Marketing Insurance Online - My Pathetic Story By: Jason Hornung – President Jason Hornung Agency ppt

Marketing Insurance Online - My Pathetic Story
By: Jason Hornung – President
Jason Hornung Agency Inc.
It was only two months ago that I had taken over an office with a full book of business from an
agent that was moving up into management (big surprise, right?).
I had been given a one year contract to prove my mettle…
… and things weren’t going very well.
In fact, I had management breathing down my neck – calling and stopping by my office every
single day. They were expecting huge numbers out of me. After all I was supposed to be the
next super star, the guy they plucked away from a competitor that was crushing it after 5 years in
business.
They had invested a lot of money in me to move my family half way across the country and
wanted an immediate return on their investment.
But they weren’t getting it. I was having a rough go trying to develop relationships in a new
place. I knew that if this trend continued that I wouldn’t be around past my first year.
Desperation has a funny way of helping you to kick your inhibitions to the curb. So I decided to
talk to some of the other guys who were doing well in the area. One of them told me something
that really struck a chord with me.
“Dude, you just have to go balls out – hit it big or go down in a blaze of glory.”
Up to that point I had been trying to do things the way the home office wanted it done because I
was new and needed to make a good impression. However this conversation made me realize
that I had to get creative or I’d end up being a total failure.
I started searching around for ways to learn marketing insurance online which lead me into the
sordid world known to those on the inside simply as “IM”.
Quickly I learned some basics that I applied in rapid fire fashion. And you know what? It
worked like gangbusters. In a matter of a few weeks, I went from zero to fifty leads a week. It
was totally insane and I couldn’t handle the volume!
That forced me to hire a couple extra sales people and over the next two months my numbers
went from rock bottom to the top of the charts. Things were smooth sailing for the next three
months until I got one of the worst phone calls of my life.
“Jason, it’s Ryan… how are you?”

©2012 Jason Hornung Agency, Inc. – All Rights Reserved
o
“Fine Ryan, what can I do for you?”
“There’s no easy way around this, so let me just get straight to the point. Do you have a
website?”
BUSTED! Guess I’m gonna go down in that blaze of glory…
“Um, it’s actually a blog.”
“Well, I’m going to have to have you come to the regional office and meet with me and Cathy.”
Cathy was the she-devil compliance officer so I knew I was in deep doo doo here. The meeting
happened the next day and I have to tell you they beat me up pretty bad.
Before I had done anything I reviewed my contract and had a thorough understanding of
compliance. It didn’t appear that I was violating anything to me. But it was a gray area that they
didn’t like.
So much so that they suspended my securities licenses and opened an investigation on me with
the NASD.
This really pissed me off and I knew the writing was on the wall. Part of getting my contract
renewed required me to meet a certain production level for securities and with my licenses
suspended, there was no way I’d hit that.
*Side note – the NASD conducted their investigation and found I did nothing wrong. They
reinstated my licenses.
It was at this point that I really had dealt with enough from this company and was ready to move
on. However I still had about three months left on my contract and no clue what I was going to
do for work.
During my time studying internet marketing, I had somewhat been seduced by all the sexy
business opportunity offers floating around and began my look there.
After all, it would be pretty cool if I could just work from home and make money automatically
from some websites. Maybe I could spend some time with my family instead of working like a
dog.
I bought some courses on things like building websites and driving traffic. All the while
becoming more and more convinced that I could easily make big money online.

Which gave me the bravado to surrender my contract and walk away from my agency before my
contract was even up. All my friends and family thought I was insane!
©2012 Jason Hornung Agency, Inc. – All Rights Reserved
o
And truthfully I probably was. But I’m the kind of guy that just jumps right in and isn’t afraid to
get wet…
What I thought would be easy ended up being extremely difficult. I was looking for that magic
bullet that these so-called gurus were selling. That one trick that would bring me an instant flood
of cash that would wipe all my problems away.
I was working 15 hour days, 6 days a week from my home office frantically putting things
together and trying stuff to find what worked. I had a few successes that would pay some bills,
but the failures started to become a huge pile.
Over the course of the next 10 months, I had cashed out my IRA’s and maxed out all my credit
cards struggling to get by. It was the most frustrating and depressing time of my life. I was
failing my family.
The stuff really hit the fan in December of that year. I was literally broke with my house
payment a couple days away from the end of the grace period. I hadn’t bought the kids any
Christmas presents yet and didn’t know what to do.
When you get deep into the world of IM, you’ll start to make friends in weird places like
forums. There was guy I met on the Warrior Forum that we’d chat together about online
marketing. At first when we started talking he was struggling too – but he figured things out and
was making some decent cash.
I was lamenting my situation with him when he said some things that floored me.
First he asked me if I was doing things online in an area that I already knew. I wasn’t…
You see, one of the things these gurus teach is that you need to find a “niche”. The more obscure
the better because there’s less competition. So I had been building websites that were trying to
sell ebooks on how to build a hot dog stand business or overcome infertility with natural
treatments.
Super weird stuff I knew absolutely nothing about.
Second he told me that I needed to focus on the three core principles of marketing online and

only those things. The courses and gurus that sell the get rich quick gimmicks are all fake.
It was really the “a ha” moment that I needed. I should have known better than to believe any of
that crap. But you know how when you want something so bad to be true, you’ll throw out all
caution?
The funny thing was that when I left my agency, I had gotten appointments with an independent
brokerage in town that one of my buddies owned as a backup plan. I just hadn’t done anything
yet because I was so mad at insurance.
©2012 Jason Hornung Agency, Inc. – All Rights Reserved
o
My forum buddy convinced me to turn back to marketing insurance because I already had
success there and could sell insurance.
I quickly changed my focus and started generating immediate results. By the end of December
my life was back on track. Things turned around in such a fast and furious way that I knew I was
on to something here.
Plus, I just absolutely loved the marketing side of things. I’m a bit of a techo geek that loves
websites, creating ads and just making the whole internet “thing” work.
On top of all that I really enjoy teaching people how to do what I learned, so I decided to start
my training company. To this day, my sole focus is providing independent insurance agents do-
it-yourself solutions to their prospecting and marketing insurance problems.
I do this through my comprehensive training membership and community. Now I realize you
may be interested in what goes into my program. So what I’ve done is put together a free video
where I reveal the #1 secret to generating insurance leads online.
At the end of the video, you’ll get to see everything that’s in my program and if you feel it’s a
good fit for you, you can join risk free.
Just click the link below to get started now:
Click here
©2012 Jason Hornung Agency, Inc. – All Rights Reserved
o