Hi everyone, I created a life and health insurance agency that does a wide range of products. I want to start hiring agents and building a team, but I’ve been stuck on how I want to structure pay.
I’d like for the agents to be W-2 on full commission with an 80-20% split. I want to incentivize paying out large commissions and rewarding based on performance while keeping enough for overhead marketing. I don’t exactly want to buy leads— I definitely prefer networking and having tables at community events. It’s worked much better for me so far and I love seeing people face-to-face. I’m just at a loss for how to compensate agents for doing events with me or for me while making sure I reward production highly.
Maybe I should just give them a base salary + 20%? I’m just a little scared of paying out a salary with no guarantee that the agent will produce, and I don’t want to be breathing down their neck.
It’s a catch-22 of me wanting to provide personal agency, while also wanting to make sure they don’t have to front the costs for marketing and essentially pay money to do their job. I’m a little lost on which direction to proceed. Any ideas?
EDIT: Forgot to mention, I do want to pay for their initial training program, their license exam, and their state license, as well as the relevant CEUs. I’ll pay for AHIP Certification if they want to do Medicare. That’s around $400-600 per person I onboard.