Nov 11 2006, 09:32 PM

Today, I was having an e-mail conversation with a lady who works at one of the radio stations where I occasionally do some work. She was encouraging me to stick it out and be persistent with regard to my Primerica endeavours.

The events of today were another disappointment. When I returned home, I wrote the following reply:

The challenge is getting an audience with that first family. So far, in cold calling, I get a few lukewarm responses, but they don’t show up at the career overviews when scheduled. I had three prospects that were supposed to come to our CO this morning and not one showed up, even though I did reminder calls the night before.

I’m the only one in the entire office that is having this problem. Everyone else knows people, and got right down to business.

My wife’s friend, met this other Filipino lady at a dance and she got talking about marriage and husbands and the other lady mentioned that she married a doctor, so Helen, my wife’s friend said, “oh, you must be set for life” and the woman said their finances were a disaster. They earn $150K year, but their life insurance policy was costing them over $4000/year for $1.5M coverage on her husband and $500K on her and they had massive credit card debt at 36% interest because they were late 3 times. So Helen talked to them, and as it turned out her husband was undergoing medical treatment and would not qualify for a new policy at this time, but the wife wanted $1.5 million on herself, once Helen showed them that Primerica could give them three times the coverage for a little less. Those people had annual renewable term insurance and the premiums were going up. Over a 20 year period, Helen calculated that they would pay $888,060 in premiums. We got that down to $134,000 by replacing it with our level term policy, which is the best in the industry.

But you see, the thing is that people like Helen are able to get in front of people because she knows people and has a very friendly, approachable way. Filipinos in general have many friends and relatives.

The other ethnic group that is exploding with business activity are the Hispanics. I have gained a new-found respect for those people, because I see their progress report every week and they are out there consolidating debts, saving people hundreds of dollars a month, saving them from retirement disaster by making their clients aware of the danger of not having a retirement plan, and helping them to put college funds together for their children. Our portfolios average better than 12% gains over 10 year averages, and people have done quite well with our securities products.

But for me, it’s like the proverbial carrot dangling just out of reach. I see people getting checks with four figures handed to them every week at the conclusion of training meetings, and I know they’ve got a large contingent of people that they have been doing business with, starting with family and friends. Some have recruited people into the business, which usually happens when our Financial Needs Analysis reveals a shortcoming in a family’s income, when compared with their financial goals. (We encourage people to set goals, then we look at their debts, life insurance (if any), savings, retirement funds and if they have kids, whether they are saving anything for them. Once we return on a second visit with the plan worked out (it’s like a prescription for healing their financial ailment), we encourage them to implement and stick to it.

Typically, we’ll replace overpriced, undercoverage Whole Life with our Term product with about 10X the coverage at ¾ the premium and advise them to invest the difference in one of our investment plans, usually Mutual Funds that are divided over 130 top performing companies. These typically return 12% or better on a 10 year average. We also encourage them to start a college fund for the kids and we calculate, based on their goals, with inflation accounted for, how much they need to start saving. If they earn too little money to reach those goals, we offer them an opportunity to come into the business and earn an extra income in their spare time, doing what we’re doing.

It’s a grass roots, referrals only system. We don’t advertise. In fact, an independent survey found that the average Primerica policy cost has only $0.62 in advertising in it, whereas the average policy from competing insurance companies has $388 in advertising costs built into the premiums. No wonder we come in at lower cost and offer a better product. And I learned today in class that there is no “war clause” –many insurance companies, when 9/11 happened, and Bush declared it an act of war, chose not to pay out the death benefits on those people killed in the WTC disaster. Primerica was one of the few companies that paid out the death benefits to the surviving spouses. That’s what kind of company it is, and why I chose to work with them.

My only problem is a personal problem with not having developed the circle of friends and not having living relatives left to network with. I’m literally out in the cold.

I called over 90 people in the last two weeks, mostly small businesses. Had three who didn’t blow me off and sounded interested, even if mildly, one sounded quite interested and even wanted to know if he could move his union-funded annuity to a private retirement account. I told him about the 1035 Exchange and that we could do it for him. However, come today, not one person showed up for the set appointment. This happened last week with another batch of people. It’s really frustrating and I am having a difficult time maintaining a positive mental attitude. I know that I must do so, because of the “Law of Attraction” which states that you can have what you want, you just have to visualize it as reality and ask for it. Ie., belief that one’s goals are attainable.

Well, I’m giving this three years, or until the town sends the sheriff with the notice to vacate our tax-delinquent property.

Anyway, I’ve written far more than I intended.