
Mr. Nice Guy Medicare Advisor has been voted a 2023 Neighborhood Fave! Thanks to all my clients who made this happen and nominated me! We are grateful to serve you and for the recognition š
Randy Hall, Mr. Nice Guy Medicare Advisor
Medicare Insurance for Middle and West Tennessee
By Randy Hall
Mr. Nice Guy Medicare Advisor has been voted a 2023 Neighborhood Fave! Thanks to all my clients who made this happen and nominated me! We are grateful to serve you and for the recognition š
By Randy Hall
Growing up as a kid in Detroit in the 1980ās and 90ās I dreamed about being several things: a sportscaster or sportswriter, a DJ (someone on the radio, think Wolfman Jack), an actor. As I got a little older some of these things lost their luster or I never seriously pursued the paths it wouldāve taken to do any of these professions.
Probably like many kids and adolescents I had adults trying to entice or pique my curiosity with ārealisticā life paths along the way. āRandy you could be a doctor!ā, āhow would you like to be a teacher?ā or my great grandma, whom we called Oma, had me ticketed to be a Catholic priest! In high school my guidance counselor half-heartedly recommended I be a salesperson of some sort, which ironically, came the closest to where I find myself today.
Through happenstance I found myself being a Medicare broker in my mid-30ās in 2010. Like most of things I did to earn a living to that point in life it wasnāt the most intentional of paths. It just sort-of happened and I happened to be good at it.
Recently one of my colleagues told me a stat that sort of startled me. Within the first two years of getting their insurance license 92% of health insurance agents fail, i.e. leave the business and go back to working a regular job. Within the niche of selling Medicare, itās right along those lines as well with a whopping 7-8% of those who start this line of work making it to Year 3!
So here I am in Year 14 of my career as a Medicare broker, and I wondered āWhy me?ā What was it about me that allowed me to not only survive, but thrive in this industry? Then it came to me that just about every job Iāve ever had until now was good training for working for myself and being a Medicare expert. As a person of faith, it became apparent to me that maybe I was led down this path and meant to be Mr. Nice Guy Medicare Advisor.
Growing up in Detroit my family were blue-collar and not wealthy by any means. This meant if I wanted to get anything more than the basics, I had to go earn money at an early age. The summer before my eighth-grade year I got up at an unholy hour to help my Dad on his newspaper delivery route to earn $3 or $4 per day. And once school started back, Iād help him on Sunday mornings for $5. Even in 1988 this wasnāt much money. Still, it showed me how hard my dad was working to make a living.
The following year I was old enough to start caddying at the local country club, Plum Hollow in Southfield, MI which was about 2 miles from where I grew up in Northwest Detroit. My uncles had been caddies there a decade or so prior to me. Also, one of my best friends and his sister already were lugging golf bags there, so I had an in.
The first year was rough as there were plenty of times Iād show up and either not get out or wait for hours before getting picked. Still, the pay was so far-and-away better than what my dad paid and the work so much easier (relatively speaking) that I was glad to do it.
What I came to realize was that it was a natural weeding-out process in a sense. Once you were an experienced caddie (they had ranks, and it took a year to go from newbie to captain and still another year and a certain number of rounds to become an honor caddie) golfers would request you or if the caddie-master knew you were good theyād set you up with the better paying golfers and get you out quickly. The rookie caddies (labeled āslashesā by their more experienced peers) had to pay their dues. If you were a āslashā life was much more difficult. But if you could weather-the-storm and come out the other side, you had it made, relatively speaking.
My second season as a caddie I got very fortunate and hooked on with a guy named Mr. Dan McDonald and became his permanent caddie for much of the next 5-6 years. There was a kid who was a senior in high school named Brad who was his caddie who was about to age out of the program, and I wisely ingratiated myself to him.
Pretty quickly we had an arrangement that heād let me know when he was playing next and if I could be there, Iād caddy for him. Mr. McD, as I called him then, was a guy who owned a heating-and-cooling business and was a self-made guy who reminded me of many of the strong Catholic men Iād met growing up at church and going to a Catholic school, including my own grandfather. But he had a multi-faceted personality and big heart and taught me many things directly and indirectly.
For those whoāve read the Robert Kiyosaki book āRich Dad, Poor Dadā, he wouldāve been my ārichā Dad. During the prime golf playing months in Southeastern Michigan (April through October) and especially on summer breaks, Iād see Mr. McD more than my real father seemingly. Through him I got to see several things that were absent in my own life. He and his wife Mary had a fun, yet serious, marriage. My own parents were not aligned, to put it kindly.
He also was a successful businessman a good model for an adolescent like me. He made owning your own business and working for yourself look obtainable and not a struggle.
Through the years (I was his caddie for six golf seasons) he imparted a ton of wisdom both in terms of explicit words and mainly in his deeds. He treated me like one would treat their own kid (respectfully of course) and even when he was hard on me, it was clear it was because he cared. He was just an excellent human being, and he did this for multiple caddies over his time. I was very lucky to be one of them.
The next occupation was being a busboy and waiter. Once I got a car, I was mobile and able to work after school. Thatās the rub, once you have transportation it made it necessary to work to pay for said transportation. So firstly, I worked at the same country club I caddied at my senior year of high school once the weather turned (September and October).
My very first day on the job I was quickly introduced to the world of foodservice and christened the occasion by spilling about six fully loaded glasses of water on one of the guests due to not being able to balance a full-tray on my first day. Talk about being thrown from the fire into the frying pan immediately! I didnāt have much time to process the trauma as I immediately had to figure out how to get food out to guests and then remove the plates once they were done with them. At 17 this was an entirely new concept to me.
Anyhow, I was part of a crew of other busboys (several also caddies like me) so I learned the value of teamwork and having to serve under the waiters and waitresses whom it was my job to assist. You know, basic stuff they really donāt teach you in school.
I left the country club and wound up taking a job at a family restaurant near my home in the winter as there wasnāt enough hours at the country club to make it worth my while post-Christmas and I needed money consistently.
They hired me as a busboy too, but within a week they determined I had the personality to be a waiter instead. This was my first experience in the workplace of promotion, which was a vaguely gratifying feeling, along with a bit of a pay-bump.
If youāve never waited on the public let me, tell you: itās a bit of an education. Youāll meet all kinds of people, and you can tell much about others from how they treat the ones who serve them. Good, bad and ugly.
Me being a people-pleaser already, I also had it beaten into me at Catholic school to be submissive and conscientious, so being a waiter was a mixed bag for me. Once I got good at it, I had many folks who would come in and request me to wait on them, which was great. What wasnāt so great was those who were jerks to me and I didnāt have the life-experience to realize the problem was almost always them and not me. On the plus side, it did give me the life-experience to deal with all different types of folks and really connected with many of the customers whom I got to know.
Throughout my 20ās I was a waiter at family restaurants, the Ritz Carlton, Macaroni Grille, and a few other fine-dining restaurants. It taught me people skills, coping skills and how to work hard. All-in-all a definite net positive.
When I was 23, I started dating a girl who I worked with at the family restaurant with who actually set me on a course of the Monday through Friday, 9-to-5 type job that is the backbone of our white-collar American society. She was the first person to get me to seriously question the direction of my life in the restaurant industry and through her friends got me to be a file-clerk at a mid-size accounting agency where Iād have a salary (a crappy one, but hey, I was young š), some medical benefits and have the weekends to myself for the first time since childhood.
There were some stark differences between this slice of corporate America and the restaurant business. Instead of being tipped, where effort and attitude typically correlated to better pay, here you had to ingratiate yourself to management to have an easier path as a worker. My manager, Jeanie, was quite the character, but not a fun or easy manager to work under. I quickly figured out that a bad manager could make a job that wasnāt that bad feel like it was akin to forced labor. Me, being someone who likes to give people the benefit-of-the-doubt, especially those in authority positions at that age, it took me awhile to work out an exit strategy, in the form of another promotion.
While doing my job better than any of the other file clerks within weeks, I got to know the manager of the secretaries (administrative assistants for those who prefer that term), a nice lady named Lori, and befriended many of the accountants with my positive outlook and can-do attitude.
Without getting too much in-the-weeds of interoffice politics of this firm, I found an opportunity to become an administrative assistant quickly and not have to deal with Jeanie but be supervised by Lori instead and get a pay raise. At this point I got see how a job that wasnāt glamorous was made fun by someone who was your advocate in Lori. While I had no formal training in being an administrative assistant she taught me specifically what I needed to know and trusted that Iād grow into the role and give it my all, which I did.
Being an administrative assistant taught me how to navigate a more professional environment and how to organize my time and energy way more efficiently, as I was thrown into the deep end during tax season at this accounting firm. I also learned many of the tricks and ways to conduct yourself I use today to conduct myself in a professional manner, but also to work with others. Key was keeping the schedule for several accountants and how to run an appointment in terms of setting it up. In hindsight this was great to learn as Iāve been setting up my own appointments for 14 years now.
After a year plus there, I was fired for a dumb prank that went awry. As horrible as it felt being let go, it served as a springboard to my next work experience, which, is my favorite, other than working for myself. Through a connection of my friend Jeff Hupp, I was hired as an administrative assistant for J. Walter Thompson in downtown Detroit to the Regional Advertising Force department of JWT.
The RAF team wrote, directed and produced all the Ford ads locally and nationally through our department. It was a great place to work, even when I was there at the time and in hindsight. The guys who interviewed and ultimately decided to hire me were John Kmiecik and Jim VanderEyk. They oversaw the copywriters, art directors and producers who were all integral to the creation of the ads we all see on TV. Naturally, I knew next-to-nothing about advertising, but they saw in me a fellow creative (I produced my own local cable TV show with my best friend) who had just enough experience to be able to work with the eclectic bunch of people who constituted their team. In fact, one of the chief reasons they went with me was the nature of the dumb prank that got me fired from the accounting firm and my forthright honesty about it. Talk about taking lemons and making some sweet lemonade!
For a little over six years, I assisted them in facilitating the running of the nuts-and-bolts of the department. Booking travel, processing expense reports, answering phones for the managers, scheduling meetings, and other necessary administrative tasks.
Over the years I met some of the coolest, most remarkable people Iāve ever known and am friends remotely (via Facebook mostly) with to this day. Everybody from Elmore Leonardās song Bill to my fellow administrative assistants, to folks in the accounting department (what is it with me and accountants?). I was blessed to work with excellent folks in an environment that fostered my personal creativity while showcasing my blend of humor and hard-working professionalism to an, on-the-face-of-it, pretty unglamorous job. But they made me feel honored and fulfilled all the years I did it. If I ever wrote a TV show thatās like āThe Officeā-meets- āMad Menā itād be based on the excellent work experience I had there!
Also, in 2001 I became a certified handwriting expert, graphologist, and would moonlight working events by analyzing the cursive handwriting of strangers for āintellectual entertainmentā. This was my first small business. Although I didnāt have enough time to do the graphology full-time, I worked for myself to get word out that I had the requisite skills to be hired by those who were interested in what I had to offer. It was an excellent āside hustleā and part-time, professional work that was a precursor to the job of Medicare broker. I would also analyze someoneās writing the way I analyze someoneās Medicare insurance today!
Come Thanksgiving 2006 my relationship with my longtime girlfriend ended at the exact time my best friend Dan Minard was visiting me after moving to Nashville, TN earlier that year to pursue his musician muse. I had long felt a feeling of stagnation and hated the colder climate of Southeastern Michigan and Dan presented the idea of moving to Tennessee to room with him and making a life change in the warmer environs of Nashville. He correctly pointed out that if I gave it a try and didnāt like the change that I could return to Michigan.
After sleeping on it overnight I felt the impulse to give it a shot. At that point I didnāt have a kid or a significant other to keep me there and if I didnāt do it now, it would more likely be never. I told him Iād give it 2 years and see how it went. If nothing else, it would be a memorable chapter in my life.
I had to wait until I got my tax return refund (thatās how poor I was), but on February 7th, 2007th me and my good friends Tim and Michelle Luttman moved me to Nashville, TN for the grand adventure.
I had no job lined up, but my sister Kathy at the time worked for a temp agency, Kelly Services, that had a Nashville office who set me up with my first assignment at Genworth Financial in their Medicare Supplement division as an agent helpline rep for their agents in the field throughout the U.S. Did I have any experience whatsoever in insurance, let alone Medicare? Absolutely none. But I proved to be a quick study and within a few weeks they offered me the job full-time, at a salary greater than what I made at JWT when I left!
Quickly, with the help of a few great ladies named Joan Maguire and Rose Faulkner, I learned enough about Medicare to be dangerous. As fate would have it, about three or four months into this new job, someone in the Agent Recruiter department got let go, opening a position where Iād be recruiting agents through the US to sell Genworthās Medicare Supplement product. This position was a huge opportunity for me since Iād still have my same salary, but also, Iād get overrides on whatever my agents sold, which turned out to be some real money (at least to me at that point in life).
In the short run it was an opportunity to really improve my income, but in the long run I got to learn the Medicare business intimately and pick the brain of agents who were out there selling and making a living. I befriended many good people who were kind enough to tell me if I got my license, I might make a good agent myself one day.
Well under some initiative my bossesā boss at Genworth had where weād know what the agents we were recruiting were going through, my department of three (including me) were put into a week-long insurance school and then took our life and health license test to become licensed agents ourselves.
I passed and got my license in fall of 2008, which was fortuitous as when Genworth was undergoing financial strain and cost-cutting in January 2010, my entire department (again all 3 of us) was laid off. Eventually things got so bad for Genworth that they sold the whole Medicare Supplement division to Aetna. For the purposes of this story, I was unemployed that fateful day in 2010 with an uncertain future to say the least.
I had spoken to and theorized I could become an independent agent at some point, but I had just gotten married in May 2009, and weād bought our first home in August of that year. My wife had a steady job and encouraged me, since I already had my license, to start talking to my agent buddies and figure out the best way to become an agent.
Quickly, I got licensed with as many Medicare companies as I could and began to buy leads. Due to all my prior experiences, it felt natural being a Medicare agent. Being a caddie and waiter taught me how to work with the public and many kinds of people, from many walks-of-life. Being an administrative assistant taught me how to do the basics of scheduling and how to act professionally. Working in advertising taught me the ins-and-outs of how to market myself. Being a handwriting expert taught me I could run one-man business and be a certified professional. Ā Finally, working as a direct agent recruiter put me in direct contact with the very people who were doing what Iāve been doing for the past 14 years and helped me save years of figuring out many things myself.
Combined with my determination to prove my former employers made a mistake, I committed myself to being the best Medicare agent I could be. The first 2 years were tough (remember that stat that said 92% of people in my industry quit in the first 24 months), but I hung in there and sold enough to get me to the next year until sometime in year 3 I caught a break and enrolled over 150 clients in one enrollment season. At that point I became established enough that I knew Iād be able to sustain myself enough to continue to do this.
Of all the jobs Iāve ever had, this is my favorite one. I have more control over my time and know that Iām truly helping people for a living. Like any profession it has itās good points and bad points, but overall this one is the best combination of pay, job satisfaction, and autonomy. I donāt think most would glamorize or pick this line-of-work but in hindsight it took all the skills and previous experience of mine and combined it into the perfect role for me. As someone wiser than me put it: Joy isnāt getting everything you want, itās enjoying what you create. On second thought, maybe I did come up with that one š!
Who would ever expect to go from this to a Medicare Advisor?!
By Randy Hall
Now that 2023 AEP is underway wouldnāt you rather talk to someone trustworthy about your Medicare options? All of these commercials for Medicare āHelplinesā are mostly classic bait-and-switch. They talk about getting you a ton of money back in your Social Security check, or some other benefit that sounds too-good-to-be true. You want to know if itās what the celebrity spokesman says it is, but have been burned by calling the number on the screen or the online ad before.
If you were to call me, Mr. Nice Guy Medicare Advisor, we give you the truth with none of the hype, or high-pressure sales. If you have the best plan for you, weāll always let you know. But if thereās a way to make your coverage better by either saving you money or getting you more or better benefits, you can find out that as well.
Iām an independent broker and sell all Medicare Advantage plans here in Tennessee. I treat my clients like a friend and advise them as if I were them, if you knew what I know. Just give me a call to ask any Medicare question and see for yourself weāre here to actually āhelpā. No cost or obligation ever.
Call us at: 615-437-4277
By Randy Hall
As it becomes more-and-more apparent that this new, post-Covid 19 world, isn’t going away anytime soon, as an insurance broker one of the main things my clients are asking is: how do I pick the best Medicare plan for me? Luckily, as their current agent, they already know what I’m all about and they can trust my guidance and advice. If you don’t have an agent and are getting all kinds of mail or don’t trust the ads on TV, know that my advice is free and I go the extra mile for all my clients when they need me.
What if you’re new to Medicare either by age or soon-to-be-retired, so you’re unsure where to start or what to do. Selfishly I’m going to encourage you to reach out to me, Mr. Nice Guy Medicare Advisor, aka Randy W. Hall and tell me your situation. I’m willing to meet you one-on-one (wearing a mask of course), as I’ve always done. However, with seniors being the most vulnerable to the coronavirus, I definitely understand that may be a scary thought. So if you’re wanting to give me a call (615-578-5174) or would like to meet through Zoom or FaceTime, I’m more than happy to assist you with your Medicare options however you feel comfortable or prefer.
My dedication to keeping up on Medicare changes, offering all the major companies and offer an education-based approach to you and have over a decade of experience. My goal is to help you find the best plan for you, always. I also refuse to use pressure in the sales process (I hate high-pressure sales tactics) and am willing to explain things in the easiest way for you to understand.
Just know that if you’re unsure of how to look for Medicare insurance this year, look no further and give me a call. I’ll treat you to a professional, personal and easy-to-understand presentation. That way you can throw out all the junk mail you’ll be getting and not have to talk to someone in another country or different state and deal with someone you can trust. I’m A+ rated on the Better Business Bureau and have hundreds of happy clients already. This new world we find ourselves in now is confusing and hard-to-navigate enough. Let the Nice Guy make sure you get your Medicare Insurance right!
By Randy Hall
Mr. Nice Guy Medicare Advisor, aka Randy W. Hall, is here to educate and serve you for your Medicare option needs
We always were, but it doesn’t make for as snazzy a headline :)! Throughout this pandemic I’ve learned all the in’s-and-outs of doing my presentations over-the-phone, on video and everything-in-between. Thankfully most carriers have updated to the 21st century and are allowing us to enroll people for Medicare plans online. Many already were, but others were slow to the game or made it a pain-in-the-butt.Ā Now, it’s far easier to do business over the computer.
Anyhow, I’m still doing some face-to-face appointments (outdoors with a mask on, so far), but 90% has been remotely. Depending on if you’re looking to lower your Medicare Supplement rate, get the details on 2022 & 2023 (soon) plans, turning 65 and don’t-know-where-to-start, retiring and getting on Medicare for the first time or have a general Medicare question and need some guidance, I, the Nice Guy (aka Randy W. Hall), am here for you. With a mission to serve and educate I’ve helped thousands in TN and KY figure out the best Medicare plan for them, or let them know they already had the best one.
As always, I hate high-pressure sales tactics and will always give you the best guidance I can without being “sales-sy” (my word for an ingenuine creep who’d con his own Mom for a buck). So if you want to hear it straight while being told the pros AND cons of the various Medicare options, give me a call at 615-578-5174. Operators (well, me) are standing by! š
By Randy Hall
Itās been way too long since Iāve been able to write an article for the website. I wish I could tell you it was simply me being lazy and Netflix-and-chilling. It’s been a time for learning lessons here at the Hall household during Quarantine of 2020. In actuality, Iāve been tied up helping my wife adjust to working-from-home while we have all three of our young children, ages 7, 4 and 18 months, be home due to school being cancelled and daycare being for essential workers until just this week. Now that the 2 young ones are in daycare for several days-a-week Iām able to provide this article, so lucky you š.
Now, Iām not complaining or venting, in fact the point of this is to do the opposite. It has made me realize how lucky I am that due to being a Medicare broker that my family is afforded the luxury of me being able to be there for them in a daily capacity. For so many worldwide, the strain of having to work-from-home while home-schooling, babysitting and non-stop being around your family is a recipe for disaster and poor mental health. It’s clear to me that quarantining is not healthy for the vast majority of us.
Because I can serve my clients by phone and we didnāt have this happen during my busy season, (October 1st through December 7th) Iāve been able to enroll and do my job remotely when time calls for it. My wife, who has a more demanding job than me, and I have been able to coordinate and cooperate to make sure we can keep those plates spinning š. All 5 of us here have been able to social distance responsibly and not put ourselves, or the people we interact with, in harms way. All of us are totally healthy, most thankfully.
The biggest thing Iāve learned during this Quarantine of 2020 has been to be grateful. Grateful for our circumstances being about as good as one could expect in a time of crisis. Grateful our marriage has been a true partnership and has not only survived through this, but actually deepened. Grateful for our kids and having a special opportunity to see them grow and be around them much more at such a critical, impressionable age. Is it neat, clean and easy? Absolutely not, but itās been awesome to witness them and take in the small, daily interactions that help bond a family, both individually with each one and collectively as a small gang. Another cool off-shoot of this was our extended family started to do a Zoom call every week so we could all check-in on each other, since we couldnāt be together in the same rooms.
It also has taught me not to take my current clients for granted. Without them using me as an agent we couldāve been financially strapped and stressed while we waited for the okay to come out the last three months. Because of them and how this business works (residuals as opposed to getting a paycheck), we were minimally affected. Also, due to referrals and word-of-mouth of my clients Iāve been able to sign up and help by phone and over Zoom just about the same amount of folks I typically help during a non-enrollment period. Without my clients telling their friends and family about The Nice Guy itās unlikely that wouldāve been the case.
This has made for some non-stop days and nights, mainly due to the 18-month old needing constant supervision, but things have been happy and healthy for the most part. This has also helped give me the gift of acceptance. The Stoics always spoke of only investing yourself emotionally into things you had control over and this situation has really helped illustrate that point to me. Would I have chosen to be stuck at home 24/7 with my family for months? Would I have lit the economy on fire and left millions of Americans wondering about where their next meal is coming from? Or if someone coughs or sneezes wondering if itās going to kill someone down-the-line? A most resounding ānoā. Still, nobody ran it by me or any of us. We had to subvert ourselves to the circumstances for the greater good whether we were ready or not.
So given this setup, I chose, personally, to embrace it for what it was and got quite a bit out-of-it. Writing this may be a bit premature given we may not be out-of-the-woods yet, but if we have to do this whole mess again, Iāll make the same decision. To accept and embrace the things I can control and change (mostly my outlook and attitude toward the situation), and make the most of it. Trying to do much more than that seems like a foolish pursuit and I donāt know about you, but my Mom didnāt raise a fool! š Speaking of which: Hey Mom, we miss you!