Clayton Lawrence

Grow a team of managers and agents to increase the sales of Colonial Life in the Tupelo area. I was responsible for posting jobs, training new reps, opening and overseeing opening of new accounts (payroll benefits).

I actually began as an agent my first nine months in this position, then received a promotion Jan 1, 2017 to District Sales Coordinator. I achieved all of the sales bonuses my first nine months where I was an agent, additionally, I achieved my first quarterly bonus as a Coordinator. I managed a team of agents and led the state in my team of representatives achieving first year agent awards in 2018 and also led the state in New Associate Sales (first year agents I was over) in 2018 by almost 100k over second place. I was in the top 5 in the state consistently in nearly every category quarterly and annually. I left this position in January of 2024 due to an offer with Colonial Life to become an Agency Owner.

I began this career after calling Aflac because I kept running into situations where I was having trouble competing with my current portfolio of products. I was very successful at it, as I only worked 3 days per week and achieved every single first year agent award in their Fireball Series. I received the opportunity to become a manager for them at the end of 2016 so it was an internal promotion.

I decided to leave Liberty National as I felt like the portfolio of products was not broad enough to suit my goals in the industry, secondly I was also finishing building our house during this period of time, so my main focus was on that. I did not have the number of contracts or quality of contracts to be competitive in the market, hence, I called Aflac and decided to pursue a career with them. I was also doing farm jobs and training dogs at this time but my heart was in insurance sales but my focus was too broad. I knew I could not meet my financial goals and I constantly ran into situations where I could not compete with Aflac. Many of the relationships I began here helped kickstart my Aflac career.

This was my second time working with Liberty National. I decided to return after a short time working with Mutual Savings. I focused more on payroll benefits and chose not to follow the path to become a manager with them, while also selling to individuals. I left due to personal reasons where we were in a position to have to finish building our house ourselves after a contractor abandoned the job.

I was responsible for collecting a debit route of life, health, and renters insurance. Activities included collecting, as well as selling new insurance policies. I really enjoyed the personal relationships with my clients, however, this position did not have the opportunity to drive the revenue of my personal goals, so I returned to Liberty National where I left strictly to take this position.

This was my first position in the industry. I remember going in for the interview after purchasing a life insurance policy on myself and telling the agent I needed a job and asked him for recommendations relevant to my previous experience in land surveying. He invited me for an interview to see what selling insurance was all about instead. After a brief illustration, I said, “That’s it, sign me up.” This was the best long term decision I ever made career wise. I did very well despite not knowing anyone in the area and was promoted to AUM (assistant unit manager) in a few months. I later regretted leaving this position to go to Mutual Savings as things were going very well, but I also wanted a promotion I did not get at the time, so I took what I felt like was a bigger opportunity at the time.