PHP Agency
PHP Agency

Meet Jennifer Bet-David of PHP Agency in Addison

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jennifer Bet-David.

Jennifer, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I grew up in a small town called LaPorte, Texas, about thirty minutes outside of Houston. I do not come from money or an affluent family, and I never went to a major college. I was a country girl who spent her summers riding horses and hanging out at the barn. During high school, I got the modeling bug after entering the Ms. Houston pageant. I qualified to enter the Ms. Texas pageant, but declined and decided to go to acting school instead. After doing some commercials and modeling jobs in Houston, I decided that I ultimately wanted to pursue a career in Hollywood. At 20 years old, I landed a job working for Oakwood Apartments & Corporate housing.

I was thrilled to begin a career at Oakwood because they had a huge presence in the Los Angeles area, which is where I needed to be, so I moved out to LA at 21-years old. I pursued the Hollywood dream for about a year and a half and decided it was not all that glamorous. I wanted to be someone important, and I wanted to make real money. Most actors are starving and make a living waiting table; I did not want that life. I decided I would get my real estate license, and after a short stint in real estate, I was recruited to an insurance agency in Encino, CA. When I got involved with insurance, I knew I had finally found my niche. I worked for the agency as a top producing agent before I was eventually promoted to a broker, supervising a team of agents.

When I first started at the agency in Encino, I had to take a training course, which is where I met Patrick Bet-David. My husband, Patrick, and I were friends and worked alongside each other for five-and-a-half years before we went on our first date. We dated for a year and a half before we were married, and three months later we decided to leave the agency and start our own company.

In 2009, we started our own agency in Northridge, CA with one office and 66 agents. Today, we have 110 offices (growing every day) with over 12,000 contracted life insurance agents spread throughout the country. Although I started my insurance career as an agent that serves clients, I have worn every hat that our start-up company required of me. I’ve done payroll & processed commissions, licensing & contracting of our agents, marketing and corporate merchandising, planned major conferences, implemented every software program we have ever used, as well as hired and trained new departments to expand our corporate support. My husband has always been the visionary behind our company, and I have always been a logical thinker, expressing to him the importance of systems and technology. He’s told me a thousand times, without the systems and technology that I implemented, we would never have grown to be the company we are today!

Patrick also hosts Valuetainment, the #1 channel on YouTube for Entrepreneurs. He is an online celebrity, and because he is such a huge personality, fans always want to know more about his wife and family life. This request had led me to do several guest appearances. I released a video, “How to date an Entrepreneur,” on Valuetainment, and until this day, when I meet people that have watched Patrick’s channel, they mention they love that video and that they have shared it with their spouse. I also speak at his annual entrepreneur conference, “The Vault.” My husband and I do a Q&A session with the audience that covers how we work together as husband and wife (aka, The power couple). With me being a MOM, the wives always ask, “How do you do what you do with three kids?” And the most famous question of all, “How do you manage being married to Patrick, the super A-type personality?” The audience loves our story and the success that we have to work together as a couple.

We have a lot of fun doing what we do together. Today at PHP, my official title is Executive Vice President of Agency Operations, which involves me being the primary source of business intelligence for all items related to technology and enterprise software systems. I act as a liaison between PHP and our partnered insurance companies, as well as third-party vendors. On top of my day to day role, I created a women’s initiative within my organization to inspire other women to get involved in our industry. It’s called the PHP Ladies! The idea is to support women in business, inspire them to go after their dreams and compete to win!

In addition to these responsibilities, I have been the PHP ambassador of numerous charity campaigns that we have supported over the last decade. With these efforts, as an organization, PHP has donated over $500,000 to charity campaigns all over the country. We are big believers in supporting and giving back to our communities. In summary, I guess you can say that I’ve been busy for the past ten years. Somehow, we still found time to have three beautiful children; our son, Patrick (seven), Dylan (six), & our daughter, the baby, Senna(three). I believe we are extremely blessed to have the opportunities that we have today. My husband and I build a business together, our kids go to a great school, and we travel the world with friends because we have put in decades of hard work.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It has not been a smooth road. We started our company from scratch and had nothing in place. We didn’t even have an insurance company contract or an entity license when we started. We have 4 employees to support our agents and that included me. We were the typical starter company with no investors and no system. We started the company with our own personal savings and with only the expertise and knowledge of my husband and I.

Please tell us about PHP Agency.
PHP Agency is an insurance agency that represents several insurance companies such as National Life Group, AIG, American National Life Insurance, Mutual of Omaha, John Hancock, Lincoln Financial, Columbus Life and many more.

We have contracted agents that are supervised by our Broker in a local office with are spread throughout the country.

Our company is very diverse representing people from all nationalities. The typical insurance agent in our industry is a white male in his 50’s. Our average agent is a 31-year-old Hispanic female. Our agency is also 53% female which is also not normal in insurance.

We look and act very different from what you find in the insurance industry. We are young and hip! We are big on social media and we love technology. Our annual conferences are like a rock concert. We have had big-name celebrities at our previous events as keynote guests, such as Kobe Bryant, Former President George W. Bush, comedian Kevin Hart, Jordan Peterson, Billie Beane (Money Ball Story), Magic Johnson, James Worthy, & many more.

Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
Being at the barn, riding horses, and going to the horse races. My parents would let me ride with my friends all day. We’d be gone for hours and they never even worried about us. That’s the benefit of growing up in the rural area.

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