How I Scaled My Business to $100K/Month ft. Johnny Nitafan | Ep5

What I always tell people, bro, this industry has been around so long. There was money, gobs of money being made every year in insurance before any of us were around, before any technology whatsoever, before any leads, before phones, before computers, before telesales, before CRMs. Like, they've been making the money forever. What's up, y'all? John Wetmore back with another episode of Insurance Insiders with my dude Johnny Nittifan. How are you, bro?

Good, man. Never better, dude. Hit the gym. Ready to rock and roll, bro.

I love it. Would you work out today?

Uh, legs, dude. Legs is one of those things. My heel's been jacked up the past few weeks, so it's nice to hit a solid leg day. Um, get that testosterone just boosting for the day, bro.

At my age, you gotta use a needle for that shit. Testosterone, not other stuff.

Yeah, that's how it goes, man.

It is, man. I was like, damn. I, one day I go, I'm feeling like shit for a couple months. I'm like, what the hell? I go, keep going to the doctor and he's like, yo, you ever had your test checked? And you like, my what?

Yeah. I mean, dude, it's like a lot of people definitely, I've, I've been hearing a lot of that stuff recently and I'm like, maybe I should consider getting on TRT like when I'm 40 or something.

Yeah, dude, I go, right? So finally I go and, uh, I'd seen like a couple doctors before. You know your body, right? When you're off. I'm like, something's off, dude. I'm telling you, something's off. Finally, one guy smart enough to ask. It took him 10 seconds. It's like when someone knows, they know, you know what I mean? He just— 10 seconds to diagnose it. He sent— he tests it. Mine was like 200, and it's supposed to be like 1,000 or 1,200, whatever that is, you know? And I'm like, oh, no wonder. A couple weeks, and I've been like— it's been like 5 years though.

Yeah, but for sure, man.

Yeah. So, but yeah, gym day, dude. I love it. I can't, uh, you know Do you feel messed up if you don't go to the gym?

Like, does it affect you? Yeah, it's weird, bro. It's weird. And especially 75 Hard now, it's like, it's, it's more of an inconvenience not going to the gym than like, than it is going to the gym, if that makes sense.

Are you in it right now?

Oh, for sure. Yeah. We're day 23 or 24.

Weird. Like you're both doing it. You don't—

Oh, no, no, no. Oh, I'm doing it with, uh, one of the guys that I'm working with.

Yeah.

And then, uh, I'm doing it with my brother. So they failed both. They both failed first week. And I was like, you guys have to finish this with me. So I might go 85 days just to— Yeah. So one of them was like, dude, I, I drank like 3/4 of the gallon, dude. I drank the other 1/4 this morning. So we're back in it. And I was like, that doesn't count, bro.

That ain't— No.

I was like, you got to start over. And I was like, standards, because the little things add up. And if you, if you cut yourself short here, what else are you gonna cut short on? And so he's like, you're right, bro, it sucks. And I'm like, you gotta do it, bro. It's standards.

Standards. You finished it before, haven't you?

I have. Um, yeah, so I've finished it already once with my wife. This time I did not want to do it, bro, at all. Usually I'm like, yeah, let's do this thing. And I remember last time I resented it more. You and I talked about this on, on, uh, my— when I interviewed you, but like I binged so hard after 75 Hard that I was like, I resented it so much. And then I was like, you know what, I feel like I actually wanna do this again, or I don't wanna do this at all, but that's why I feel like I need to. And so I was like, you know what, I'm gonna do it and commit to it. Yeah.

You know what's funny, dude, is the second time I, I did it first and second time back to back. I had like maybe 2 weeks off.

Yeah.

But the second time Steph wanted to do it with me, so I'm like, God, I'll redo it. So I essentially did it for, you know, 150 out of 155 days or 60 days, whatever the gap was in the middle. And the third time was like I fell off the wagon the second time. Like I still worked out, but my diet was trash. I'd be like, I can get some Chick-fil-A. Hell, give me two of them, you know? And so I did it again the third time. I don't remember how long later it was. It was a hot minute. I think it was the following year. So maybe 6 or 8 months later. And dude, I hated it the entire time because I was mad. It's so weird. I was mad that it took a program to stay disciplined. Yeah, you mean it's just a mind trick? I'm like, oh, I'm on 75 Hard, I got to be disciplined. If I'm not, I can't, you know what I mean? So now I, I won't do it. Someone asked me to do it in January this year and I was like, I thought about it and I'm like, I really don't want to because I just want to live my life disciplined.

Yeah.

You know, and I'm not perfect every day, but dude, my diet's way more on point than ever before in my life. And yeah, working out, if I don't, dude, everyone around me notices now.

They're like, yeah, you didn't go to the gym today, did you?

I'm like, sorry.

Yeah. No, it's interesting because like, I, I, the, the more that I've kind of learned just about the, you like systematizing things.

Yeah.

Like if you can systematize your personal life, you can systematize the business, you can Systematize success. I think that's what I've learned a lot recently. And so like, I try to like, literally it's not about sticking to the morning routine. It's more about like doing consistent actions over and over and over, like successful actions over and over and over again, and just making it like just who you are, right? So you see back here, it's like the protein bars, eat that every morning right after the gym, drink a protein shake right after the gym. So within an hour of like working out, 50 grams of protein in right away, and then it's like All right, cool. Now I'm not hungry till like lunch, so then I can just work and focus on that and put all my energy on that instead of like, because I think a lot of us get decision fatigue. Like you and I were talking about this offline, but it's like I, my wife and I traveled, sounded awesome living the laptop, laptop lifestyle, traveling wherever, which is awesome, right? The business allows and affords that. However, when you're really wanting to grow and really like push for something huge, and you probably know this from experience, you've done way more cooler things than me. But I think when you're trying to build something, there's only so much mental energy and bandwidth that you have. So you got to, you got to decide what your priorities are in life. Is it to enjoy life right now or is it to really push forward and use all that mental bandwidth and energy to growing something that will afford you that later? And I think it just wasn't— it was more expensive to do that than it was like it just really was. Because I'm like, dude, just thinking about it, like, I don't want to have to figure out all the different little condiments that we have. Like, I don't want to have to go to the grocery store every time and just buy that for 4 weeks and then just like throw it away and do it all over again. I'd rather put that into building something that I can do that and just not even have to think or worry about that next time. So yeah, it's all about systems.

So when, when you and Bailey thought about it at first, like, what was the convo like? Hey, let's live this life. And then how did it transition back, like, relative to your goals and what you're trying to do in business? And like, I'm curious how the conversations went.

Yeah. At first it was like, that sounds dope.

Whose idea?

To be honest, like, what was that? Whose idea?

How did it come up? Like, how'd y'all decide we want to try? For those who don't know, he was like, yo, we're just— and I don't know the exact details, but in my head I heard, yo, we're just going to travel around the country, live wherever the hell we want to live, check out cool places and print money.

That's literally how it goes. Literally how it went, bro. We, we our lease was coming up to an end. And so we're like 2 months out and we're like, do we want to renew this lease or not? And I was like, I'm not opposed to it, but I think would be really cool because she wanted to move to Florida. And I was like, I don't know if I'm fully ready to commit, but what if we just went and lived in Airbnbs in different cities to kind of test out the cities that we like and maybe move there? And so that was the idea. So literally what we did is we had an apartment at that time. We sold all of our stuff inside the apartment except our bed. Um, because it's like, that's just— we, we got, we got blessed with like, uh, we, we got given a, uh, uh, California king bed, uh, when we got married, and it's like the best ever. And so I was like, I'm not trying to like rebuy that. And so we just kept it, uh, at my in-law's house out here. Anyways, long story short, we did that, and, uh, we're like, you know what, we're gonna go to North Carolina and we'll start our journey there and then kind of travel all around. And then if we find a place that we like, we're just going to like buy a house or just rent there for like a year. So that's kind of what we did. What ended up happening though, was in that time, dude, was the holidays. So what happened was 3 weeks after we got there, she already had a trip planned to Europe for 2.5 weeks. So then I came to New Mexico. So in that time we're there for 3 weeks, we get adjusted and then we have to put all of our stuff, we pack it in the car. A person that we met out there. We left all of our stuff in the car at their house for 3 weeks while we're both gone. We're both in different parts of the world at that point. Then we come back, we go to another Airbnb. Then 2 weeks later is Thanksgiving. So after Thanksgiving, for Thanksgiving, we, we flew to California. So that's a whole, that's a whole endeavor. Then after that, we go to Wisconsin. So then after, like, then we go to Wisconsin to hang out with family just for like her grandparents' anniversary. So it's like a bunch of traveling in that time. Then after that, her parents come and they're, they're with us for 2 weeks. So it was like back to back to back to back to back traveling a ton. And then we went to Virginia in between there too. And so in this time, it's like you're trying to still like— you're, you're still making money, but it's, it's like so many different things. It's like stop, go, stop, go, stop, go, stop, go, stop, go in life that you're trying to like make things work out. And then it's just, it it just didn't, right? So then towards the new year, I was like, honestly, don't want to do this anymore. And she's like, I feel the same way. I want some level of consistency, like at least a month somewhere. And then she also started her master's degree. So that's like, I was like, let's make life easy so we can go hard in other areas of life. And she's like, I agree. So we, we ended up like coming back to Arizona. In the meantime, we actually went to New Mexico for 2 months. Which is where my family is, stayed there in their house. Dude, it wasn't a nightmare. It probably wasn't the best decision ever to stay with my parents for 2 months. That was just a lot of dynamics there.

If I would have gone back to that, bro, we can all relate to that.

Yeah, but the funny thing about it is, though, that was I had the two best months that I've ever had in business in that point. I think it's because I was so happy to be with my family again. Um, however, it's, it's like so much to, to balance in between there. I'm teaching my brother about the business, which was cool. So he's 3 years younger than me, and so I was able to like really unlock a lot of beliefs that he's had, um, in terms of like business in general. And so, because one day we were working out and he's like, what are you thinking about? I was like, why am I not making $100,000 a month right now? Like genuinely, like I'm genuinely curious. And he's like, what? And I was like, there's like 3 or 4 hours of context I need to build into this conversation. So come to the house, let's break this down. Showed him my laptop and like literally just broke things down, like each, each part of like the whole business. The whole just online businesses in general outside of insurance, things like that. And it unlocked a new vision for him, and he actually started a, a business there, got a few clients not insurance related, uh, for his tutoring business. And so it was cool to be able to help him. And then he like, he actually called me last week and was like, dude, I think I'm gonna get my insurance license, uh, this summer and actually start it. So it's cool to all that to like go about. But, um, yeah, so then we ended up coming back to Arizona and now we're here, uh, which is nice because it's like familiar. We met here, we have good relationships here, and the gym's close, and, and I can like actually be here. It's like you, you, all those little things that, that you don't think you need to think about, uh, is, is kind of just automated out now. So it's nice.

So now I want to know, why are you not making $100 grand a month?

So that's a, that's a good question. For a long time it was because I got distracted a lot with— it's distracted with the new thing. And so that's like why— that's what was hard for me. And so what I've realized is that— and I've actually come close— February I made 90, so it's like I'm close.

However, How much was personal versus business?

Curious. So it's actually coaching. Oh, got it. So yeah, so, um, personal though, my biggest month was $55,000 in like commission. So anyways, the— all that to be said though, the— what was the question again?

Why are you not making $100,000? What'd you figure out that's causing you not make $100,000 grand? If you, if you contemplated—

yeah, it was, it was It was doing the, the, the things that are successful, doing it over and over and over and over and over again. That's, that's what was— that's what I messed up on. And so I did that for 2 years, and I was like, bro, and like, you, you've, you've seen it from a distance, but because you and I have had like— we, we'll check in every once in a while, um, but you've seen it, right? And so it's like, that's That's the mistake, is not doing the things that I need to do over and over and over again that will repeat successful actions. And so that's— that was my biggest mistake in that regard, for sure. So if I were to go over again and if I were to start over again, what I would have done is the carriers and the IMOs or whatever, like, it's like, yeah, there's gonna be some good, some bad, there's gonna— whatever it is, right? Everybody says Everybody's preaching against the other one. I mean, it is what it is, right? It's all pretty much the same. Comps are very similar. It's not like, oh my gosh, like, it's, it's not like this. It's all fairly comparable. And the thing is, like, everybody's making millions at every, every IMO. Um, doesn't matter if you're with World Financial Group, FFL, like the new ones now. Um, it really doesn't matter. There's still people making money. It's just a matter of like what is going to work for you. Um, and so it's like actually committing to a process long term is, is the mistake that I made. So the leads are the leads are the leads, the systems or whatever. It's more a matter of like finding what is going to be best for your situation and actually sticking to it because all of them work.

Yeah.

And I didn't do that. It was just like, dude, like just like full transparency, I literally switched IMOs 4 times in my first like 9 months. Like, he was bad. Um, and I, I, I own that because like, it's just, it's horrible. But it's like, I think that's such a— obviously it's to the extreme, but I think the reason why new agents aren't successful is because they do that. Uh, whether they go to 4 IMOs or not, I haven't met somebody that's gone that many.

No, I hear it all the time, bro. It's common. And they think that's the next trick, you know. Certainly we all have beliefs that where we work is quote unquote— but dude, I've never been confused that where we work also we have damn problems, you know what I mean? Like, none of us are perfect. And to your point, people are printing money at all of them. The carriers are the same, the products are the same, training— everyone's going to argue theirs is the best, you know what I mean? Certainly some of us can go, hey, we got a lot more volume, that probably means something. But at the, at the core, you're not wrong, dude. And What I always tell people to grow is this industry has been around so long that there was money, gobs of money, trillions of dollars being made every year in insurance before any of us were around, before any technology whatsoever, before any leads, before phones, before computers, before telesales, before CRMs. Like, they've been making the money forever, you know. And so I Again, I, I certainly think all of us have some level of belief in where we, where we do work, but at the same time, I don't think that's the magic either. Yeah, I know, I never really have. I've been fortunate to find really good people that have helped me make it easier, but again, there are people making— there are people making money with the phone book, door-to-door, in, you know, the '60s, making millions.

Yeah, so Yeah, it's— dude, it's tough, bro. Like, to be honest though, like, it's— we're always wanting the new thing, um, but it's hard. Like, that's, that's the, that's the level to get to, $20,000 to $30,000. Once I actually stuck to that, then I was able to make consistent $20,000 to $30,000 months like clockwork. Yeah, but it's, it's when I had that realization that like, that's, that's it. Um, but it is really hard at first, bro. It really is hard.

How, um, again, you know, Mastermind, same, same deal. How did— what made it click for you? What was the— what changed?

I think one is actually taking the emotions out of it as much as I could. Um, and I think there's an importance of actually tracking your data and getting data. Like, that is— that's where it's at. Like, that numbers won't lie. And whenever I'm— whenever I'm not 100% confident in something or feeling some way, it's always comfortable looking at the numbers as, as bad as they are and being like, dude, this is where I'm at. And so, because at least there's like, it's either motivation that'll come out of it or it'll be, oh, I'm not even doing that bad. I feel like I am, but that's how the business ebbs and flows. And so it was actually diagnosing every single number that I have and being like, I'm actually not doing that bad. I just need to actually double the leads that I get.

Do more of it.

And so, yeah, do more of it, right? And so So that's what, that's what really clicked to me. And then actually not doing it for other people and ego, like not feeding the ego in terms of like, oh, I'm submitting all this business, but like, all right, how's my business actually cash flowing? That's what, that's the number one thing I'm going to work on and I'm literally going to tune out everything else. So I, in January last year, I deleted Instagram. I, I still post and all that still now. I just use the Meta Business Suite app, which is nice. Um, but I deleted that stuff because I'm like, I need to get all the mute. I need to tune out all the noise and just focus on my process and doing that the best that I can and perfecting that. Because it just comes down to like, there's a certain point that it comes where you don't need any more new information. Like, we're, we're, we're in a stage where just in, in life, I think in the, the way the world is, is that information is so accessible it's easy to get information overload and do nothing about it, like mental masturbation, right? It's like mentally just like you, you get off and you actually feel productive and the productivity starts spinning and spinning, spinning. You actually feel like you're actually being productive when you're actually doing nothing. And so there's a certain point that you just turn all that stuff off. I deleted YouTube, I deleted Instagram, I deleted Facebook, all that stuff. I still am able to post on there but I deleted all that stuff and I said all I needed to do is just do the work. Like, that's all it comes down to. I know exactly what I need to do. There's not a new podcast that I need to listen to, even though I'm a huge fan of podcasts. I have one on my own, but there's not a— there's somebody telling the knowledge the same, the thing that I, I need, I know I need to do. Hearing that over and over and over again is not going to help me get closer to my goal. That's what it came down to.

It's funny when I, when I do a lot of these events and trainings and Zoom, I do a million things and a lot of questions I always ask people, especially I like to do it live. I always go like, is there anything here that was said that you've not already heard before?

That it's true though. It's—

and everyone's like, no, I've heard it. I'm like, so What do you— what's changed? What are you gonna change? Are you going to do it? Because we said it last time and you didn't do it yet and you're still broke. So now we're all going to say it again this time, you know what I'm saying? It's like, I wanna— and now, fortunately for you and I, new people will see— will— there will be people see this for the first time. It's like, cool. But like, if you've seen both of us, which, if you've been around the business for a hot minute, you've seen both of us online, if you've already watched our stuff, hang up and go work. Like, end the video, go work. There's gonna be nothing new from either one of us that we haven't said before, you know. And it's, it's funny kind of figuring that out along the way. I think everyone I know has had that type of realization, like, you know, I just gotta, I just gotta put in the work, dude, you know. And, uh, as you know, people overthink it, man. I had this, I had this guy hit me up.

Yeah, uh, bro, you always got a story about this. I listen to your stuff. I love you. I love, I love what you're doing here. And you always— it's funny because you always got a story about like, dude, a guy hit me up and then it's going to be a good— it's going to be— there's going to be a good lesson in here. But I just love whenever you say that, I'm like, I always like lean in. I'm like, what is he about to say? I'm so curious about that.

I love it.

So because I was one of those guys, bro. That's what I'm saying. I was one of those guys that reached out to you. So I'm just curious, like, what other people ask and stuff.

Yeah.

So that's how we met.

It is, yeah. I remember you, you hit me up on Instagram. So this guy hit me— I had, I had a couple cool ones this week on Instagram. I'm gonna, I'm gonna pull it up and read it like direct. Uh, let's see if I can find this. Here you go. So he sends me a message one day that was like— he started DMing me like a week ago, and, uh, he goes, I know, I, I know— he goes like, I know you didn't ask for me to message you, but blah blah blah blah blah. And I was like, well, since you didn't ask and you messaged me. You also didn't ask for feedback and I'm gonna give it to you, you know what I mean? And I like told him straight up, but he— I'll skip that piece. What I wanted to say was he sent me a message the other day and it said, rough day today, Wi-Fi outage, 4 no-shows, 4 sits, 80 dials, no new appointments, couple chargebacks, following up on pending. Tomorrow's another day. What do you think my reply was?

Any idea? I would— I think it was 80 dials, question mark.

6, 7, it was 8 words.

You're close. Do more, get better later. I don't know.

Hey, my guy, I said sounds like a half day to me, bro. And he replies and says, damn, John, I agree, no excuses. I'm like, truth. I could do 4 appointments and 4 no-shows and $80 before lunch, bro. Like, what do you mean rough day? You could have played 2 rounds of golf and had dinner with your family in addition to that, you know what I'm saying? It's like, what are we, what are we doing? So the next day he texts me, 342 dials so far. And I was like, it was 5 o'clock. I'm like, yo, and it's early. 500 plus. And then he goes on it and he ends the day 503. You know what I mean? Like, I just— I like challenging people. But this dude, in his head, he was like— he literally thought it was a hard day in the business. And like you were talking to your brother, your perspective on things shifts people. I literally thought, yo, this dude only worked a third of the day, a half day. Like, my response was, it sounds like a half day. Like, dude, it's about a day off when you work that little, you know? And I truly believe that, but I didn't always because I remember being like him too, you know what I'm saying? And I'm like, dude, I wish someone punched me in the face. Yeah, so it's— it—

whenever you're feeling bad, that's what I love about this business, is whenever you're feeling bad or sorry for yourself, just get moving, do something. Like, just get moving and shaking and like just make more dials. Like, that's always there's always some— I'm not going to say it pacifies it, but it just—

it—

all the problems work out when you just do, do more. And I would like— I, I've started— what's cool is as I've like developed just like in this business, I've, I've seen like— I, I understood the concept of what you said, do more, get better later. I understood that. Like, I was like, okay, that makes sense. But actually seeing that and then also helping out new agents and training other people, it's like that motto, it's just so simple and— but it's so true. Like, you, you will get better with volume, correct? But you have to put in the volume. There's no way that you can just get better. It's like everybody asks quality versus quantity. Well, it's both. You have to have— you have to have quality, but you You can't get quality if you don't do quantity. So it's, it's just, it's that over and over and over again. And I think like with anything in life, right? Like I've really tried to grow and develop on YouTube, dude. I'm put, I've put out 100 videos the past 100 days. Like I'm on a 100-day streak because I'm like, there's no way I get to a good YouTube channel without doing volume. Like I have to do volume and I have to commit to it and I just get better every day. And so same thing with making dials, same thing with doing presentations, same thing with whatever. And what's cool is there's a certain point that there's the learning curve, but there's a certain point that you've learned all that you need, that all you just got to do is do like, just keep like, do that more, double that. And so Alex Hormozi talks about it a lot. It's like, do more, do that better, and then do new. So what are you doing right now? Do more of it. All right, cool. So now you have the flow. Now how do you do that better? How do you optimize? Okay, cool. You did 100 presentations. Do 200. All right, cool. Now you did 200. Okay, what do we need to do now? Dude, your close ratio is horrible. What objections are you getting? Okay, you're getting these 3 objections. Let's role play. Drill, drill, drill, drill, drill. All right, cool. Did that. Now you do the same 200 presentations and you probably double your sales. And then it's, and then it's new. Maybe you usually go back to more and do better, more, better, more, better, more, better. New is everybody wants to jump to that new part, but it's like, if you don't do more and do better, I don't know, it's just, it's hard to be successful.

Yeah, it's wild. Everybody tends to— and I was this way, I was like, I'll do more, but I want to be better at it first. It's the wildest, like, backwards dynamic, but it gets a lot of people stuck. And I think for me it's like, I never— once I figured that out, dude, I was only really good at selling a few things. But dude, I sold the snot out of those few things. And if you gave me something that was different, like, I don't know nothing. I don't even know one thing about like Medicare and how it works. I don't know nothing about health insurance. I never sold an IUL. Not saying people shouldn't, and they ain't there, but I printed money and never sold one. I didn't know anything about them. I was like, I'm too busy doing this. Now again, it was 8 years ago. The world is very different with IULs today. I would, you know, I mean, I'd maybe take a different approach today, but then I wouldn't have learned some of the other things. I would have— I like to focus and go deep with stuff versus get really wide with knowledge. I'm like, dude, I don't— I remember when I said one day from stage, what's that thing, uh, is it AEP? Is that the right terminology? I think that's what it's called. For what period of time? See, you don't even know either. I love it. I don't know, some kind of Medicare crap. And, uh, oh, are they talking about it?

Yeah, yeah.

And, uh, they were talking about the entire time, and I get on stage and I'm like, yo, y'all been talking about AEP for like 3 and a half hours. Can someone tell me what that means? And like, everybody laughed and was shocked. I didn't know. I'm like, I don't know or care, because you know what I mean? Like, I don't need to know that to do what I do well.

Where was that, by the way, if you don't mind me asking?

Where was— where did I do that? Yeah, uh, I don't remember. Um, let me think.

Was it a conference or what?

Yeah, it was some kind of conference. Yeah, I was on stage somewhere at a conference. I don't remember who I was speaking with, but they just kept talking about it and I'm like, can someone please inform me? You know? Yeah, like I just learned 4 minutes ago what it was at the time. You know, I still don't know what it means. Annual Annual enrollment something, I think, period. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, I don't even understand the concept, even though I can say what it means, like the words. I don't— and again, for me, I never cared. And some people do, they want to know, they feel like they have to, and they can reason why they should do life and they should do health and they should do Medicare and da da da. And I'm like, amen, ain't mad at you. This is not—

but what's interesting about the whole thing, and we like this A lot of people listening might not understand what we're talking about here, but what's interesting about what you're saying is you're, you're a red-green, right?

I am, yes.

Yeah. Okay, so that's what's interesting is that, that you came from an accounting spot, and usually accounting people, dude, they're not like that. Like, you need the information, I need it laid out. So like, I don't know, that, that, that's interesting for sure, is like I've had to fight that you doing it.

Meaning red is like, for those that know, red is like very like high-driven. I'm, I'm gonna run through a wall, I'm gonna get shit done, like ape-type personality. And green is like super analytical. And there's a couple others, right? And, uh, man, I had to fight that, dude. And I had to learn how to let myself be analytical, but in a way where you said it, where you look at the data and figure out how I can make more with doing more with who I am. So my numbers, when I figure that out, here's how many I close every 100 appointments. Just here's my numbers. All right, forget, forget trying to get a 90% close ratio because mine was 40%. I just, I didn't know how to go from 40% to 90% closing, but I knew how to go from 100 presentations to 200. And I'm like, dude, let me just take that path. So, but I did have to fight, dude, the first couple years, wanting to know everything and how it all worked and how did they come up with pricing and why is their pricing different than that, what about the benefits over here and what rating are you and all that stuff, dude. I— my default is information.

Yeah.

And I still to this day— now I've learned how to harness it in a way that I can take the pieces of analytical that are good and the ones that are not to move on from them. Yeah, I mean, but it's— that's a daily battle for me, dude. It's like, don't be— don't overthink things. Don't be too analytical.

Cut it out.

Like, I need this much information, not this much.

Yeah, I mean, dude, it's like what you and I talked about it too, but like you're, you're doing what, what is it called? A 282 something.

Oh, the, the climb.

Yeah. What's it called again?

29029.

29029. Yeah. Right. So like that was a, that's a good example, right? Like I think if you wanna really like go out and do stuff, you don't need all the information and it, you just need at least a good grasp and understanding like, okay, if this is what you're saying is true, yes. Yeah, all right, cool, I'll do it. And you did that, right?

Like, it's just like, I did that with a marathon. I didn't know nothing about it, did the marathon. The 29029, all I really know is I'm flying to Canada and I'm climbing a mountain 8 times in 36 hours. I don't know a ton about the terrain, I don't know the weather, I don't know what type of shoes to wear, I don't know, I don't know much. I just know And then it's like, what's your training? Well, if I have to climb again, it's— each one is 4 miles, right? So I'm like, when I'm at the— when I'm at the gym, I can do a mile and a half in 30 minutes on the treadmill walking. Yeah, right. So I'm like, every hour I can do 3 miles. So if I have to go 30, I'm on a treadmill, and that would take me 10 hours. It's definitely gonna take me longer. So I'm like, yo, I might be out in the elements for 20 hours hiking a mountain. So for me, all I need to know now is I have to mentally prepare to climb a mountain for 20 hours. Because if I can't mentally prep for that, the shoes don't matter, dude. You know what I mean? Like, the terrain, it doesn't matter for me anymore. I just don't care. All I know is I'm gonna finish. And you know what you get? It's so corny, dude. You get a red hat that says 2902. There's a red hat you get. That's the— like, so it's, it's a— you know what I mean? It's like what I'm doing for a red hat. But for— it's a mental challenge. It's something hard. I like being the dude that can do hard stuff without really overthinking it too much. And it's like, what's your training? Yeah, I gotta work out my legs a lot. I don't, I don't know, you mean I gotta hike a lot and I gotta do that stair stepper thing at the gym a lot? That's my, that's my plan. Do those a lot and hope by August I'm ready, you know what I mean?

Yeah. So it is a mental battle though. That's like pretty much everything is like, it, it really does come down to like the mental part of it. It's like, it sucks. Like, when you wake up and you're like, your peak motivation, like, dude, I set the day, I'm ready to go, I'm making 400 dials today. And you wake up to an email that you got a chargeback of the person yesterday. It's like, dude, that's, that's a mental battle. That, that's irrelevant to you making 400 dials, but 400— you to make 400 dials, like, now your quality of work is going down because of that. And so If you can get past that and be like, that is going to happen, okay, all right, I can't do anything about it now. I can change for what I'm doing now, but don't let that affect today. Don't let tomorrow or yesterday affect today. So, but it does come down to the mental battle of it and the mental aspect of it.

What do you, what do you struggle with the most?

That's a great question. Um, I, I would say what we were talking about earlier is just new. I've actually in the, like, do like new stuff, right? Like the 4 IMOs and whatever.

You want to do new stuff, so yeah, you're fighting against that.

I, yeah, I'll, I fight about that, but I think what's cool is I've, I've brought a lot of like paid, like I just bring people in that I pay Um, and I've actually like really gotten a lot better at that to where it's like whenever I think of doing something new, I'm like, all right, just stay here, stay cool. And then what I'll do is I'll actually play it out. Like, I have different people that I'll go to and be like, all right, they don't, they don't say no because usually if I hear no, I'm like, well, now I just like want to go do it because you said no. And now you like pretty much justified why I should. But they're like, all right, cool, let's play it out. So then what's the next step? If you were to go do this, what's the next step? And then play it out and it's like, okay, I actually don't really want that. All right, what, what else? And so I think I've been able to at least step back a little bit and not just like move at a place of desperation and move at a place of like, what's long-term going to be the most successful? And I think that's like what, what I'm grateful for is I think I've had people that have really helped me in this area. In the past like 5 months. Like, I've seen tremendous growth in that area, and there's been times that I've been like, I would have definitely pivoted 120 different times in the past 5 months. But like, now it's like, all right, cool, let's just keep going, run the play, keep going, run.

Huh? Have you always been that way? Like a little squirrel? What way? You just always want to like— meaning you always—

yeah, bro. I mean, I, I think I have, to be honest, because like you play basketball, like, you probably see it with Maddox. It's like, dude, this team is so good. Like, if I was only on that team, bro, we'd be like crushing. And so like, that's how it would be for me is like, dude, all my friends are going to play there. Like, I want to go play there. And then it's like, everybody squirrels in that way. It's like, bro, what if we do this? Oh my gosh. Like, dude, this team sucks. Like, this team is the worst ever. All right, dude, if we could get those and we get the uniforms, bro, like, there's no way we lose. Right? It's just, bro, it's like the funniest thing, bro. If I could get that bat, the, the big barrel— like, dude, little barrel, of course you're not—

you're—

of course you're striking out because you're, you're— you got a little barrel bat. You need a big barrel. It's like, that's what's gonna help. It's like, bro, like, it really— I— but that's the thing, that's the tendencies, right? I literally transferred in high school. I went to play in basketball high school and I transferred schools, like. And so this is something deeper into my childhood that I've had to like really rework how my mind thinks and be like, no, dude, the reason why you chose this is because it was a good path, so stick to it. Let's just see it through. But it has been really, really, really tough and really challenging. Like, I've, I've really had to go deeper in my personal development to, to get out of that and to get away from it. But, um, practically it's like the numbers. Just look at the numbers. Now I'm just data obsessed. Like if you like on this sheet right here, it's like all I do is just look at numbers like all day. Now I'm like too analytical to where it's like, okay, I should move now. But it's like I'm just so addicted to the numbers and it drives me insane when, when I talk to somebody and they're like, dude, why am I not successful? I'm like, bro, you don't have your numbers. Like, how am I supposed to tell you what's working, what's not when you don't even know what objections you're getting? You say one thing, It's like, pull the call recording. Let's, let's see what the call recording says. Yeah. Because you said you overcame this objection. Like, it was so funny, dude, because I was, um, this guy was like, bro, why do I keep getting cremation policies? He's like, I literally say this script word for word. I was like, okay, cool. And I'm listening to a present live and I was like, got it. I literally know why you're getting so many of these small premiums. I literally know why. Because you're literally guiding them and telling them and almost selling them only cremation plans. Like, dude, that's why. That's why your average premium's like almost 50% lower than average. Like, that's why. And so it's funny because we have this story in our head, but what's the truth? And I think what's cool is numbers won't lie. You can't really like fake the numbers. So I think that's where it's like, oh dude, like the guy. Dude, I made, I made 80 dials. It might feel like a long day, but like, dude, it's 80 dials, bro. Like, you— it's so funny because I— you've had a big impact on like the way I see things. And so I'm like, bro, that's like an hour, less than an hour and a half of work. Like, did you really work? Come on now.

I love it.

I love that I get messages. I had a— I think I might get my team to play a message or put it on social. This other dude messaged me yesterday and he sent me a voice message. Hold on, I might do it. Let me see if I can play it. I don't know if you can hear this if I play it. Hold on, tell me if you can hear this.

Sometimes things are so simple, make a big difference. Doing your stuff, self-talk to myself, I'm doing your stuff. Every 10, 15 minutes I'm looking at my call history. I was looking at my calls to see there were gaps in between the calls, and every time that I saw that there was like a bunch of like calls with no gaps, I was like, yes, motherfucker, that's what I'm talking about, that's what I'm talking about, keep going, keep going. And then every time somebody was telling me no or something like that, I was like, keep going, motherfucker, remember, we're looking for the Easter egg with the 50 cents, that's all we're looking for. Man, I'm telling you, your stuff is incredible, man, thank you.

Dude, that's it.

I don't even know him. I have no idea who that is.

I remember, it's so funny, bro, because that's what's cool about social media is like, I remember looking at your— watching your interview with Cody, and it was like maybe like 5,000 views at that time. That's obviously grown and blown up, but like, I remember when I would be dialing, I would, I would go back and look at how much time was in between. I'm like, bro, what did I do in that time? Like, why did I not dial? Because I haven't talked to anybody. So it's just setting like extreme accountability in place, which is cool. And you— what I've appreciated about you, and I'm pretty sure everybody listening can attest to this, it's like, just simplify this business. Just simplified it. Like, that's it.

It worked for me. You know what I mean? I'm like, so how can I teach it another way? Not saying other people can't do it other ways. You know what I mean? I just know this way, and I know it's worked well for thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of agents. I'm like, shit, why don't we— why don't we just keep it what it is? Yeah, you know, dude, seriously though, I'm glad. So now, now you got me curious. If— do you have— you said you're, you're, you're really good with your data and your numbers, and which implies you definitely know how to get to whatever, uh, income amount you want to get to. But can you give some ideas of like what you do with those numbers? Like maybe what averages are, you know, if I do this many appointments, I sell this much. Like, can you share some details?

Yeah, so okay, so here, here's at a baseline what you need to do. Right. Telesales specifically, I primarily focus on final expense and simplified issue term. That's it. Right. So first of all, you need to find your niche, find what you're going to do and go way deep into that. Now, like, if you want to go IUL, cool, whatever it is, go super deep on it right when you're starting, because there's like 10 different products and carriers that you can use for each of those, for term, final, whatever it is, right? Like it's, it's so confusing at first. So just to simplify it. Pick one product. And honestly, if you can just pick one product to, to just go all in with, whether it's final expense, term, IULs, whatever it is, focus on one. Because I, I made the mistake of doing, oh dude, I'm gonna go in mortgage protection, and then I'm gonna like go in and get the IULs, and then I'm actually gonna go in and roll over all these annuities. And it's like, dude, I, I'm spending all this time trying to get annuities because I'm like gonna take, take over the house and help all the, like, cross-sell. And it's like, dude, I can't even cross-sell if I don't even make sales. You can't cross-sell if you don't make any sales. And so, but it's like, that is a typical new agent. And so the reason I say that is focus on one. Like, yes, you might be leaving money on the table. It really doesn't matter. You have no money at the table. So like, you're not leaving anything. You don't have a table. So create the table, right? All right. So first things first. Pick the niche, final expense or term. Boom. All right, now my camera died. Hold on. So the, the next thing that you do, um, is—

here we go.

All right, cool. So first things first, pick the— first things first is pick the product. Second thing is track your numbers. So what's that look like? Dials, contacts, people you got on the phone, like actually to pick up, which is cool now, is, is there's there's systems out there like Kixie. Um, Kixie is a huge thing that like we use, uh, a ton because that's super helpful. Uh, it just tracks everything. So it tracks your dials, contacts, uh, then how many people you presented to, what I— what's a pres— and, and you have to define each of these terms, right? So somebody contact is like somebody who actually picks up and it's like a human on the other line, right? It's not like, uh, it's not going to Um, a voicemail, it's like actually somebody picked up the phone. Cool. Contact. All right. Now, presentations. So what— let's define a presentation. You were able to go through the, the, the actual script. You're able to go through and present 3 numbers. Boom. That's a presentation. Then we go, we, then we track how many sales did you make? So what a sale is, is an approved application, an actual approved, and it should issue. Application. So those are the main metrics that you should be looking at and actually tracking your business. Then that'll give you a baseline understanding of where the problem is. Then the next question is, then you go out and do— I would recommend going out and doing 2 full weeks of work, probably 1 to 2 full weeks of work. That'll give you at least some data. So from there, and a full day, what I consider with decent leads, you should be dialing I know that your, your numbers are higher. What I recommend is 300 dials for sure if you're not getting 5 presentations. So you should be getting 5 presentations in those 300 dials, but if you're not, there's something off. But we'll just, we'll just say 300 is the baseline because that's what I, what I, what we look at. So, all right, cool. 300 dials or 5 presentations if you need to hit one of those, 100%. We're not worried about the sales at all. We're just going to track all of our data. So say you were to do that 6 days a week, 1,800 dials, 3,600 dials within those 6— within those 2 weeks, then you can actually isolate. You ask yourself, what problem am I trying to solve? So then from there you say, okay, where, where, where's the hiccups, right? So I'll give an example. This guy, he's doing about 250 dials a day. Cool. Him and I met a week and a half ago, so it's been a week and a half, 10, 10 days. But he took the weekend off, which don't, don't take the weekend off when you're just starting, but 10 days. So 8 working days. All right, cool. You've done all, we'll just, he did 15 presentations. We'll just call it 16 just because it's 2 a day. Easy math. His, okay, cool. You're doing 2 presentations. You're not hitting the dials. That's the number 1 lever that you can pull to grow the business. That's the very first thing that you can do. However, there is a huge problem, dude. You close 2 apps out of 16 presentations, bro. What objections are you getting? You're do— like everything lines up. You check, check, check, check, check. You're doing the dials. Dials, yeah, could be improved, but that's not the number one lever you can pull right now. The number one lever is, dude, your closing is like trash. Pull the recordings. Let's go through your presentations. What objections are you actually getting? Why are you only closing 2? You should be closing minimum 50%. On like a bad day, 40%, like, or bad like stretch, 40%. That's KPI, like key performance indicators, 40%. Our best closer closing over 100% just because we have this little cool thing that it's like, were you looking for yourself or you wanting to get the family plan? You pick up 2 to 3 of those, 20 to 30% of your sales are actually doubles. So yeah, it doesn't close 100%, but dude's doing 10 to 12 presentations a week and getting 15 apps. Like consistently. That's because of the cross-sells and things like that, which is dope. But that, that's one thing. So when you look at these numbers, you break everything down, then you ask, what problem am I trying to solve? Then you isolate the problem, right? So that he's, he's coming to me, he's like, dude, I don't know if the leads are working. I'm like, your closing ratio is horrible, dude. You're closing 10, 15%, dude. If you were to double that, you're doubling your profitability. Like, you're profitable right now, but you're doubling that. So then it's like, that's a number one example. So it's a sales problem and it's a presentation problem. There's probably some objections you're getting within the call. You're probably not going through the framework well and actually overcoming the objections before you get them. So we were able to completely isolate, and now he has extreme clarity of like, all right, every day he's sending call recordings now of presentations that he's done. And so then we can be like, okay, now we need to drill these. So what we do is we, once we get the objection, what I have everybody do is every presentation they do, I have a tracker and it's like, did they buy? Yes or no? How much AP?

Cool.

Did they not buy? Why? Partner objection, spouse, or, uh, uh, it was too much. Um, they already had coverage. Whatever it is, there's an objection and there's going to be an underlying like 2 to 3 objections you're getting. Now we need to role play and talk through those. Why are you getting these objections? Why didn't you uncover these before the actual thing? And you could actually build needs. So if they're getting, think about it, you didn't build enough pain to be and build urgency of why they should do it today. And you also didn't explain the process. Why are they wanting to think about it? Like that's, that's a smokescreen. What's the actual objection there? Is it too much? Is it like they're not sure if their, their partner's on board? Like what is it? So then you're able to go deeper into that. So that's the thing about it. Partner is just like, dude, you can present without them. Or like, what's, what's the other alternative? Like reset the appointment. All right, cool. So why, why didn't you ever uncover that before? Like you should, there, there's, there's questions that we ask to be able to identify and pull those. It's called killing the zombies. We're able to isolate that and be like, all right, cool. We, we killed that objection off. We're not getting that at the end of the call. So now we need to work on your pre-closing questions. So that's an actual problem we're trying to solve. If you always ask yourself that, then you can isolate what you need to do. Then from there, what's really cool is we've had people just— I built out a basic tracker. I'm just like, I need the data. What's cool is we've had people inside of like our coaching community take this to the extreme to where it's like now they're like data obsessed, which is awesome. So they built out this huge, insane tracker that actually gets better the more data that you put in. So you put your daily activity in, And then it compounds over time. So it gives you your yearly of like yearly, how many dials you've made over the year. And then it also gives monthly projections. So where it's like, okay, input your goal, make $20,000 profit. All right, cool. Based on the 3 months of data or 4 months of data you've put in, these are the exact numbers you need to hit based on all your data that you've put in, which is awesome. And it gets better over time, just like fine wine, right? So it's like, you're able to do that. So what— that's what I'm talking about in terms of the data. It's like you isolate the problem. Okay, you're not doing enough dials. Okay, then what? So if you're doing the dials but not doing the presentations, then your, your intro is horrible. So let's master the first 5 seconds of the call. How do we do that? We just roleplay over and over and over and over and over again. Make sure your intro is really good. So that's, that's what we do with the data, if that makes sense.

Yeah, it's sick.

Then we can have projections and it just becomes a math equation. Dude, you need to get, you need to get 1,000 leads. And dude, you needed to do a, get 1,000 leads this month and do X amount of activity and you're probably going to hit it. And if not, there's a problem there and then we hit it next month.

Yeah.

Yeah. When I, when I did that exercise, however long, 10 years ago, I was, my averages came out. It was like I was, I was making, depositing $250, $250 every time I booked an appointment. So when I just looked at the two numbers, that's what it equaled. And I'm like, you know, if I go run 1,000 appointments, I'll make $250. I was like, shit, easy math. And I did it, but then I made $460 because I messed up and got better. Yeah, along the way. Yeah, momentum happened and all these things that the numbers couldn't account for, but I knew my minimum, my baseline was at $250. And I'm like, yo, I just got better along the way. 100%. You know, kill the zombies like you say and find other opportunities and get bigger premiums. And you know what I mean? Identify when they were gonna say, I wanna think about it and leave and get to a better appointment. You know what I mean? It's like all those things came, but I had to understand, for me, understanding where I was at in business, dude, it was a game changer for me because then it just literally became like a complete game to me. It's like, yeah, how much you want to make? Go run this. And the emotions went away for me after I figured that out.

Dude, that's 100% it, right? And so if you guys are a new agent, you guys aren't where you guys actually want to be in your business, what I 100% recommend is the leaderboards are there, which is awesome. Those are for like experienced people that are there, that it just shows what's possible. Just take with that with take that like, okay, that, that is possible. I can definitely do that. But count your small wins. If you made a sale, dude, you made a sale. Like, that's a huge win. It doesn't matter. Like, it doesn't matter if it's $20 a month. I genuinely don't care, dude. You made the sale and now you have proof that you can do it again. Now replicate what you, what you did. You can get better. That's all part of the getting better over time. Yeah, you're not getting the best premium yet, whatever it is, right? Like create the flow, just do stuff, get us— get sales under your belt. It doesn't have to be perfect, doesn't have to be pretty. But then once you do that, you have a— you have a baseline understanding of the whole process from start to finish. And that was always encouraging to me, like, yeah, okay, I was able to do that. Now I know I can replicate that at scale. And so if I do more of what I just did, I know I can get better results. And then there's little tricks of the trade that you can do to be able to get those family plans, to be able to get those X, Y, and Z things to where it's like you're picking up multiple apps, you're closing, you're doing 12 presentations and closing 15 apps. People are like, dude, how? Bro, it's just, it's simple. But you don't get there if you don't do any work or activity. You don't get there without just like, I don't know, like doing nothing. You got to do stuff.

You ain't allowed to, you ain't allowed to have that yet.

Yeah, exactly. You don't get the privilege of solving that problem because you haven't solved the first problem of doing the activity.

Dude, I love it. I love it. Speaking my language, bro.

Let's go. Yeah, bro. Super appreciative of you, man.

My dude, I appreciate you coming on and hanging, and we definitely should connect more.

Yeah, bro.

I completely agree. How do you want them to find you? I know you're not on social, but you want them to find your stuff.

So give it. Oh, yeah, for sure. Yeah, I—

you don't consume social.

Yeah, exactly. I was telling one of the guys on my team, I was like, I'm not a, I'm a, what is it? I'm a creator, not a consumer. And so, and so, but anyways, follow me on Instagram, Johnny Knitta Fan, J-O-H-N-N-Y Knitta Fan 1, or YouTube, Johnny Knitta Fan, post tons of content on there. John Wetmore and I, we got a podcast coming out soon. So I just started the Life Insurance Telesales Mastery Podcast. So we've got some heavy hitters, people that you might have had on this as well. So, uh, it's cool. But appreciate you, man, having me on, dude. It's always good times.

The real ones, dude. Keep killing it. And if I can help with anything, let me know.

Got you, bro.

I do appreciate you.