Being an insurance agent in the current economy was rough. I was making less than half the commissions that I made before the recession and I was concerned that I may have to endure several more years of sluggish sales. I needed to start finding alternate ways to make some money in order to keep my business open.

I had heard from several of my colleagues that annuities were becoming a popular investment option and that it was much easier for agents to come up with annuity sales leads than it was for them to find leads for the other types of investments that they offered.

After I noticed a sharp decline in the number of interested prospective clients over the past quarter I realized that I had to come up with another way to earn money. Before the recession I was meeting with a dozen interested prospects per week and now I was lucky if I could schedule a meeting with one qualified prospect.

I read an article detailing how more and more people were becoming qualified annuity sales leads because of the fact that annuities were very similar in their structure to Social Security. Since the future of this governmental retirement fund was no longer secure, many people were looking for a similar alternative to the program.

I had always been under the impression that annuity sales leads always had to be self-employed top wage earners such as doctors and lawyers. While these professions were still popular annuity sales targets, a number of people were taking their IRA accounts and rolling them over into annuities.

Suddenly, I realized all of the opportunities that lay ahead in selling these unique investments. There was a lot of potential to earn high commissions and to reach out to a number of different clients and to help them solidify their retirement portfolios.

I had also held on to the misconception that annuities were not able to provide agents with high commissions. This also proved to be a false notion. After talking to several agents and hearing that were very successful in selling annuities I found out that the financial opportunities available could be very lucrative.

My confidence returned and so did my enthusiasm for being an insurance agent. I decided to enroll in a highly competitive annuity program that would provide me with the head start that I needed in order to be successful.