How I Accidentally Made $460,000 Selling Life Insurance (Steal This)

What if I just do it a bunch more? And I came up with numbers and I just reverse engineered it. I want to make $250K, so I said, cool, if I book 1,500 appointments, 1,000 will be there, I'll close 25% of them, it's 250 apps. That's what I went into 2015 with. I didn't account for momentum when you run that many appointments because I was only running 8 a week before, now I'm running 30. And then I didn't realize, dude, which sounds really dumb to say, how quick and how exponential the skill set increase comes. And so that year, instead of 250 apps, I wrote 460 of them.

What's going on everybody, welcome to the call. Excited to have Mr. John Wetmore on. Um, this has been one that I've been looking forward to for a long time. What's up John? What's up dude? Dude, I'm excited to have you here. I want some no fluff, no BS John Wetmore activity is everything because I mean everybody on here man, uh, we all can get better and I think that we all kind of just, we overcomplicate it. You are one of the best people that I've ever met at simplifying things and just getting people to understand, um, like the basics and the activity are the most important thing. And of course, you know, you're big on like just work harder, like quit wasting your time working smarter, but at the same time, like, you know, evolving over time and you're like, hey, we can work smart and work hard at the same time, but like if you're not willing to work hard, it doesn't matter how, how smart you are. So that's something I've always respected about you. So I'd love just a little bit of your background, and, um, you know, we can kind of go from there.

Yeah, well, I appreciate you having me on, dude. And, um, I don't know how to give anything else but no fluff because that's too much work to pretend to do anything else. So cool. I didn't know Giovanni was— it's like, dude, am I on the wrong call, bro? It's good to see you here, dude. Um, yeah, man, I think background, for those that don't know— again, I, I don't know, dude, I'm not the best at this. I'm just a dipshit who is struggling in life and was sick or struggling in life. And I don't know, man, I, I, I sputtered my way through my first 2 years in this industry. I quit the first dial day, um, for 2 years. This was in 2010. It took me 2 years to get my license. I quit the first dial day for 2 more years. And then it took me 2 and a half years to get my head out of my ass and actually start working because I thought it was something different too that it took to be successful. I thought it was the leads or the weather or the time of day or, you know, the upline or what I thought, all the same dumb shit everybody else thinks. Which is why I like— and I think I've earned the ability to talk to people as directly as I do, because I was one of them. I'm not the dude that came into this thing killing it, you know. I'm— that's not my story. Now, difference is, once I figured out how easy it was, I was like, why the eff didn't all these people tell me this before? Because I think it's stupid. All the— I, I do think a lot of the training that happens out there is valid, but I think it's stupid for most people, you know. Is too much too soon. And I think that it's posed in a way that that information is the only way to success, you know. And they— and I think it's also put in a way that they think the next cool statement is gonna suddenly sell them 8 applications this week. But for me, dude, it's, you know, and again, I can rant and get sideways, but that's kind of, you know, the loose bit of the story and a loose bit of the the directness. For me, what I figured out, dude, was that early on, the whole concept or why I named the book the, what I named it and what led me to my style of teaching sort of developed over time. But what I learned in 20, kind of the end of 2014, beginning of 2015, this all started to click for me. And I was, I'm a nerd. To be, first of all, I'm a, I'm a big nerd. I'm a numbers nerd. I'm a tracking nerd. I'm a systems nerd. I'm a geek. I sit on the computer till 1 in the morning messing with AI and systems and process. And it's just, it's who I am. So early, you know, early 2015, I started looking at my numbers for 2014. And I'll, I'll, I'll give you the short version. It's in the book for those that have read it. You've seen the, you know, 17, the number that changed my life or whatever. I just started looking at things and I was unhappy with where I was financially. I was doing okay. I've— and to be clear, I've, I've been profitable every month of my career in this business. So people that say they're not profitable in this business, I, I'm just— I'm telling you, not working. I was, I was selling $5,000 a month, dude, and I was profitable at the beginning. I was not killing it, and I was making money. Um, you know, I wasn't, I wasn't printing money, but I was in, in the positive. But in 2014, 2015, I looked at this thing and I saw, I saw then— I looked at my full year of numbers. I think where people get messed up is they look at their numbers on Wednesday and they're like, my numbers suck today. I'm like, dude, it's Wednesday. Like, how many analogies do I need to give you to make you realize, like, today's numbers mean nothing in the big picture, you know? Now it'll hurt you this week if you don't work, but it's not going to mess with your 2-year average whether you sell $10 grand today or zero today. And so I looked at my numbers over the course of a year and I realized, like, some weeks were low, some weeks were high, some months were low, some months were high. Nothing was really consistent day in and day out, right? I'd sell $8,000 one month, I'd sell $3,000 the next, and then I'd sell $9,000, and then I'd sell $14,000. And it was just kind of like this. And when people see us Hall of Fame producers, they think all of a sudden now we just sell $40K a month, every month, or $34,300, whatever the average, whatever the number is. And I'm like, nah, one month it's $70,000, the next month it's $42,000, then it's $53,000, then it's $37,000. Then it— there's still this up and down. You know, I sold $20K last week, dude. I'm at $4K so far this week. I sold $20K in 2 days last week, to be clear. I took 5 days off and still sold $20K. This week I'm on my 3rd day and I'm at $4,600 or something, you know, which most people would love $4,600, but it is still a real high and a real low. So anyway, I say all that to say I looked at my numbers for 2014 and what I realized was I made— I don't know the dollars off the top of my head anymore, but I made X amount of money and I made X amount of phone calls. And I'm a nerd, and I was playing with this. I still have the spreadsheet today. And for those that have been watching the little tracker thing that I'm putting out, because I made like a web-based tracker, I still nerd out over ratios. Because when I saw I made X amount of money and it took, we'll say, Y amount of phone calls, I just divided one by the other, dude. And that, when I did that formula, it, it equaled $17 per phone call is just what the math said I made that year. Now, I didn't make a lot of money that year, but the math said I was making $17 every time I dialed a client. And then it also said I made $300 every— this is back in the day of field sales. It said I made $300 every time I booked an appointment. Booked one. That's just the average I, I chose. Booked appointments, deposits. I didn't do sales and deposits. I didn't do— I didn't do any of that stuff. I didn't do lead ratios. I didn't care. And so in my head, I was like, wait, so on average, over the course of however many thousands of dollars I made, on average I make $17 even if they tell me to kick rocks? I was like, yo, this game is changing instantly because now if I call you 3 times in a row, I make— I'm gonna round up and say I make $60. Instead of 20. Yeah, if I call you 5 times, I make $100 on average. This is what the averages say, you know. I'll have a video coming out soon. Yesterday I did it just for fun, just to show it. I did it in my, in my Discord and on Zoom, dude. I called people 5, 6, 7, 8 times in a row. Only one person yelled, and the only reason he yelled is because he wasn't the dude on the lead. This guy Wayne, he's like, I'm not Wayne. Every single other person that picked up just said hello. That was it. And so I just learned averages are what matter most to me to become unemotional about it, because I know if I do the phone calls, if I run the appointments, the money will come. And I've learned, dude, the averages are the averages. The averages will always average out, always over the long period of time. So I say all that to say, I looked at the— I looked at 2015 and I went, dude, what if I stopped trying to learn the 17 steps to success? And what if I stopped trying to learn, you know, Joe's script and Steve's script and Mary's script and Bob's script and Doug's script and 17-page, all these things? And what if I just accept who I am? I'm a 4— at the time, a 40% close ratio guy. I make $17 a phone call. What if I just say eff it? What if I just do it a bunch more and I worry about all the getting better stuff another day? What if I just put it to the side? And I just go at the year. And I came up with numbers and I just reverse engineered it. I want to make $250K. So I said, cool, if I book 1,500 appointments, 1,000 will be there, I'll close 25% of them, it's 250 apps. That's what I went into 2015 with. I didn't account for momentum when you run that many appointments. I didn't understand it because I was only running 8 a week before, now I'm running 30. Right? And so I didn't, I didn't understand what momentum did. And then I didn't realize, dude, which sounds really dumb to say, when you see that many people, how quick and how exponential the skill set increase comes. And so that year, instead of 250 apps, I wrote 460 of them. Yep. You know, and I, I, I, at the time, smashed production records here at FFL. There were only 4 of us that year that, that wrote that much insurance. Um, I was, I was the number 4 agent in the company that year from personal production. And then that, that trickled down into everything y'all see today. I mean, that started attracting people to me. It started making everyone want to work with me. And everyone's like, what leads? I still to this day, dude, I get 15 fucking DMs an hour. What leads?

What leads?

What leads are you running? I'm like, all the ones you say suck. I promise that's all I'm running. You, you give me the leads you say suck, I will sell them.

Yeah.

And I challenge people to send me their leads. I'm like, dude, send me last month's leads that you called. I will call them and sell them. Dude, no one does it.

You know what I mean?

It's like this, this just a numbers game to me, dude. It's like Monopoly. I, I just, if I go around, I land on a thing, I buy the card. At the end of the game, I have more cards. I probably win Monopoly. That's just how I play Monopoly. I buy everything I land on. You know, and so for me, dude, this, this game— so as I start teaching it, I'm like, look at your numbers, because people say they want to do this and they want to hit big numbers and they want to be rich and they're tired of being tired and all these things. And I'm like, send me your dial tracker. And they have 72 freaking dials halfway through a day. And I'm like, stop it. You just have no shot, you know. And I don't know, so that's the long version of my story, bro. I'll, I'll take a breath so you can ask better questions.

Yeah, um, one, one comment that I want to make, uh, something that I kind of learned really early on was I was told, hey, like, there's this magic number of 100 appointments. How quick can you get through 100 appointments? And the thing that I noticed, especially after hearing what you just said and just kind of paralleling here, is when I watched an agent who would do 100 appointments in their first month versus an agent who didn't even do 100 appointments barely in their first year, year and a half, what you noticed you notice that momentum concept that you talked about and the exponential learning curve. Like, I watched it happen for myself. I've experienced so many agents who, um, get that number of appointments that it's, it's just the— again, that do more now, get better later. You don't realize how quickly you get better. Um, you know, I remember when I first got started, it was like I was watching your videos, and, you know, I don't know if I can mention some of the people's videos I watched because they're not here anymore, but it was like 3 of you guys, and I was watching your videos, and I took you know, some basic phone scripts. And I said, you know what, I'm just going to focus only on setting the appointments. And I remember I set like 12 appointments my first day and I was like, oh shit, I have to meet with these people tomorrow and I don't know anything about the presentation. But then I just kind of went there and, you know, I was myself and I had the activity and, you know, same thing, you know, I closed, you know, a few. But then when I figured out how to book the appointments, just that first part of the activity, and I knew that I had that part under control, everything else just kind of followed. And it was like, okay, now I did You know, I effed my way through my first 10 appointments and closed 2 of them without even trying. And then, um, once I did 100 appointments, it was like, okay, the next 10 I got a little bit better, the next 10 I got a little bit better. And then by the time I got to 100, it was like all of those videos and trainings that basically I got during boot camp, things that were so in some part of my brain that I didn't even realize they're at, things started coming out of my mouth like, where the hell did that come from? You know, I just gave, you know, I just overcame that objection like a pro. And I never practiced that, but it was just somewhere in there. And it's just the way that that stuff comes out is not through just like, let me get ready to get ready to get ready forever and practice and role play with John for the next 2 years. Where it comes out is like, you just, like, I remember my first appointment, I called Grady. I'm like, hey, this and that. He goes, hey, Jamie, I'm just gonna need you to F your way through it. And he said the real word too. And then he hung up on me. And I remember at the time I was like, is this what this business is like? And I appreciate that moment so much because it like, it made me resourceful and it made me figure out how to F— I F my way through it today still, you know, like who you telling?

Yeah, every day of my life, dude, figuring this thing out.

Yeah, 100%. So all right, so just a slight transition here and we'll get into some fun automation and tech stuff.

But all right guys, if you'd like to attend my office 2-day workshop event that we put on 2 or 3 times a year. Spend 2 full days, deep dive into everything you need to know to be successful in the space, whether you're selling or whether you want to build an agency, whether you want to learn how to run a staff, recruit, sell at a high level, whatever it is, we dive into it again, workshop style. So super interactive. I run them every 2 or 3 times a year. There is a waitlist. If you go to JohnWetmore.com/workshop, you can put in your information and we We will let you know when the next one is. There are two levels only. There's a basic ticket. You sit in the back of the room and you can attend, but the executive ticket is access to a private mastermind at my house where we have a full dinner. We spend 3 or 4 hours there as well, engaging with each other and learning at a deeper level, a little bit closer-knit. So if you want to be at the next one, register at the link later.

Man, you've built a huge agency. $240 million last year, one of the largest not just in FFL but in the entire insurance space. Like, why in the world are you selling right now? Like, why in the world? You don't need to sell at all. Obviously you like it, but like, there was a point in time where you probably hadn't sold for a fair hand—

I haven't sold in a decade, bro.

Decade. There we go. A decade.

I haven't sold a life insurance policy in 10 years.

So what in the world made—

I've never done an e-app. I've never done a one-call close. I've never done a telesale. Now, by mistake, in 2015, AmeriCo came out with like, uh, DocuSign.

Yeah.

And I had a trucker one day and could do a DocuSign, you know what I mean? But like, I'd never done today's version of what we do.

Yeah. So what in the world motivated you to do that? Like, there's this concept I know that like you're building your own base shop. So like for anybody who doesn't know what that is, like John's built a massive agency. He has multiple massive agencies underneath him that are pretty independent who don't really need John. They call him for some, you know, some higher level support stuff barely, but like he's building a base shop, which is a new group of agents that are direct to John. So take all those other agencies, pretend they don't exist. John's building a brand new insurance agency with a group of agents. Like talk about that concept and why you decided to sell and be in front of that group of people.

Um, yeah, there's, um, I don't even post our agency numbers, the full agency. I don't share it, I don't talk about it, I don't do— I'm like, dude, there's— I have so much help, there's so many good people in it that all deserve— I'm like, just, I'm just moving on to something new, dude. It's like I get way too much credit for shit. I got it started, I did a lot of things to help some people, but bro, without the crew we got, I just, you know, the numbers are where they are. Um, dude, there's a lot of reasons. Um, I, I could, I could talk about it. It's like just a culmination of a bunch of things, timing, um, that, that made it happen. Um, I'm a big, like, I'm very motivate— motivated by like, F you, watch me. I, I, dude, I'm very driven by that.

Yeah.

Um, and you know, I think there's a combination of things. One, like Giovanni's on here, which I don't know if he's using this now. It'd be cool if he is, if he's figuring it out.

I'm just, I'm going to call him out.

I'm pretty sure he's been paying for it this entire time and not doing anything with it. That's Giovanni for you. That's how he rolls.

I'm willing to help.

He's, uh, hey, he's making so much money as a 24-year-old right now, more than he knows what to do with. And he was about to get evicted from his apartment like a year ago, year and a half ago. You know, he's got a cool story. Um, but he sells a bunch of insurance. He's building a big-ass team and he's just, yeah, he's not an automation nerd. But he will pay for some shit. He don't give a rip. He'll, he'll, and he'll use it eventually. And I just love to give him shit. So like, why not? Um, but you know, he started in my coaching program a little over a year ago and then he was like, hey, maybe I should just work there. I'm trying to help people, dude. Um, I love helping people win at this thing at a high level. Even though I wasn't building direct, I was helping build these other agencies and working in depth and helping people at FFL that I don't even know, dude. I just, I just been teaching people how to make money in the space for a long time. And, um, you know, kind of a combination of things happened, um, certainly at an Integrity level, just being very transparent for those that understand it. I have a job. Like, I don't get paid the overrides anymore, in case anyone's confused. Integrity gets them. John Wetmore don't get shit, even from the base shop. I get no overrides today. Um, and you go sell $20,000 last week. I get that. I get, I get my personal production. Okay. Um, so for me, and, and again, as the job, Integrity certainly was like, hey bro, you know, it's more profitable for us if you build direct. I'm like, I'm, I'm aware, you know, I'm aware. And they go, you think maybe you could do it again for us? So they did ask. Yeah, right. So I'm like, all right, now, now for me, I'm, I'm not confused. I'm also trying to build a brand and I'm trying to build the future and I'm doing marketing. I'm like, the first time I did this thing, nothing was on the internet. Y'all hear the stories, you read the book, but there's no videos, there's no— we didn't do that back then. So I'm like, I can use it as a marketing angle, right? And then I have all these people that want help and people that do want to work direct with me that I haven't done that in a long time. I was just giving them out because I just didn't have the time. And I'm like, you know what, dude, Giovanni's doing good things. I really want to help this fucker get rich as shit. Like, I just want to help do with him what I— whatever little part I played in Zach's life and Dom's life and some of the others that aren't here anymore, their lives. I just want to do that again. That was fun. That was my, my absolutely favorite time in this business was from 2015 to 2019. That 4-year run, I don't know how to duplicate that again because it was, it was, dude, it was like we were like rock stars traveling the world building something. It was, it was the coolest journey ever building something with a bunch of people. And Schmidt's on here. He was part, a lot of part of that journey. You know what I mean? Like that, it was just, it was just a fun time. Um, and quite frankly, dude, it gets this big and this many numbers, mentally bored out of my trees, dude. No challenge. Building isn't hard. Selling, none of this is hard anymore, you know, which sucks to say for people watching, or maybe it's good that you see in the future it's not that difficult to do. So I get with Giovanni and I'm like, I'm helping him, but dude, he's selling in the field still at the time. I'm trying to convince him to do telesales. He's like, it's hard. I don't know what to say. Da da da. And he, you know, he's like, I just, there's, I could joke all day with him about stuff, but he made it hard. Agents on here make it hard. And I'm like, this shit ain't hard. And then someone had the nerve to pop off and go, you don't know, you've never done it. And then I get frustrated and I'm like, F you, watch me. And that's how it all started. Um, and so I picked up the phone in September, cause I'm like, I'm going to show these fools that, and I did it with all kinds of leads. I'm like, I'll just pick all the leads that people, my agents bitch about. And I'll start calling them. And you name a lead type, I've closed them. And, you know, do I have preferences and differences? Sure. But none of them are magic, dude. They all suck. At the end of the day, it's just finding the people in the pile of shitty leads that want to buy some insurance. And my ability to not be emotional and move the fuck on from one lead to the next, most people don't have. I don't give a shit. I don't care if they cancel. I don't care if it charges back. I don't care if they hang up. I don't care if it's disconnected. I don't care at all. Zero do I care, because the dials make me money. It's not the sales that make me money, Jamie. The dials make me money. Yep. The sales come and go. The yeses and the nos come and go. I just don't care, dude. And so I decided I was gonna just go at it. And then in September, I started fumbling my way around it, dude. I didn't even know how to log into the carriers in September. I had no idea the underwriting. I know basic underwriting from back in the day— heart attack, cancer, stroke. I'm not stupid. But dude, I don't know who does what. I don't know how to do a PIN code or who does email signature, who does a text signature. I didn't know any of that. I had never touched any of it. I've never seen it. I've never logged into it. I haven't watched a single training on any of it. And I'm like, eff it, let me make a mess of this thing. And I started making a mess of it, dude. And I don't, I don't have my numbers in front of me, but I, I, I, I wrote— I issued like $15K in October or something, and then it went to like $20-something in, in, in November, and then it got to $30K in December, and January it's $40K, you know. Now halfway, 2 weeks into February, I'm like $23K issued, you know. I've, I've done like 8— I'm a little— I'm almost at 8, uh, I'm almost— I just passed 7,000 dials since September, um, and I can tell you all the dials, all the leads, 8% people of people pick up the phone. 8% of my phone calls pick up. If I make 100 phone calls, I will talk to 8 people. That's what the number is. 8% pick up the phone. So for those of you go, I have a shitty pickup rate, yeah, me too. I just call them more than you do. I call my leads an obnoxious amount of times. How many? More than you're willing to, I promise you. I just know I am, you know. So for me, it's 8% pick up, and I work with the 8% that pick up. If I, if I get 8 to pick up, I'm probably gonna have a decent conversation with 4, 3 to 4, and I'll close on average 1.5 of those, you know? So if I get 8, 16, 30, I get 40 people to pick 30, say I do a 5x, I get 40 people to pick up, I'm probably gonna write 7 apps. That's my number. Yeah. To get 40 to people pick up, I probably gotta do 500 phone calls. That's my number. And, and my average AP is $1,800. You mean, so if I write 7 apps, dude, I'm smashing $10K.

Yeah.

You know what I mean? It's just, it's just math to me. It literally, nothing else matters.

100%. It is just math. And I think where agents end up, uh, they shortchange themselves is they quit before they ever get to the point where they figure out what the ratio is. Correct. Like Jim Rohn, he used to always say, like, if you do something long enough, a ratio will appear. Yeah, like most people, like, they don't— they, they don't do something long enough, correct, for the ratio to appear. It's like, okay, if we're talking batting average, like, I could go out and swing 10 times and get lucky and hit 3, but that doesn't mean I'm a Hall of Fame batter. But if I do it over the course of a year, it's like, okay, now if he hits 3 out of 10, now we know that's the number. And when you figure out that number, the fun part about figuring out the math equation is all you have to do is just tweak one number here or one number there, and it changes the entire equation. So you find people who figure out what their number is, and they go, oh man, I was doing X off of $1,000 a week. Well, if I just do $2,000 a week, it should double. And what's the funniest part about is it doesn't usually double, it usually triples.

It does.

Something happens with like the exponential effect, because again, momentum hits and people don't account for that. But same thing with number of appointments, number of dials, amount spent on leads. And I mean, you could always— you could reverse engineer just about, just about anything. Uh, if I double my lead spend, I should double my appointments, I should double my pickup rate. But again, you have more people to talk to, you get the positive momentum cycle that's happening. And you know, it's, it's sometimes it's more than 2 or 3x, um, when you go up. And that's where you see these producers— like, I think one of the biggest I guess mind-blowing moments that I had when it took me from like average producer to, you know, in a couple seasons being, you know, one of the top guys is seeing all these people get up on stage and, you know, seeing like a Hall of Fame panel and they would just go down the line and they'd be like, what do you spend on leads? How many appointments do you do a week? And I remember seeing I spent $2,000 a week and I did 40 appointments a week. $2,000 a week, 40 appointments a week. And just over and over and over again. That was in-home, you know. Now with, you know, telesales, we kind of got you know, probably 50% more appointments, you know, because of no-shows. But I remember seeing that, and then I was like, oh my goodness. And I'd see these people who threw up these numbers that just seemed like godly numbers to me.

Yeah.

And I realized they actually weren't better than me at all. They were just spending 2 or 3 times as much as me on leads. Now, one thing I, I didn't want— I want to pause here for is people hear that and they think The only thing that I need to do— someone will come in this business with money and they'll bankrupt themselves. They think just spending more money on leads is the answer. When is spending more money on leads the answer, and when is just activity the answer? And how do you like coach an agent on that? Because it's like, hey, I'm just gonna spend another $1,000. It's like, dude, you wasted the last $1,000. Like, how do you coach someone on that? What do you look for?

We look at— so I look at the first thing I look at is like how many leads you get and how many phone calls you make. Because it's really easy to do. What's the average number of times you call each lead? Meaning, I have a guy that today that he has no money, he had 400 leads and he made like 300 dials. I'm like, I'm, I'm not— can we go back to kindergarten right now? And can you not realize that's not enough? Like, that doesn't work. So him buying 800 leads does nothing, right? So for me I teach our people to triple dial, dude. I had a bunch of people pick up on phone call number 5, 6, 7, 8 in a row last night and on video. And I'm gonna share, I share, you can watch me do, I'd sell everything I sell is live on Discord every day. Everything's on video, everything's live. You can watch it. Um, and so for me, dude, I think the activity is number one. You have to have activity first. If the activity isn't, if, and, and you need lead flow to have activity, but the reality is, dude, if If our guys aren't triple dialing their leads, I just want to know why, because I've shown and proved so many times over how well it works. And then I go, do you do that multiple times a day? So meaning if I call Jamie, I will call Jamie at least 9 times today, at least 9 times today. And I just, I go, I just want them to pick up. You know, if you don't call them, they don't pick up. So some people go, no one answered, and their choice is to not call them more. I'm like, well, where's the logic in that? Your leads didn't pick up, so you're choosing to not call them? That seems really dumb to me. So I'm like, sh— doesn't that mean they need to— you know, if you call them 5 times in a row, they'll pick up. I know, I know, but you're scared of what they'll say when they answer. I, I got it. And so I just have learned to psychologically change my world and go, All right, what if I knew they were gonna die and I called them 5 times in a row and warned them? Would they be mad? No. What if I had a lottery check and I called them 5 times in a row? Would they be mad? No. I can convince myself that— and dude, for me, I've done it so many times and I've seen how few people get frustrated. And then even if they are, you're really gonna let someone yelling at you ruin your day who otherwise you don't call and they just don't answer? So they— the— you have two choices. Worst case, they yell at you, or you don't call them. And you pick don't call them because you can't handle getting yelled at. And again, be clear, Giovanni will come on here, tell— he's the— he's the one dude in my direct, 100% of things I say, he does. He's just like, got it. This fool will call anyone and say anything. He don't give a rip, dude. And we learn like it's— they're not that difficult. And again, worst case scenario, worst case, you can't go, oh my bad, Jamie, it was going direct to voicemail. I didn't think it was ringing. So anyway, my name is John. I was just calling. You can't overcome that one. Like, what are we talking about, dude? So I think for me, number one is activity. And I look at how many times on average they call their leads. If I said— I always do this, I go, let's— and I've done this in a chat before. I've already given away the answer. Usually I do it in reverse. So I can get the answer first, because that's what smart salespeople do. But I typically go, if I took the top 10 sales books ever, what do you think they would say is the average number of times attempt that you attempt to call a prospect that it would take to get the— that it would take to make a sale? Would the top 10 sales books in the history of time say is the average number of attempts it takes you put towards a prospect to get a sale? No one ever says 1. Everyone's like 10, 17, 32, 12. And I'm like, okay, so if you know that, why don't you call your leads that often? You know what I mean? It's like, so I just, I just, I just, I think too many people overthink things and they sell themselves the way they want to be sold so they can validate why it's not working. And I just don't let people use me to validate BS, dude. And so I, I talk, and so for me, showing it works first. Um, and then I think if you're, if you're doing the right amount of activity, you will see results by mistake. You'll trip over a few sales a week. It's— you literally will trip over them, and then you'll go like, oh, that's what you do? Yeah. No, be clear, I take the easy sales. You want to see how I handle a Social Security objection? I hang up on them. I move on with my day. I might go, yeah, I needed to pull your medical. Well, I just don't give that out. Well, then you can't have insurance. Well, then I'm not giving it out. Well, then you ain't getting insurance. And I hang up and I call the next lead. Hey, I go through an entire presentation, they don't— they want to— they want to give me a lot to think about it, and I got to call my kids, and I got to do this, that, and the other thing. Dude, John Wetmore's not the guy that's gonna train on how to overcome that by giving you 17 little fancy things. John Wetmore's convinced you waste your time for 47 minutes begging people to buy insurance where I would hang up and call more leads. That's not everybody's favorite answer, but I'm like, I'm not the fight the objection guy. I'm the hang up and call till I get the next one that just wants insurance. And it doesn't mean I don't overcome objections and handle them up front. But I'm not beating people over the head, begging them to buy insurance. That's not why I sell so much. What up, y'all? So YouTube memberships, we have one now right next to the subscribe button. There's a neon white join button. You can't miss it. Subscribe, whatever it says, click the link, get in there. I do a ton of coaching, teaching people how to dial, corrections, working on their presentations, working on their mindset. I will coach on theory, but I like coaching real world stuff. And if you join the membership section, you're gonna see live coaching where I'm not only helping people, but every once in a while I get in there and dial myself. There's some cool videos coming out, tons of content. All of the training videos will be directly on my YouTube channel. That's available to members only. Super easy to find. So join now if you're interested, click below. See you in there. You know, I had a guy yesterday, I'll give you an example. I had a guy yesterday in our group, direct, broke as can be, sells 1 or 2 apps a week maybe. Overthinks everything, but boy does he know underwriting at every fucking carrier known to man on the, on the planet. He knows carriers, guys that we don't have. He knows the phone numbers, he knows their addresses, he knows their A ratings, he knows what city they're out of. He knows everything about every carrier known to man, but he can't sell a policy. He gets somebody that has— and I apologize if you see this, and Giovanni's gonna know who I'm talking about, so he's probably gonna giggle— but he gets somebody that has an amputated leg from diabetes. He somehow starts digging into all the underwriting, and dude, they're on Social Security and they have a $40 budget. He starts digging in and asking everyone in the group, what carrier can we use? Can we get contracted with this one? Can I go over here to write it? What can— and dude, I'm like, bro, I'm not trying to be an asshole. You're losing money asking about this client. You know, dude, they had their leg amputated last week, bro. You have one option.

You know what I mean?

Like, move on with your day. Instead, he was like so caught up on getting contracted with a new company because they might— I'm like, I don't know, dude. So for me, it's like a balance of high activity, but also I'm big on just like, yo, let me find the people who want insurance for their family and keep it moving because there's plenty of them. I'm not arm wrestling people to buy, dude. Those fall off the books. You know, um, so I don't know. Again, not everybody's favorite thing, but I'm activity first, and you know, everything else is secondary. And again, if you're doing the activity, then it's just like the net, right? Again, like you're saying, let's say you're spending $500 a week and you're writing $1,500, $2,000, and your deposits are $1,200. You turn $500, $1,200, you got $700 left, right? You turn $1,000 in leads into $2,400. Now you got $1,400 left. Which net do you prefer? I got it's a little more money up front, but the net's better. You turn $2,000 and now it's $5,000. Now you got $3,000 left over. Yeah, I got it's more up front, but then what's left in your bank account at the end is bigger. And so I always focus on what's left in the bank account more than anything. And then when I have Reps, dude, we have this, um, Giovanni has this guy Bryce in his team, country as shit, can't understand him, deep Tennessee accent, but dude, he just listens and he dials a lot and he, he doesn't get, uh, emotional about things. And this kid's picking up 4, 5, 6 apps a week and he does not know what he's doing. Literally 15 times a presentation, he puts them on hold to ask me or Giovanni a question, right? But with him, he's tripping over 4 or 5 apps a week. I'm like, all right, bro, it's time to get some more leads. So now, because he's doing the work, he's doing the training, he's taking notes, he's dialing unmuted, he's asking questions along the way. He's not afraid to make mistakes. I'm like, all right, instead of begging, I don't want you to call. I want you to call your leads that many times in 2 days. I don't want you calling your leads that many times over the next 30 days. We're going to get the answer quick. We're going to— they're either going to pick up today and tomorrow or they're not. You call them 12 times in 2 days and they don't pick up, they ain't picking up the next day either. You know what I mean? Especially not your number.

Yeah.

You know, and so if, if you do the activity in the right— I'm more about pacing as well. Like the pace of the activity is important. So if you do that the right way and you start taking and implementing the coaching that we're giving out, now it's time to like crank it up because then they'll fall over even more easier sales quick. Their net's there and they can reinvest back into leads quicker and that, The ability to flip money fast is where we all make our money. I spend the money faster, and that makes people scary, but my ROI is obnoxious because of how quick I can, I can make the sales. Y'all making a sale on Monday and a sale on Thursday and a sale next Tuesday. I'm like, dude, I'm making 2, 3, 4 a day. Some are postdated, sure, but a lot of them are immediate, and postdates don't affect you when you're consistent. Post-dates only affect you when you're inconsistent, or your first month. Yeah, you know what I mean? And so for me, it's just teaching, teaching the way the business should be done and showing it and sharing everything completely openly, dude.

Yeah, I'm sure you've heard this before, but like, it's either a matter— it's either a matter of skill or it's a matter of will. And like, I feel like 98% of the time it's not a matter of skill for most of these agents.

It's just most people don't work worth their shit, dude.

Just be honest. And then—

and they know it. That's the thing is Y'all know you ain't working. Yeah, dude, I work my face off, dude, and I have a lot of downtime. So I'm 100% sure they have downtime. Yeah, you know what I mean? And I'm like, I don't know, dude, if you're broke and you're not working, I just— I don't have a lot of sympathy. And some people don't like that, but I'm like, I mean, I don't know, dude, your dials— so I'm a big— I track hours by activity. Meaning a dial a minute is how we track it. And we, we keep track of all the metrics in our group. So a dial a minute, it is, no one will argue it takes more than a minute to make a phone call, right? And no one will argue it takes more than an hour to make a presentation. So meaning if you aren't presenting a lot, 600 phone calls is 10 hours. Yeah. So if you're like, I didn't present a lot today. All right, then why do you only have 200 phone calls? I mean, the only way I have 200 phone calls, if I have 8 presentations that day, now I'm busy. But you have 1 or 2 presentations and you have 200 phone calls, you didn't work. And I just don't have sympathy unless you tell me you're part-time or you're a single mom or you got some weird circumstance. But if you say you do this full-time, you should be on the low end. We're teaching people minimum 5 presentations a day. Legit ones, like legit. I get social, I go through the pricing, I do all the things. And to be clear, those of you that know how to do this, we're writing apps in 30 minutes. So giving people an hour for presentation on stats is very lenient, you know? So it's like 5 app, 5 presentations a day. We, we let you count it as 5 hours. That's still nowhere near full-time. So 505 presentations and 300 phone calls. That's maybe 8 hours. Yeah, you know what I mean? Of like, if you had a timer, if I was standing over your shoulder with a timer every time you made a phone call and every time you talked to someone, and the second you stopped making phone calls and the second you weren't presenting to someone, I turned the timer off. None of y'all are getting 8 hours a day, I promise you, you know. And that, that for me, I just, I go like, all right, when you start getting 8 hours a day and you're not getting results, then I, then I can train you better. You know, I tell every client, dude, as soon as we hang up, I'm going to text and email you all the policy information. Do you want to write it down now? Are you good if I just text and email it to you? 90% of them are like, just text and email it. And so I take literally after every sale, I patiently take like 60 seconds and I hit the little button and I type them in because I'm— I just want to turn and burn, you know, and go, here, Amanda, do it.

I'm going to challenge you real quick, John, to spend 65 seconds. And I know you're not a send a brochure guy. To get them to think about it. But I send a brochure after every sale. So I hit the what happened button, oh, and I send the brochure. So then it's like, hey, just so you know, for the people you saw, your policy info and the brochure on what I just sold you. So yeah, I'm not much of a, hey, I want you to think about it and look at the brochure and let's get back together. I'm a, this is, this is your policy, this brochure.

Yeah, yeah, I like that.

Make sure that she knows this.

And I'm good being challenged, and I'm good saying I'm flawed in so many ways. It's awful, you know. That's why I pre— I pre-warn people of stuff. Not all my ways are the best. Yeah, they just work for me, you know, and I, I just accept my flaws along the way. Um, but I love that it sends the after thing. Hey, hey, Jamie, here's your policy. Here's a policy number. Here's the coverage amount. Here's the beneficiary. The little blurb about the client. That stuff's money, dude, and they like it.

How did you used to do it back in the day? Like, Amanda did it?

No, dude, I, I'm such a psychopath. I never trusted her with my clients. I love her if she's watching, but I just never did because it was my money. And I'm like, nah, dude, I'm— so I legit, after— so every client, I've called every client ever because if I go way back in the day and we walked uphill in the snow both ways, we used to have to wait 2 weeks for an approval. So I had to let every client know that, hey, once it gets approved, I'll give you a call and I'll let you know. So I used to call every client upon approval, um, and let them know, hey, hey, Jamie, good, good news. We got you approved. Here's your policy number, yada yada. Policy be in the mail in 2 weeks. Now I did a very poor job. I didn't follow up to make sure they got the policy, and I did a very poor job of annual reviews. That is money in there too, because it sends and people respond to the, hey Jamie, just checking in to make sure you got your policy, dude. They respond, not only the yeses, But bro, y'all better learn when the carriers send them, because I learned they're all different. They don't all send them at the same time. Like, I had to learn when Trans sends theirs out. You postdate some stuff too much, you gotta know to— you gotta know, you know what I mean? So it's like the clients tell me like, yes, I got it, no, I didn't get it. And so that, instead of clients canceling— yes, because they didn't get their policy— they respond to that sucker, and I tell them it's coming. I'm like, hey, my system's going to follow up with you automatically to make sure that you got your policy. If somehow the mailman loses it, you just let me know, we'll get you copy. That thing has saved me a ton of money, dude. That one piece alone, following up on the policies, has saved me a ton of cancels.

Yeah, I think one of the big things that people don't take account of is like the amount of times that I had clients who would, uh, call me and maybe I'm busy working on the next lead because again it's like the don't care, call the next lead, and I miss a call. Yes. And then that person cancels not because they didn't want the policy but just because they felt like I ghosted them. Correct. And even when I miss their call 3 times, but then they still get that text message says, hey, it's—

hey, this is John. Just— yeah, yeah.

They're like, okay, John cares about me still. You missed my call, but at least he didn't ghost me.

Yeah, I like that it sends that message when they call. It's like, hey, this is John, just saw we missed your call, what's up? Yeah, because I see— and it rings it— I like it connects to the phone, so it rings on my phone too. But those messages, dude, this app, I promise you, the little The lead, like that thing, I use this more than any app on my phone. Yeah, I'm in this thing all day long personally. Um, I don't, I don't have Amanda do a ton of the— now she watches the inbox on the computer. Yeah, because a lot of them you got to weed through, you know what I mean? The ones that just respond with nothingness or whatever. So she weeds through the inbox for me, but the app, dude, I've managed that myself. I'm texting with clients all day. Um, and that, that alone has— I mean, to say whether or not it's paid for itself, I'm like, dude, I think it pays for itself 3 times a week. you know, just from being able to use those things. So it's, as much as I'm sure people whine about things not being perfect, I'm like, well, what system is? Yeah. And I, I report, I will report some stuff, be like, it's not working. I try to do it nice, not to be a dick, but I'm like, I know systems, I know there's shit wrong with all of them. Mine sucks too, half the day. But I'm like, you know, we do try to give you guys like what's, what's quirks are on.

You're one, you're one of the few people that we will take, uh, feedback from. It just has to be on the right day.

I ain't mad at that. Yeah, I, hey, I can relate to Josh a lot. I'm good, we're good no matter what.

100%. All right, so who, who is a system for and who is the system not for?

Well, please don't probably be broke and want to use it. I, I don't suspect that's probably going to be good. I think you just got to be very attentive to your business, man. I think you got to be willing to put in the work. I think you got to be willing to learn it. Because if you don't understand— like, I understand systems inside out, and it— you got— there's things to learn about how it works. It's— to me, it's not a set it and forget it system. It can— that can get you some stuff, you know, but I think you should be aware, aware of what it's doing. I think it's people that want to take their— for me, it's a, it's a very lovely cherry on top of my already profitable business.

Yes.

You know, I just don't think it's going to be magic for anyone that doesn't do the work. It's not gonna— like, I had a guy message me yesterday, dude, broke. I'm working with so-and-so and I'm having trouble and he doesn't support me and da da da. And he's like— I'm like, well, ask him a few questions. And his answer was, well, I just got this CRM and it was supposed to do all the work for me and make the calls for me and I just— I didn't make any money. And I'm like, I know. And I know y'all don't sell it like that, so it wasn't y'all, it was some other goon system that pretend You know what, you know what my favorite thing is about this compared to others? Other systems are run by failed insurance agents. That's all of your competitors. It— that's the truth, dude. All the other systems are failed. They failed selling insurance and they sold something else because it made them money, you know. And that's— I see way too many of those. And so I love that y'all use it and you understand the quirks, and y'all, y'all have tweaked it as much as you've tweaked it because of the imperfections along the way, trying to keep things going and keep things organized and keep things, you know, in, in the right line. And I can appreciate that and understand it because, again, we run a lot of systems, and Giovanni be the first to see our— I'm a systems guy. Yeah, get in it, see all the things we make mess up and make mistakes on. You know. And so I think you got to be— you got to be willing to work, um, with what's there. And, you know, for me, again, I think if you're doing well, um, and you're— and you're getting— you're making a little bit of money in the space, it can help you make significantly more for sure, because it can keep you organized as shit, dude, you know, especially if you— if you keep up with it. And I mark all the— all the not interested, I mark them. All the bad numbers, I mark them. And it does its thing. It sends those follow-ups. Dude, what's crazy That freaking— that meme, the one that's like 42 messages later, that one, do people respond to that one? That sarcastic ass, like, or the one that's like, it looks in your face like this? They respond to those weird ones. Yes, that thing works. Like, dude, I've been messaging this fool since November and they answered this morning because of a meme. Like, what the hell? It's the weirdest psychology ever, and I would never put that much effort into doing it on my own. One. So I'm glad y'all went through the time to create those corny things because they work.

Well, John, thank you so much, man. Um, okay, so you also have some different resources just like in general, like generic insurance, like not just people on your team. Like you've got your book. Like, does your Discord have an aspect of like a public aspect to it? Like how can people follow you and kind of be along for the journey? Obviously YouTube. How can people find you?

Yeah, so johnwetmore.com is, is the easy way to point to everything, that for the most part. Um, but Discord is, is, is public. We have our agency in there as a separate thing, but any— I have a lot of— I think we have about 1,000 followers in there now, um, that are mostly not with my agency, to be honest. But if you go to johnwetmore.com/discord, that will, that will get you into the Discord directly. Um, yeah, yeah, that gets you into Discord. Yep. So you can register there. It'll get you in. You can watch what we do and you can do it. There's a dial team in there. Again, you can— now if you're not in the agency, it'll, it'll not let you dial unmuted and it will, you know, there's some restrictions on it, but you can watch everything. Um, that's probably the best thing. And then if you're a nerd and you want to use a tracker, uh, we're, we're building right now. It's— you'll see it in Discord. Um, I don't know if I want to share this because we're still building it, but y'all know I have a, like a— I'm a big dialer. I'm gonna give out the old one. If you go, I'm just gonna jump in real quick. I'll just say don't, don't share it. Share it with me offline and I'll share what we're doing with you and everybody else can just be in misery for now. Yeah. Okay, cool. I was going to give them the handwritten, the little thing I use because I think everyone should track their stuff. But yeah, I'll send it to you. I'll give it to you. I'll text you now.

We got, we got some fun stuff, John. I've been— my gears have been turning on how some of the reporting that we're working on with AI that is going to blow your mind and taking some of your insight. I think, I think you're really going to like it.

Well, we should share notes then because I have one already running.

Incredible.

It's been dope, uh, for me and my team.

So incredible. Well, all right, JohnWetmore.com, Discord, YouTube, Instagram. His book, um, highly recommend. I mean, I think I'm gonna start having my new agents read the book. I think that's probably one of the easiest things they can do, especially when they're going through contract and they're sitting around doing nothing. Yeah, if you get it on the website, I actually sign all them all.

And so if you get on Amazon, they just it. But if you buy it on the website, my team sends it. I hand sign them all and we send extra shit with it too.

Incredible. John, we appreciate you, man. Uh, you're a great friend, great mentor in this business, and I think everyone learned a lot.

Carpenter, what's up, bro? I appreciate it, dude. Happy to help.

Awesome, guys. Hey, everyone have a good day. Uh, live dials are still happening in this room. Let's, uh, sell some insurance, help some families, man.

See you guys.