The Hidden Side of Health Insurance Sales — And How Mara Dorne Became the Industry’s Outlier

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We lost everything. We lost six businesses, six months.
The house, the car, the Rolexes, I mean, you name it quick like that.

Like a good wife, I went online trying to lower our household bills and I walk into like this room that looked like a multi-level marketing cam.

He's like, did you ever hear of this term called residual income? I was like, no, what is that?

Look, basically what you have to do, you work really, really hard on the front end and you get to live off the fruits of your labor. It went six months without making a paycheck.

I had this introspective moment of like, it's not everybody out there.

And that's when I went from making no money to making $92,000 in the next six months.

Hey guys, welcome back to a Level Up Podcast. This is Paul Alex.
Guys, thank you once again. We are top three in all categories today.

Today is actually September 2nd, 2025, and we're currently number one in business. Now guys, we have a very special guest here.

She has a very, very

important message for all you female entrepreneurs and male entrepreneurs as well. But she is the host of a podcast called BILF, okay, B-I-L-F, which is phenomenal.
I love the name.

We're going to go into that. She also is currently building her personal brand.
All right. But also, she is a powerhouse.

in the actual health insurance industry for having over 17 years of experience coming from no sales experience guys so for all you naysayers that say hey i don't got no any sales i don't want to do sales this story is for you okay in 2008 she actually lost everything and was she able to come back from rags to riches now and was able to build a life what i like to call life by design okay it's gonna be a phenomenal interview all right welcome to the show how are you i'm good thanks for that intro you made me sound really good i mean you gave me the info so i mean i'm only speaking the truth here but with that being said

to my audience who doesn't know you, number one, introduce yourself and give us a little background on who you are. Sure.
My name is Mara Dorn.

My formal title, which is just a title, really, I am a regional sales leader at an insurance company, a health insurance company. And my background is exactly what you said.

You know, life has a funny way of working itself out, even when you think it's not supposed to. So,

you know, I come from South Florida, so I am born and raised here. And well, not here, here, but a little bit further north.
And, you know, my trajectory is I was supposed to be a lawyer.

That's kind of what I thought I was going to do. I have both a master's degree and an undergraduate degree in criminal justice.

So I thought I was going to be like Aaron Brockovich, who ever remembers who that is, but that's what I thought I was going to do. We do, we do.
Okay, just making sure.

So that's, I, you know, that's where I was headed. And unfortunately, in 2008, when I graduated, the economy had plummeted.
And at that time, I was already newly married.

I had my first child, and we were desolate. We lost everything.
We lost six businesses, six months. We lost the house, the car, the Rolexes.
I mean, you name it, quick like that.

But, you know, at that point, we were very young. I was 25 years old at that point.
And we were drowning. And like a good wife, I went online trying to lower our household bills.

One of the highest bills at that moment were our health insurance premiums, put an inquiry, and this girl comes, she sells me health insurance. I never thought twice about it.

Boss calls me Monday morning and says, hey, you want to come to an interview? I'm like, I thought this was like a quality assurance call. Like they were just checking to see how she did.

And I walk into like this room that looked like a multi-level marketing scam. There was hundreds of people in this room and they were talking about insurance.

And I didn't know, I knew nothing about insurance, zero. And they're going on and on.
I jet out. The guy, he finds me at the end of the hallway.
And he's like, well, what'd you think?

I'm like, absolutely not. There's no way I'm doing sales.
No. And he's like, did you ever hear of this term called residual income? And I was like, no, what is that?

And he's like, look, basically what you have to do, you work really, really hard on the front end and you get to live off the fruits of your labor. I'm like, no, this doesn't sound right.

He's like, I'm telling you, but all you need to do is get your 215, which is your health life and annuities license. And it was a lot more affordable than my master's degree.

So I took a long shot and I started. I started in an industry that I knew nothing about.
I didn't know that it was predominantly white, older male. I had no idea about that.

And I remember like the first day I walk in, I'm young, 25-year-old. I always say, I'm like the hottest no, but I was this young, 25-year-old girl that was, you know, ready to spit fire.

And I just remember the whole room looking at me like this girl's never gonna make it, never.

And I wish that I could tell you that I did really well out of the gate, but that's not the truth. I failed many, many times until, in fact, I went six months without making a paycheck.

Yeah, that's that's amazing. And that's an amazing, amazing story.
So, 2008, you go from losing absolutely everything with your former husband. And at that time, 2008, you're 25 years old.
Yeah. Okay.

Were you a stay-at-home mom and your ex-husband ran the business, or did you guys both run the businesses? I mean, at that, I had just, I was trying to figure out because I was going to school.

So I had just gotten my master's degree. So I thought I was going to law school, but the reason I didn't go is because there was no money.
So he was bringing in the income at that time.

And I was trying to transition and go to law school.

But then 2008 happens, there's absolutely no money to go and what was your mindset during that time i mean you're you're you're a brand new mom you're you just got your master's and you're you were supposed to go to law school you had all these hopes and dreams of of being a lawyer and making it happen and then for all that to get taken away I've spoken to hundreds of entrepreneurs and one thing I consistently see them struggle with is their sales process.

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oh sorry i almost couldn't breathe when i saw the discount they gave me on my first order oh sorry namaste visit 1-800 contacts.com today to save on your first order 1-800 contacts what was your mindset was were were you like okay this is it like i'm screwed like

talk us through that

i at that time you know there was no option i mean that's kind of the way that i grew up that there was no option and i had a child so i knew that no matter what was going to happen i had to take care of my child.

That was like do or die, it didn't matter.

So I just remember thinking, like, this is crazy, but I'll go back to law school. I'm gonna keep going, I'm gonna go.
It doesn't matter.

So when I got into the insurance industry, I was kind of one foot in and one foot out. And that's why I didn't make money for so long.
I wasn't fully bought in.

I'm like, oh, sales, you know, it's very cliche. You know, I didn't grow up.
I grew up either a lawyer or a doctor was a respectable career, not a salesperson. So I was kind of teeter-tottering, like,

you know, I still have other options, when in reality, I had no options. And to go back to

the sales portion,

did you have a mentor growing up?

Was it your parents?

Who basically put you on that mindset of, hey, you either got to be a lawyer

or you're nothing? So my dad died when I was really little. I was six years old when my dad died.
He was 38 years old.

Young guy. Young guy.
Young guy, not healthy, but ends up dying. We're on vacation, Thanksgiving vacation, dies on Thanksgiving.
And I remember coming back like from Atlanta.

We were in Atlanta coming back to Florida and my mom just being like, she, there she was, like she just lost her husband. She's left with this little girl.
And my mom put on the face.

And it was kind of that mentality going forward. Like things happen.
It's really sad. But no matter what happens, you have to get back up.

You got to put your face on and you have to move forward despite, you know, the pitfalls and the downfalls that are going to happen.

So I think I always grew up with that mentality that, yeah, life is going to happen and I experienced it so young, but, you know, what goes down has to come up, right?

When you're at your lowest point, you can only go up from here. So I kind of grew up with that mentality.
So because your mother, your mother instilled that mentality in you. Yeah.

Is your mother your best friend? Best. And my daughter, but yeah.
I love that. Yeah, my mother.
And I'm very close to my mom. My mom was also a single mother, raised me since I was two.

At the end of the day, she was the man. She was the mom, but she showed me everything, right?

She grew me,

she raised me to be tough. Yeah.
She raised me to be hard. My mom, too.
Yeah. Same thing.
Yeah. So

it's good. So shout out to all the mothers out there.
You guys are the hard moms. The hardcore moms.
The hard moms. That's right.

I was the hardcore mom that used to show up in the movie theaters coming down the aisles looking for me when I shouldn't have been there. That was my mom.
She tried to keep you out of trouble.

All the time, yes.

She did a a good job. She did a really good job.
I love that. Okay, so

you had your mom. She was your mentor.
So you had that mindset, that almost like that winning mindset that I am going to win no matter what. So 2008 happens.

You lose everything, but you have a child and you're like, I have to provide for my child. So

you go into the mentality of going into health insurance, but you have one foot in and one foot out. I always say

when that happens with anybody, across the board, we're all humans. But when that happens with everybody, it's almost like you're doing yourself a disservice.
Do you agree? 100% I agree. Yeah.

We have this saying here, you have to burn the boats. Yeah, you have to.
You have to burn the boats and go all in, especially in sales, especially in health insurance. Because it's not easy.

You have to go 100% all in. It's a big risk, but you have to do it.
Otherwise, you'll never, ever succeed, ever. So when was your first big win in health insurance? Do you remember back?

Yeah, of course. Yeah.
I went six months, like I said, without a paycheck. And I'm here six months into this.
And I had an appointment. And at that point, we didn't do anything on the phone.
We drove.

Like, literally had to go.

Yeah,

we had to print out map quests. Like, it was horrible.

Because if I had four appointments and I had to get to appointment D, but I still, but B and C canceled, I still had to go to B and C to get to D. It was horrible.

But nonetheless, I make this appointment, and it's 45 minutes away from my house. Wow.
And I make it, I drive all the way there, right? I drive, and in my mind, I'm like, this is it.

It's either going to happen or it's not. So I drive 45 minutes and I pull up to this house and it's like a dilapidated house.

And at that point, we can only sell people that were insurable, not people that weren't. So this guy comes out completely overweight.
I mean, just, you could tell he was not insurable.

Then I'm like, all right, the wife. So the wife comes behind, right, trucking along behind, worse.

So now I walk away with no check, because at that time we took a check. I walk away with no check, my ego completely bruised.
And I get in the car and I'm like, I'm done. This is it.
I'm done.

This is it. I'm done.
You're sitting in the car. You're like, I'm done.
I can't do it. I'm like, I'm done.
I'm out of it. So I call my mentor, who's my best friend at the time.

I call her, or it still is, Trena. I call, Traina, I'm done.
I'm done. I'm done.
She's like, all right, okay. She's like, let's just walk through the appointment real quick.
Like, what happened?

She's like, Mara, did you realize that it was 45 minutes away? I said, nope, didn't do that. She goes, Mara, did you pre-qualify them before you went? Nope, didn't do that either.

She said, Mara, you know, you have another product that you could have sold them for uninsurable people. Nope, didn't do that either.

So I hung up the phone and that's when, you know, I had this introspective moment of like, oh, you know, you have this clarity that it's not everybody else. It's you.
Yeah. And that was it.

I went from making no money to making my first year. I made $92,000 in the next six months.
And what year was that? That was in

2009, I think.

2009 to make over $90,000. That is for real.
At the end of the year, yeah. Oh, yeah.
That's, that's, that's good money. That's good money back then.
At the time I was like, yeah, oh, yeah.

At that time, it was great money. Yeah, I saved my family.
Thank yeah, thank because that was it. That was a turning point for me.
I knew it.

I went all in, and that's when I climbed the entire ladder, went door to door. Then I ended up building teams.
Now here I am, 17 years later.

I was the second person to eclipse a billion dollars in team production in my company. That's what I'm talking about.
Yeah, I built teams all over the U.S.

I have offices everywhere, and that's what I'm doing. I love that.
I love that. So let's go back.

back into the beginner stages of this, especially because a lot of people that listen to this, typically they listen to the level up because they're trying to level up their mindset. Yeah.
Right.

They're trying to start entrepreneurship. They're trying to go ahead and start something to build financial freedom just like you did for your family and kids, right? Right.

So what would be some key needle movers, okay, if you were to talk to your old self in those six months that you didn't make money, what would be three big needle movers that you would tell yourself that you now know after doing a billion dollars in revenue off of health insurance?

I would say, get ready, you're going to fall. Not once, not twice, nothing.
I mean, it's going to be endless.

You're going to continue to fall, but as long as you take those lessons and you use them to build, then you've won. It's never a fail.
Never, it's a success. That was number one, I would say.

Number two, I would say what kills me is that people are willing to work 60 hours for someone else, but won't put the same 60 hours in for themselves. I don't understand that.

Makes no, no, no sense to me. I love that.
And the last thing I would say is don't be scared about commission. Never be scared.
That does not, that's not, yes, I get it.

It's a scary term, but what is salary? Salary means cap. Commission is endless possibility.
Wow.

So taking extreme ownership, going ahead and being accountable. Yeah.
You're a big believer in that. Huge.
Okay. Not everybody else.
And what would you say takes

to build a winning culture?

I would say culture, you need buy-in from everybody and you have to really believe in people. You know, no matter what happens, it's not about the me.

When you take on something more and you're trying to build a sales force, it no longer you have to have a vision greater than yourself and a purpose far greater than your own.

And you have to know that the people have to come first in your culture. And when they feel it and they believe that you're there at 100% for them, that's when the culture takes on.

And it's giving back. Like we have a model called hope, helping other people every day and servitude.
You have to serve your people. It's not uncommon to find my salespeople in my house.
It's not.

And it's not for any other reason, but when I want to show somebody that I really want to take care of them, what do I do? I bring them to my house and I cater to them. That's a big thing for me.

I love that. You know, I have a very similar concept.
I mean, you've been in entrepreneurship way longer than I have.

I've been in entrepreneurship for the past five years now, but One thing that's really worked where I can always say has built my navy seals of my teams, right?

Has been actually having them move into with me, even with my wife. I was like, that's a little risky.
I've done it. I've done it, but it's really risky.

It is risky, but obviously they have to have a little bit of experience with my company. Like, I have to know them, build a relationship first.
I'm not just going to get, you know, a random

initial employee, but somebody that's like really had some skin in the game. Like, I see they're investing in themselves.

I see that they need that mentorship one-on-one, right? Because they probably don't come from a family of entrepreneurs, right?

So, the ones that I have been able to do that with, um, it's been a winning recipe for me every single time because they literally see that and they feel that, and they're like, dude, this person cares for me.

And then they put those beliefs and core values into everyone else, right? So, so I'm a big believer in that. So, you have three beautiful children.
I do. Okay.
I do.

So, so let's talk about motherhood and entrepreneurship now. Yeah, let's go ahead.
Let's talk about it. Let's go ahead and talk about it.

So, what would you say is one of the key characteristics that it takes for you to be not only a successful entrepreneur, but also be there for your kids? I would say forget the word balance.

Like, people use that word so often, balance. I don't even know what balance means.
I have no idea what that even means.

All I know is that I'm trying to have both, you know, go in tandem, and it never does. You know, when the kids are doing great, the business is falling.
But, you know,

what I try to do to

balance, you know, whatever that means, but to

get them both going is I like to incorporate one with the other. You know, thank God.
And that's the beauty about being an entrepreneur is that you have the availability to bring the kids to work.

You know, so I don't really care. And the other thing I would say is I don't really care what other people have to say about me.
I went through a long time of mom shaming.

Oh, you're working all these hours. Well, yeah,

I am. And, you know, keeping your your kids in daycare, I probably was the last parent to pick up my kid.
Absolutely. But stop listening to the noise and the naysayers.
Just stop.

And both, once you weed that out and you know that there's no such thing as balance, I think they work together.

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Savor responsibly. Yeah.
And I love the fact how like direct and open that you are.

You know, I meet a lot of entrepreneurs, but the fact that you own up to like

mistakes or yeah. I just don't care.
What you see is what you get. No, which is good.
Which is good. You know, I I always tell people, hey, just be open, close mouths, don't get fed.
Yeah.

At the end of the day, and own it. Be real.
Own it. Own it.
Own it. It doesn't matter.
Am I the perfect mom all the time? I would like to think, but that's not true. I'm not.

I'm dropping the ball just like everybody else. I'm going through the common struggles.
You know, am I the perfect boss all the time? Probably not. No, but again, it's ownership.

You know, I want to be better. I try to be better.
There's no such thing as perfect. Give yourself grace.
And people don't want to give themselves grace. I love that.
You have to give yourself grace.

So now that you've been able to, I guess, create such a name for yourself in the health insurance, what is your plans with personal branding?

You know, one thing for me in the health insurance space is being in a male-dominated space. That was a big thing.
I don't even think I realized it was male-dominated until years later.

I just worked with people. But when I see that there's not that many women working in the space, it really hurts my little heart.

So one thing I'd like to do is continue to empower women, young women, that they can do anything that they want. I love the Nike slogan, just do it.

And our, you know, our biggest, our biggest critics are ourselves. We get in the way of ourselves all the time.
So that's my next step is to continue to empower women.

I mean, everybody, but primarily women, young women. Yeah.
I mean, you got to focus on one niche, and that's fine. So let's talk about your podcast now, BILF.
What does that stand for?

Boss, I'd like to follow. I love that.
Boss, I like to follow. And then what do you talk about in your your podcast? We talk about everything.
I mean, we talk about, it's a pretty authentic.

I like authenticity. So, you know, when someone comes on, we talk about things that we probably shouldn't talk about.

You know, the misnomades that you can't, it's sometimes inappropriate, but it's real. It's raw.
If somebody's trying to promote their business, I want them to talk about their business.

And it can be a boss in any right. So we've had a whole gamut of different people come on.
I love that. You have the podcast going on.
You have the health insurance experience.

I mean, you have all the social proof. Why haven't you started either a consulting agency or a coaching program?

I'm serious. Because there's so many coaches out there.
And if I'm going to do something, I want to differentiate myself and I want to give true value. Yeah.

And until I, you know, until I'm at a point where I can give true value and I differentiate myself from everybody else, then I don't feel comfortable doing that yet.

I mean, I don't think I've heard of one female entrepreneur, correct me if I'm wrong, female entrepreneur that has done over a billion dollars in revenues and has built sales teams, has children.

Layla Mosey, she's done good yeah she has but the thing is layla is in a different niche yeah that's the thing right and also she's built everything from like gym launch to uh supplement companies with alex right yeah so it is a different niche yeah you're right you're right and i always tell this look

you and layla can can actually be in the same industry does that mean that her audience is going to buy from you and your and her your audience is going to buy from hers no right everybody's attracted to different people and there's more than enough people out there and that's the thing you know it comes down to owning it right i think you i think you have a massive opportunity i mean i've me myself i've worked with so many people that have less and they've made more in consulting because of their experience but i mean you you have the the the keys to success right here honestly i just don't want to end up on that podcast with or not the podcast the ig where they make fun of all these people that are ballerbusters yes i don't want to do that

Typically. I don't want to end up there.

I think typically with them, they target people more like, let's say you're 21 years old. Yeah.
And you're showing the cars.

Come on. At the end of the day, we're in Miami.
Yeah. Who doesn't have one of those cars, right?

So, I mean, as long as you're more real, I think you'll be more than fine. I appreciate that.
Maybe soon to come. Yeah, you should.
Really think about it.

But with that being said, where can our audience actually find you? Well, you can find me on the BILF pod,

on YouTube, on Spotify, on on Apple. You'll find me there.
You can also find me at Mara Dorn. You can find, you can go to my website, maradoran.com.

I mean, just type in Mara Dorn, M-A-R-A-Z-O-R-N-E, and you'll find me. Love it.
And then a few words of encouragement to have people level up in 2025.

I would just say exactly what I said before, just do it. I think Nike said it best.
They have the best slogan in the entire world. It's just do it.
Nothing is stopping you, but you. Absolutely.

And that's the level up, guys. Leave a five-star review on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.
Thank you again for the 4 million downloads back in August.

We're looking to shoot to 5 million downloads. Nice and steady Wednesday race, guys.
So we're getting there. With that being said, guys, my name is Paul Alex.
This is the level up.

We'll catch you on the next one. Peace.