“You Know What?”  This company is Interesting…

“Primerica” is a technically a financial services marketing organization.   It started out in 1977 with the name of A.L. Williams, when founder Art Williams made it his business to provide competition to whole life insurance companies whom he felt were defrauding people with their cash (trash) policies.  One of the mantras of the organization is “buy term and invest the rest”.  Which, if followed is a good strategy for creating personal financial wealth.

Some of their products are Term Life Insurance, Investments, Auto & Home Insurance, Long Term Care Insurance and Pre-Paid Legal Services.

Primerica Review

Company: Primerica

Sign up cost: $99

Monthly cost: $25

Founder: Art Williams

MLM Opportunity: Yes

Primerica the Company

After a series of events leading up to the change, A.L. Williams changed its name to Primerica in 1991.  During the 2008 and following financial crisis years, the company underwent a loss and change; but the motivated Founder and coach, Art Williams, is back cheering the Primerica team on.  As described on the Primerica Wikipedia page, the company uses a hybrid model of direct selling, franchising, and distribution.

Primerica Products

As stated earlier, the company is a financial services multi-level marketing company whose services range from term life insurance to mutual funds, annuities and managed accounts.  Also with the pre-paid legal services, that seems like it would be a great bonus that ordinary people are not able to afford!

People can for-real say, “I’ll have to run this by my lawyer”.

How Much Does Primerica Cost?

$99 to join and then a fee of $25 monthly.

How Do You Make Money with Primerica?

To be honest, it was hard to actually find information about compensation and buying into the opportunity.  However, in spending a few hours viewing videos, I did find out some old financial figures about compensation.

According to their Earnings Disclosure, they paid out $509,227,149 to its sales force—averaging $5,513 per licensed representatives, for 2012. That’s the latest earning disclosure I found on their page.  That’s not a lot.  But as with most MLMs, there are several very successful people in the organization, but the majority not earning much at all.

I also heard Art Williams himself say that everybody started out part-time; then learned and worked their way into the business.  From what I’ve seen, the business opportunity was designed to one that you can gradually grow into.  Mentorship is a big part of the program.

You will not go to initial appointments alone; A coach/mentor will go with you to explain things to new prospects.   Also, Art said that there is no cold calling for affiliates.  Appointments are set for you, and clients will be expecting you when you show up.

What Does “Real People” Say About Primerica?

I try to show both sides of the fence so, here are two testimonials about Primerica, from conusmeraffairs , one that’s positive and one that’s not so positive:

Final Thoughts of Primerica

This company is not a get rich quick scheme and Art Williams will quickly and proudly let you know that. But, even If you don’t get involved with the company for the business opportunity, you should still definitely listen to some of the speeches and motivational talks Art has to offer.  His information is fire for getting motivated for any endeavor.  The principals he mentioned are a solid foundation you could apply to any opportunity you chose to pursue.

The business opportunity information on the site was scarce, mostly focusing on affiliate testimonials.  But, I will say this:  I like the concept of Primerica.   I like the idea of creating a business that sells and provides information as part of its product line, that can truly help people.  It seems like it would be a great ice-breaker of an opening.  Telling people about options that could help with their financial situation, I think, would be a welcomed change.

Even though, I don’t see how one could make a living on the average salary of $5,513 mentioned above; I do see how the information and processes could be valuable in other ways.  You could accept the fact that this business opportunity might be financially limited at first, with the possibility of consistent growth in the future.  Then, look at other opportunities that might be related.

Once learned, the information could afford you the opportunity to become a speaker and financial coach that you could charge for independent of the product line offered by Primerica.  Teaching and showing people how to use the financial principals and concepts listed on the site like Debt Stacking, Power of Compound Interest, and the Rule of 72,  would help change people’s lives forever.

I wish that I could have looked beyond the pitch of company reps I encountered earlier in my life when the A.L. Williams Rep or Primerica Rep wanted to mostly talk about insurance—and discovered those treasure bits of financial knowledge.

Having said that, you could definitely gain value from the opportunity by learning more about the concepts taught on the business side.  Gaining knowledge about all the services could give you an arsenal of tools to offer your clients and may lead to other opportunities to provide clients assistance in other areas.

Using this opportunity to introduce people to concepts of how they can save money and realign their budget to better serve them is a win-win for everyone.  Though they might not want to buy insurance from you right away—they would sure remember you for future financial needs.

In my opinion, Art Williams was right.  Relationships do take the time to develop and cultivate.  By you taking that time to learn about your customers and finding out what they need, you will more than likely be able to assist them in ways you never thought of.  Once there is a measure of trust between you and them, any venture that you become involved with might be an option they’d consider.

People like to work and deal with people they believe are honest and trustworthy.  And if you treat them right—they will tell their friends about you.  Before you know it, you will have all the clients and customers you need.  (Or at least that’s the theory)

-Daniel

What Are Some Other Options?

Allstate, Liberty Mutual and many independent both insurance companies and insurance quote programs offer affiliate programs.

So what does that mean?

It means that you could put up your own blog or website and work with different insurance companies of your choice and make a commission if there is a sale going through.

This will allow you to have 100% control to work on your own terms with programs you prefer.

Wait wait wait, what is affiliate programs you might wonder.

A lot of companies offers affiliate programs, Walmart, amazon, and Allstate just to mention a few. This means that you can sign up for a free affiliate account with them. You send them traffic via your affiliate link and if there’s a purchase you will get a commission. This is truly a win-win situation. The companies only pay if there’s a sale and you can build your own business around it.

Want to know more?

Read the getting started guide here!