Today we’d like to introduce you to Travis Amsbaugh.
Hi Travis, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today.
This may be a little long-winded, but I feel it’s important to tell the whole story. Hopefully, it inspires someone else.
I started in Life Insurance as an agent in 2012; I was 23 years old. Prior to that, I worked mostly Landscape and Construction. I had been working physically demanding jobs since the age of 15 at that point in my life I wanted something better for myself.
My Uncle Chad started in the Insurance Industry a few years prior and had found great success with it. I decided to take a chance on myself and run with the opportunity he was presenting to me.
I got licensed and found early success.
Unfortunately for me, I was too young to make the most of the opportunity. There was still a sense of immaturity about me. I made a little bit of quick money and started spending a little too much time at the golf course. The time-out playing meant I wasn’t outproducing. When I hit a rough patch, I didn’t have any cushion to support me. With any new business, you need to work extremely hard in the front to sustain yourself through some of the unforeseen situations. All work very little play. I found myself out of Insurance just seven short months after I started.
From there, I ended up taking a job doing Cured in Place Pipe (CIPP). I was placing new pipe inside of an existing sewer line. Fixing old sewer lines without having to dig up the street to replace it. Very late hours and heavy labor.
I did that from age 24 to 32.
Starting this position as the grunt. In just four short years, I was able to work myself into a management position. Running my own crew and with that, all of the perks. This was a salary position, bonuses, a company truck and great health care benefits.
You could say I was doing pretty well for myself, but I knew what the rest of my life was going to look like. I would be working sixty plus hrs. a week, traveling, and living in hotels away from my family. That just was not at all what I wanted for myself long-term.
Those next eight years of CIPP I watched my uncle’s growth not only in the Insurance Industry but in every aspect of his life. There was not a week that was going by that I wasn’t thinking to myself
“Where would I have been had I stayed in the industry?”
I couldn’t do what I was doing anymore, I knew I wanted back in the Insurance game. My Wife and I bought a house back in my hometown, and I ended up quitting my job the day after we closed. I was ready to be a full-time Insurance agent from that day forward. I had no backup plan.
I didn’t need one; I knew my work ethic. I knew as long as I worked as hard for myself as I did for someone else’s company, I couldn’t fail.
Almost 3 years later, here I am, writing this story, and would consider myself very successful. I run my own agency, have control of my schedule, and I decide what my income will look like by the years end. I’m back in a leadership role in a recession-proof, multibillion-dollar industry.
The most rewarding part for me is helping others take control of their schedules, their income and find the same success. I encourage anyone who is looking for an opportunity like I was all those years ago reach out because I am looking for like-minded individuals to partner with. I’d like to aid in the success of others, and I need leaders who are looking to take on that role as well. It’s an opportunity that will bring great success to the people who aren’t afraid to put it all in. There is just so much opportunity, and I can’t say it enough, if this speaks to you then it’s probably time for a change. Accept the challenge, go all in, and I’ll be here to help navigate those changes with you.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back, would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Of course, there are struggles along the way, I don’t believe anything worth having comes easy.
In this business, I would say the biggest struggle is simply learning to be a business owner. You now work for yourself. That means your success or failure falls completely on your own shoulders. As a new agent, you‘ll often mistake your newfound freedom as more time off, and that just isn’t the case. I would go as far to say, the agents that will see the greatest amount of success in the shortest amount of time will be the agents who are working more than they ever have. This comes natural to the agents who came into this business to build something for themselves.
For those that don’t know, the Insurance Industry is commission based, that being said, there is not any type of real safety net for at least the first eight months. You will have up and down weeks, and you need to prepare for those. You can’t let off the gas after having a good couple of weeks or even months. The numbers say that your down week is coming. The only way to overcome those weeks is by keeping up the pace, tons of activity, and save a percentage of every commission check.
A quick search will show the average savings account for an American is between $1,000 and $5,000 dollars. Thirty-five percent of us have less than $1,000 in our savings account. Just think about that; most of us couldn’t even replace a washer and dryer in our home, fix a transmission in a car that went out without having to use some sort of credit. We, as a society, need to stop making that the standard. Everyone starts somewhere; that’s ok. I love having the ability to help coach people through some of these things.
Typically, when I start a new agent out, they are in what I would call starvation mode; they have very little money and no concept of saving. It’s just not a habit built in this day and age.
When those large checks start rolling in, the discipline to save money and stay hungry is necessary.
As I had mentioned before, however, you will start receiving some sort of relief or cushion that will propel you forward. After your first eight months in this business, you will start receiving your remaining back-end commissions and residuals. This is the money that you had gone to work for in the months prior that is going to continue to pay you for months on end. That money continues to stack and layer as time goes on. That is all passive income. Passive Income is the sole reason I got into the Insurance Industry.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about The Tradie Group?
The Tradie Group is my personal agency; Senior Life Insurance Company is the organization we represent.
Final Expense, whole life coverage is what my Agency is focused on helping clients get locked in place.
There are plenty of final expense companies in this industry; Senior Life stands out to me above all the rest.
The reason that is my belief is simply because of our partnership with Legacy Assurance.
Not only do we help to protect families from the burden of high funeral cost, we are able to get our clients major discounts on the funeral merchandise. Locking in the cost of caskets, vaults, headstones, and urns at today’s rates. Senior Life clients are not paying the high markups that the funeral homes are putting on all of these items. This helps in a couple of different ways. It ultimately lowers the amount of Life Insurance coverage needed to cover the funeral cost, and it allows individuals to leave more money behind to their families.
These families are able to then leave a Legacy to their loved ones that may have not been possible otherwise by keeping the funeral home from price gouging the family on the most expensive piece of any funeral, the merchandise while you’re at most vulnerable state.
In terms of your work and the industry, what are some of the changes you are expecting to see over the next five to ten years?
This industry is always growing. More than 10,000 people turn 65 every single day. This is the industries target market. Life Insurance Agents will always have clients looking to invest in a Final Expense Policy. We just simply aren’t going to run out of opportunities.
The sales industry in its entirety is constantly changing, we are seeing changes every day with how business is being conducted. People are getting more comfortable with advanced technology. They are getting more comfortable purchasing via phone or even setting up zoom meetings. There are still plenty of field agents, we will always need boots on the ground because there will always be folks that prefer to sit face to face with their agent. I do believe; however, we will see less and less of that as the years go by.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.Instagram.com/tma4
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TradieGroup
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/channel/UCxzKZQih7uVDXbBg-w4n2Vg
