Today In 5 Minutes Or Less (TLDR):

• 🔒Why Most Agents Fail the Exam (And What You Shou …

• Breaking the Cycle of Bad Hires in Your Insurance …

• Around The Web 🌎

  • Referral program

🔒Why Most Agents Fail the Exam (And What You Should Really Do Instead)🔒

Dear Insurance Champions,

Let's get real: Most agency owners are setting new hires up for a faceplant, even before they step foot in the office. You toss them a bland pre-licensing login, wish them luck, and hope for the best. It’s no wonder half of them never make it past the starting line.

Here’s the deal, brother: Passing the insurance exam isn’t just about memorizing terms. It’s about mindset, support, and actually connecting theory to real-life conversations. Skipping this? You’re burning time, payroll, and potential.

If You Want New Hires to Actually Make It, Start Here:

Stop Doing This

• No more drive-by logins. Handing out an ExamFX or Kaplan login and crossing your fingers just leads to confusion, wasted hours, and high failure rates.

• Don’t let them study in a vacuum. Isolation = overwhelm. Your new team member feels like they’re drowning (and maybe questioning if they belong).

Do This Instead

• Turn the exam into a one-week sprint.

  • If your new hire can focus full-time, they can prep and pass in 5 days. Even part-timers only need 2-4 weeks, if you give them clear, curated support (not just endless practice exams).

• Supplement with direct teaching.

  • Use resources that break stuff down in plain English (think humor, real-life examples, and practical sales context).

• Address the fear.

  • Most hires’ #1 fear: Am I going to lose this job before it starts? Acknowledge it. Support them. Remind them the road to passing is NOT a solo job.

• Normalize failure.

  • Most folks take three swings before passing. Fast failure isn’t a death sentence, it’s how they build the grit for sales. Coach them to see the score sheet as a map, not a judgment.

Why It Matters

• Payroll math never lies: Every unlicensed week for a new hire costs you thousands in sunk payroll, missed leads, and lost momentum.

• Support = Retention. When hires feel like the agency is invested, they’re less likely to bail at the first sign of trouble.

The Insurance Dudes’ Action Plan

• Audit your current onboarding. How lonely is it? Would you pass with what you hand out?

• Build a buddy system or plug into a real support group (not just a Facebook group full of strangers).

• Teach the real-world application while prepping for the exam. Start embedding sales talk from Day 1.

• Reframe failing, the worst score is quitting. The win is developing the muscle to overcome.

Get proactive. Get tactical. Watch your rookie class actually stick.

• Listen to the full episode

• Save this for later

• DM us your biggest challenge

Craig Pretzinger and Jason Feltman

The Insurance Dudes! 🚀

Breaking the Cycle of Bad Hires in Your Insurance Agency

That cycle of scrambling to hire because someone suddenly left, it’s brutal. I’ve felt it myself. Someone resigns, or worse, just stops showing up, and now you’re desperate. When you’re in that spot, it’s easy to rush. You grab the next “available” person, just to fill the seat. But deep down, you know you’re taking a risk. More often than not, it backfires. Maybe they don’t fit your values. Maybe they start tearing at your team culture, quietly or not so quietly, and suddenly that one quick fix becomes its own big problem. But what do you do? You keep them, because there’s no one else in line. That’s when it really starts to unravel.

The best thing I ever learned was to always be recruiting. Not just when there’s an open seat, but every single week. Set time aside to interview. Even if you don’t need someone, even if it feels redundant, keep doing it. You’d be surprised how often unpredictability strikes, someone goes to lunch and never comes back. If you wait for that moment to start looking, you’re already behind.

Here’s the reality: our teams, our agencies, they live and die by the people in them. When we hold off on recruiting until our backs are against the wall, we put ourselves in a position to make decisions we later regret. We settle for a “warm body,” and it’s not just about productivity, it’s about the tone and feel of the whole agency. The culture gets hit, morale takes a dive, and sometimes good people leave just because someone wrong was allowed to stay too long.

So, make interviewing and networking a routine, not a reaction. Build a bench of talent, even if it feels like overkill. The hires you make before you “need” them are often your best, because you chose them with intention, not desperation. You’re in control, not the chaos. Even if it takes time, forming that habit is what keeps your agency sturdy, your culture healthy, and your stress levels in check. In the long run, that steady approach wins every time.

Around The Web 🌎

The YouTube 🎥

In this episode, we sit down with agency owner Michelle O'Connor to break down the operational shifts required to build a sustainable book of business. We walk through navigating claims handling, transitioning into agency leadership, and setting up daily processes that protect retention while driving steady agency growth.

This Week On The Podcast 🎧

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