I meet many people in my personal and professional lives who have a fairly negative view of the world and their position in it. I will hear things like "my life sucks", "I hate my job", and, worst of all, "what can I do about it?" Indeed, they are all correct, but not usually for the reason that they think.
Perhaps you have heard of the book The Secret, which discusses the Law of Attraction. Some people have objected that the topic of the book is no secret as it has been discussed in ancient philosophy for thousands of years. It is true that people have known this secret for a very long time, but it is also a fact that most people today either do not know or do not believe the fundamental truth that thought makes reality.
This past summer, I was in what one might have referred to as a bad place. My fiancée and I were living off of about $400 a month, earned by working a stressful, dangerous job that I disdained, falling about $1000 into debt with each passing month. My hope of salvation, the position with New York Life turned out to be a waste of time, and no better prospects lay on the horizon. I still carried $7000 of credit card debt from running Phoenix Games as well as $25,000 of business debt. Add to that the fact that the worse things went, the more my fiancée despaired and lost patience with me.
One day, Annie told me that it was time to act. Rather than thinking of myself as someone who could not make money, rather than thinking of my situation as insoluble, it was time to change things. She is a smart one, and I do well to listen to her, so I did. After an entire summer of my wheels being stuck in the mud, I made the decision to turn things around. I decided to find a new job. Not to look for a new job, but to find one.
15 days later, I was signing the paperwork at American Income, a company I am still with and enjoying immensely. The most amazing part of this whole story is that a week after I made my decision to change my situation, American Income contacted me based on my resume online. This same resume had been online for all of 2010, but it was only after I made the decision to climb out of my rut and get back on the highway that the Universe saw fit to place the opportunity before me.
If we resign ourselves to failure and misery, we will have failure and misery. People who expect the worst are rarely disappointed. People who expect the best are, likewise, rarely disappointed. This does not mean that you just need to change your attitude and suddenly money will rain from the sky. There will be road blocks and obstacles, but, remember, a detour means that you are going somewhere in the first place. You don't get anywhere until you start driving, so drive on.
I have been reading Napoleon Hill's Think and Grow Rich. It is like The Secret, but much better written, so I highly recommend it.
Showing posts with label AIL. Show all posts
Showing posts with label AIL. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Job Search, Day 15 - Mission Accomplished
Today, I received the following phone call:
Caller: Michael, I would like to offer you the job that you interviewed for this morning.
Me: I would like to accept that job.
With that, an appointment was made for me to go to the main office in Hartford to fill out the paperwork. I will be working for a company called American Income Life Insurance Company out of their new Springfield office. When I first was contacted by them, I was a little skeptical because they were so eager to hire me.
It turns out that their business model is to work with labor unions. (This is why you likely have never heard of them.) They work with union leadership to offer products the union members. The members then send in requests for more information, and the agents follow up on that. This means no more cold calls, no more blind prospecting, no more selling to friends and family. As the manager I spoke to said, "business should be business, and personal should be personal."
The reason that they are so eager to hire is that they have made arrangements with unions in this area but they did not have adequate sales resources in place to meet with all the members who were interested. Thus, they must build up a sales office rapidly, and I am part of that.
The best part for me in my current situation is that I should have a paycheck in my hand by two weeks from now! This is very exciting news. As Annie said, "What's money?" It's been a while.
Doing my due diligence, I did a little search of the Internet to see what I could find on the company, fearing that I would find that they were some terrible, sketchy scam. I was very pleased to only find one negative web site in a quick search. They have a good BBB rating and a good AM Best rating, so they are legit as a company. I also looked around their web site a bit. They not only seem to be a good insurance company, but they seem to be a progressive company.
Find me another insurance company that says this on their web site:
Our agents have walked picket lines on behalf of striking workers, collected food for needy families, and participated in coordinated Get Out The Vote campaigns nationwide for progressive campaigns.
http://www.ailife.com/Main/markets.aspx?submenu=ProgressivePartners
It is also the only 100% unionized insurance company in the world: unionized not because the employees were disgruntled but because the company wanted to show their dedication to the labor movement by becoming a part of it.
This is quite a job I have come into, and I look forward to where the path will lead. It's a good thing I did not give into my skepticism and I checked the place out.
Overcome your skepticism. Get out and see what opportunities await you.
Update August 5th, 2017
Since apparently this article still gets some hits, an update on how this turned out. I worked for AIL for about a year and a half. They do have leads for union members, but they do not have as many as I thought they would so success is largely dependent on how many referrals you are able to get from each appointment. For the right person who has a talent for sales, AIL is a great opportunity, and, while it is straight commission, it is likely you will start making money fairly quickly because you are given leads right off the bat. Everyone who puts in the effort and follows the system makes at least $20-35K/year, and some do over $100K their first year, and the difference between the first category and the second is talent and skill. I'd definitely recommend this company to anyone who wants to get their feet wet in selling. They are good people doing good work.
Caller: Michael, I would like to offer you the job that you interviewed for this morning.
Me: I would like to accept that job.
With that, an appointment was made for me to go to the main office in Hartford to fill out the paperwork. I will be working for a company called American Income Life Insurance Company out of their new Springfield office. When I first was contacted by them, I was a little skeptical because they were so eager to hire me.
It turns out that their business model is to work with labor unions. (This is why you likely have never heard of them.) They work with union leadership to offer products the union members. The members then send in requests for more information, and the agents follow up on that. This means no more cold calls, no more blind prospecting, no more selling to friends and family. As the manager I spoke to said, "business should be business, and personal should be personal."
The reason that they are so eager to hire is that they have made arrangements with unions in this area but they did not have adequate sales resources in place to meet with all the members who were interested. Thus, they must build up a sales office rapidly, and I am part of that.
The best part for me in my current situation is that I should have a paycheck in my hand by two weeks from now! This is very exciting news. As Annie said, "What's money?" It's been a while.
Doing my due diligence, I did a little search of the Internet to see what I could find on the company, fearing that I would find that they were some terrible, sketchy scam. I was very pleased to only find one negative web site in a quick search. They have a good BBB rating and a good AM Best rating, so they are legit as a company. I also looked around their web site a bit. They not only seem to be a good insurance company, but they seem to be a progressive company.
Find me another insurance company that says this on their web site:
Our agents have walked picket lines on behalf of striking workers, collected food for needy families, and participated in coordinated Get Out The Vote campaigns nationwide for progressive campaigns.
http://www.ailife.com/Main/markets.aspx?submenu=ProgressivePartners
It is also the only 100% unionized insurance company in the world: unionized not because the employees were disgruntled but because the company wanted to show their dedication to the labor movement by becoming a part of it.
This is quite a job I have come into, and I look forward to where the path will lead. It's a good thing I did not give into my skepticism and I checked the place out.
Overcome your skepticism. Get out and see what opportunities await you.
Update August 5th, 2017
Since apparently this article still gets some hits, an update on how this turned out. I worked for AIL for about a year and a half. They do have leads for union members, but they do not have as many as I thought they would so success is largely dependent on how many referrals you are able to get from each appointment. For the right person who has a talent for sales, AIL is a great opportunity, and, while it is straight commission, it is likely you will start making money fairly quickly because you are given leads right off the bat. Everyone who puts in the effort and follows the system makes at least $20-35K/year, and some do over $100K their first year, and the difference between the first category and the second is talent and skill. I'd definitely recommend this company to anyone who wants to get their feet wet in selling. They are good people doing good work.
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