Bankers Life Employee Reviews about "100 commission"

Pros

the training is great. the team atmosphere is good

Cons

100% commission based. you start from zero and don't make a lot of money the first year...if any. and they mislead you about what kind of money to expect

Pros

Non-Office days are flexible; you set your own schedule, you see as many or as few clients as you need. Training resources are available and abundant. You will likely get several months of one-on-one training with experienced agents and managers who got their jobs by making over 100k a year in sales. Everyone you work with is in sales, or has been in sales. This means that in general, everyone in your office will be friendly, funny, and very personable. They do provide you numbers to call, with names and addresses as well.* Once you make it through your trial by fire, you will be allowed near complete flexibility in your schedule as long as you make good money.

Cons

No base pay, 100% commission. Do not expect to make a lot the first several months, and do not consider this at all if you can't make it 6 months to a year without steady income. You make your own appointments and set your own schedule. If you have a bad office day, you will have a bad field day, and it snowballs from there. Sales require a certain type of personality. No matter how smart you are, no matter how much time you put in, if you don't have the ability to be personable and connect with people and can't be assertive you won't do well. You are going to get hundreds of "No" answers for every Yes, before you ever get to the point where you can make a sale. Rejection can really put you in a funk. You need to have extreme mental resilience for this job. Your job is actually calling strangers out of nowhere and trying to get them to agree to meet you face to face in their own homes. After they say yes to that, the sales part is easy. But you are going to get more people yelling at you, swearing at you, hanging up, and being extremely rude than you ever will civil people. The worst part is that you know why. The people you are contacting have been bombarded by sales people all competing for their retirement dollars. Best time to call is not when you are required to be in the office. You need to be there 9-5, and the only people who answer phones in that time period are retired, disabled, or not in charge of their houses finances. With the current surge in robocalling, (even since when I was there) I would bet people are less likely to answer calls from unknown numbers than ever. No benefits whatsoever except for management. In the year and a half I was there, I saw more than 45 agents come and go. This was in an office of 12 people. The turnover of new agents is tremendously high. Management will hire almost anyone who applies that can get their certifications, so many people spend hundreds of dollars of their own money to get certified for a job at which they never really had a good chance of success. *The numbers they give you have been called to death. They will tell you that since you are calling people who have asked for info, or people who's names you know etc that it is not cold calling, but you will be doing a lot of cold calling.

Pros

I am valued for my hard work and effort at Bankers Life! I've worked at the Portland office for over 8 years and I love that I'm valued and appreciated. Great training and excellent managers!

Cons

100% commission requires effort. If you don't have the drive to succeed, you probably won't.

Pros

Some agents are caring and helpful. Most of the veterans will latch onto you when you are making good sales so they can split the commission with you...there are the epitome of vultures. Management only love you when they also get a slice of the pie, they are the senior vultures. I loved my clients and stayed longer than I should have. Damn near went bankrupt because of the insanity of this career.

Cons

See above, you work 7 days a week, no family life, 100% commission-based, and each year you to pay for leads, $400-500 per month BEFORE you make any sales. It’s like working behind the 8-ball, killing yourself just to get appointments and sales you have to share with trainers, managers. In all the time I was there, 1 trainer took me out on a med sup sale...and wow, I got to share $200 with him. The rest of the time you are door knocking, people hate it when you bother them at home. You also pay for leads, and again try to get appointments on non-stop cold calling. Meetings a few times a week, upper management can be so cruel to people trying to keep themselves above water. Stressful, pressure oriented and you drive your life away.