Vantaggi
Had great relationships with peers, learned a lot of things about professional liability insurance. The base salary was pretty good, and bonuses' were decent but that part depends on you of course. You also get to attend some cool conferences and social events. The little leniency you get in terms of your sales results is both a gift and a curse. I will elaborate more in the cons but the pros of that kind of short leash style of sales management actually helped my career in the long run, and helped me to develop thick skin, it just didn't really help me in the role itself if that makes sense.
Svantaggi
Not organized or formal training at the time I was there, it was basically a sink or swim type of deal. You get to shadow some people for a bit, you ask some questions and then it's off to the phone's to talk with prospects. Definitely not a lot of emphasis on individual development, or continued training either. I pretty much had to create my own training schedule by myself in the beginning. You really need to hit the ground running and stay running without stumbling, if you have a few bad months there you are probably going to be fired or put on a PIP (Performance Improvement Plan) at the very least which will likely end in being terminated. It is a very difficult sell, and you are going to be selling the more expensive product compared to the competition. A lot of times the people you are selling to don't care about the extras in the policy that justify the higher price, so even if you make a great pitch and point out all of the negatives in the other policy they still will end up going with the lower policy through no fault of your own. No matter how well you have done in the past, and even when people in management acknowledge your potential, you never felt that you had job security. You were always as good as your last month, so myself and others I worked with at the time felt huge stress and pressure working there because no matter what you always felt like you could lose your job at any time. Not a great feeling going to work everyday, and it was downright draining emotionally and mentally. Not for the faint of heart, this is an old school salesman type of environment, sell or die essentially.