You just joined an agency — what's actually yours to do
Most of what looks like setup was done before you arrived and is not on your account. One thing is genuinely yours, and skipping it is why some agents' booked rate looks worse than their selling.
Who this is for
Anyone who was invited into an existing agency rather than building one — which, in a captive agency, is everyone except the admin.
The short version
Connect your calendar. Claim your texting number. Everything else on the setup screens belongs to your agency, not to you.
If you read nothing else: the calendar is the one that costs you money if you skip it.
Why the calendar is not a nice-to-have
The AI books appointments on your behalf. It can only avoid times you are busy if it can see your calendar.
With no calendar connected it does not stop — it falls back to generic slots and books blind. So a lead says 'Thursday at 2' and gets an hour you are already committed to, and nothing anywhere reports a problem. The appointment also never reaches your phone, because it only ever existed in the CRM.
The usual way people find out is arriving at a double-booked hour, or missing a call they never saw. It reads as bad luck. It is an unconnected calendar.
If Google refuses to let you connect
Some agencies run the calendar connection as an internal app, which means Google will only accept an account on the agency's own domain. If you are trying with a personal address, consent gets refused before you can even pick the account.
That is not something you can work around from your side. Ask your admin for a mailbox on the agency domain, and sign in to the CRM with that address.
Your texting number
If your agency put you on its shared SMS brand — the setting is called Inner Circle, and you may see that word on your member record — claiming a number takes one click and no paperwork. Your compliance page will be titled 'SMS Phone Number Setup' and will just ask you to pick one — there is no registration, no EIN, and no waiting on a carrier. That is the agency's registration doing its job.
The number you pick is for TEXTING. It is not the number you dial from; dialing numbers come from the agency's pool. Asking why you cannot call out from your texting number is the most common next question, and the answer is that it was never meant to.
If you instead see a three-step registration asking for a legal entity and an EIN, stop and ask your admin — you have probably been set up as independent by accident.
What is not yours, and never will be
The telecom account, the 10DLC brand and campaign, the dialing numbers, the billing, the AI's configuration, the branding on outgoing messages. These are on your agency's account.
If you land on one of those screens and it looks unconfigured, that is not a task waiting for you. It is somebody else's account, seen from outside. Do not try to fix it, and do not read it as a sign that something is broken.
Being licensed and appointed is separate
Having a CRM login does not mean you are able to write business. Carrier appointments, your state licence and E&O cover are their own track, and your agency may manage some of it outside this system.
The onboarding track in the Academy lays out the sequence — orientation, contracting, licensing, E&O, training, script test, then leads — and each step gates the next for a real reason. Ask your upline which of these your agency tracks in here and which it does not, rather than reading an empty progress bar as a statement about you.
How this differs by setup
Solo agent You run everything yourself.
Captive agency The agency owns the numbers, the A2P brand and the bill.
- Sign in with the work address your agency issued you.
- Connect your calendar. Do this first, on day one.
- Open the SMS number page and claim your texting number.
- Check the Academy's onboarding track and ask your upline what your agency tracks there.
- Ignore the telecom, compliance and billing screens — they are your agency's account.
Independent agent You're in an agency but buy your own number and register your own EIN.
How to check it worked
- Your integrations page names the Google account you connected.
- A test appointment booked in the CRM appears on your real calendar within a minute.
- A block you add on your calendar stops being offered as an available time.
- You have a texting number assigned to you.
Common mistakes
- Skipping the calendar because it looks optional next to everything else on the screen.
- Connecting a personal Google account that does not hold your work calendar.
- Trying to complete the agency's telecom or compliance setup because the page looks unfinished.
- Expecting to dial out from your texting number.
- Waiting for someone to connect your calendar for you. Nobody can — it is a per-person permission grant.
Related
Where this lives in the app
This is documentation for Virtual Closer. Book a walkthrough or sign in.