How To Succeed As A Part Time Insurance Agent: My Story

Are you considering selling insurance part time?

Are you worried that giving up your full-time job is too much to ask?

If so, fear not!

Despite the naysayers, you CAN sell life insurance part-time successfully.

In today’s article, I’ll discuss how I was doing part time insurance sales while running my personal training business back in 2011.

I’ll also give you advice on what you MUST do to make sure your part time life insurance agent “side-hustle” yields the most profit.

This article is great if you’re new to insurance sales, or considering getting your insurance license.

So let’s get started!

NOTE: Are you an aspiring or new insurance agent looking for more insight on how the insurance sales industry works? Check out my free New Insurance Agent Resource Guide to help answer many of your questions (as well as ones you didn’t know you had!).

Overview

• My Story
• How To Do It
• My Tips
• Next Steps

My Story

Back in 2011, I had a personal training gym that was going down the toilet with the rest of the economy.

At that point, I was suffering so bad financially that I had to get a job like yesterday.

I was SO desperate for SOME kind of income-earning opportunity that I ended up considering the idea of selling life insurance.

Trust me. Selling insurance was NOT my first choice.

I couldn’t think of anything less sexy or stimulating.

But desperate times call for desperate measures!

I Had Nothing To Lose

Anyway, after doing research on various insurance sales job opportunities, I dove in with both feet because frankly, I had nothing to lose.

Nobody was hiring during the Great Recession. 

However, I figured becoming a part time insurance agent, intermixed with training my personal training clients, was a good idea rather than jettisoning the business.

I still generated and had a core group of clients I could depend on.

Plus… while I was confident in my ability to in selling final expense insurance…

I didn’t feel TOTALLY comfortable going full-bore and leaving behind an income I could depend on.

So, I arranged my personal training schedule to work with clients on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

On Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, I’d operate as a part time life insurance agent, running appointments on final expense leads I purchased.

This part-time insurance sales approach gave me the time to build my confidence in my sales skills.

And within 8 months, I closed the personal training business and went full-time selling final expense life insurance.

How To Sell Insurance Part Time

Let me share with you some takeaways I’ve shared with hundreds of agents nationally who have joined my insurance agency.

Many started as a part time insurance agent like you, while working another full-time job.

Let’s go over a couple of reasons why I succeeded as a part-time insurance agent.

Don’t Dabble!

First of all, I didn’t dabble.

When interested in selling life insurance part-time, it doesn’t mean you have a casual approach to occasionally selling.

Instead, a part time life insurance job requires a full-time mentality.

What does this mean?

This means you have a disciplined approach to your schedule.

You MUST make a routine, a predictable schedule to sell life insurance part-time.

Discipline Is Everything

One of the benefits of selling life insurance is the freedom.

For example, maybe you only have a few weekdays after work as a part time insurance agent, and a little time on the weekend.

The good news is that you can sell most life insurance in the morning, afternoons, and evenings. And even on Saturdays and Sundays!

For example, selling annuities to seniors is a great day-time activity.

You can sell final expense, mortgage protection, even health insurance products like Medicare Advantage, even on nights and weekends.

These are all VERY workable sales systems as a part time insurance agent.

Bottom line… If you DON’T commit to schedule and only dabble… you’re a pretender. You will NOT see success selling life insurance.

Commitment To Leads And A Sales System

The first aspect of selling insurance part-time successfully is COMMITTING to a routine schedule, week-in, week-out.

The second is committing to a regular lead generation and duplicatable sales system.

Life Insurance Lead System

Now that you have your part-time insurance agent schedule in mind, you have to fill that open time with prospects interested in what you’re selling!

There are lots of ways to generate insurance leads.

For example, you can generate purchased leads like direct mail leads, you can use a seminar marketing strategy like I teach many agents selling insurance on the side, or you can prospect your warm market.

The key with any life insurance lead system is to make sure it will develop a CONSISTENT flow of NEW prospects, each and every week.

If you execute a lead generation strategy that sends interested prospects to you each and every week, you now have the cornerstone of your insurance business locked down.

All you have to do now is figure out how to persuade them to buy from you!

A Proven System of Success

Aside from watching my videos on YouTube or reading my insurance sales books, the best way to learn how to sell life insurance part time (or full time) is to find a mentor.

You need to find an EXPERIENCED, battle-tested insurance agent trainer who has had success selling insurance and understands the business from an “in-the-trenches” standpoint.

Back in 2011, when I got into the final expense business, I trained with a top producer down in Atlanta.

He had written in excess of $200,000 in final expense business for the past 3 years and was one of the organization’s leading producers.

I remember my first day in the field with Andrew. I sat back and soaked up the experience like a sponge.

Learn From A Master

I’m a hands-on kind of dude, and seeing how this business was done by a REAL producer face-to-face was awesome!

There is so much to absorb in selling life insurance that you can only get through working with a mentor.

They’re ready to answer your questions, troubleshoot sales and underwriting problems you have, and give you higher odds you’ll sell more insurance and cut the learning curve faster.

Bottom line… study under a master!

Learn how they sell, what questions they ask to get more insurance sales, how they deal with insurance sales objections, and how they close.

Then, incorporate that training into your own insurance sales presentation and watch the results come in.

Best Insurance To Sell Part Time

While selling life insurance allows for schedule flexibility, you’ll have more flexibility with certain life insurance niches than others as a part time insurance agent.

For example, selling Medicare Supplements is mostly a daytime business.

You’re selling retired people, so you’re likely to catch them in the morning. 

Do you work a standard 9-5 schedule?

If so, you could sell life insurance products like mortgage protection or final expense insurance with ease as a part time life insurance agent.

I know agents that will sit with prospects at 8 or 9PM at night during the week to help them with mortgage protection and final expense.

Paying Your Dues

I also think it’s important that you understand that you got to pay your dues as a part time insurance agent.

And this process is slower selling insurance part-time.

Why?

As a part time insurance agent, you aren’t “at-bat” as often as the full-time agent.

Much of your learning will come from real-life interactions with your prospects.

And the less of that you get, the slower your progress towards mastery.

No worries, however!

The good news is that you won’t have nearly as much stress paying your bills since you’re keeping your full-time profession.

It’s a trade-off you have to make, but definitely not something that will deteriorate your ability to achieve success as a part time life insurance agent.

Conclusion

Do you know many life insurance companies like Lincoln Heritage do NOT hire agents selling insurance on the side?

I never understood this hiring practice.

I always felt the company was leaving a lot of otherwise solid agents out of a great career opportunity.

Bottom line, the person who sells life insurance part-time has a tremendous advantage starting off.

Life insurance sales are strictly 100 percent commission.

That means you eat what you kill… you only make money when you close new business.

However, if you start selling life insurance part-time in conjunction with your normal job, it’ll help you keep the lights on and keep everyone happy at home.

When you don’t make sales as you learn, you’ll experience much less stress than the guy who HAS to make a sale or he loses his house.

This takes the pressure off of you to perform.

I find that clients are more likely to BUY from you when you’re not as desperate to make the sale.

With the right mentality, the right mentor, and with the right setup, part-time insurance sales is something you can absolutely do. 

Next Steps

If you’d like to learn more about how I can help part time insurance agents like you succeed, eventually going full time, check out how my agent recruiting and training program works.

I focus on developing top producing agents on a first-hand basis, primarily through final expense sales, annuity sales, mortgage protection, and Medicare sales.

And make sure to check out my numerous Agent Success Stories.

Thank you for finishing this article on how to sell life insurance part-time. I hope this information was beneficial to you!