciated!

Hello John,
Welcome to the industry!! When your first starting out the best way is to join a captive company that will provide the training you need. That is say riding along with an experienced agent for a few weeks while you progressively work your way into giving a presentation on your own.
As you will only have a few products to sell and only one carrier's application you will learn the right questions to ask. Once you have done this for about 6 months you can start to look at working with independent agencies or IMO that will offer better contracts and multiple carriers.
As for leads to find clients there is a multitude of places to look. Stay clear of internet leads especially those that are not exclusive to you. These are called shared leads and are a waste of money as well as your time. Mostly you will be buying leads unless you find a company that will give them to you. Most of those companies offer lower contracts to help offset the lead cost.
Although there is a no call list, not everyone is on the list so you can still get voicemail leads just not cold calling out of phone book as quality voicemail leads are put through a do-not-call scrubber. The best lead is a referral...do not be affraid to ask directly for a referral. Your close ratio will be the highest.
Use your close ratio to measure your performance - just starting out, if your selling life insurance your close ratio will be around 20%. You see a steady increase as you gain experience to around 70 to 80%. Ask yourself after every appointment what you did to either make a sale or what you could have done differently to cloase a sale. Above all don't measure your performance by day but rather by week and month. Some days will good and some will not. There will be days when you sell nothing and then the next day sell every client.
Hope this helps