THE JLS STORY
JLS Marketing Concepts is a national insurance marketing organization founded by owner Jerry L. Smith. At JLS we focus on providing industry leading sales training along with innovative marketing tools. The combination of these services enables agents to maximize their income potential.
Mr. Smith began his career in the senior market in 1983. As a personal producer, he utilized his childhood experiences of traveling the country to participate in chess tournaments as a benchmark for creating a selling system. His sales strategy was based upon mapping out the entire sales process step by step and then incorporating specific strategies for every scenario he encountered.
In other words, turning the sales process into a chess game. He made this strategy reliant upon knowledge and structure instead of charm and charisma. He believed that understanding and mastering the sales process was far more important in achieving success than being charismatic.
He understood that not everyone had that salesman charisma, a trait that can be difficult to learn if you don’t have it. However, he believed that anyone regardless of their personality could learn to follow a strategic sales process.
As a field agent, Mr. Smith was a top producer with numerous insurance companies during his career. In any given year it was commonplace for him to be a top producer with one company for Final Expense, another company for Long-Term Care, another company for Single Premium Life, another company for Annuities and another company for Medicare Supplements.
At the age of 23, he began to build a career agency which he named JL Smith Associates. He hired people from all walks of life and taught them how to become successful in the insurance industry. Mr. Smith trained these agents to sell across multiple product lines simultaneously. He utilized his sales strategy that he created called 'Scenario Selling' to maximize each agent’s sales performance.
Mr. Smith took JL Smith Associates to new heights. He expanded the agency’s influence and consumer presence throughout several Midwestern states. To this day the JL Smith Associates brand continues to grow. JL Smith Associates has expanded their operations to include offices on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi and Louisiana.
In 2005 Mr. Smith decided to expand his reach within the insurance industry beyond JL Smith Associates. This led to the creation of JLS Marketing Concepts, JLS Sales Academy, and JLS Thrive. Throughout his career, Mr. Smith has enjoyed numerous successes and is well known to be a superior salesman, agency builder, sales trainer and businessman.
In 2014, JLS Sales Academy created a training partnership program, which enabled insurance carriers and other marketing organizations to provide JLS sales training to their agents.
JLS Sales Academy and JLS Thrive have achieved great success in helping both individual agents and agencies increase their sales performance. Our Twenty Six Scenarios, Two Pools of Money and Funnel Agency training is the most comprehensive and impactful sales and agency building training in the industry.
Our goal at The JLS Family of Companies is simple.
Create the most direct path to sales success in the insurance industry and help agents change their lives. If you have recently seen an inspiring and impactful insurance sales training video, then the chances are good, that you have already been exposed to JLS Sales Academy through one of our rebranded video partners.
Mr. Smith and all of us at The JLS Family of Companies are extremely proud of the rich heritage and wealth of knowledge that comes from our roots in sales training and agency building. This unparalleled history has positioned us to help agents across the country achieve a higher level of sales success.
Welcome to JLS Marketing Concepts!