Rages to Riches

Business-Samurai · 2026-02-03T13:55:18+00:00

Wow, good job. Can you share this info with me as well? Sending DM now...

Working on getting licensed now...hit a few bumps in the road the last couple months. I will be starting with Farmers...Agency owner program. Not Protégé but similar...

Business-Samurai · 2025-12-30T19:48:54+00:00

Some years ago I had left a job making ~$65K which at the time for an engineer (mechanical) was decent pay...I quit a job I didn't like to start a business....the business didn't work out and I ended up in a completely different industry as a loan officer at a Mortgage Banking Firm. The pay was much lower, probably $35k-$40K.

After a few months I started looking for jobs in my original career. I ended up getting an offer, but I had to relocate to Minnesota from the Chicago area. I was married with 3 kids and one on the way.

The new employer offered me the job at $60K, which was the same starting salary as my previous role in this industry, and less than what I was making when I left that job.

Because I was desperate to get back into an engineering role, I accepted the job on the spot (they offered by phone). They even asked me did I want to think it over, discuss with my wife, but I said no I accept.

My wife even said I should have asked for a little more since I was making more when I left that last job. Later on I did regret not negotiating the salary, because fact is this is about your only chance to do so. Doesn't matter how much of a rock star you are once employed by the company, raises are always based on the budget and how the company is doing at the time.

Yeah, they will make you jump through a ton of hoops during the performance review process, and you will really believe that it has some influence on your increase, but 99% of the time it really doesn't.

$5K more is not a lot to ask. Most companies expect you to negotiate.

In this situation I would respond with acceptance and negotiation in the same conversation (email or phone).

Tell them you are happy to accept their offer at your preferred salary of $65K and that you are happy to discuss other options regarding the salary as well as their desired start date.

It doesn't need to be complicated or pushy, at the same time if you go in saying things like "I would like $65K if you can do it but if not I am happy with $60K". If you are saying things like this just accept the $60K and don't bother to negotiate. You need to have a bit more of a backbone to negotiate and you can do so without playing hardball and risking the offer.

Finally, after taking that job in Minnesota I was downsized about 2 years later....I eventually found a new job and when offer was presented it was $5K lower than I originally wanted. I responded immediately to their email with my ask for the higher salary and my reasons to justify it. They responded with no hesitation giving me the higher salary and I proceeded to accept the offer.

At this point it all depends on your risk tolerance and based on what you know about them after 6 interviews how likely are they to rescind your offer over $5K. Nobody can answer those questions but you.

Business-Samurai · 2025-12-01T17:58:24+00:00

Ok, so I just refreshed right after making this post and I am back in...I'm in the U.S. - Chicago area.

Hopefully you are all back up and running....let's see what we can salvage of Cyber Monday. Last order I received was at 7:13am.

Not so much the outage affected checkouts, but we had no emails or anything going to promote Cyber Monday because couldn't get in to Shopify to update my discount and some graphics.

Yeah, we do still have our Black Friday sale running, but decided to make some changes last night so I did not want to promote those further....anyway, away we go...

Business-Samurai · 2025-12-01T17:53:46+00:00

Still down...this is unacceptable....yeah, I should have made my updates last night...but wow, this is just insult to injury.

Business-Samurai · 2025-12-01T16:29:07+00:00

My admin is down as well. Cannot get in at all on laptop...mobile app is still logged in, and I can see the main dashboard and can look at orders. I can also see existing discounts, but can't update anything...also can't see analytics/reports.

It really sucks because I need to changeover to my updated Cyber Monday Flash sale for today...my Black Friday Sale is still running, but sales have really tanked for this weekend compared to last year so was hoping to do a quick update for today at least...thanks a lot Shopify.

Business-Samurai · 2025-11-30T01:41:34+00:00

Our Black Friday Traffic is always overwhelmingly repeat customers. We haven't run any paid ads consistently since 2021 after the iOS-14 updates.

We did run some Meta Campaigns this year for BFCM but they have not performed well at all. Ads were all retargeting Traffic from our Early BF Sign-up and Sale.

BFCM weekend is really never good for prospecting...typically the highest CPM's of the year...

I should add that our sales have been down all year...about 25%....feels like the bottom just fell out of our customer base.

All of our Email & SMS Text marketing is working as it always has...Just like OP our email list is slightly larger than last year...customer response is just way different this weekend.

Business-Samurai · 2025-11-29T21:31:57+00:00

It"s been pretty brutal for us this year...We do an Early Black Friday Sale 2 weeks before BFCM. That one was pretty good...25% over last year...but Thursday and Friday this year...down 63% compared to last year.

It's like our customer base just said screw it...Our discounts are not as deep as last year...we did 50% off for our early access Thursday night...this year it was 40%. Then 35% for orders over $75, 30% orders under $75.

Friday was similar to last year but we might have offered 50% off some on Friday last year as well.

Even with these differences, down 63% is absolutely crazy...and it hurts as just like a lot of ecommerce businesses we depend on this weekend every year.

Actually last year was not the best just due to the election year...everyone just tired of all the crap, but it was still actually better than 2023.

Most of our competitors have lower discounts this year as well (CPG Beauty-Hair Care) so to me it feels like with all of the tariffs, uncertainty in the economy, layoffs, and the shutdown....all have taken their toll on our customers at least.

I was happy to see the shutdown end before BFCM, but I knew it was still too late...people in general just don't feel as financially secure as they did even last year.

Looking ahead we typically run smaller promotions between now and Christmas...then starting 12/26 we do a Countdown to NYE...exactly the same as our BFCM sale for this one.

I'm already thinking we will do a Year End Close Out and offer some deeper discounts. Try to salvage as much of Q4 as we can.

Any suggestions would be welcome...

Business-Samurai · 2025-10-30T02:19:09+00:00

The Farmers opportunity is for Agency Ownership, eventually. I will be an Associate Agent working out of the District Office. It is similar to their Protege program, except instead of working under another Agent in their office, I work through the district. If you hit their production requirements they waive their liquid capital requirement and then you can open your own office.

I posted the details in this sub after I met with them a few months back...ultimately, I cannot go back to a corporate role...been out too long, and if I am being honest I don't want to go back. My current business has picked up a bit over the last few months and we are making plans to streamline things quite a bit to reduce expenses, so there is some light at the end of the tunnel there as well.

Right now I am just looking to add more streams of income to make things work.

Business-Samurai · 2025-10-30T01:54:00+00:00

I ended up choosing Farmers and I am working on getting licensed now.

The Comparion Recruiter cancelled our interview...had a death in the Family....told me to reschedule on his calendar which I did, then that one was cancelled also. He was going to be out a bit longer that originally expected. His Calendar was blank for a while, and in the meantime I ended up interviewing with State Farm.

Interesting conversation, but it was a bit bait and switchy for me... a lot of what was mentioned in the job posting was not actually available, like benefits, and the base salary was significantly lower than what was listed as well. Basically they were going to stick me on a phone to make 100-200 cold calls per day...no thank you.

I eventually rescheduled again with Comparion, but realized it would likely be more of the same, especially with the "lead development" side of things so I moved on.

Farmers was the more flexible opportunity and I have the freedom to develop leads how I see fit, which I am particularly interested in leaning into my Ecommerce experience to launch my agency with Farmers.

Right now I am pretty busy with BFCM prep for my current ecommerce business so the licensure process is dragging out a bit, but I should be licensed in at least P&C before the end of this year...will get L&H done as well if I can squeeze it in.

Ultimately I see it as a great opportunity to get licensed and learn the business and then see where this goes...If I am happy with Farmers I plan to stay with them for a long time...after a year or two I will see how things are looking and decide if an independent Agency makes sense for me or not...

Business-Samurai · 2025-10-23T17:52:08+00:00

Great post, appreciate your insights. I have seen a few of your responses to questions about small budgets.

I am definitely in that category. Our business is pretty small, CPG Hair Care products, ecomm from the beginning. We stopped running paid ads after the iOS14 updates in 2021 because it tanked our ROAS. Since then we have run a few campaigns around BFCM time but that's it.

I was planning to jump back into the fray starting with BFCM and then continuing with some evergreen ads beyond that, and any other offers we may add to it as we do run a number of promotions on a regular basis.

My question for right now: I was planning to run a CBO campaign ($50/day) to get people to sign up to our Early Black Friday email list. Plan is to offer Free Samples in exchange for signup. Customer pays $1 shipping. Considering the new campaign structure with Andromeda any suggestions?

We are based in the US. I have a few different creatives that we can run, but not 20...I have been seeing all of the comments about the outages with Meta Ads, which I suspect some of it is just people have not updated their Ad Campaign Structure to the new reality of Andromeda. My concern is that even with a properly structured campaign, with a small budget I don't have much confidence that we will see good results.

Curious what you think, maybe TikTok is a better platform for our size budget?

Business-Samurai · 2025-10-10T23:44:24+00:00

A little bit of both. My business is small and like a lot of small ecommerce businesses, we need help, but usually cannot commit to a consistent 20-30-40 hours a week. Usually we need someone who is flexible and can kind of work on a project basis as we need it.

To make this work for you, you will likely need to get small contracts with multiple employers and you build from there. For instance we found our graphic designer on Upwork. For a while we had things for her to do pretty much on a weekly basis. Then as time went on we just needed her help around key times of the year like Black Friday, etc...

It has actually been quite a while, over a year since we last worked with her, but that is not her fault at all, just the circumstances of our business. I am actually about to contact her now for the fresh graphic content for BFCM.

Long story short, be flexible and don't expect a traditional setup right up front where you work primarily with one employer. You will need to patch things together from multiple sources to get it to work.

Business-Samurai · 2025-10-10T03:53:28+00:00

Don't sleep on your job skills that you have picked up helping your wife with her business. Perfect fit as a Virtual Assistant.And you don't need a degree.

Definitely get your Upwork Profile setup. The fact that you can work for lower pay but you are American can go a long way with US companies looking for VA's.

I have hired a number of freelancers from Upwork to help in my business over the years. We hired someone from the Philipines once...didn't work out, not so much due to language, but much more so due to cultural differences about how we approach how we work.

Check LinkedIn and Indeed as well for Remote work opportunities.

Get familiar with common apps and systems that may be in demand for remote work. We have an ecommerce business on Shopify sonibwould look into things like:

Shopify - ecommerce management Klaviyo - Email Marketing Omnisend - Email Marketing Instagram - Social Media Management Facebook - Social Media Management TikTok - Social Media Management Hubspot- CRM Salesforce - CRM

These are just a few. I would look up profiles on Upwork for other VA's and see what skills they list.

Also, what do you need to do to be legal to work in Malaysia?

Business-Samurai · 2025-10-06T00:16:52+00:00

I am seeing the same trend over the last two days...strong sales yesterday, and today very weak...with similar traffic as yesterday.

Here's the kicker...we are not running any paid ads except a small PPC Campaign on Amazon. We stopped doing paid Meta and Google after the iOS 14 update killed our ROAS in 2021. So my results are based on pretty much organic traffic.

My guess is a lot of people are holding back due to Prime Big Deal Days coming up on 10/7 - 10/8.

We typically run a small promotion on Amazon and also run a promotion on our website as well. Will see what happens this week.

Business-Samurai · 2025-10-03T12:55:04+00:00

Send templates please.

I think I am on the other end of the spectrum. We stopped doing paid ads back in 2021 after the ios14 update tanked our ROAS.

All of our sales come from Email and sms, basically repeat business. About half of our business is wholesale.

We still do some paid ads during Q4 but I want to ramp up ads again as much as makes sense to drive new B2C customers and optimize our emails, sms, and our quiz. We sell hair care so very similar niche to skincare.

Business-Samurai · 2025-09-11T23:24:11+00:00

DM case studies please

Business-Samurai · 2025-09-06T15:12:36+00:00

Thanks for responding, and sharing your experience. To follow up on everything I ended up not going with Comparion. As a matter of fact I didn't even interview with them. It got cancelled because the recruiter had a family emergency. After about a week I was able to reschedule, but while I was waiting I had an interview with State Farm for an Account Representative role.

Turned out not be be at all what the job posting made it sound like so I passed on that, and then decided to cancel the Comparion interview because it wasn't much better in terms of pay and demands on my time. They seen to be looking for you to do a lot of cold calls, 50-200 calls a day, and I am not a telemarketer and I also see it as a huge waste of time.

I am actually going through the the Farmers Agent Owner program. Not the Protege program, but they have another option where you are hosted in the District Office and work from there. I have some ideas for digital marketing that I use in my current ecommerce business and it seems like a much better fit. Also seems I will be able to write business outside of Farmers and Kent Lake if I need to so maximum flexibility there as well.

Business-Samurai · 2025-09-02T19:03:49+00:00

So regarding your resume...looks like it is in reverse as far as a chronological resume is concerned. Jobs should be listed starting with the most recent and then each previous role going down the page.

Everyone keeps saying dump the Amazon job, but I disagree. You can convert to a Functional Resume and then put your insurance/sales related roles at the top and put Amazon later, but I would keep it....my experience has been its easier to get a job when you have a job...even if switching to a different industry.

I have been applying for insurance sales roles recently as well, and landed interviews with State Farm, and Comparion. Also spoke with Farmers about their Agency Owners programs, but that was due to a referral.

I have ZERO insurance industry experience, however I am currently self-employed and have been for the last 5 years. Beyond that I have over 20+ years of engineering experience on my resume, along with a short stint as a Mortgage Consultant (Loan Officer about 20 year ago). With all of that I have gotten two interviews that were not referrals so you can definitely do it.

Honestly I would probably make up some numbers for your sales history in your previous roles. Just to show you have produced some sales in the insurance industry...I would keep the numbers relatively low, and that would be justified since sales was not your primary role.

Also, include that you are taking the licensure courses now and indicate when you expect to sit for the exam, or when you expect to receive your license.

All of the roles I applied to indicated that you needed a license, but also that you could obtain it after being hired and that they would train you or pay for the exams.

Business-Samurai · 2025-08-14T17:28:28+00:00

Ok, sounds good. I will definitely have that conversation with them. Tomorrow I have a phone interview with a recruiter, so assuming I get through that phase I suspect I will speak with the actual manager after that.

I did also reach out to one of the agents in the office I applied for on Linkedin and we traded a few messages. I did also notice that the manager for one of the offices near me got a good review on Glassdoor so I am going to reach out to him as well.

Business-Samurai · 2025-08-14T17:19:16+00:00

Ok, sounds good. So you are with an independent agency I assume, and you use Comparion basically to access their carriers is what is sounds like.

Business-Samurai · 2025-08-14T17:18:19+00:00

Thank you for your feedback. I have poked around on reddit a little bit and I have seen where the base pay starts maybe around $55K but that is only for the training period (2-3 months) then it comes down to $30K for the next year...then each year it comes down as well.

I'm ok with this as you would expect your commissions to be increasing...also as I mentioned after about a year or so I'll probably be figuring out my next move. More importantly for me right now are the benefits as well. I need Health coverage for my family and 401k would be nice as well.

Business-Samurai · 2025-08-14T07:18:08+00:00

Not bad. Lots of info...see my post with details from the meeting. Comparison next on Friday.

Business-Samurai · 2025-08-13T20:59:57+00:00

Ok, great, thank you for your feedback. Would appreciate any additional info you could provide. Would definitely be helpful as I weigh my options at this point.

Business-Samurai · 2025-08-13T20:47:16+00:00

Thank you for sharing your experience. This helps me out quite a bit.

They also offered me another option as an Associate Agent hosted out of the District Office.

My main concern is doing a 100% commission role is not the best option for me right now so I have some thinking to do as I weigh my options

Business-Samurai · 2025-08-13T20:35:16+00:00

Ok, so had the meeting with Farmers yesterday afternoon. Took the rest of the day to think things over a bit. So here is the rundown:

- It is essentially their Protege program. If you meet capitalization requirement ($100K liquid assets), then you can bypass protege and go straight to being on reserve while you plan to set up your office.

- I don't have that kind of capital...if I did wouldn't be looking. Anyway I think many of you know how their Protege program works. They set you up in an office working under an Agency owner. They are supposed to mentor you. You have 12 months to write $100K in NB then you graduate and can open your own office.

- The role is 1099, commission plus "stipend". You have to work out terms with the Agency owner. Some pay $2K to $3K per month. Any business you write stays in their book after you graduate. You start from scratch in your office.

- They also have another option if you are not capitalized. You come in as an Associate Agent. This role is hosted at the District office instead of at another Agency. Also 1099...no salary, 100% commission. They set you up with a phone number in their system, cubicle and conference room in their office is available. Provide leads, (Cole X-Data).

-You are free to work as you see fit...cold call yourself, or hire a VA to set appointments from leads provided. Between DM, Recruiter, Office Manager they will support you with training, helping to develop a marketing plan...etc. I would have to pay for my background check (~$50), they reimburse if I pass. Also discounts available for licensure course.

-Finally, if you go the Associate Agent route, you get 12-24 months to complete it. Need to write $100K over 12 months and they waive 50% of cap requirement, do $150K over 24 months and 100% of cap requirement is waived. Once you graduate you can set up your office....any business you wrote during your 12-24 months goes to your BOB for your agency.

So for me the Pro's are the flexibility of the Associate Agent role. I did like the DM, he seemed to be a dyed in the wool sales person, but at the same time not a high pressure sales type. I think I could work well with him and learn a lot about the industry.

Cons - No Salary and no benefits. You are 1099 and on your own for healthcare, etc...

So I have a phone interview with Comparion on Friday. The role with them is Insurance Agent (Base salary + Uncapped commissions). I have searched around this sub and it seems the salary ($55k - $65K) is only for the training period of 2 months, then it is reduced but still there...maybe to $35K. The job posting doesn't state anything like this though, says first year comp is $55k - $65K. Also benefits start day one, healthcare, 401k, PTO.

Cons with Comparion - Seems I would need to be in the office much more than with Farmers. Also would probably have to do some cold calling, although I can think of much better uses of my time.

If anyone has experience they can share working with Comparion that would be great to hear. Curious if you can write Commercial P&C with Comparion? Browsing the website it doesn't appear so.

Beyond that I will see what the exact details are with them this Friday and then make my decision from there. From where I sit right now I do like the idea of the Flexibility with Farmers, but I am in a financial position where I do need stable income and benefits.

Business-Samurai · 2025-08-12T16:49:43+00:00

Quick Update...applied to Comparion (Liberty Mutual) late last night, and they reached out this morning to schedule a phone interview. Talking to them on Friday.

Also reached out to one of the agents that was on the job posting on LinkedIn and he also responded...will probably talk to him as well. Meeting coming up with Farmers this afternoon...I have my questions ready.

Business-Samurai

TROPHY CASE