mason@pneuma.DEC (ANDREA 223-4864 PK03-2/H31 POLE 15F) (10/14/85)
A few weeks ago I asked if anyone had any experiences with A.L. Williams,
and I promised to summarize. Well, I only got two responses, and one
was a request for any information the *I* got. I thought people might
be interested in the one response with info I did get, so here it is.
It's a bit long, but the info is valuable. Thanks to the person (name
unknown) who sent it to me!
****andrea****
UUCP: decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-pneuma!mason
ARPA: mason%pneuma.DEC@decwrl.ARPA
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From: RHEA::DECWRL::"tektronix!tekecs.TEK!timk@Berkeley.EDU"
I started to get involved with AL Williams, but decided not to continue for
a couple of reasons:
1) Time. You can make a lot of money if you are willing to spend a lot of
time with it. I decided I didn't want to spend 3 or 4 evenings a week at
it.
2) You have to view everyone as a prospect. I was uncomfortable with
the idea of treating my friends as prospects (you start with your
friends and every time you make a sale you get that person to give you a
list of 10 friends who you in turn approach. Eventually you work away
from dealing just with friends). Some of your friends will
be glad you approached them and others won't.
WHAT IS AL WILLIAMS? AL Williams is a marketing company; they don't have
any products of their own (unlike Amway). They have a contract with
Massachusetts Indemnity Life Insurance Company (a subsidiary of the
American Can Company) to sell term life insurance and a contract with First
American National Securities to sell investments, such as mutual funds.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE COMPANY. Their idea is to buy cheap term life
insurance and invest the amount you save over buying more expensive whole
life insurance.
Get a copy of the "Common Sense" book (any AL Williams person will give you
one) written by Art Williams (the president of AL Williams) and read their
ideas to see what you think of them. The ideas on the book were honored in
congress (congress thought it might help take some pressure off social
security).
SIMILARITIES TO AMWAY. There are some similarities to Amway:
1) The emphasis on the positive attitude.
2) The idea that not everyone will agree with you, but you've got to hang
in there anyway.
3) Meetings. A couple of meetings a week to keep the attitude positive.
4) Overrides (money) on sales by people below you.
CAN YOU MAKE ANY MONEY? Like Amway, the more people you get below you the
more money you make. At the lowest level you can make about $200 on the
average insurance sale. At the highest level you make about $700 on a
sale. It's not too hard to convince people who have whole life insurance
that they would be better off with term insurance. The problem is finding
people who have whole life.
HOW THE PYRAMID WORKS. AL Williams is structured as a pyramid. I'm not as
down on this structure as a lot of other people are. Consider, what is the
most efficient way for a company to pay higher people more than lower
people? True, you do move up in the pyramid by recruiting people, but in a
sales organization you get a large market that way, without having to pay
salaries.
You start out as a REPRESENTATIVE. For each sale you get 42% of the
commission from a sale. The rest goes to people above you in the
pyramid. Make 3 sales, recruit 3 people and you move to SALES LEADER.
At this position you get the same amount of commission. When you get 3
people to sales leader, you move up to DISTRICT LEADER. At this position
you get 50% commission of sales and 8% (50-42) on all sales by people below
you.
When you get one of your sales leaders to district leader you become a
DIVISION MANAGER. At this level you get (I can't remember exactly) 60-70%
commission on sales and the difference between the 60-70% and the lower
people's rate on their sales. Get one more person to district leader and
you become a REGIONAL MANAGER. At this position you get 97% commission and
the overrides from the people below you. When you group as a whole makes a
certain number of sales in one month you move to REGIONAL VICE PRESIDENT.
At this position you get 107% commission and overrides from the people
below you.
THE BOTTOM LINE IS: (like Amway) can you recruit people, who can recruit
people, who .... If you can, you can probably make a lot of money. The
articles on Amway stated that the market is saturated with Amway sellers.
From what I understand AL Williams hasn't reached the saturation point
yet (which doesn't mean it won't).
Sales aren't that difficult if you can find people who have expensive
insurance already.
MY THOUGHTS: If you are willing to do anything to make a lot of money
you can do it in AL Williams (but not without a lot of time and hard work.
Expect to give up hobbies and dissolve some friendships. If you are married,
your spouse had better be understanding). You also have to be willing to
look at everyone you meet as a prospect ("Oh, there's a young family with a
couple of kids. I wonder what type of insurance they have?").
They push the idea of working part time, but it does take some time. Part
time leads to more time.