Student’s business booms nationwide
Entrepreneurship often isn’t on a student’s radar until after their college years, but for Chris Dixon, a student at Utah State, running a nationwide insurance company is an everyday thing.
“It’s been in the works since two thousand and ten,” said Chris Dixon, a junior majoring in political science and vice president of Blackstone Insurance. “That’s when I started to really do a lot of research on the things that would last through the depression and the recession.”
He said he found through his research that insurance is necessary for United States to function, and because it lasts through time, it can affect a lot of people.
“The main reason I started Blackstone was to help people out, all the people that are unemployed, or even the people that are employed but feeling trapped or in the rat race,” Dixon said.
Dixon said seeing people work hard for other people’s companies made him want to create a company where people could be their own boss.
“I wanted to create a company where people could realistically work their own hours, depending on their own motivation and drive,” Dixon said. “What people are doing is they are building up somebody else’s company, and for what? Why not, with all that effort, build your own company?”
Dixon said he grew up around business and learned a lot from his father.
“I have always been around business, so I felt like I had a good grasp on it,” Dixon said. “I was always around my dad, who is a big entrepreneur, and I learned a lot of things. You could say ‘street smarts.'”
Despite the influence business has in Dixon’s life, he is majoring in political science.
“The real life way is the way that I learned, not from a book, so I felt like I had that,” Dixon said. “I didn’t need to do business, but I wanted to make an impact and I felt like the political arena is the best place to make the biggest impact on the national level.”
Dixon said he plans on staying with Blackstone for many years. He said the baby boomer generation will need insurance at the high rate of retirement in the next twenty years.
“I am going to stick with this because insurance runs the country, and everything depends upon it,” he said. “The product that I am doing caters to senior citizens. We know that for the next twenty years so many people at one time, the baby boomers, are retiring.”
Dixon said the longer he stays with the company, the more the company can grow.
“I want to stay with this and make it as large as I can and employ as many people as I can,” he said. “The ultimate goal is just to have everyone believe that they can do the same thing that I have done.”
Dixon is the Western manager and vice president of the company.
“We are able to reach both the West Coast and the East Coast,” Dixon said. “We have headquarters in both Salt Lake City and South Carolina. Right now we are in thirty states. We have agents in just about all of those states nationwide. We are going to expand maybe into a few more states.”
Other USU students are seeing potential in Chris’s company and recognize potential for the company to grow.
“I was looking for different companies to work for during school and potentially after I graduate,” said Joshua Daniels, a sophomore majoring in business with a minor in entrepreneurship. “I was impressed with Blackstone because of their options for growth both in the company and the expansion from east to west now.”
Dixon said one reason Blackstone has been able to grow at such a fast rate is the setup of their training.
“When you come on board as an agent, you will get your own website where you can put your own info on there,” Dixon said. “Through that website we provide you with the training and everything that you really need to be successful.”
Expectations are being met for people within the company, even when they are not agents.
“I am not an agent. I currently am not in a position to commit to the type of growth happening within the company,” Daniels said. “It met my expectations with the amount of pay I would receive and for the type of work.”
A vision of Blackstone was for people to be successful depending on how much effort they put forward to it.
“The sky’s the limit, to be in a career where there actually is no ceiling,” Dixon said. “Because in Blackstone you are your very own boss, you will not rely on anyone else to give you a raise. You can work harder to get more money.”
Although the company is a business adventure for Dixon, he said it is more about helping people than financial gain.
“It’s not about the money,” Dixon said. “I always believe that if you are doing your best to help other people out the financial aspects will come.”
Dixon said he keeps faith in God as part of his company and believes he is blessed for trying to help other people out.
“God blesses you if you are trying to help other people out sincerely,” he said. “If you try to start a company with the sole purpose in mind of helping people out, you know their backs are against the wall, they are unemployed, then God’s going to throw a lot of blessings your way because of that.”
Dixon said building his company as a full time student has made him more organized when planning out his days.
“Going to USU makes me more disciplined,” Dixon said. “You have to plan out your day every half hour block so that I can get all of it done, all of my schoolwork and business.”
Dixon said the atmosphere of the campus helps him to be disciplined and get connected to other people in different departments.
“The school atmosphere also makes me more disciplined,” Dixon said. “Also, there are a lot of connections through USU through the business department and political science.”
Dixon said he feels USU is supportive of entrepreneurs and wants them to succeed.
“USU really does help young entrepreneurs out,” Dixon said. “They want to see your success.”
– haileehousley@gmail.com