She Went From ZERO To Owning A Successful Insurance Agency! (Cody Askins & Betsy Barr)

I think we saw very quickly, Cody, Philip and I did, my husband, like we saw really quickly what life insurance could do for a family and for like people in our situation and for others kind of similar to us who had a heart like a. For ministry or maybe for nonprofit work or just someone that wanted something different with their life. Because we were just, we had to completely rebuild ourselves from scratch, you know, and that wasn't something we'd ever anticipated doing. And so we saw how life insurance could really be a vehicle for that. And so we were, we were committed. We were committed to it.

What is going on?

Welcome back to the CA Power Player podcast.

I'm your host, Cody Askins, today's guest. Man, I'm excited because she's not only in Hawaii and crushing it, but her family's also in ministry, which I love and have a huge respect and special place my heart for that as my grandfather was a pastor for decades. They also have a. Thank you. They also have a, a LOHA program which is really cool where they help agents. They had one agent who got three raises in three months and got a lot of support and good culture and started writing consistent business training, 20k month producers all the time, had a million dollar year and won a bunch of impact awards for their agency. And so please welcome. Even though she's normally on with her business partner and some other entities, Javon, we get her all by herself today. Please welcome Betsy.

Thank you, Cody. Oh my gosh, it's so great to, to be on here. Yeah, Just chatting. I've been looking forward to it. Always appreciate you and what you bring to the industry and got to hang out at 8% and I got this cup and it's now my favorite cup.

Ah, amazing. I was actually literally just, well, not that exact one, but it looked just like that one in my house a couple nights ago. You know, it was cool.

It's really great. My kids love to steal my cup, so I told them you're not allowed to steal that one.

You have the rest but you can't have this one.

We'll see how that goes. But yeah, man, excited to be on here sharing about the Aloha program, how it's impacted our family and kind of the ministry that we do here and not just us, but like other agents and that's always been our heart kind of coming into, into this business. So yeah, really excited to share and hopefully it can, you know, other other people can find value and it might be able to help support some other agents out there.

Absolutely. How long have you been in the business?

I have been in the business for about six and a half years. Came in in 2019 at a time when we. We were having to completely reinvent ourselves. Cody. So I, I grew up as a missionary kid. My parents were missionaries. My dad's a pastor. My grandfather was pastor and a missionary as well. So that's just kind of. Honestly, that's always what I wanted to do with my life. That's what my husband also had a passion for. So we literally thought, you know, we were living overseas in China. I was teaching at an international school. I was a high school math teacher. I was an administrator. And man, we were. When I say we were living our dream, like, our kids were in Chinese preschools. They were fluid. They came to the international school. Like, everything for us was like, this is what we have literally dreamed about since we were like 10 years old. All right? And we're living it. It's wonderful. Except for one thing. My husband was getting sicker and sicker and sicker every single day. And, you know, we kept on being like, well, we can press on, you know, suffer for the sake of Jesus, you know, all that. But finally he was like, I don't. I think we gotta, we gotta, we gotta change something. Like, because it was. It was just getting really bad. Honestly, I didn't even know if he was gonna make it. Like, it was. It was really bad. So we came back to the States because we. We had to figure out something new. And so it was literally like the death of a dream. Like, that's, that's the. What I. What I call it. So we came back to the states in 2018, and. And we're just grieving. You know, there's really other note, like, we were, we were just surviving, right? And so, so I started teaching at an American high school. Talk about a culture shock. I was like, I don't think I want to do this for the rest of my life. And so that's when I came and found insurance. So, like, we were. We were having to just completely restart again in America. I mean, we had sold everything and moved overseas. We thought, we will, like, we'll be there until we die. Like, that's. That was our mindset. Like, we just wanted to be there forever. And so came back. We didn't have a house to live in. We'd have cars. I mean, we had nothing. Like, nothing, right? And, and being in ministry, it's not like you have a lot of money. So we were also just. We were just from scratch, right? And so, and Philip was so sick, so it was really like all on me. And so, so I was teaching that wasn't paying the bills. So I just threw my resume on ZipRecruiter one night and I didn't even know what I was doing, like, for real. I was like, I have a degree in math. Like, maybe I can do something math. I don't know. So then I interviewed with this agency, didn't know at all what I was doing, but they seemed really nice. And I truly like, thank God every day that he put me with the agency that I'm in, because I would not be here today if it was not for my upline and all the support they've given me. And everything I've been able to do is because of how they have just loved me and invested in me and supported me through all this. So huge kudos to them. And, and so I started. I started insurance and now it like. So I went full time over the summer and you know, then was working in the evenings after after school, you know, driving. This was when we were still driving around. So I was driving around all of East Tennessee, the hills, at night, and I was like, I hope I just don't kill myself on the road. I'm not gonna lie. And then like, I'm super allergic to animals. So I'm in these homes. I got dogs and cats crawling, crawl it all over me. I just get sick all the time. And I was like, gotta do this for our family. So when Covet hit, I don't think that we went virtual. I was like, this is the best thing that ever happened. I'd see cats in people's background. And I was like, I'm not gonna get sick because of the cat. So. So that was great. So once we, once we went virtual, that's when I was like, yeah, I'm gonna. I was like, let's go all in. So I didn't actually go back to teaching after Covid and I went all in in life insurance. I've been here. Sorry, long story for that. So been here since 2019, but went all in full time in 2020. So that's how I got started in life insurance.

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Back to the show.

Yeah.

How did it go when you first started?

I mean, it went. It went great. I was. I mean, I. I had to make it work like there was no other option. So, you know, when my. When I got no showed or porch right, as we used to call it, I'd go knock on doors. I'd go. My brother lived like a couple south, like south of where I was two towns down. And so I'd go stay with them a couple nights a week and work in that area if I didn't get what I needed in my area, you know. So I was like, I'm gonna make this work. So over the summer, I was going really hard and. And then, then once school started back, I was working late, you know, after school, you know, just putting in, putting in the grind, trying to make it happen for our family. Because I think we saw very quickly, Cody, Philip and I did, my husband, like, we saw really quickly what life insurance could do for a family and for, like, people in our situation and for others kind of similar to us who had a heart like a. For ministry or maybe for nonprofit work or just someone that wanted something different with their life. Because we were just. We had to completely rebuild ourselves from scratch, you know, and that wasn't something we'd ever anticipated doing. And so we saw how life insurance could really be a vehicle for that. And so we were. We were committed. We were committed to it. You know, I remember even, like, family meetings where my kids were younger than they were, like 6 and 8, but we brought them in and said, okay, Mommy's going to be doing this, because this is what it can mean for our family. And so we brought them in early. We were also working on like an international church plant. Then unfortunately, it didn't survive Covid. But, you know, we saw it as a way like, hey, this is going to help get this church plan off the ground. This is going to help other people in ministry. So we always saw that as. It's kind of like the end goal. And, and it's awesome. Now with the Aloha program, we're really able to. To do that and make that happen in a super practical way. So, you know, that was our vision from the beginning. It took us a little while to get here, but. But yeah, it's cool.

What. What the heck is the Aloha program?

Well, so let me give you a little background. Sorry. All my, all my answers are longer. Sorry. You know, one of the things that, that my dad taught me growing up that. So I have two sisters and a brother. And so my dad always taught us, you know, you're going to go through something hard. You know, we all go through hard things in life, right? And so when you go something through something hard, you have two choices after that. You can either say, well, hey, I got through it. So whoever else is going to go through this hard thing, they can, you know, they can figure out how to get through it just like I did and then move on your way, so. Or you can say, hey, how could I make it better for people that are going to go through this exact same thing and make a difference? And so obviously he would encourage us, hey, be the person that's going to make a positive difference. And so as I was getting started in the industry, and especially with COVID when we made the switch to digital, you know, I was like, hey, I see some ways that we could make things more efficient or, hey, this would help me if I had this as an agent or then I started building and. And I noticed, hey, my agents are asking a lot of the same questions. How can we. How can we help overcome these struggles and challenges without, you know, rob. Without robbing people of the struggle that they need, right, to be successful? But what are things that we could make. Make a little bit smoother? And so that's always kind of been my mindset, even as a teacher, you know, trying to help students learn math. Right. But. And so a lot of the things that I started building, so we have our leads, company agent verified. I also created a recruiting platform that I used to build my agency. It's called Spark. And. And so all of these. All of these businesses solved a problem that I was experiencing firsthand and my agents were experiencing firsthand. So anyway, so started all of those. We're running those. Had the. Had my bar agency that I was, you know, just running.

And, and also, also, I think you just need one more thing, really. You know what I mean? Like, I think you just need, like one year company, you know, I mean.

I really do keep up.

How do you keep up? I feel like I'm busy and I'm listening to all this. I'm like, oh, my gosh.

Well, so actually when. When we moved to Hawaii, I read a. I read A book where our. Our master agency does a book of the month. And the book that I read was who not how, and totally changed things for me because I was running around like a chick with my head cut off. It was. It was a little crazy. And so that book was really challenging. Like, hey, it's not how can I solve my problems, but who is a person that I can put in place that's going to be the best to solve this problem? And so I just started surrounding myself with people that could replace what I was doing. Right. Because if I can have someone take care of something, that means I'm freed up to do something else. So, I mean, I have my. You know, in our businesses, and in all of my businesses, we have a great staff. In my agency, I have a staff. I have a personal assistant even here in Hawaii, like, so that I can focus on the things that only I can do. And then I delegate everything else, and that's how I stay safe.

Thank you for sharing.

So it actually all kind of has to do, Cody, with moving to Hawaii. Right. Obviously, the Aloha program. Right. So. So, like I mentioned, we had been working on an international church plant in Knoxville that did really well up until Covid, but after. After Covid, we just. It didn't, unfortunately, didn't survive. And so my husband was starting to look at other ministry jobs. His health had gotten better, so we. We weren't able to move overseas. But, you know, living somewhere else in America was a possibility. So one morning, he wakes, we wake up, and he's like, hey, maybe God will lead us to Honolulu, Hawaii. I was like, I don't think that he will do that. Like, that's a no. That's no. Well, little did I know he had actually already applied to a church here.

Why was. Why was it an immediate no for you?

We were like, our kids were settled. You know, we had moved them around so much. We lived in mission homes that churches had let us live in. They'd gone to a different school every single year of their elementary school. I mean, like, they're very resilient. Yeah, I'm super, super impressed with my kids. I know I'm their mom, but, like, they've done well with all this, and we were fight. You know, we were able to buy a home because things were going well, you know, so, like, it was finally like, okay, hey, we're. We've kind of, like, overcome this difficulty, and now we're. We're okay. So then we think about moving again. I was like, I can't even process that, Right? So, anyways, again, unbeknownst to me, he had applied to this church. So he came and shared with me a couple weeks later, like, hey, I've just really been praying about this. Would you pray with me, Betsy? What am I supposed to say? No, I'm not gonna pray?

He set you up. He set you up.

Oh, he. He did. He did. So. So, honestly, my. My. So then I said, well, sure, you can, like, let's just see what happens. But there's no way we're gonna, like, there's no way this would actually happen. Well, you know, then eight months later, we're moving to Hawaii. So here we are. So here we are now in Hawaii. And honestly, Cody, that was a big leap of faith for. For. For us as a family. We had to do it all again. We had to sell everything again. We had to uproot our kids. I mean, it was. We had some hard discussions as a family because at this point, my older son was in sixth grade, My younger son was in fourth grade. And so it wasn't just like, oh, hey, kids, you know, we're going to put you on a plane and move you around. Like, it was, you know, we know this is going to impact you. We know this is going to be hard for you to leave family and all that. So we. We've always been very, you know, very, very upfront with our kids and encourage them to, you know, share what they're feeling and their struggles. And. And so they felt open to share with us. And. But at the end of the day, as we were just praying through it, my husband even said to our boys, he said, boys, how can I lead you as your dad and tell you to follow the Lord when I. If I'm not willing to trust you with God, God with. With you? And so, you know, they actually were like, hey, dad, we. You have to trust God. And. And so for our kids to say that, like, that was cool, you know, that was. That was hard. You know, it was hard for me as a mom still. But, you know, what's been so cool is just to see them thrive here. Like, we. We made the move here was January of 2023. And just every. Really, everything in our business and in our family and everything just exploded when we moved here. Like the. It was just that obedience of making that move. And then even that book, who not how I'm saying, okay, hey, I'm gonna step out in faith and hire these people and put them into place so that I'll have more time to invest in the family and in the ministry community that we are here. So. So it's just kind of like this big leap of faith. And. And we really saw everything just grow. And. And kind of the trajectory that we're on now, I believe, is because we were obedient in that move, if that makes sense. And. And so anyways, we moved here. We live in the area where we serve, so it's an under. Underprivileged, underserved area in Hawaii. And. And we love it. We moved from this beautiful home in Knoxville, Tennessee, to a home to a little apartment a third of the size. And I'm not gonna. Not gonna lie, that was a challenge. But we've lived in small places before overseas, and. And at first I was like, I would like for us to move as quickly as possible, like after we've been here for a year. But just once we got to know the people here and saw how our kids, like, just. They could just go right outside and they're playing with all their friends. We have kids in our home constantly. Just now. Now we love it, but, you know, so it's just amazing how God can really change your heart. And now we get to just. Yeah, we just. We love the life that we're living here, and our kids are thriving. So anyways, things are going great. And then unfortunately, though, this. This ministry of kind of being here in this community and serving this. These. These students and children, we were bringing them to church. And unfortunately, the church didn't end up having that same vision of welcome, of having everyone else, which was, you know, a little sad. So last October, they asked Philip to leave the church, which was a big shock because we had literally left everything to come here. And so that was. Yeah, that was like a kind of a punch to the gut, not gonna lie. And. But very quickly, we kind of saw it as God opening another door to. To what we're doing now. So we have the Aloha program, and it's connected to what our ministry, which is Light of Aloha. And so what we. So that's kind of where we see these two things coming together. And so the Aloha program, you asked, where did it come from? So after Philip. So after Philip was no longer at this church, he was continuing to, you know, minister to the students. We have Bible studies in our home twice a week. Um, he's in the schools, he's out in the community centers. And then I was like, hey, you know, our agency's grown so much. I really need someone else. You Know, could you come in, you know, be that person? And then, you know, you can train whoever. Whoever we end up hiring. So he came in, he has an engineering background, and. And so he started kind of, you know, just looking at the systems, looking at everything. He was like, hey, Betsy, I don't know if you know this. You own a leads company, you own a recruiting company, and you know what it takes for agents to be successful. What if we created a program where when agents come into your agency, we provide them with what they need to be successful. Like this. And I was like, oh, that's an amazing idea. I wish I had thought he was like, I just remember him going, I don't know if you know this, you own a lease. I was like, oh, yeah. Yes, I do. Because, you know, you just sometimes, like, you're just in the daily grind and it's like, oh, yeah. So. So he. I have to give Philip credit for the Aloha program as much as I wish I could take credit for it. So he helped me really kind of get it structured. And so what it is, Cody, is agents come in, so the one thing they need is a license, right? And so they come in, they have their license, and then we provide pretty much everything else. So we provide the leads. They're high, you know, fresh, high intent leads up front. We provide the CRM with all the automations, you know, that's all included. We provide a power dialer. And then what we also provide, what we saw is really was one of the biggest struggles of agents starting, I'm sure you've seen this with all your years in the industry, is just providing the structure that agents need, right? Like, the agents that were most successful in the business were agents that came and worked this like a job. Like, hey, I'm gonna show up Monday through Wednesday from, you know, 10 to 6, and then on Fridays from, you know, 2 to 8 or whatever it is. And they. Whatever they said they were gonna do, they actually did it, right? And then they're the ones that were successful. The agents that got leads every week, the agents that were using dollars, the agents that were following up with clients. You know, all the. Like, we know what it takes for agents to be successful. So we just created the program, say, hey, we're gonna provide all of this to you as long as you're showing up, as long as you're using the power dialer, as long as, you know, filling out the tracker, right? And because as soon as agents are filling out their numbers and then they come and have a Question or a struggle, I can immediately pinpoint where their struggle is and then be able to provide that coaching and feedback. So we have daily coaching, we actually have a base shop manager, we have a performance manager, we have an onboarding manager. So again we've, you know, I've make sure that we have a full staff to help all these agents because we started growing very quickly and like Philip and I couldn't handle it ourselves. So you know, we, we had to, we had to staff up, we had to put the people in place. And so we have a, a zoom room. So when agents come in, even just during the training, we have a robust training that they go through. They're in the aloha room is what we call it for the training. So, so that if they have a question or they can't log into something, our onboarding manager is there all day. So it's not like we're playing, you know, playing. Was it phone tag or text tag? Ah, how can I log in? Like they just unmute. Hey, can you help me with this? And then immediately it's taken care of. So agents are getting onboarded faster and they're getting to dialing faster. We actually have an AI role playing. So they get to practice dialing, they get to practice running appointments and they're all like skills. Sally is more difficult than an actual client. So by the time they get to real people, they're like, oh, these people are so nice.

That's awesome.

So, yeah, so we've just tried to provide a lot of that support and structure that people need so that they don't feel alone, right. And, and then provide the, the leads and the, you know, the resources that, that people need and it's amazing. You know, we all know in the industry that you got to have leads, you got to have resources. Every week you gotta have leads, you got to do this. But you know, hey, Bennett's, do I get leads or do I pay the light bill? Do I pay for my dialer or do I get my kids school supplies? They don't have to have, they don't have to, they don't have to make that decision. Like they can just focus on coming in, dialing, focusing on the, you know, those income producing activities and be profitable.

I mean, it's killer.

It's a killer. I love it. I'm like, oh, so it makes it.

It makes a ton of sense actually. Yeah, it does.

I mean it's so, it's so awesome and you know, it's, it's even better because we Realize like, hey, everything that we, you know, everything that we built and that we sweated and struggled and, and all of that over, we're able to use that now to, to give back to others. Right. And so, you know, then how do we, you know, how do we fund it? They, they then split apps with the agency and so that's how we help keep the program funded. Right. And, and so agents can have the choice of can, you know, they can continue in the Aloha program as long as they want to. They can choose to, you know, at one point they might say, hey, it's actually going to be more profitable for me if I invest in my own leads and keep everything like awesome come. And then I still can, you know, we can still give leads and you know, all that. And then, you know, we had an agent come in and they were like, oh, what if I have a previous book of business and I want to write those clients? I was like, well you don't have to split with the agency for there. Like it's just with the leads that we provide, you know, so, you know, just making it to where it, it makes sense and it's, as long as it's helpful to the agent, that's what we want to do. Yeah. And then, and then we do this. We also again, because we have so many people coming in, so agents, once they've come in, they kind of understand the process. Then they can start building as well if they want to build an agency. And they can bring people into the Aloha program so they can offer others the exact same, that same thing that they're experiencing. So they can build their agency through the Aloha program as well. Which has been, I think that's been super exciting to see is some of our new agents come in now, they're getting raises, they're, you know, helping new agents. But what's also great is they don't have to figure out a whole new system of onboarding people. Because I remember when I first came in and I was like, oh, I gotta, now I'm building but I gotta help all these people. Like that takes a lot of time, you know, it does. And so, you know, they get to say, hey, go to the Aloha room. There's, there's our onboarding manager. So they get to take advantage of all of the, you know, the staff and the support. They again, they just focus on those income producing activities, you know, the dialing, running appointments and running interviews. And so, you know, we all are just, we're very Collaborative. We all work together. So once they're done with the training in the Aloha room, then we all work together in the work room, in the dial room. So our Bay Shop mentor is there, Our performance manager is there. They're both agents. And so they're, you know, they're growing as well and then just serving, serving in those capacities, too. So, you know, it's been. It's been crazy to kind of see it all come together. Like, what we hoped it would be and then see it as a reality is sometimes I just want to pinch myself, like, is this real? I love it so.

Well, you guys deserve all the good things that can ever happen to you.

Thank you. Yeah, we. We, you know, the most. The most exciting thing I think I mentioned, you know, the reason that we, you know, what we saw early on with life insurance was the ability to, like, hey, if you want to. If we, you know, our heart for doing this was ministry, right? Or, hey, if you want to use this to fund another business or you want to use this so you have more time with whatever you. Whatever kind of your end goal is, life insurance is really the vehicle that can help get there, right? So. So our ministry that we have, we're calling it Light of Aloha. And so our. Our. Our big vision picture for it, Cody, is that, like, pastors, ministry leaders who, you know, may not have enough. Be making enough money. I mean, let me just. Let's be honest. Like, pastors don't make a lot, right? Or, you know, our people that have a passion for serving, maybe it's not in ministry, but it's, you know, in other capacities, nonprofits or just community service, whatever it might be. You know, you can come and work in the Aloha program and. And, you know, work halftime and be able to make whatever you need for your family. And then you've still got time to go and do the ministry or whatever it is that's closest to your heart. And, and so, you know, when I think back to us in 2018, when we came back and we had to just completely start over, you know, we. We were looking for jobs. Like, thankfully, I was a math teacher. You know, I could usually, I could find a job easily with that, but, you know, I know so many other families that I'm close to, and they, you know, they come back for whatever reason, health or, you know, things in their country change, and then they come back and they're just starting from nothing, and they. They don't know where. Where to go or have opportunities and so to be able to reach out to them and say, hey, would you like to come and do this? You know, maybe life insurance is not what everyone dreams of doing, but hey, it can, it can put food on the table and it can help you get back to where, where you want to be and be doing the things that you're passionate about. And so that's why we're, that's why we're really excited about it. And I just want to see this, want to see it grow. And so we're calling. So anyways, it's all kind of tied in together. And anyway, so thanks for letting me come and share about it again. I hope someone. And maybe this is, you know, maybe this could be, you know, what you're looking for. And so go to the aloha program.com and check us out. And we'd love to see how, how this could be a benefit to you and your business and whatever it is that you're passionate about in your life.

Amazing. I love how passionate you are about it. And thank you for coming back on the channel and sharing more about this. You're awesome, for sure.

Thank you so much, Cody.

Yeah, huge thank you to Betsy Barr for sharing.

So cool.

I love that you can tell when someone's excited about something. We have passion when they care. I'm hoping we have more people in the industry that get in the industry and they're like, you know what? I want to be Betsy Barr when I grow up because she is so fun. So kind of. And we've, we've met and hang out and it's totally true, by the way. Right. And so, yeah, if you've enjoyed this, let her know in comments below what you've enjoyed. Hopefully you will take some nuggets from this and continue to grow your business. We appreciate you listening to the Power Player podcast and we'll see you on the next one.

Ram.