benefits advisor

benefits representative

inside sales representative

account specialist

insurance advisor

AMBA

I started for AMBA in 2017 with 0 experience in sales. I had looked into other insurance jobs but most companies wanted several years of experience or a college degree. They also didn't provide leads and wanted their agents to rely on selling insurance to their family and friends or going door to door. 
At AMBA the leads are FREE, you never have to feel the need to sell to your loved ones unless you want to, and AMBA even has an entire division built exclusively for new agent support. The Culture, endorsements, commissions, and people we serve really make AMBA one of the best places anyone can hope to work. 
The people here are absolutely amazing and while no company is perfect this company is pretty close to it.  The Management is approachable, you dont have to be afraid to raise your hand and ask questions or offer suggestions. When Covid hit AMBA transitioned from almost exclusively doing field meetings to almost entirely virtual in a matter of weeks and as a result we have been able to have a fantastic year and continue helping our retirees and associations during a very difficult time for the country,
 If you have good work ethic and a desire to help people this is a fantastic company to partner with. The sky really is the limit at AMBA. You will get exactly what you put in. If you want to make $50k/yr or $300k/yr, you can do that here if your willing to apply yourself and learn. 

I have been here for nearly 4 years and for the first time in my life I have a retirement plan. I can see a future where I dont have to work until old age renders me useless and that is all thanks to an AMBA District Manager who gave me a shot when no one else would!

I've loved my time here at AMBA. When I first started I was nervous about taking a job in 100% commission sales. I was coming from a salary job with benefits less than a year out of college and I had zero sales experience. Within my first 6 months I had already made what I would have in an entire year if I had stayed at my last employer and each year that I have been here I have made $20,000 more than I did the year before due to my growing experience, new products and residual income. 

While this career does not offer the traditional benefits like health insurance, I would not give up my residual income for anything. My residuals that I've earned just by going to work everyday have given me a very comfortable life style.

This job is not a difficult one. All you have to do is go to work, truly that is it. In my time here I have watched people come and go, succeed and fail, and the one thing that has separated those who stayed and were successful was the willingness to go to work. Your income is directly related to your work ethic. If you're setting your appointments every day like you're trained to do, it's too easy not to make a sale.

I would say the hardest part of this job is probably the mental aspect of it. Since you set your own schedule you decide how hard you work. If you're not mentally strong enough to make yourself get out of bed in the morning when you know no one is standing over you at an office making sure you clock in and out then this job is probably not for you.

Overview of my experience with AMBA
Distribution of leads was very questionable. District Managers sold off of the Benefit Advisors hard field sales efforts. They rarely shared warm leads with team members. The last batch of leads I received was at least four years old. 

Honestly, over the 21 months I worked for AMBA, I had a minimum of ten client's loved ones tell me "they had passed away 4 to 6 years ago"!  " 

Weekly meetings and new hires/ fires culture was reminiscent of a mafia. 
 
Very little support from leadership. When customer service issues occurred through partner organizations, there was no accountability or acknowledgement from the Regional VP ( when copied on correspondence). And my manager (district manager) was notorious for not replying or addressing the issue at hand. I was required to contact the partner organization and address issues which took time and energy away from working with our customers. 

I have to say the job had flexible hours and fairly low micromanaging. Weekly reporting assisted in this area. But reporting was complicated and changed regularly. The matrix of commissions to products and various (continuous updating) product terminology made it more challenging.

Asked if the company was looking into implementing a CRM system and I was told leadership was promising to implement a CRM system sometime in July of 2017 and as of July 2018 the company was still doing the same ineffective paper logged reporting.

I have been in sales for over a decade and it's hard to find an ethical sales organization that actually does what they say they are going to do.  Fortunately, AMBA has exceeded my expectations in this department.  

Direct sales is not easy and it isn't for everyone, but AMBA has stood behind me and given me the tools I needed to become successful:  Strong endorsement from the Texas Retired Teachers Association makes it easier to schedule sales appointments and close sales.  The products are top notch: Long Term Care (Mutual of Omaha), Cancer/Heart Attack/Stroke coverage (Cigna) just to name a couple.  These are huge companies with good reputations and retired teacher clients feel safe protecting their retirement with these companies.  

The management team and culture in my Houston region is outstanding...a bunch of winners.  Our Houston region has finished #1 out of 9 regions nationwide the past 3 years running.  It's also nice to see (in a sales organization) that when they have a need to hire a new advisor in Houston they are very selective...

AMBA also provides first class training in the field for 6 weeks, free warm and hot retired teacher leads to call on, and outstanding VIP trips yearly with bonuses and incentives throughout the year.  They know how to motivate me and make me feel appreciated!

Oh, and the compensation (with residual income for retirement) is excellent!

I have worked at AMBA for over 10 years and had no prior sales experience as I was hired right out of college.  Everything I was promised has come to fruition, they do what they say they are going to do at AMBA.  That being said, I made a commitment to do what AMBA trained me to do in the sales field and I supplied an enormous amount of hard work to accomplish my goals.  The company culture in the Houston office is outstanding...positive, family company, goal oriented, and most important ETHICAL.  That combination is not easy to find these days in a company.  The strong endorsement from the Texas Retired Teachers Association makes it easier to set sales appointments with prospects and to close sales the same day.  I feel very fortunate to have found a career home and many people within the organization have helped me achieve the level of success I enjoy...for that I'm very appreciative.  There is adversity and rejection at AMBA, as there is in any direct sales career.  Fortunately, AMBA has armed me with the mental ability to overcome adversity and persist until I succeed.  I will always be able to carry that with me for the rest of my life.

What is the best part of working at the company?
You will meet great people, whether it be your clients or your peers.

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
The constant drill to exceed the numbers. It's a sales gig. If you like this type of challenge, then it's absolutely for you.

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
WFH with several mandatory online meetings with times based on Central Time. There is checking in on your activity through your email/outlook calendar/salesforce activity. You are usually on your own regarding taking care of client issues. Your commission is far less than the industry average but you also don't "pay" for the leads received. It's 100% commission and the leads are not parsed out equally or regionally. 

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
It starts at 7am and ends at 7pm. Monday-Friday. You are calling to schedule meetings which may lead to a sale. Since many of the potential clients are retired, there may be technical issues etc. The weekends will have 2-4 appointments because the client may not have time during the weekday to meet and/or prefer to have their adult children on the call / zoom. The initial calls can be hot/warm/cold. Cold because the potential client "forgot" they requested the reach out. As a result, there can be abusive language and angry people, so if you have a thin skin, this may not be for you.

While I was successful here, it was of my own doing and AMBA often didn’t make it easy. They give you leads, but as others have said the leads have already been called many times and are on the do not call list. My business came from leads I got myself through networking and referrals. 

Communication wasn’t great and leadership was very inconsistent. While 50% of field agents are female, less than 5% of managers and senior leadership are. Similar to the couple who always talks about how happy they are, you know that deep down there are problems. There was just too much talk about the great company culture, like they were trying to will it into existence. But behind the facade was nothing but duplicity, deception, and dishonesty. And it was at the expense of our retired teachers and retired public servants. 

And as the company grew over the past few years, their field agents who are independent contractors were treated more and more like employees. They wanted to tell us how to run our day, but that by definition is not an independent contractor. If they want to keep doing that, they need to provide benefits and PTO, and start paying our self-employment taxes. 

If you love selling insurance and want to work for  a company that offers free leads, free tools (Office/Salesforce), and genuinely cares about your success, AMBA is a great opportunity. It is a strictly commissioned role with attainable goals for new hires to make good bonuses and seasoned agents. Not needing to rely on your own leads/referral partners is a huge savings in time and expenses. The training is organized and helpful but you are expected to be a full time employee without a guaranteed hourly wage and benefits. You are mostly working on your own aside from weekly team meetings and dependent how engaged your manager is. 
Our market being Retired Teachers , State Employees and Association members is what drew me to the role and makes your job meaningful. To succeed in this role will strictly depend on you and the phone calls you make and the effort you put into your success. A lot of people have been there 20, 15, 10 years because of the residual income and joy they try to make you feel working there. 

This is a great place to work if you are an experienced sales person. If you have no sales background it is very overwhelming. They are overly optimistic about how easy it is to contact retirees. You are given lead sheets from which you must hunt down phone number off of the internet; many of the phone numbers are no longer in service. You then call between 100-150 numbers per week to find that only about 15 people will actually answer their phones of those 15 people about 3-4 of them will agree to meet with you. 
You are paid on a commission only basis, so you need to sell. Selling is absolutely possible. They have some great products and they do have good training and you have wonderful support. But, you must be able to set appointments and sell or you spend a lot of time driving and a lot of time making no money.
I loved meeting with the retirees. They were smart and most were financially sound. I just found that it was very difficult to set appointments.

First off they are called AMBIA in California not AMBA. They had to include the "I" to hopefully give the client a heads up that they are selling insurance. You will be primarily be selling long term care, cancer policies, and air ambulance policies. You will be making 1000s of cold calls. And I do mean COLD. Most of the leads I called on did not even know the association that they belonged to or why we were calling. You call then to set an appointment to review their benefits. It is expected to be a one call close. I am not sure how it is in other states but In California it was terrible. As mentioned above they actually had to change their name in California to include the word insurance. Most people have no idea that you are going to try to sell them insurance until you get there. You will have to memorize a script and are expected to be able to recite it.  You will be expected to have rebuttal responses memorized for client objections. From what I saw some of them were making a lot of money.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Benefits advisor 5 salaries reported	$86,132 per year
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Account specialist 176 salaries reported	$17.04 per hour
Insurance advisor 15 salaries reported	$82,500 per year

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