How This Ex-Car Salesman Makes $10K Per Week Selling Insurance ft. Adam Haffner | Ep108

He had gotten to a GM position in 3 years when he was 18. By 21, he was making very good money in the business. And I had asked him, I said, what did you do differently? He just said he worked more than everyone else. It was super simple. And so since he told me that, for that first full year in car sales, I worked every single hour that that store was open. I did not have a life at 18, and it took me 2 months of doing that before I even really started clicking and figuring out sales.

What's up, dude?

Not too much, man. Just got off, uh, just got off a call, sold somebody. We're in March Madness competition right now.

So are you, are you winning?

Oh, I'm winning. Yeah.

Are you?

Yeah.

Who are you competing against?

I'm competing against my top guy, actually. He's, uh, he wrote Hall of Fame last year.

Uh, one-on-one, you versus him?

Yeah.

Okay.

It's just the first week, first week of the bracket, so.

Okay, got it. So what's the— what do you— how do you— how's it play out? How's it work?

So we have a rookie bracket and we have an elite bracket. Okay. So everyone who's kind of like just started within the first 2 months are on the rookie side.

Mm-hmm.

And then we have the elite bracket where, you know, anyone past 2 months. And, uh, I got randomized against him and we've been like, no way. So we've never won.

You're against the stud.

Okay. Yeah. Yeah. We've never competed and we always had some silent beef, like, oh, who's better? So it's been fun.

So far, what's the score right now? You go AP for the week or submit? Yeah, I assume.

Yeah, I'm getting pretty lucky with some of the big— these big deals. I'm at $8,000 for 4. Um, I think he has like $1,600 for 2, so he's kind of having a slow week.

Oh, he's getting skunked.

Yeah, so far. I don't know, he's one of those guys, he could just drop $10K in, in a couple hours.

So any of us can. Yeah, yeah. When's it through? There's like Saturday or Sunday.

Yeah, Saturday. So we'll be midnight on Saturday and then we'll get ready for the next week. It's kind of just like a March Sunday, Sunday to Saturday.

Okay, that's cool. Yeah, I love it. I love it. That'd be terrible going out in the first round for either one of y'all.

Really?

Yeah, right. I love it. Well, we can make it quick so you can get back in. How much did you just sell on that one?

Oh, that was a smaller one. It was like $780 or something like that.

But you got a big one.

I got it.

So that's good. I love it. So I hear you're in Minnesota, is that right?

Until 20 days from now. Okay. So I, I've been kind of waiting for— so I've been with my girlfriend since I've been 15, so like 6 years. I just proposed to her about 3 weeks ago. And so we're moving when she gets done with college in— at the end of May here, the beginning of May, I should say. We are moving to North Carolina. Oh, so we signed our lease down there. I'm leaving a little early, I'll be there mid-April, and then she'll be coming down when she finishes up college in, uh, in the beginning of May.

So I love it. You're from Minnesota?

Yep, born and raised Minnesota. Met in science class, she was trying to get homework done and then, and we just stuck together.

She—

yeah, it's been good.

Yeah, she in college in Minnesota too?

She is, yeah, she goes to UMD Duluth. Um, the big hockey school. I don't know if you watch hockey or anything, but I've heard of it cuz we have a Duluth here in Georgia.

So I've heard of that hockey team. You see 'em on SportsCenter sometimes.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. Yeah. That's cool. I love it. Why North Carolina? What's there?

So she's, she wanted to go to college there, um, in Wilmington. It's called like, I think University, I don't know. It's, it's, it's Wilmington. Um, which is right on the coast. Yeah. And she, uh, she wanted to go to college, but the out-of-state tuition was just nuts. And so she never went, but she always wanted to move there. And so she took me there last year and I loved it because I do like the woods and fishing and hunting here in Minnesota. So I did, I get, I get that like hometown feel there, but also you have the beach and it doesn't snow.

It gets warm.

12 inches, you know, like I do not like the snow.

So you still get seasons, but it's not Minnesota.

Exactly.

I've never been to Minnesota, by the way. I've, I just know a lot of people have and I've heard stories.

I'm like, yeah, there's a. Unless you're— you have someone who, or you know someone who has like a nice lake cabin with, with a nice wake boat or something like fishing boats or something, there's really not a whole lot going on. Really? Yeah.

A lot of, a lot of just land. Nobody, I guess.

Interesting.

Is it like farms and shit up there?

There's a lot of farms. It's very, it's very flat. Not like no hills, no mountains. Um, lots of lakes. And so there's a lot of hunting and fishing like up north. If you like outdoors, like it's a good state for sure.

Yeah, that's cool. That's how it is around here down in Georgia. I grew up in Boston, I had family in like Maine, so it's okay, same cold as shit, and people like to fish and shoot stuff. And yeah, I grew up like that, but in Georgia it's warm and they like to do all that stuff. Yeah, yeah, exactly. That's good, I love it, dude. So 21 years old, making a bunch of money selling. You have 2 offices, is that right? That's for recent— I'm looking at a note he wrote. Dang.

Yeah, the office has been really, really big, uh, for us to, to scale and grow. It's been probably the biggest, I think the biggest thing to be able to teach, teach people. Um, I don't know. I feel like there's too much like, uh, make a bunch of money remote online and, uh, they make it seem like super easy. And I mean, having an office is a superpower, I would say. Like, I'm on, I'm on Playbooks. I'm on Ronnie's team. And I, I joined Playbook when, gosh, we must have been doing like $300,000 or $400,000. So I, I joined pretty— yeah, I've been in Playbook for a long time, but I remember when me and Dante— I don't know if you know who Dante Vici is, but me and him had— it was our third month in the business and we were talking to Ronnie and he's like, just open the office. I had two guys on my team, um, and me and Dante, it was like a four— it was $4,000 a month, so $2,000 each for us.. And I was like, hey, worst case scenario, I can pay for the office. I'm, I was still living with my parents, so like expenses were extremely minimal and it was just worth the risk at the time. And, and it, and it worked out. It's been super awesome to be able to teach people in person a lot easier.

That's cool.

Yeah.

That's cool. You still in that same office or did you grow?

Yeah. So I am still the same office. I'm kind of like located almost between the two offices. The, the one is South Minnesota, like almost on the border of Iowa. That one I don't get to do as much because it's 2 hours away. And then my other one's in St. Cloud, so central Minnesota, and that one is about 40 minutes away. So I go to that one quite a bit. That's usually where I'm going. So that's cool. Yeah. I love it.

How many, how many people you got at the office now?

Um, at the other office, probably 20 in St. Cloud and then another 7, uh, or 8, I should say down in, uh, it's called Albert Lea, Minnesota. So that's our south Minnesota office.

So, yeah. Love it. What's team doing now volume-wise?

Um, so just in January we did 340, uh, February was like the same 340, and then, uh, March is so far week 2 is, uh, so far our biggest week 2. So I think we're gonna probably crack 350, maybe 375 in that area.

Cool.

I love it. So yeah. Yep. And that's between, uh, I wanna say on active writers, it's probably gonna be about 22 to 24 active writers on there.

Okay.

So it's good. That's the biggest thing I want to focus on is just the average rider, $12,000 to $15,000 rider, somewhere in that range. Yeah. Yep.

So that's good stuff. You, you said your buddy hit Hall of Fame. You did. Does that imply you did not?

I did not hit Hall of Fame. I got complacent.

That's what I did. Ah, why? Were you making too much money in overrides? Not working or what?

Uh, no, not necessarily. I do, I got it because I wasn't making a crazy amount of overrides in 2025, actually. Okay. Um, I had I first built my team, you know, it's kind of like I said, I started in 2024, August, around that time, and we had opened the office. I started building from January, um, on, on forward. Now, the first team I built, my standard was extremely low. So like, I, I, I cared so much because these are people I went to high school with, like, these are people that I knew personally, and I cared so much about their success and a lot more than they did. And so I, I held onto these guys for so long, a lot longer than I should have, even when they were lowering that standard. Cuz when people came in, it was like the standard was so low that, you know, if it, if you weren't making that much money, it was like normal. Right. And so that fell apart very quick. I learned that very, very fast. And I started, uh, that's when I, I just, uh, I was on pace at that point in time to hit Hall of Fame.

Mm-hmm.

And then I was like, no, I gotta, I gotta rebuild this. I gotta rebuild it quick. Especially with— I was a little bit scared of upline debt for sure. So I was like, I need to build, I need to build quick, um, and I need to have a high standard this time. And then started building, got traction around August, and that moved us into the year. So no excuses at all. I definitely could have hit Hall of Fame for sure, but I did, I did want to rebuild as well.

Feel into the how to sell and build at the same time problem.

Yeah, exactly. Didn't know how to manage it.

A lot of people do. Yeah. So what all your high school friends think now? They all quit.

Yeah, most of them. There's a, you know what, the ones that stuck with me are now my biggest managers and they're doing awesome. Um, and a lot of them, a lot of the ones that, uh, they didn't make it, they're, I'm starting to get messages now. They're like, yeah, we realized like we should have been working harder. There's a few of them that are still like, you know, there's always a scam. Um, you, you can't make money. You still have those people. It's all, that's going to be with everything else.

Oh, they'll find something to be negative about no matter what they do. Yeah, of course.

That's funny.

Yeah. Craziness. Craziness. All right. So how does one rebuild to like, I don't know, $300K, 20-something riders again, having to do it twice? So the rebuild, what was that like if you had to?

Yeah, 100%. Um, at first it was scary. Like it sucked for sure. I'd never done anything like this. I was in car sales previously. So like it wasn't, like door-to-door or pest where you, you know, you're used to building a team. I had never had anything like that. And so, um, you know, what made it a lot easier for me was Ronnie and Dante, you know. If I didn't have those people around me, I, I don't know if I'd still be here. I, I might have just quit at that point. Um, but it was a lot easier to just call them and say like, hey, like, this is what's going on, like, what do I do? And when you call them and they have like that confidence where they're just calm about it,. And they're just like, oh, this is just, you just have to, you know, keep posting, keep selling at an extremely high level and just do the same thing you did before. And it just kind of calmed me down and I just took one day at a time. That's all it was. Just what can I do the most just today? I'll worry about tomorrow.

So what was the hardest thing that you were struggling with they were helping you with? I know you said just they told you to keep selling, keep hiring. What was the struggle on your side? Like, what was that? Hey Ronnie, I need help with this.

Was the question. Yeah, you know, it was, uh, it was more, more or less a mindset thing at that point in time, to be honest. Like, it wasn't— it was just, I was down in the dumps, you know. I just needed it. I just needed to get me up. It wasn't a skill level thing or a work ethic thing. Um, at that point, the only reason the team had failed was because I was too afraid to tell people what they needed to hear, and I was telling them what they wanted to hear. So You know, now that I, I rebuilt, I, I, uh, I got people in, but then I started telling them, hey, this is what you need to do. And that's what Ronnie helped me with as well. So it wasn't like, it was, yeah, exactly. It was like, he, he need, Ronnie motivated me. He's like, hey, you still got this. Like, this isn't gonna be too hard to rebuild. But when you do rebuild, I was like, how do I have that? How do I keep that standard high this time and make sure it doesn't drop down? And it's just like, you need to tell them what they need to hear and what they need to do.

So what are those things now?

Just, you know what, it's what everyone doesn't want to hear, but working more, you know, like working more and working intentional. Everyone tries to avoid it. It seems like they want to find different ways around it, but it is sales, you know, more inputs, you're going to get more outputs. So it sucks sometimes for people to hear, but it means buying more leads, putting in more hours and then training and getting better. Like there's, you know, it's pretty much it. Pretty simple business, pretty straightforward. But it's, uh, you know, I didn't, uh, I was too afraid to tell people that. I was trying to find different reasons as to why they weren't, uh, weren't doing good.

I've ever seen— hey, look, read the name.

Yeah, yep.

It's like, just fucking do more and—

exactly, get better as you go.

Yeah, hey, it's like anything. Yeah, you know, I want to get good at hunting. All right. Hey, I grew up in the city, like in the projects. The first time someone took me hunting, I was like, what are we doing? They took me duck hunting.

Yeah.

And I had to go in the water. You're duck hunted? I assume you have.

I have not duck hunted. I've done everything but duck hunting. I gotta— I got my bear skull right next to me here. What? And bro, yeah, yeah.

Holy moly. Can you just hunt bear like a deer? The same concept?

Yes, but you have to get, uh, the, the tag is a lot harder to get. Um, they do kind of a point system. You have to apply every year, and then if you don't get it, you have like gradually increasing your points, and the higher points you have, the better chance you have of getting it the next year.

So you can't go shoot a bear every year? You can't just go out shooting? It ain't like that? Crazy.

It took me, I want to say, 6 years. Like, I started applying when I was like 11 or 12 And it took me like 5 or 6 years. I want to say I shot it when I was 17, so it took a while to get it. That's crazy.

Yeah, I didn't understand it. They took me— this dude wanted to take me duck hunting just because it was on my land and we had a pond thing back there, like a swamp pond, whatever.

It was water.

Yeah. And, uh, he's like, hey, I'll show you how to do it. So I bought all the shit and the water, the waders, whatever they are, all that crap.

Yeah.

And he's like, all right, we gotta be out there 5 in the morning. I'm like, okay. So we go out 5 in the morning. He's like, we get out there, we get in the water. And he's like, all right, shh. I'm like, what do we do now? He goes, we wait till sunrise. I'm like, but that's in an hour and a half. He's like, yeah, I know. We have to hide here. I'm like, we couldn't have come like at 6:50? Yeah. He made me sit in the cold water for an hour and a half and wait for the sun to come up before you can. And then all of a sudden the birds start going and 27 people shoot at once. All around the water. Yeah, all the birds start falling. I'm like, how do you know which one's yours? They're like, yeah, we just kind of get it, we just kind of get one. Yeah, I was like, this don't make no sense to me. I didn't understand at all.

But I've heard there's a lot of people on my team that love it. Like, they talk about it all the time. They want to take me, but I've never done it.

These dudes ate it up.

They—

I'm like, that ain't for me. I did go shoot a— I learned, uh, I had a buddy take me to Texas, and we did one of those— it's called a— I think they call it a high fence. High fence.

Oh yeah, high fence. Yep.

Yeah, so basically like bougie hunting. Yeah, like they have all the animals in this fence, which is like 5,000 acres. It's not a small plot of land, right? It's not like I went— people are like, you went to the zoo and shot people? I'm like, it's not like that. Yeah, but it was kind of controlled. They know where people are or where the animals are. And I did that. I shot a, um What did I shoot? An oddad. You know what that is? No, some kind of like ram. Okay, ram kind of thing.

Okay.

I don't know, it looked dope, so I have it hanging in my garage now. I— again, I don't— I never— yeah, so I'm like, y'all gotta load the gun, y'all gotta do all the stuff. Yeah, you set it on the thing, I'll pull the trigger. So I— that's all I do.

They do make it easy for you at the high fence places. Like, it's like a luxury experience almost.

Yes, I didn't have to sit in a tree for 4 hours and wait. Yeah, yeah, you know, they I mean, you know, side by side or whatever, and you drive around, they're like, all right, they're gonna be over there. And then, you know, it was far, it was a long shot, but yeah, I definitely, I definitely got a little bit of an advantage, but it was fun. Yeah, yeah. So anyway, neither here nor there. Point is, anything you want to get good at, you gotta fucking do a bunch. Hey guys, just created something really cool, and if you want to be part of it, Join the Discord group I just created. The link is going to be in here. It's a dope environment. You can chat with others that are kind of in the community. You can see beyond the curtain of our agency, have access to all kinds of stuff that we got going on, events, and my staff is in there. We have agents in there selling, me helping agents and sharing information. We're going to, as we build this thing out, share everything out there with all of you guys. So again, follow the Discord if you want to be part of everything we got going on. Join it now. We'll see you in there. Hope to help you more.

Yeah, exactly.

I dig it. All right, you selling all final expense, I assume?

Everybody in that group does, for the most part. Like, you— I'll get an IUL client here and there where they're healthy enough to do that, you know, F&G or whatever.

Exactly.

Every once in a while.

Yeah, I dig it. I dig it. What are some— what are some things you're, you're teaching people that is important to know to kind of hit those big numbers and be profitable in this, in this spot, the final?

Yeah, 100%. So I think coming in, the biggest thing is mindset. So that's what I try to train on the most, um, because I, I think over time, like, people, they'll get good at sales if they want it enough. Like, if you want to get good at something enough, like, you'll find a way to get good at it. Sure. Um, when I, like, have new agents coming, a lot of times it seems like the ones that do good, they, they really want it, and the ones who don't do good, they don't, they don't seem to care much. So what I've noticed is like training on mindset's been really good, like huge for me. Um, when I bring other, like new people in, and then as far as like profitability goes, um, you know, as far as lead spend, I think it's really important to have lead spend just buying it on one day and having it on one day every single week and never missing a lead spend and also not buying it when you need leads. But I've noticed like when people start buying leads when they need leads, They start trying to like milk out everything out of the leads as possible and they completely halt their momentum. True. I think more, in my opinion, momentum is a lot more important than just trying to like milk everything out of those leads. And a lot of times you're going to go back and hit them anyways and you're going to get those sales out of it anyways. So that's a big thing for profitability that I think is really big is everyone on my team, they buy leads on Sunday and they don't buy them throughout the week. And then the next Sunday comes around and they always buy leads.

Got it.

Like, even sometimes when we're on vacation, I'll lower my lead spend, but I never stop buying leads. Like, I— since I have started, um, one— when I started buying leads, there has not been a single week that I have not bought leads since I started.

That's dope.

Even if you like to get it, they're not working.

What's a good flow for you? How many, how many final expense leads a week you want to, like, kill it?

You know, I've, I've worked high intense, and I've also worked kind of like a volume lead. Um, right now what I've been doing is I have a dialer that dials my volume leads. So I'll have $800 spent on a volume lead where she's getting about 15 to 20 leads a day that she dials. And then I'll run a high intent myself, which is, um, you know, right around like a $22 CPL on that. So like I'll get, I'll spend $1,000 on those. So I get about, I guess, a couple grand a week. Yeah. Yep. That's what I've worked up to. That's fairly recent. Usually I—

So you're getting like 130 leads a week.

Yep, exactly. Yeah.

Yeah. Let's keep you busy.

Yeah, for sure. 100%. Then I also have like, I have leads that I'll send to agents, you know, as well. Sure.

You know, just your dialer booking appointments or transferring them to you or both? Both. Both.

Yeah. She can't do a live transfer. She'll book an appointment. Like, for example, like this morning I woke up out of bed. It was, it was 8 o'clock. I got a call. She transferred someone to me and I sold them in bed.

So did you really? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. So that was pretty, pretty sweet.

What do you all use to do the transfer? Like Ringy or something? Yeah, I'll use them.

Reggie.

Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, I like that.

Smart.

Yeah, works pretty good. All right, so you said the most important part is mindset. What, what mindset stuff specifically does one need to do well in final expense?

What I always tell people is everyone who comes into the business, I think it's really important that they know that if they put in all the inputs they don't have to really worry about the outputs. Like there's gonna be a time where you'll get, you'll see those outputs. Sure. So I always, I always tell people when they come in, I kind of relate it to car sales cuz when I started in car sales, I was not good at all. You know, you'll do like usually a 3-week training or 2-week training in car sales and you'll learn about the product and then they'll put you on the show floor and then from then it's, you're kind of on your own. And so they threw me on the show floor after about, you know, 2 weeks of training. And they don't take people off the show floor, but I was burning so many people because in car sales, like, customers are extremely valuable. It's not, you don't have like 100 leads. Like, you have 2 or 3 people a day maybe that you're talking to. So you, like, you, they buy or they die is kind of car sales. Like, that's how it is. Like, you're never seeing them again. So when I got in—

So same, you either closing them right there or you're never going to get them again.

Oh yeah.

If they walk out thinking about it, you ain't getting them.

Yeah, they're the, the show up rate for them coming into the dealership the second time was so extremely low that you either close it now or you're never seeing them again. And so with that, like with the value of the customers and basically the leads in that business, you know, I was burning through so many people that they took me off the show floor because I was so bad. And they don't do that. Like they don't take people off the show floor, but they took me off the show floor because I was burning through so many customers that, you know, could have bought, but I was just burning right through. I had no idea what I was doing. I would hear an objection like, oh, we don't like the color. And I would just say, okay, sounds good. Have a good day. You know, like I didn't even, I was just letting people go left and right. And so I always kind of relate that when people come into the business that, um, from that point when I got taken off the show floor, I was talking to the GM and I remember this one night and I was talking to him and I, and I asked him, cuz he had gotten to a GM position in 3 years when he was 18, by 21 he making very good money in the business. And I had asked him, I said, what did you do differently than everybody else? And he just said, he just said he worked more than everyone else. It was super simple. It was a super simple answer. He just worked more than everybody else. And so since he told me that, for that first full year in car sales, I worked every single hour that that store was open. I did not have a life at 18. I did not hang out with people. Um, everyone was in college. Like I was just working and that's it. And it took me 2 months of doing that before I even really started clicking and, and figuring out sales. Hmm. And so I always tell people that because it's like when they come into this, it's, it's gonna be no different. I tell them like, hey, you might have to grind very, very, very hard and it might take 2 months, but then when it starts clicking, it's gonna start clicking for you. So like kind of just trusting that process. And, uh, and continuing to put in the hours rather than just like when people start doing bad, they almost sometimes put less hours in or they start to get demotivated, especially here.

Exactly. Yeah, people go, they start ghosting, you know, it's over. Yeah, yeah, it's crazy. First grandma has some emergencies and then this, that, and the other comes up and it's like, all right, they gone. Yeah, got it. So in the car world, you can, do you can, you can come in earlier and stay later kind of thing as, as you want?

Is that right? Yeah. Got it. 100%. Yeah. Yeah. So like the car deal— are you talking about the car dealership? Is that what you mean?

Yeah.

Yeah.

You said you started working more, so I guess it's not like these are your hours.

You get to go in and out. The store was 8 to 8, um, is when it was open and then 9 to 5 on Saturdays and car sales, they like legally can't be open on Sundays. And so, at least in Minnesota. And so when I was here, like they do have a schedule that's set aside for you. And so it's usually like you have an 8 to 3 day. You have an 8 to 8 day and then you have, uh, a noon to 8, a day off. And then Friday and Saturday are the same for everybody. And so, you know, I would never take my day off and I would work every day 8 to 8. That's cool. And I did that for, like I said, for a year straight, but for 2 months, for 2 months straight, I did that with no results. Like I was making no money. Uh, I thought about quitting probably 3 or 4 times, but thank God I trusted the process because I, I wouldn't even be in insurance if I didn't stick it out in car sales. Yeah, to see something pay off. Exactly. So like, you just showing, you know, new people like, hey, like, you know, I went through it. A lot of people go through it. You're not alone. Like, this is going to be normal because I think too many people, they sell that dream of like, yeah, you're going to come in and make $10,000 your first month. Like, that's not going to happen. Yeah, it could happen. It definitely could happen for the right person, but it's, uh, it's not something people— exactly right.

Yeah. And neither is working a lot. To be clear, that's not the norm for you new agents either, which is why the norm is not making a bunch of money, right? Exactly. Funny. All right, so when you, when you define how much people should work in this space when they're new, what does that look like? You seem like you're probably a numbers guy, if I had to guess, like, yeah, kind of paying attention. What does that look like from us, like, specifically? We got lead flow, right? So call it 100+ a week. What does it look like for, like, attempts, dials, contact? Like, what are you looking for there for from an activity side, the in, as you call it, inputs?

Yeah, 100% inputs. Yeah, I would say, you know, we have dial trackers at the office, um, so everyone will track their dials. Everyone's getting 400 dials minimum. Okay, so 400 dials minimum. Typically we look for like, for those that are unclear, what's that?

I said a day.

Yeah, per day. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, true. I guess there's, there's probably people up here that, you know, bro, so 400 dials per day.

Um, last week he's like, I made 270 calls this week and I sold nothing.

Yeah, that's to be expected.

Yeah.

So, you know, we make $400 minimum per day. Um, we have guys in the office that will do 700, 800 dials. So, you know, in a day. Um, but yeah, $400 is the minimum, and we typically look for a 10 to 12% pickup on that. So like, you know, when I, when I dial 400 leads, I'm looking for 35 to, you know, 45 pickups on that. Out of those, I typically look for, you know, 5 to 7 presentations. Presentations different for everybody, it seems like. That means I go over the numbers with them and give them options on their, their life insurance. And then out of those, like, new agents, you'll see close 1 to 2, and then as you get better, it's usually 2 to 3, and then all the way up to 3 to 4. So if I can do 5 to 7 presentations, I usually get 2 to 3 sales. A good day. Yeah.

Exactly, it's the game. Most— I know a lot of people not doing any of that. I'm like, it's wild to watch. It is an easy game, but play it the right way.

Exactly, I completely agree.

Okay, dig it. So Hall of Fame this year for you?

Yeah, I'll hit Hall of Fame this year.

Yeah, what do you got so far?

Um, I think $80 grand for March week 2 so far on the year.

So yeah, good, not too shabby. Tracking?

Tracking.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. For you on stage this year.

There we go.

Okay. What are, what are some important things once you get down the activity, you're thinking about it all the right way, all good, you get someone on the phone, what's, what's important to you?

I want to know every, like, everything about their situation. That's important. You know, I think that too many salespeople, they like see their opportunity for the sale or they find a very small problem with the client. And then they just attack trying to like, like find a solution for that. I guess I usually go more in depth with people on— Yeah, I do like to spend a little more time, especially with a leadership role too. Like I have— I'd rather make sure, like spend another 10 to 20 minutes with each client to make sure that's going to be a very solid deal and stay on the books. Okay. So I'll go through more in depth with like what they're bringing in, what kind of bills they have exactly. Just so I can make sure that like I know what's affordable for them and just figure out exactly what they have for life insurance right now. And I usually spend more time going in depth with that stuff.

Yeah. Yeah.

Because usually if I go over numbers, like it's, it's going to be a sale because I know, I know.

But make it that far. Yeah. Yeah. You start and then, you know, you get a little more clarity on their budget without having to really ask. You kind of can figure it out.

Exactly.

Yeah, okay, I like it. Are you— how do you set the stage? You know, as you know, you know, you get someone on the phone, some ain't ready for a full all-out conversation. So I'm sure you've set the stage somehow, like, hey, here's how this goes, in some sort of way. Or how do you, how do you line it up or frame it that, hey, we got to go through some shit?

Yeah, 100%. I, I will— I actually kind of do it a different way in that aspect. Um, I'm extremely assumptive. And I don't really give them a whole lot of like, this is what we're going to do. I kind of just roll into it. I love it. You told me to be honest. I just go right in.

I like it a lot. And just assume they're going to stay on the phone with you.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Don't worry about nothing. Yesterday I was talking to a husband and wife and they were like, we were going over budget and he said he was, he said, yeah, I was kind of hoping to allocate about, you know, $250 or less a month into this. And then I heard his wife in the background and she's like, not today though. Not today. Yeah. And, you know, we'd hear that in car sales all the time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, someone coming to the car dealership, oh, we're not buying today. You know how many times I've heard that and sold them a car? 100+ times in the car dealer, like so many times. So that's like second nature for me to hear that and stay assumptive. Yeah, I go right into the options and I say, perfect, now which one makes sense for you guys? And, you know, battle like one objection and it's right into it. So A lot of times it's just being extremely assumptive. You know, like we have a script that I've, you know, I have a playbook I've been using since day one. I like know it like the back of my head, but it's really just rolling right into it. I will give them like an idea of what the application looks like after they pick an option. So I'll give them an overview of like, this is what it's going to look like. You know, we're going to validate your identity, make sure you say who you are or you are who you say you are. And we'll go over the health. Effective date banking. Like, I'll give them an idea there, but that's kind of the first area in the script where I actually give them an idea of, you know, what it's going to look like. Before then, it's just I'm rolling right in.

You're just firing questions about income. How you start out more on the, like, what do they have now, or income, or what?

I go right into, I go right into their— so right away in the script, I'm going into their beneficiary.

Are you really?

And right away, yeah. So I'm going into, I'm saying, you know, if something did happen to you, who's going to be that beneficiary? That would be you know, paying for a funeral expense and kind of picking up all the pieces tomorrow. They say the name. Okay, gotcha. And like, are they able to kind of pick up the funeral expense or is that why you were looking into this? And you know, if you're constantly asking them questions, like they're not, they don't even think enough to give you an objection. They're just focused on the question you asked them.

Yeah, that's true.

So I think it's good. I don't know. I like going into the why right away. So I have a very solid, like, this is the problem that they have. And then I can kind of go into like, you know, the solution to it.

So yeah, love it. Yeah, makes sense.

Write it right into the beneficiary right away.

Okay. And once you get beneficiary, what's, what's important that you obviously get a little bit of a reason?

I'm going to go over budget.

You are?

How do you do that? Yeah, so, so I always go over— a lot of times I also add in mortgage protection to a ton of my final expense.

Really? Okay.

Yeah. So like I'll do an equity protection on top of it. A lot of them are too unhealthy for any sort of term life or anything. Absolutely. So I'm going into it and then I always ask, you know, is there any other bills? A lot of times like a mortgage that you're worried about that would be tough for them to pick up without your income. And a lot of them do have a mortgage at, you know, 60, 70, 80 years old. So, you know, I go into that and just say, hey, have you heard of equity protection? And then I'll explain that. Yeah. So what most people do is, you know, they have equity protection for something like that, which would cover it for, you know, whether it's 6, 9, you know, or 12 months. Just giving your family enough time to be able to sell that property or at least get organized to how they want to keep it. Does that make sense? And then they say, yes, perfect. And then from there I go into their budget. So I just say, gotcha. And what would you say you're usually bringing in per month? Just a ballpark. And just going right into it, you know, not, you know, if you say with confidence, they don't really question why you're asking.

Yeah.

You know, they buy your confidence a lot of times rather than anything else. So.

So yeah, transition to more is who's your beneficiary if you drop dead, essentially. Correct. And then is there any—

are there any other bills like mortgages, etc., that you want to make sure I cover?

Everything, you know, easy.

Yeah, there's a lot of people where, you know, you call them and they're like, oh yeah, I feel like I don't have enough coverage for XYZ reason. It's like, I'm sitting there thinking, why, why didn't the first agent go over all of this and just help them with one big policy doesn't make sense to me. So, um, yeah, I'm making sure that, you know, I know everything that would be kind of a burden on their family or maybe even just stressful.

I like that. When you show pricing, do you show like $50K covers funeral plus mortgage?

Yeah, correct. So like, let's say their mortgage is $1,000 a month and they want a burial, and they told me like, oh yeah, burial, I— is $10,000. Or let's just say a burial is $10,000. So I'll do— let's just say example, like my first option would be $13,000 of coverage. So this is going to cover that burial for you. And then this would also cover that mortgage payment for about 3 months. So that's just going to give them time. And then I'll go in 6 months and 9 months and then I'll ask, you know, given those 3, between the 3, the 6 and 9 months, which do you feel gives them enough time to comfortably get organized there, whether they sell the property or— Yeah, and then, and then it's just—

so you don't give them a zero, just funeral?

You're right.

I'm sure some back out of it.

Sure, it does depend on their budget, you know. If they— if I know that it's like kind of close, I'll just do a burial and then maybe do 3 and 6 months. Yep. Or I'll do, you know, 6, 12, 24. Like, it— that all depends on what they can afford.

Yep, I like that. That's cool. What's funny is I sold an ass ton of that equity protection in the years because I ran a lot of mortgage protection leads. Yeah, at some stage. And it was a lot of, a lot of older folks would fill them out and I would have to switch them from mortgage protection, pay off the whole thing to equity protection. Yeah, I've not done it a lot the other way where it's just I want burial. I do it some, I throw it in there. I'm not as intentional as you are about it though. I like, I kind of, it's an easy add too.

It's a super easy add. And it also like, it, it, there, I feel like it's got to help with retention as well. 100%. It's that much more important to them because it's not just covering the burial but it's also covering something else.

Yeah, that's smooth. I like it. If you're an insurance agent and you feel like you're stuck, you've hit a wall, you're trying to figure out sales strategies, the scripts to use, how to get like off the ground and get to that top of the leaderboard type status, I have a course that I've put out, super affordable. I'm getting a ton of great feedback from people every day on the strategies they've learned and been able to implement, from goal setting to sales techniques to calendar scheduling, everything you would need to get your business off the ground and get running quickly. jwcourse.com, click the link below and get in there today. So what's your— do you know your AP average on your product? What are you selling on average roughly?

Um, probably like $1,200 to $1,400.

Okay, so you're up there, you're not bad.

Yeah, yeah. If I had to guess, I think, I think on IP reports like the team is at like $1,400 or $1,500, but I want to say mine's like $1,200, like $13 maybe, right around there. That's good.

Not too shabby. Some people are like, $47 is all I get. I'm like, you doing it wrong.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's just diving into the budget more. I think a lot of times people will, um, like you'll ask them, hey, what are you left with once the bills are said and done? And they'll say like, I'm not left with shit, or I'm— I got nothing.

And it's all relative, uh, to what do you do with those guys, the ones that I'm not left with shit?

Yeah, to me that's an easy handle. It's just, you know, you want them to be comfortable telling you because a lot of times they maybe are number one embarrassed of it. Yeah. Or number two, they just don't trust you. And so what I always tell them is like, hey, most people we're speaking with, it's right around like $100 to $200 left over once all the bills are paid on a bad month. Would you say that you're around right around the same, John, or are you maybe a little bit more than that or a little bit less?

A little bit less.

Okay, gotcha. Let me do here. Would you say it's kind of around $100 then, or maybe less than that?

Yeah, I mean, depends on the month, but yeah.

Okay, gotcha. It's about $100. And this needs to be something that is comfortable and affordable. We can't be taking food off your table. That's the last thing that I want to be doing for you. Um, let's see. I mean, just to make sure that the family is protected, what would be a comfortable amount in order to allocate into that protection each month to make sure that, you know, they're still taken care of? Would that be like 30 to 40, 40 to 50, or even 50 to 60. I love it. But when I'm saying those numbers, I'll kind of have an idea of what it's going to be.

You have the pricing.

So I'm not going to like tell them 30 to 40 and I know it's going to be 80.

Yeah, yeah.

If they're left with 100 and I know it starts at 80, I'm going to tell them, hey, and most of these plans do start at 80 a month. Is that something that, you know, would be taking food off your table, or is that something we can work in to make sure the family's protected? Yeah, and, and that way, you know, at least if they're like, no, I can just be, you know, straight up and say, hey, you know, we, we— some coverage is better than no coverage. You could get something, you know, smaller that would cover part of it. Uh, but I'm not going to push it too hard because, yeah, you don't want to fall off. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Some people skip that, dude, you know what I mean? When they're like, I just don't see— they just keep moving.

So that's one thing I'm blessed to have in car sales Um, it's a very like, like it's a very cutthroat industry, at least where I was. Yeah. Like it was old school for sure. And so like if you, if you miss a part of the sales process, really? You'd hear it.

Oh yeah. Oh, got it.

You'd hear it. So like we had like, it's like the meet and greet and then there was an interview sheet, right? And so like you would do the exact same greeting every time when someone would walk into the dealership and then you'd sit them down and you'd do this entire interview sheet. And then you'd go to the interview sheet, you'd take that to your manager. That's kind of like building the why, right? But then you take that to the, they call it the tower. It's kind of where the managers sit up on their desk.

Yeah.

And so you'd bring them an interview sheet and you would explain to them what the customer is looking for, what kind of payment they're looking for.

Kind of, you have to be able to explain it to someone else.

Exactly. And if you missed one part of that interview sheet, they would, and excuse my language, I don't know if I'm allowed to swear on here, but this is something that this is how the managers would speak. They'd say, get your ass the fuck out there and get all the information. I'm not fucking helping you until you get it. And they're very like, that's how they would speak to you. That's how car sales is. And so, you know, you like, if I missed any part of that process whatsoever, got it, I could not do anything. The managers would not help you, finance office would not help you. So, so knowing that in this business, it helps because I will not keep moving in the script until I have a very clear answer of there's a why. They can— I know their budget. I know they can afford this. Like everything's a checklist. And if I didn't check it, I'm not moving forward.

Good.

I like that a lot.

So, yeah. That's cool. Love it. Love it. Love it. All right. What else? What else is important to you in the— during the sales process? Like, you know, once you start going forward from there, what else is on that checklist of yours? You get the why. You kind of get an idea of their budget. Now it's kind of like showing prices, lock it down kind of area.

Yeah, showing prices, like it's important there. And honestly, I just want to get to know them a little bit. I want them to be comfortable. I want them to trust me so that way, you know, when they— if they ever do need anything, then they are comfortable calling me. They're comfortable reaching out. They're not going to be like entertaining any other agents because obviously there's— they're probably going to get at least one more call about life insurance at some point in time.

Yeah, probably too.

I just want them to feel like I'm their guy from that point on because once I go over their, their why and once I go over their budget, I know that I'm pretty confident when I go to options, I'm going to close the deal. At that point, my main goal is to just make the business as sticky as possible. So just getting to know them, making sure the trust is there. And, you know, even with those dry people, like some people, they just do not want to build rapport at all. Um, you know, just trying to get those guys to open up even a little bit more as well. Just, you know, that's the biggest thing for me. Once, once I have all that stuff, what do you want to know?

Like, would it explain—

gave me a little— I just want to get to know them as a person. Like, I think it's like, I think it's good to get to know people, honestly. I like to, I like to get to know like what they did for work. Um, I think that there's something to learn from every single person. So like, I've like, I try to learn at least one thing.

I mean, actually give a shit.

Yeah, 100%. Yeah, like the guys I spoke with this morning, he was a trucker and he knew a ton about Minnesota because he used to truck up here, so he knew like exactly where I hunted, which was super cool. And then me and him were talking about politics for a little bit. I was getting like getting to know about that. I don't know, I just like to get to get to know some of them. Um, let's see, like whatever, you know, they always, they always have something interesting going on. Or like yesterday, that's true, this couple, um kind of the ones I was talking about yesterday. They, they— she did like this podcast, uh, for books, so I was learning about that. And then he does all sorts of hunting in Oregon, and, um, I was just getting to know him. I don't know, it's just kind of fun. Yeah.

Yeah. You like that? Regular in public, out and about? Yeah, everybody.

Yeah, always. I like to get to know people. Like, car sales is one thing that I do miss, uh, having the face-to-face interaction because I was able to really get to know people. So I do miss that sometimes because sometimes this is just very cutthroat. Like you follow the process and you don't get to know people. So I try my best when they're open to it to get to know them and, and just to, I don't know, I think it's, I, I get, uh, fulfillment out of it more than anything. It's not for a sales reason sometimes. Yeah. I think authenticity is going to be the biggest thing that'll help people on the phones, um, to build trust. Like people can tell when you're looking for a sale versus when you're like being genuine and authentic.

You same way with your agents, I assume, which is probably all connects the dots why you're able to—

Yeah, they, they know I'm authentic. I'm real with all of them. I'm not afraid to tell them how it is.

Yeah, but getting to know people too is important. Yeah, I don't know how to teach, coach people and how to push who you can push, who can't, shit like that.

Exactly.

Yeah, yeah, that's cool. I love it, I love it. This is easy. Good deal. Okay, well, what else would you like to add? I'll let you kind of, as we wrap up, like, uh, you know, anything that I did a shitty job asking because I'm not the best to get to know people, or anything you want to share, you know what I mean? Just something I maybe missed that you think is important, or something you want to share with folks watching.

You know, I would say, um, whatever, say like if you're getting into life insurance sales, if someone's new here, or maybe even they're just struggling in sales in general, Um, you need to, unfortunately, you know, sometimes it's not what you want to hear, but you have to just put in the grueling hours and, and you might have to, you're gonna have to do a lot of sacrifice.

Yeah.

I think everybody at any sort of high level has sacrificed a lot to be there. And there's a lot of people that are looking to do without sacrifice. Excuse me. And, uh, I think that's the one thing that some people always try to avoid. So if you're, if you're struggling or if you're new in sales, you kind of can't figure it out or it's taking a little bit while, just kind of take a list. This is what I did at the beginning of the year with all my guys. And you can write down your goals, but like you need to write down also what are you willing to sacrifice to get those goals? Because you're going to have to sacrifice something. Like for me, it was like when I got into car sales, it was sacrificing a lot of relationships with friends. Yeah, that's just what it took. I was willing to do that. Now I get to move to North Carolina with my fiancée, have a beautiful home. We have a dog. We're gonna be right on the beach, and I get to enjoy that at 21. But I sacrificed some friendships that I had from high school that would've fallen off anyways, right? So it's like, you, you kind of have to like look long-term and just, hey, like, what, what, what is this gonna be important to me long-term? Or is this something I can sacrifice right now for the, for, you know, for the long term? I think that's what, what a lot of people are not wanting to do that they need to do.

Yeah. 100%. That's dope.

I like it. This has been fun.

Different, different, different thing.

It was pretty cool to be on here too. That we've been, I remember since day one we've been saying the, the D-Bab stuff like all the time.

Oh yeah. I love it.

I love it. It's pretty sweet to be on here.

It's good. I'll get you. I'll get, hey, look, I got one over here. Yeah, there you go.

Do you have one? No, I don't. I don't even know you had that.

Yeah, hell yeah, hell yeah. I made a nice— like, on the back it means I made it also.

That's not really what it means. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So it's like, you know what it means, but also I had a kind of—

it has a second meaning. Yeah, I like it.

Yeah, yeah, I'll send you one. What shirt size you wear?

Uh, large.

All right, this is a large. I'll send you this one.

Sweet, hell yeah, that's awesome.

I think my team either got your address already or we'll get it. I'll send you one.

That's awesome.

You're not moving for a minute, right? I can send it to Minnesota.

Yeah, you can send to Minnesota. Yeah.

Okay, cool. Yeah, I'll send you one.

Dope.

Awesome. Appreciate you getting on, Adam. It's been fun, dude.

I appreciate it as well.

Yeah, man, if I can help along the way at all, feel free to reach out.

Awesome. Sounds good.

It was super nice meeting you too, buddy. Take care. Hey guys, if you've enjoyed the podcast or any of the previous episodes, if you're on Spotify or any of the other Apple podcast platforms would love if you'd go in and leave a review for us. If you're, if you're watching on YouTube, comment, like, subscribe, share, do all the things. We'd greatly appreciate it. Helps get the word out to everybody. Appreciate you, and we'll see you on the next one.