Martin Calhoun Named National Sales Director, Senior Markets for Heartland’s Newly Acquired One Life America
MERIDIAN – June 25, 2018 - With a goal of helping substantiate One Life America the industry leader in Senior Markets, Martin Calhoun has been named One Life’s National Sales Director. The announcement of Calhoun’s appointment was made today by Scotty Elliott, One Life’s President and Heartland Financial Group’s Chief Distribution Officer.
“I’m very excited about this unique opportunity,” Calhoun, an 18-year veteran of the insurance industry, said. “Chris McDaniel (Heartland owner), Todd Hill and Scotty Elliott have a vision for Heartland and One Life to be the best in the industry in serving seniors, and I have no doubt that I can help make that vision a reality.”
In his new role, Calhoun will work under the direction of One Life’s Chief Sales Officer, Scott Glanton, to help support the lofty growth plans of expanding One Life’s career agency footprint across the nation. He plans to provide agents with such strong support that they choose to carve out a long-standing career with One Life.
Calhoun comes to One Life with an incredible resume of success in the insurance industry, having owned and operated a nationally recognized Farmers Agency from 2000-04 and later helping to construct a national FMO from the ground up, training agents all over the country. He managed this feat while leading from the front in personal production, claiming Transamerica’s Agent of the Year award in 2017.
Calhoun, a resident of the Atlanta, GA area, describes himself as a “self-educated man.” “I grew up in an economically challenged environment,” he recalled. “I started working when I was 10 years old and barely graduated from high school. A noted motivational speaker named Jim Rohn (who mentored, among others, Tony Robbins) changed my life. He schooled me in making a living, that you can either do it with your back or your brain. And, you know, backs don’t last very long.”
Developing a quest for knowledge, Calhoun routinely read two to three books a week and now has a personal library of over 2,000 volumes, not to mention other media.
“I learned as a young man through observation that there’s hardly anything that doesn’t involve insurance, whether it’s your car, boat, home or your life,” Calhoun noted. “Insurance is either going to be required by your bank or the law or just as a matter of personal responsibility. Therefore, somebody out there is making money on insurance in anything you observe. So, selling insurance is a matter of getting in the way of that money.”
In pursuing senior markets, Calhoun will be focusing on life, Medicare supplements, annuities and senior health products. He will be headquartered in his hometown of Atlanta but will be traveling extensively, recruiting and training agents across America.
To be successful, Calhoun emphasized, an agent has to be filled with self-belief. “I don’t mind saying that I’m very good at selling insurance,” he said. “In fact, I am one of the best insurance salesmen in the world. That’s precisely the mindset one needs to employ to be successful in our industry and I aspire to help shape that mindset in all of our associates.”
One of Calhoun’s major motivations is his family. He and wife Ateka are the proud parents of four daughters, ranging from 12 to 25 years old. “I’m getting them off the payroll one at a time,” he laughed. “Our oldest just graduated from college and the second-oldest will be a senior in college. A third has just been accepted at Georgia State.”
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About Heartland Financial Group
Heartland Financial Group (HFG), headquartered in Blue Springs, MO, is one of the nation’s leading independent distributors of life and health insurance products focused on serving the Senior Market. HFG develops and distributes life and health insurance products with insurance carrier partners and markets these products through its distribution network, which includes a career base of agents, partner IMOs and call centers. HFG has over 150 employees and a network of over 50,000 agents nationwide. HFG presently generates over 500 million of annual premium across the enterprise. You can learn more about HFG at www.hfgagents.com.
Media Contact:
Tegan Harrison
Public Relations
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816-878-9747
Partnership Inquiries:
Tegrey Moot, Chief Marketing Officer
Heartland Financial Group
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602-820-8470
