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A History of Blood – Vol. 3, Chapter 17

Finalizing a deal to open an office in Tampa

Introduction

For those of you who are new to this blog, my name is Daquan Tyrell Pean, an Insurance Agent with PHP Agency. PHP stands for “People Helping People”.

PHP is what’s called an FMO or Field Marketing Organization in the Insurance space. They connect Independent Insurance Agents, like me, with the different carriers I use, such as Mutual of Omaha, Forester’s Financial, and National Life Group, and they also help with licensing. In addition, they also provide training, compliance, support, a CRM, and personalized marketing materials.

There is a one-time cost to get started with PHP. That cost is either paid for by the agent, or by the person sponsoring the agent, depending on the agent’s desired level of independence.

Short Story

I got started in the Insurance Business, specifically with PHP, on April 16, 2018. At that time, I was working for a company called Just Energy, selling fixed-rate energy supply contracts door-to-door. I was very good at selling that specific type of product. I started with Just Energy on February 28, 2016, and by October 2016 I had won an award for #1 electricity sales for that month, while also being in the top 5 annual sales, nationwide. It’s worth noting that 4 out of the top 5 spots, including number 1, came from my office at the time, which was in Baltimore.

I sold enough to qualify for the annual company gala, which was a big motivating factor for me. When I had first gotten started with the company, my mentor, Jimmie Milburn, and his son, Treyvin Milburn, kept telling me about how the company paid for them to go to Mexico, and how the next trip was to Colombia, and how I didn’t want to miss it. Business trips are different than personal trips. The point of the trip wasn’t to get away from work, even though that was a byproduct of the trip, the real purpose of the trip was exposure. The business trip was an opportunity to see what would happen to their business once they were removed from it.

It was a test.

It was a test to see if the business could function without the leaders direct involvement. While top performers were away on business trips, it gave the person who was next in line a real opportunity to fill in the gap. For the sake of comparison, this is like a basketball player getting injured, leading to a person who normally comes off the bench being given a starting role, or otherwise a person who normally only plays in “garbage time”, seeing extended minutes.

“Garbage time” is the final, non-competitive portion of a sports game where the score is so lopsided (a “blowout”) that the outcome is already decided, Star players are usually benched to avoid injury, allowing substitutes to play in a “meaningless” period. The term is often seen as derogatory because it implies the play is of low quality or intensity.

However, it offers valuable in-game experience for younger players and bench players.

The trips were also an opportunity to get “content”. The main purpose of the business trip was to tell people you went on the business trip, including, who paid for it and why you went. It wasn’t “a vacation”, even though you could argue that the hotel we stayed at was certainly a vacation destination.

The reality of the situation is that the company paid for me to go based upon the performance of my organization. While my personal performance was certainly a factor, there was a bigger picture at play, and I wouldn’t fully realize it until a few years later.

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