The Great Reset Podcast
Lone Agent, Big Impact: Mastering Insurance Independently with Clarence Enriquez
In this episode, we explore Clarence’s remarkable journey from physical therapist to insurance professional. He shares the challenges he faced with the marketing and recruitment-driven models typical in the insurance industry and how this inspired him to focus on operational excellence rather than simply chasing commissions. Clarence emphasizes the importance of being client-centric, building trust, and maintaining transparency—core values that guide his business today. As a independent agent, Clarence has successfully navigated the industry, proving that you don’t need a team to make a lasting impact. His commitment to professionalism has earned him Agent Score Report certification, and his insights offer valuable lessons for agents looking to grow their own businesses with integrity and focus. If you’re a newly licensed agent or even seasoned agent and have been thinking about going full independent check this episode out, this is for you! Tag all your new agent friends! Need a place to showcase your business or find an agency manager? Visit 👇🏾👇🏾👇🏾 agentscorereport.com and create an agent profile using your NPN number! Want to learn more from Clarence? 📧 Email: enriquezfinancialx@gmail.com📱 Text Only: +1 725-599-3972 💻 Instagram: @cenriquez_finance 📞 Book a Call (Clients Welcome): Schedule here https://calendly.com/financial-strategist-cenriquez Don’t miss out on his expert financial insights!
(upbeat music) - Hey everybody, my name is Patrice Johnson. I'm here with the Great Reset Podcast where insurance meets accountability and I'm here with the Mr. Clarence. Please go ahead and introduce yourself. - How you guys doing? Thank you guys for having me. Thank you Patrice for letting me be on here. My name is Clarence Rodriguez. I'm based out here in Las Vegas, Nevada. I guess we're seeing the background. A little bit about myself, generally before starting an insurance business, I was actually trying to be a physical therapist. Decided that it wasn't to be my route that I wanted to go. So I got into the insurance back in 2020 of December and 2021, my first year, I'm going to turn from the 50-300 before I went into a different company. I guess I'll start a little bit more about the background behind that. The reason why I left the other company is just it wasn't in alignment in the value that I wanted to do with the business and led it to a second company which is the same thing exactly what happened. - So when you say the alignment into your business, what do you mean by that? 'Cause then it happened again. So it seemed to be a pattern in the industry. What was that pattern that kept happening? - So I think the biggest problem in the industry right now, I think, primarily it's the marketing. Everybody's like trying to market a product. So, and with most insurance marketing organization, is the fact that it becomes a model like just recruiting and not really about the client. - Yeah. - And if the marketing is not on point to where it's not reaching the right person to be able to help them out exactly what they need, everybody's just trying to go a doggy dog world chasing after the next check. I mean, the only thing for you to scale is you have to recruit. I didn't believe in that. I was a solo producer myself. Like I didn't care about anybody else. I can produce and I can help out clients. I can make money in my home. And I think that's why people followed me when we went to the second organization because I can do that. I have the results for that. As far as like the insurance base and being able to kind of, I wanted to build a team based on operation and skills. And I couldn't do that with a different type of like the wrong type of market. You know what I mean? - Do you feel like what you thought would be possible? What made sense? Like your idea for how you think your business should be executed. Do you feel like those places just didn't have the capacity to serve you there? If so, like why? I want to dig into that. It's like you're already at a company. You already have contracts here. Why would you cancel all your contracts and go somewhere else? Like that's a lot of work. - Yeah. Let me dig into that. That's a very needy subject for sure. - As far as like the, here's how this in the insurance base and I'll be very transparent. Everybody says like, you know what? You got the best leads. You got the best contracts. We got this in place. You got all that in place. They say all this in the world. But what most people don't realize from the gains of this industry and they're purchasing leads is that you don't control the people that these leads are, these marketing is reaching. So I want you to kind of imagine that you're, you have, you're casting a net on the ocean and you don't know what fish goes in there. I don't care if you got like the marketing is on point, but they're still marketing a product. So you don't control that. I mean, some weeks you may have some like, you may win with some big clients. Sometimes you don't. But what happens if that continues to happen for a month straight? - Yeah. - What are you going to do? That's what I mean is the marketing is flawed. That's where I see the hole in the industry. And that's what kind of led me to what I'm doing now. - So essentially it's almost like they didn't really have any solutions once that one didn't exist. Then you were just kind of out on your own trying to figure it out. And it's almost like for me and I agree with you, I feel like we lost the basics because we've come into an era of instant gratification. I remember early on in my career, my buddy of mine that brought me into this industry would always get, you know, tell me, you got to learn delayed gratification. But there was nothing around me that would support that. It was like, I had to have it now. So with that not being exercised in practice, we're watching the ladder happen. Where you're seeing the bad, you know, training and sales taxes, the bait and switch, you know, getting people to hand over their precious information almost as if it's routine, you know, and ding well, they may or not be covered for the policy that you're approving for or they just don't want it. And we're trying to, you know, walk them into that cell. So I definitely understand you there. So that kind of jumps into the next question here for the business pro. You know, so how are you running your business differently with the home that you have now? - So I want to be completely transparent. I have my contracts from different people. Just because again, for me, I'm the type of person that I've been visiting this long enough to know that if I know where to find a clients, I know how to do good business. And I know how to make me. That's reality for me. But as far as like how I'm doing business now, again, I came from the business where it's a lead-based business. You know, we're purchasing leads to be able to sell the policy to the clients. But again, that route didn't work for me 'cause I saw a whole long term. Like if I was going to build this model and every agent on my down line is going to have to do that, if I was barely making it, the people beneath me who had less than nasty as I am, is going to roll up debt to me. I already saw that coming and I didn't want to do it. So as far as what I'm doing now, so I had partnered up with a company. I'm not in the company right now. It's not entirely super sure yet. It's, I align exactly what they're doing as far as focusing on a specific target market. So they're niching down within the organization. And I've ever heard that term called the niches that are in their riches. - Yeah. - So technically what we're doing is we're targeting a specific type of people. You know, the pain points that they're dealing with, what struggles do you have? Even though it's a cold call, I am very good to a point where if I get a conversation with someone that I know that I can help out, it's a much more meaningful conversation. And I'm having to service them with multiple policies at once. And it's not like I'm happy to spend money. And it's really just about the numbers game and the scales of operations and skills. And that's what I look for. - Yeah, I would say that's a different flock from Leeds, Leeds wasn't just a number game. It was a this game. And a lot of us come into this business without that, which is my biggest complaint is we're bringing unqualified people into this business, like this is not a side hobby. You can wreck yourself. I feel like we're not prepared or made aware of the repercussions of this business. I feel like the solve we usually get is write more business so you don't feel it. And that's what happened to me. I was using a certain type of elite type that ran out or at least ran out for me. So I then had to turn to the other sources. Those sources, again, I saw that same pattern you thought you did when you kind of see that, hey, there's no end to this. I'm gonna end up digging myself in the hole. So I was still writing business, but then it came, I was writing business, but not seeing a return. Because now my expenses were adding up to what I was actually making in commission, minus the natural fall off the books. And I was just like, oh man, I went from at one point at January that year. And this was, I wanna say 2021, January 2021, having $30,000 in my bank account give or take to August, only having two grand. And I had to pay the rent because I had just moved out here with my husband. And you know how it is with the first paycheck. You don't get one for two or three weeks. I had to spend my little coins. - Oh my gosh. - But it really ticks me off in the industry. And I didn't know this till now, because in the beginning, like I thought, you know, maybe the agent just sucks, right? And it could have been fun. That's what I thought of being excited to know any better. But I realized after working, at least there's so many times in this business for a long time, is that it's generally just in regards to the marketing, it's very flawed. You don't know exactly people as reaching. So some people that are just really good people and they know they can sell and they can actually help out the client, they just out of the other side of the coin, which is the risk behind them. - Yeah, yeah. - And that's really, that's why it got me out of that kind of role and being in that hands-to-roll time. And it got led me to where I'm here, which you know, it can happen. And that's what I want to get away from. - And that's why I was so happy that you said yes to coming on because you have a perspective I think a lot of people are looking for. They just don't know where to start. Can you touch on a little bit? 'Cause I know you said you're with the company now, it's not all set in stone, but you kind of have carriers everywhere. Can you kind of talk about the advantages of that or disadvantages? - Oh, man. So in my first time getting in the industry, I didn't really know any better because you know, like they just got the contrast working with a brother or what I thought of brother in mind. Basically, he's my first up one, FFL, I guess. Every time that I get into an organization, I realize I was building their business and all my skin is, but as soon as like shit hits the fan and like something goes on that's out of my control, I'm gonna give you an example. Like when the first company, I'm not gonna name the company. - That's nice. - As you know, I fuck it, it's enough, right? When they first came into the organization of like seven final expense back in 2021, I wrote them like $60, $70,000 of annual as premium. And then didn't have their shit together as far as like the policy and mail to the client. So the clients are gonna call me like, "Oh, are you scamming me?" And I had all of that rolled up to me and then the agency couldn't do anything about it. - So, was the company itself not milling at the policies or were you like LOA where it was your agency that was supposed to do it? - I was completely contracted with the company. - Wow. - It was the first time they ever rolled out a final expense. So I didn't know that was happening. So I thought, you know, it was a big insurance company. They're gonna be full with that. But I'm getting all these calls, but I'm still writing business. And I'm like, "Man, what am I gonna do with this?" And the agency that I was with told me, "Hey, just got to write more business." It's cool. - You like it's not cool because there's several issues that need to be solved here. Like number one, the clients aren't getting their policy. - Right. - Why would I write more to end up in double? You know what I mean? Now I'm eating more than I can cheat. - It's like, and I was telling him like, "Hey man, like you have an agency that's gonna, you know, it's gonna give you the overrides to be able to recuperate that." I don't. Like I'm just a solo producer. And I'm your number one producer in this agency right now. What are you gonna do about this? And then that it, I literally just have to eat that, right? The second company, I pretty much recruited all these agents over there. And I was ready to build a team. I had to step down on production. So I can train them, but they didn't have the resources. They just didn't. So again, it just boils down to the biggest benefits of me, like having contract everywhere, is that I want to be able to get a service to clients as much as I can, wherever they benefit from, whichever company it is. But also, if I partner with a company now, I just want to make sure that your skin in the game is as much as I am, 'cause I have the skillset. I know how to do this, but if your skin is in the game, I have nothing to stand on when shit hits the fan. - Yeah, 'cause we've been hearing the same rhetoric for years. So it's like, listen, I know I can say, I know I can get out there and get out there. What are you bringing to the table for me to actually get it? - Exactly. - You have the resources for me to actually execute my business. Now, I know you touched on this a little bit already, but if you can kind of dive into this, why? What was your decision to forego going to a team? Are you still against that, or is that just a right now thing? Do you think you're going through a phase? What does that look like for you, and why did you forego a team? - So when I first got into, this is a good question. I'm not against it, I'm going to say that. - Mm-hmm. - I'm not against it, I'm going to say that. But when I first, when I got into the second company, when I realized how crazy it is when people decided to follow me, and I had like 30 agents in a matter of like a week, which was crazy, but reached out to me. I got excited, I was like, oh, I don't have to work anymore, or whatever, I had that little devil on my side. (laughing) - I feel like, and being honest, I feel like you're telling my story. I think we all got excited. - Right, but I knew I always wanted to do the successful, and I wanted to train them the right way I would do things. But again, I realized if I was to do that, I couldn't ask the agent to sacrifice the most. I am my sacrifice for all my life into this business, and I can't expect everybody to do that. So I knew it wasn't super scalable based on the marketing, and of course, the second nobody didn't have the resources to be able to do that, be pretty much a slide about it. - Yeah. But for me right now, I know how to produce this on my own without anybody, and I want to get to a point where I'm confident that the company that I was with can back be able to be able to actually train those agents and have them the resources for me to be able to train them, and the resources for them to make them. If they don't have that in their skin's game, I'm not recruiting. - Essentially, your business should be running while you're asleep. Like they should be able to pick up anywhere, 'cause I found that frustrating in the industry where, I don't know, if you needed a commission grid, or just something that wasn't easily attainable, it might've even been something so uncreated. It was just trying to put it all in one collective spot so we can just download and move on. It shouldn't be pulling teeth, or one team's getting more resources than the other, like it should all be available, 'cause I mean, there's millions of people in the United States. Why did you choose to focus on advanced market? What excites you about working in this space, and how do you ensure you're providing value to your clients? - Good question. So I think I've always been a numbers guy. As far as the advanced market, the reason why I got into that is because, for me, in the insurance world, I didn't know like all this thing existed until I got into insurance. You know, we were just out taught to sell final expense when we were first start. And then you gradually go up to more protection, and you got to go jump to the IULs. The more I got in depth to the industry, I was fascinated by it. But of course, as money comes to the table, we'll be able to make money with that. It comes with a lot of challenges, because for once, like if you were able to explain clients, I think the biggest struggle is simplifying the advanced market compliance, 'cause if people, we're still in a sales business. Let's not, let's be based. The boil is down to we're still in a sales business. If a client doesn't know what you're talking about, they're confused, and the decision is not gonna happen. That's the biggest struggle with being able to articulate and simplify things in the advanced market to individuals. The next question is, what challenges do you think the industry faced, particularly when it comes to advanced markets, and how are you addressing those challenges? - For me right now, so me partnering with this company, since I don't, I'm gonna be certain that I don't have the license in 67. But what they do that I actually like is that they do a lot of joint work. So like right now I said, I told you I was working with specific type of target market, to speak individual, like for example, nurses, the authors, whatever it may be. And some of these profound people, they're more, and even the engineers, they're more wanting to see the credentials for that, right? - Yeah. - But if I know they can have a conversation and they have the pain, they're willing to have a conversation with me, I can actually link that person with that advisor that has to have the license, and we can have a combination together as far as a split deal. That's how I'm addressing the problem. - So I love that so you're kinda like being in the middle man, making sure while, hey, I'm learning, I'm still gonna be learning this stuff, I bring in a professional with me to throw it in. It's like you're the sales guy in this position. You kind of repositioned yourself, where before it was straight loss, you know, risk. It was high risk, no reward. And now you're just like, how do I reposition myself, take the skills that I have developed over this time, and reapply it to this industry. What was your training experience like before, and why you are partnering with someone that's more professional now? - Yeah, okay, so, you know, in the insurance space, you have people that started out like an FFL, or it's like a lead-based business, and you have the other people that are like network marketing, where it's like financial, education, all that stuff. It's definitely, you don't really have licenses to just tell you that. But I learned like a little bit more details of what the fixed accounts, and fixed and mixed annuities, and the IULs with them. And it's definitely a good knowledge of the day notes that I've been talking about. And I realized that some of them don't actually have the license because, you know, with FINRA, they have a lot of like restrictions on them, and I get it. But for me, being able to, what's the difference, I guess, is everybody has different like perspective on like how they wanna do the business. For me, I'm more focused on just getting the client in the book, 'cause once I get the client in the door, that's the very first step how to get the business through. And most clients won't listen to you unless you have a license. So just me having a stand on and somebody who has the license, if you get the client in the door or the trust is built, then we can figure out how we're gonna do as far as like what product is built through. - So do you plan on achieving or getting your series six and seven? Is that something that's on the queue for you? - It maybe is 'cause the company, what they're saying is obviously I don't get paid in any other asset and assets under management. And if I wanna bring in a lot of people in the door, and some of those goes to us as an asset under management, I'm losing out of money. I thought about it, it's there in my mind, but I know it seems like a lot of work later down the road. So it's not, it's not off the table, but definitely. - I always say slow and steady wins the race. You don't wanna overload your play. Okay, so we're kinda moving in towards the end here and more of the, what do you think needs to change in this industry question? So in your opinion, what changes does the industry need to better support agents, especially those focusing on advanced markets? How do you think agent score report can play a role in fostering this evolution? - I think it's just in general to back to the marketing. I think if everybody's competing with the same exact product or whatever at least they're marketing, it's gonna crank this culture where everybody's trying to chase out to the next check. And if you are constantly trying to pressure and bringing more people in the door, as far as agents go, they're just gonna get any worse and worse, right? So I think for me, that's the reason why I don't want to recruit at this point in the US. I don't have a system that I can plug people in and they're making money and there's no hole down the road that they think. The marketing doesn't go, well, I have the answer that I actually help them out with and not just leave them hanging. Really just beyond this process. I think everybody's kinda like glued to the money and then I get it, it gets me to make a lot of money in this industry, but I'm more focusing on, I'm trying to last for 10, 20, 30 years now, just for five years and it's done. I don't wanna do that 'cause back in the industry that we're at in the company world, it felt like, oh, they're trying to say this dream of like, integrity, integrity for two years and you're done and I'm like, I don't wanna do that. I'm young, I like to be in business. - There's always the more, there is always this idea in the air, but there was no, what about after? Like, I can't have them happily ever after, but what does the after look like, you know? - It doesn't really say that to answer your question as far as to how I think you guys could help out with that problem. I think it's interviewing agents that have been successful in the industry that fell off. 'Cause they have a story to tell. I'm talking about it to the real agency. - Yeah, yeah. - I'm gonna make it no matter what. Like, I've always had that mindset. Even if I have to bend a little bit and go this way, go that way, I'm gonna find it out. But for somebody that, you know, they actually did for whatever reason to happen, that they can't control, but it happened a lot. Finding those people when they're sloring me on it, that's very, it has a slory to tell and very impact with a lot of people out there. And it'll put a light on whatever happened with it then that organization or the marketing company or whatever it is that's still here today that don't give a shit at all. You know what I mean? - Exactly. And my whole thing, it's not even just to like, you know, like I said, this isn't the shade room. They're not trying to shad on anybody whatsoever. It's you just making a better informed decision. Because even if you decide to go to any of the companies that we talked about that maybe I didn't have a good experience that it doesn't mean that's gonna be the same for you. We're just telling you, expect these things to happen and learn how to work around it. Understand that, hey, they don't have a system in place. Understand this, hey, at this place, the leads are constantly resold. So while it is a numbers game, baby, your numbers just like infinity quadrupled because you, whoever else is within this organization is sharing the same leads and so is that IMO, you know? And those are the things that I feel like it's important. And it's like, that's what I want people to understand. This is, again, this is not to just, I don't wanna do what the industry's been doing where we're talking badly about things and offering no solution. You are here as part of my solution. I'm showing you, you don't have to be attached to one IMO, to one, you know, upline, one agency manager, you know, one company. You can spread yourself however you like and things like that and then reach out to people like yourself who have done it before. - I just wanna say something, right now, I'm only gonna have a conversation if we align values as a thing for me. Like whenever it's not a work with agency, I gotta kind of see, it's an interview process, okay? - Yeah. - I gotta know. 'Cause in this business, I've been, I've been dogged by like everybody that I worked with 'cause I didn't know exactly what they were. Give me my client, so I'm gonna be transparent here, like my first up line. The only reason why I have a vector, I'm gonna be transparent, I have that, is that he decided to go inside my book of business with one company, I'm not in the company, I'm fucking American. And rewrite all my book of business with him, all the clients that I have, and wrote all that debt. And obviously, since the resistors are not paying off for the clients that he wrote for me, let's still stay there and I'm still paying it off. - And that's the thing too. - Vector or not, it's about the responsibility of paying down. You know, you're holding yourself accountable even though a bad thing happened to you. So I do respect you and thank you for sharing that 'cause I want other people not to be afraid that if you have a vector, no one's trying to talk to you. Show us a payment plan, like we get it. And I'm glad you brought that up because that is not the first time I heard that story. When I left organization to the next organization, obviously a slew of people came through, I heard too many stories that sounded like that where your upline would tell you to write this particular product and it's being pushed because they get bonuses and, you know, overrides for it, but then they use their downline as their own personal book of business, rewriting those same clients with the cheaper company. And again, making you look bad because then your client is calling you, why didn't you show me this one? Why didn't you do this? Now you didn't serve your client because you were in a place where if I don't write this company that my company told me to, I'm gonna get yelled at. And then it's like, and then if I do do it, I run the risk of it getting rewritten easily. Even if it's not my upline, anybody can come into that house and sell some, you know, something from a milk catalog could beat that, you know, a 9.99, you know, give me policy, what beat that policy. So I'm putting myself at risk and then losing trust and respect from my client that I did not do the right thing for them and put them in the best place possible. - You really built that relationship is that you don't need to pressure the client. You can even send them like, hey, just sign all this, all the information I need to see the draft vision. They're cool with that. Everybody's telling you what to do, but not how to do it. - As we kind of wrap this up here, you know, here's our part, the last question here is, what do you see in the future of insurance industry? How do you envision agents in advanced markets contributing to its growth and integrity? - What do I see for see in the future of the insurance industry headed and how do I envision agents in advanced market to review that growth and integrity? I think for me, to be honest with you, I'm not sure how to answer that because everybody has different perception than they industry requires like what they believe. - Yeah. - And for me, since I don't have the license of the Series 6 and 7, not all the perspective would have it, I can't foresee myself answering that question until I get there. - So we're seeing a lot of AI in this business that are now writing IUL policies. I have you heard any of that? And how accurate do you think it is? - I've actually never seen it. It might be flawed because I think when index universal life, the way it is is this a flexible product, right? So it's a mixture between a term and whole life. Generally, and it's really depending on the clients, right? Like I have some clients where there's a higher life insurance because they needed a little bit more space for them to contribute more later on. It gave me a mix, max fun. I don't, I can't see an AI doing that. - Yeah. - You know, to like critically think, right? For the client. - That was kind of my arguments to it. I had a software developer reach out to me and I was just like, no. So I wasn't just clicking buttons. I was like, if it was final expense and term. I was like, the IUL, it's not a one size fits all. It's a, it's a creative package, if you will. Like even selling it's standard, you know, I can see the AI selling it standard, but the thing is nobody just buys an IUL just to have it as a standard product. - It's definitely a relationship thing just figuring out what the client and listening to the client. And I don't, I can't see generally how an AI could do that. It may fit for organizations like we're just a recruiting based business and then just pushing the product through. - Yeah. - But I'm not going to mean that right. So. - No, I love that. Oh, well, that brings us to the end of the great reset. Is there anything else that you wanted to shout out, say, leave us with? - None of us said it was a good conversation. I had some heat that I wanted to bring out and then it came out and now it's better about it. I mean, it came as for a while, like even on the, honestly, I've been keeping on the radar for a little bit, moving some silence about it. Now that we kind of came across and you asked me to be on this podcast, feel good about it. - You're like, let's do this. Well, I'm so happy. Thank you so much for contributing. I hope to have you on as a guest and we talk about different topics and markets that are happening along the way. With that being said, thanks for being with us here on the great reset where insurance meets accountability. (jazzy music) - Make sure you head on over to agentscorereport.com and create an account. This is where you can review other insurance agents within your network and you can create an account yourself so that you can put yourself out there to be reviewed by your clients and your colleagues within your inner circle to create the reputation that you want to present to the insurance world and to clients and consumers who may come across your profile. So again, that website is agentscorereport.com and I look forward to seeing you there and giving you a five star rating.