Leadership Interview

JUSTIN JACOBS

Visionary

All leaders

The Seat

Broad Industry Set

The same industry-wide questions every HPM leader answers.

  1. For an agent who has never worked with an FMO, what does an FMO actually do on a normal Tuesday that an agent could not do alone?
  2. When someone chooses the wrong Medicare plan, what happens to them six to twelve months later that nobody warned them about, and how does a good agent prevent it?
  3. What is one rule in Medicare or the ACA that makes no sense until someone explains why it exists?
  4. What is the single piece of advice that, if a new agent followed it, would almost guarantee they wash out inside their first year?
  5. What decision does a new agency owner make in the first ninety days that quietly kills the agency by month eighteen?
  6. Two agents both step away from selling for six months. One comes back to a business that kept running, the other comes back to nothing. What did the first one build that the second one did not?
  7. When a CMS rule change or a carrier shift lands, who tends to get hurt and who tends to get ahead in the same six months, and what separates them?
  8. What is a book of business that looks impressive on paper but is actually fragile the moment the agent behind it steps away?
  9. If an agent builds their whole book through an FMO and later decides to leave, what should they have asked about book ownership and portability on day one?
  10. What kind of agent should you honestly talk out of this business, or out of going independent, before they get hurt?
  11. Where is the health insurance market actually heading over the next three to five years, and what should an agent be doing today to be ready for it?
  12. What is a moment in this business where doing the right thing for a client cost you money, and would you do it again?

The Visionary seat

  1. When you picture HPM and the whole Medicare and ACA space five years out, what are most agents not seeing yet?
  2. What is one idea for this industry you are convinced is right that most people still think is wrong?
  3. What gives an independent agency a real edge against captive shops and direct-to-consumer carrier tools, when nobody can win on price alone?
  4. Culture is one of your seats. What is a value HPM protects even when it costs the company money in the short run?
  5. Where do the best big relationships in this business actually come from, and what do agents get wrong about building them?
  6. What problem in an agent's life are you personally trying to solve that the rest of the industry ignores?
  7. In R&D and new ideas, what is HPM testing right now that could change how an agent works day to day?
  8. What kind of agent should you honestly talk out of joining, even a talented one, and why?