How To Build & Scale A $1 MILLION Per Month Insurance Agency

Hey, what up, y'all? All right, today I'm going to go over something I get asked about literally every day, um, growing an agency. So if you're having trouble building, if you're stuck, um, in a spot, don't know how to get past, if you have fears of building, if you're one of those that had some debt from agents, have had agents quit on you, have had to deal with staff issues, what systems, process, all the stuff Um, maybe you, maybe you know how to sell a bunch and you're trying to figure out how to get to the next level. Maybe you have an agency and you just don't know how to get through the roadblock. I see people get stuck at so many different spots. Um, or maybe you want to build an agency and you haven't started yet because you have fears and you probably should start even though you may not know what the hell you're doing. I'm gonna run through all of that, um, today. Look, you're off the cuff. I mean, I don't have notes at all, so we're just gonna roll with this. I figure I do it every day for a living. We can chat. So we're gonna just put this out on YouTube, dude. Something I've been thinking about a lot on teaching more, talking more. I spend a lot of time focused on helping agents, which I love doing. So some of y'all that are struggling building, some people don't watch this stuff 'cause they're like, I know how to dial, I know how to sell, I don't need help with objections. Which is probably true. The question is, do you know how to teach it? You know, and I see a lot of people get stuck there. And actually, really high-performing salespeople and sales agents tend to struggle on the team building and business building side for a few reasons. I would say, um, one of the things I fell into— and, and be clear, all the stuff I'm talking about I've messed up. I would say probably the biggest generic thing that people mess up is their unwillingness to change, to change and adapt. Most of us, A-type personalities especially, um, those that are having success especially, tend to want people to adapt to us maybe a little too much. And so I know early on Um, this was one thing I struggled with a lot, was I always wanted people to be kind of more like me. I was trying to find the next me. I always wondered why. And again, listen, I was a disaster at the beginning, so I certainly didn't want that version of me. But I wanted everybody to like change as easily as I changed once, once I realized it was me. I wanted, um, people had the drive I had. I, I want people to have the desires and goals and man willingness to fight for something that I— and that's just, it's just not reality. And I came to a point where I realized that if everyone that I was working with was exactly what I wanted them to be, what on earth would they need me for? And what would my role be then? So I learned to be really grateful for the things that I quite frankly still get frustrated over. And I'm still impatient, and, um, hence I'm doing the video because I was being impatient about someone who was late. But I also didn't want to cut them short, and we're like, you know what I mean, we just didn't have the ability to record fully. I have a meeting right after. Um, so I think, you know, those of you building, whatever, even if you do acknowledge your struggles Um, they don't ever go away. The problems don't ever go away. The issues don't ever really go away. You can get rid of some, sure, but new ones will arise, I promise you. I'm big into like automations and systems, and every time I tweak something in a system or an automation, I'm like, oh, I solved it. Then a day, or sometimes an hour, or minutes, or day, or two, or three, or sometimes weeks later, months later— it's wild how it happens— we'll find something that we didn't see while we were fixing the last problem. And maybe the new problem brought itself about because we fixed the last problem. We've had that happen a lot too. Um, you know, I'll give you an example on, on system stuff. We did— we had this process where we, um— I'm really good at getting in like recruiting leads. It's not— and it's not because I'm really good, it's because I understand how easy it is. There's no magic to it. And to be clear, I don't get in magic recruiting leads. The average person who applies still sucks. Um, but we, um, we were able to start— like, the way— one of the ways I started scaling— I'm a big fan of, like, duplication and everything I, I say, so I will bounce around a little bit because I don't have a 5-point agenda here. I'm just going literally off what's on my mind today. Um, but I'm a big fan of duplication. Like, if I do something, the goal of me doing it is to then teach other people how to do it So instead of just me doing that item, 5 people, 10 people, 20 people, 100 people, 200 people are doing that same item or activity or whatever. That way there's more of it happening in my umbrella that I'm not in charge of doing. Like, there's all— I'm a— again, y'all have seen the book, Do More Now, Get Better Later. So if I do more now, fine, but there is a, there is a ceiling to that. I can only do so much as one human. Um, so the get better later part for me is a lot about systems and tweaking and, and making changes along the way. But the point was getting recruiting leads. Cool. I was recruiting a bunch of people. We started getting a lot of flow. Um, and then I started getting others. I'm like, well, they're not necessarily— not every piece is duplicatable, meaning not everyone was willing to go through the process of posting as many ads as I was posting, tweaking the ads the way I was tweaking them, um, setting up the replies and the automations. And when they, when they do apply What do we send them? Do we give them a link to book a calendar? Do we send them a text? Do we send them a thank you? Do we send them a video? Like, how do the people— when someone sees our ad, then what? What do we want the steps to be? Because if it's just apply and then wait, well, if someone applies on, you know, a Friday afternoon and you got a lot going on that weekend and you're— you don't have a system that sends them something immediately, I promise you, by the time you get around to calling them on Monday, they don't even know who you are, right? So I had to create systems. It's like, all right, immediately when they apply, let's send them a text and let's send them an email. And then it was like, all right, that sounds dope. Now what was crazy was like, then the email started bouncing. I'm like, huh, that's weird. How do we— what do we do with that? So then I came up with a system. I was like, well, if their email bounces, let's send them a text to be like, yo, we have this email, didn't go through. Like, we were trying to get creative with stuff. And trying to get too creative caused more problems because there were too many steps in the way. And then my team couldn't remember, like sometimes you get too many automations, things get confusing. Or, um, then we found out certain systems, the email wasn't necessarily wrong, but certain mail servers like AOL don't work well with automated systems and it would bounce, not because it was an invalid address, but because the two systems didn't speak well or thought it was, it just kicked it out. And so then they were getting a text saying they had an invalid email, but they didn't really have an invalid email. And it just— something I thought was fixing something broke something, you know. And I did, but I didn't uncover that email server issue until I tried to fix a prior issue. Another example is we were doing, um, we were trying to get appointments, them to book on the calendar. I like when someone applies and you book on the calendar right now. Well, to scale that, then I was like, all right, they're booking up my calendar fine. How do I get them— and again, my, my team wasn't necessarily going to put that whole system together, so I'm like, what if I run that at scale and then I let people buy into this program? I'll do all the work on the back end. My team will build everything. You just buy the leads, right? At cost. We were selling them at cost for agents. No, I wasn't trying to make money on it, but I was trying to grow how many ads we had out there, how many people we had applying. And I was like, and we'll just send you appointments. Well, that sounded dope until I realized, well, shit, if they book on one calendar, how do I know where to send the appointment? Like, Joe might be in California that wants to recruit, and then Steve might be in Alabama— two totally different time zones. And solving that was crazy, right? So again, those are just examples of as you start doing this thing, you think you're solving a problem, many times it's going to bring up a new problem. And I just kind of nerded out a little bit on system stuff. Some of y'all aren't system people and makes your head want to explode, and you don't have to learn all this stuff to grow an agency. But this is again me, me talking about specific problems we had in this past year. And we ended up— we did end up— and I'll give my, my— I always call her an assistant, but she really runs my entire operation. But I hired her as an assistant like 8, almost 8 years ago. Amanda, she figured out how to solve that calendar appointment distribution problem. So we have this whole system now that is able to read calendars, dish them out. Like, we have a dope system, um, for, for scaling recruiting, recruiting lead booked appointments. And then if they do book or don't book, something different happens, right? We build all this stuff out. Some of y'all like, it's too much. I'm like, yeah, I know, that's why we do it. So now we have people in, whether in our agency or coaching clients, I'm like, why don't we just do that work for you? Y'all pay for it and we'll just help you scale, right? So it's like, some things you got to know who you are. I'm, I'm a, I'm a big systems person, so we take on a lot of system stuff. But a lot of y'all aren't systems people, so I'm like, why don't you let the systems people be systems people? You be really good at what you're good at. And like, when I was— even still, I'm not the best necessarily people person in a way. I don't, I don't have the best ability to make people feel warm and fuzzy. I know how to make people feel excited and like they can accomplish something, and I know how to tell people the truth and get them to own that they aren't doing it. Not like I'm good there, but I don't necessarily do well with like the person who needs a pat on the back every day. And my mentor used to do more of that stuff. Like, he was just, he was, he was better at making people feel good even though he's really good at being direct also. And so I used to just let him do that piece, you know, he was kind of more of handling the people stuff. And so my point is, like, along the way, the biggest problem I see is a lot of y'all think problems are eventually going to go away. And if they went away, I don't know how good building something would be, because it would be easy for everyone else to do it. And most people, instead of falling out, would stick with things. And just the normal, like, supply and demand, it wouldn't be worth as much to build something big. It wouldn't pay as much. It wouldn't— there wouldn't be as much upside. So learn to be grateful for the problems. And so we have this sign that hangs in Amanda's office now that says 'Always Something,' because I used to say it out of frustration, like, damn, it's always something, always something going wrong. And I would be annoyed And I would let that linger, like, as if I didn't expect the problems. And so now, next to that sign— and, and when we first thought about the sign, it kind of came about in a negative light, like, what, always something, uh. And we changed it to now it says 'Always Something.' I wanted to add something to it because I'm like, thank God there's always something, because it allows us to stand out from the crowd and allows us to continue to expand our business. And so now we have one, it says 'Always Something,' and there's a new sign right below it that says 'Do More.' So it's like, always something, do more. And so for us, we're always trying to figure out how to, how to do more things, accomplish more things, tackle more problems, get through more stuff, um, and be grateful for the problems, you know, versus being frustrated by them, because it's always given us opportunity. And if you get really good at solving problems, it'll give you the opportunity to advance in a way that you normally wouldn't be able to advance. And again, if you got 10 people with the same problem, chances are you make it through Most of the others won't. They'll, they'll give up. And you're probably at a spot where you were stuck at some part of your business and stopped. You don't quite recruit as much, you don't do as many calls, you don't onboard as many people, you're not putting as many ads. Some of y'all say you're going to do social, it gets harder, you don't blow up, or things happen, you, you don't post as much videos. There's people, including all of me, we sometimes have a ceiling. So then it's learning how to recognize that stuff. And it's, it's like, I was watching a video this morning and I think they were talking about self-development and learning new things or whatever. And I forget the way he worded it, I just heard it this morning. Um, and he, he, he said awareness is even more important. And I liked it. I'm gonna go back and watch it and retain it a little bit better. But it was like, awareness of who you are and your problems is like— and I, my version of That is the O in the DO MORE. The first is ownership, right? The first O is ownership. My version is own your shit. Um, so having an awareness of my weaknesses gave me the freedom to work on them every day, you know? And it's like, I didn't— I don't love them, but I am okay with them because we can't all be strong in everything, you know? Um, So I would say, you know, some of the things that I just— from a simplistic standpoint, um, that I see a lot, and I mentioned it a minute ago, but I'll dive into a little bit deeper. A lot of y'all have fear of building something, especially in the insurance space, right? I know there's, there's starting to be quite a few different industries that follow me in different sales things, but insurance specific and some other sales, um, industries have this very similar too in terms of chargeback roll-up debt. A lot of y'all have fears, you know, and I'm— I understand it. Like, my largest roll-up debt from one person was $150 grand, and I've had plenty of other smaller incremental ones. I've had, I've had several at $30,000, $40,000, $50,000, um, probably a handful somewhere between $30,000 and $60,000, call it, over the course of 12 years. And I've had countless $10K and under. I mean, I don't even— I don't even keep up with that number, to be honest. If I showed you our debt report— but for me, that's— there's a cost of doing business, right? And if I look at the total debt, I would bet, man, find a ballpark. I wish Amanda were here, she could tell me. I bet we've had— it's been under a million dollars for sure in total roll-up debt lifetime, but it's definitely over It's definitely over $400 grand, so I'm probably $500,000, $600,000, $700,000. I don't know. And maybe $700,000, $800,000. Call it $750,000. I don't know, somewhere in that ballpark, you know, total debt in 12 years. But— and some people are like stunned by that, but for me it's like a cost of doing business. I was talking to a guy who, um, creates leads and there's, you know, he has to do returns and the equivalent of chargebacks and agents looking for credit, whatever. And this— and he gets frustrated, and I'm like, why are you frustrated? Look what you pay Zuckerberg to run your Facebook ads. That's a huge expense if you're creating leads. It's cost of doing business. And for me, debt, although I'm going to do my best to prevent it, eliminate it, not have it To think that you're going to build something massive and not have debt is crazy. And I've learned a lot of lessons since the big one, since 150. I've never had one get anywhere near that since, you know, because I see things differently. But it's like, are you— are you so afraid of it you won't even take the chance? And then I always tell people, if you could— if I told you you'd have whatever number of debt, pick your number, pick my number, pick one in between, whatever it is, but you could make $20 million in 10 years, or $5 million, whatever your thought number. I mean, I just— for me, I know, I mean, I've made 8 figures in this business. It's like, I would take on that debt in advance happily if I knew it was only going to be, I don't know, 5% of my— maybe if that, 5, 3, 4, 5% of my total income ever. Like, at that one time, it was a big hit, but over the course of time, it's such a small percentage. You know, and it's like, I don't know, driving down the interstate the other day, I saw a tractor-trailer crashed over and there was crap all over the interstate. Well, someone's taking a loss on that. You're like, they have insurance, cool, the insurance company's taking a loss on it. Someone's taking a loss on it, and they don't shut down and not have more tractor-trailers, or not— and they don't close their store, they don't stop buying product. Someone will, you know what I mean? Like, and I don't know how retail works, but maybe someone that had some product on there takes the hit. And they're too afraid to put stuff on a truck going for— I don't know. But I know Walmart ain't scared. They keep going. They keep having trucks that break down. They keep having— y'all see blown out tires on tractor-trailers every day. You don't necessarily see wrecks every day, but there's a fair amount of them. And it's the same concept. I was in the pizza business once. Um, I say that like I owned it. I was an employee at Little Caesars once, and, uh, you know, we'd burn pizzas a lot. Heck, sometimes on purpose so we could eat it. Um, you know, clients wouldn't show up for their order sometimes. You take a hit. You'd be shocked at how much of the ingredients get wasted. Spreading cheese and it goes— it misses the pan. And just over the course of a 12-15 hour day, a lot of it falls underneath the— like, there's like a, like a tray that the pans sit on and like waste falls under it. Like a lot of cheese throughout the day, the week, the month, the year fall— just literally just goes to waste. Um, if you leave dough out too long, it spoils. You got to throw it away. The ingredients can only stay open so long. Sometimes they go bad, you know what I mean? Like, thing— it, it happens in every business. And so a lot of y'all have such a fear. And what I, what I teach the people I work with directly is like, one, that this is normal. It's never gonna go away. And some of y'all are like, well, I don't build 'cause it's not my, I'm frustrated, it wasn't my debt. I'm like, no, it is your debt. You started a business, like it's your debt. I got someone else wrote the policy, but when you bring people on, the paperwork you sign says you're responsible for the debt, so you gotta manage it properly. And if you don't, it goes to you. And I was at a meeting this past week And, uh, Sean said this, and I've all— I've thought it and certainly said in different ways, but it hit really good the way he said it. It was like, so many of y'all complain about the debt, but how many of y'all complain about an override? Like, man, I didn't even do anything, I didn't sell this policy, and all of a sudden I got $200 in my account. Nobody's bitching about that, but people are frustrated about the negative side of it. And it's a lot like what I learned is like Man, the agents— say individual agents, salespeople, whatever— that sell and they get frustrated over whatever, clients canceling. And some of y'all that understand this business are like, well, they're only frustrated with clients canceling because they don't sell enough, and so it affects them. You know, they spent the money, they expected the money, whatever it is, their bills are due. Someone canceled, maybe before it drafted, after a draft, it doesn't matter, you know. And now they, they can't buy leads or they can't pay their bills or whatever it is. Y'all know all the stuff. And the agent get frustrated, and some of us go like, why are they frustrated? All they have to do is sell more. Like, it's part of the game. You're just not putting enough effort to have, uh, the sales outweigh the chargebacks. And like, I was always taught— I'm so glad for the people who helped me in this business. They just helped me think right. I will— I was always taught like, you're gonna have a few chargebacks every week, and if you only write a few apps, those are going to be the few chargebacks every week. And I was taught you're going to have a few cancellations in appointments every time you— every, every day you run appointments, for instance. But if you only schedule a few, those are going to be a few that cancel. You know, it's just the way the, the world works. Um, you know, so, but what I, what I— it's funny, like, a lot of y'all understand that from the perspective you're in, you see the mistakes the agents are making and you're frustrated with them. But on the building side, a lot of us are doing the same equivalent, meaning again, go, go sell more, um, and that takes care of chargebacks, right? Certainly you can get better. There's certainly part of chargebacks that you can get better at your skill set. That is a piece of it too. But the overwhelming majority of people aren't going to avoid them. Like, the best of the best of the best are like, you know, 90% of stuff stays on the books. But for the most part, we all know those agents that typically quit or struggle because of debt— 99.9999% of y'all don't see enough clients. You don't prospect enough and you don't present enough throughout the week. No one's confused by that. Especially those y'all that run an agency. But yet on the debt side, you don't look at it the same. And I'd be willing to bet a zillion dollars you don't recruit enough, you don't get enough new agents started, and you don't help enough new agents get paid, you know. And you're frustrated on the agent side, but you're not frustrated with yourself for doing basically the same thing on the building side. And so for you, it's like, all right, if the agent can get better at preventing debt, chargebacks, can't you get better at preventing debt? How do we do this? Well, let's pay attention to our business a little bit closer. One, I'll start at the beginning. Do you talk about debt? Do you talk about what advance money is? Do you ask new potential recruits if they understand advance money? Do you ask them if they understand what happens if a client cancels after they get their advance? Do you ask them what happens if a client cancels after they get their advance and they don't keep selling insurance and they don't pay the debt? Do you ask them what happens? And when they all say no, because they all say no, do you ask them if they understand that if they don't pay the debt, I'm like, do you understand that the insurance company makes me pay it? So by me agreeing to work with you, I'm signing paperwork that says I'm obligated to pay your debt if you don't pay it. So I'm gonna be really careful about whether or not I bring— choose to work with you and bring you on. Are you the type of person that takes care of your debt? Are you someone that would walk away from it knowing you owe it? Because when you get paid in advance, that's a loan on a commission you haven't yet earned. You understand? If they paid once, one month, and they pay you for the year or 9 months or 6 months or whatever your advance number is, you don't— you didn't technically earn that. They're giving— that's why it's called an advance. They're giving you the money in advance of you actually earning it. So if you don't continue to earn that money, you don't keep a client on the books, you don't keep selling policies, you can get yourself in a hole. And if you get yourself in a hole and don't take care of it, they come looking at my account for your money, and I'm not okay with that, nor would you be. So I'm going to ask you, are you the type of person that's going to take care of your debt if you have some? And ask that on the interview. Now fast forward, as we're starting to train people, I'm paying attention to all the things they are, aren't doing that are probably, probably likely to bring on debt. Meaning if they aren't seeing enough clients every week and they sell a policy here or there, I'm 100% sure at some point they're going to get a chargeback and not have the new apps to cover it. It happens with all of them. So if you don't see that coming, you're literally going through your business like this. So it's like, all right, what do we do about it? Well, If someone isn't active consistently, and again, I don't need to wait weeks or months, like the first week they sell a policy, say, and then they aren't back in the field quick, I'm like, hey dude, all good? Like, remember the part, like if Mary can't, I know you're excited, you just sold the policy to Mary, but if that policy cancels, don't forget you owe it back. We need to keep revenue coming in. Otherwise, what happens? You don't have money to buy leads. You don't— you know, I mean, you get a chart— like, we all know what happens. So I start talking to them about it, and I'm coaching them on how the business works so I can help make them more profitable for themselves. I see this stuff coming, so I'm guiding them along the way of the dangers that they don't see. No different than an automation example. You fix something, you don't see something coming. They sell a policy, dude, they're blind. They don't see. They don't see this business like you see it yet. They haven't been through it. So I'm trying to give them a little bit more light in front of them so they can see more clearly. And a lot of y'all don't do that. Um, if an agent has a chargeback, one, do you check your commission statements every day and go through them and review them? Like, not only for your deposits on your personal sales, do you check agent sales, right? Are you seeing if they're making sales? Are you seeing if they're getting deposits? Are you seeing, more importantly, are they getting chargebacks? An agent gets a chargeback, especially when they're new— yo, Bob, what up, dude? Hey, quick question. I know we talked about chargebacks, policies, checking your commission stuff. You check your commission statement this morning yet? Nah, man, I didn't. All right, bro, so Mary canceled, dude. Remember what we talked about last week? How are we going to handle it? And, and I, I certainly have teach how to kind of get it back on the books, keep it on the books, how to— I teach how to deal with it. But at the same time, I want to make sure they're right in the right headspace. And again, they're not paying attention. So I got to teach the importance of checking your stuff every day and watching your business and watching your commission statements. Again, many of y'all aren't doing it. Most agents aren't looking at their stuff. So I'm paying attention to this stuff. I help people work with their— I have people send me budgets all the time, P&Ls. I had a guy literally doing well in terms of paid number leaderboards, but not doing well in terms of retaining money and having, having money left over at the end of the month. So I'm like, dude, send me your income and your bills. And we went through 3 months of deposits, all his bills when they're due, all the debt when they're due, minimum payments. I went through all of it with him and we started navigating it and the numbers didn't line up. I'm like, dude, based on your deposits and based on your expenses, even your business expenses, there's X amount left over at the end of the month. Where is that going? And now we had to dive into different things, you know, and I'm teaching people how to manage their stuff. Why? To prevent chaos from them, which certainly ultimately impacts me and my business, you know. So little things like that is like, I'm paying attention to stuff. Now, what happens if I'm paying attention to things? If you ever had debt and you're like, man, it snuck up on me, I didn't see it coming. Dude, the ones that haven't, especially the intentional debt people, the ones that do like shady stuff, it's so easy to see. You know, I watch policies, and if you've written I don't know. I've seen several things. I'll give a few examples. I've logged in and seen someone who hasn't written a policy— maybe they're writing a policy a week, and then all of a sudden on a Tuesday they write 7. I'm like, weird. And then they're like, all before noon. I'm like, oh, even weirder. And they're all with one carrier. Huh, even weirder. I've seen it like all the same face, max face. Every one of them is $40 grand final expense at Moo. I'm like, all right, dude, I don't even call and ask questions. I just call the carrier and turn that stuff off and put them on as earned. It's a wrap for me because again, what am I going to call? Like, you know, that's sideways. That, that's not normal. You know, I sold 7. I've seen someone do like in a week something like— and this was in depth, so it was another agent who called me frustrated. So then I started going through this process with her to look at her agent stuff, right? I can't look at every agent today, it's impossible. So I teach it But I started looking at how easy this is to find debt, and we started looking at apps. And this person in a week wrote like 7 or 8 15-year return of premium policies for $250 grand each. My dude, I ain't sold one of those in my career. There's no way this random dude sold 7 in a week, you know? And it's like, that's where the debt came from. And, you know, had you been paying attention 3 months ago versus being excited about the— the— oh, you weren't You were excited about the override, but it didn't spark you to look at anything, you know what I mean? It's like, had you seen this, it would've been obvious. And you're able to cut these things off sooner. So again, my point is, the debt's okay, it's gonna come about, but 90% of it, of bad debt especially, can be prevented by you watching your business differently. I would say, man, what do I want to cover next? Building. Certainly there's some level of consistency. I'll talk about— I'm gonna talk about an approach with recruiting, specifically strategy stuff. So many of you have asked if there's an option for more access, more direct coaching, and so we've created a coaching platform called the Winner's Circle where you have a couple different options. There is a one-on-one option to where we can work directly with you on a regular basis. And then there's a small group setting, 4 to 6 people, really high achievers looking to get to just a new level in their career. And we've had a ton of success in this already. First month, actually, the first guy that joined deposited $7,500, worked with them back and forth one-on-one. The very next month, he deposited over $30 grand. So basically a 5x return on his income in 30 days. So if you're looking for something like that, you can click on the link below, get access to an application because I'm not taking everybody. I do want to make sure it's a good fit for both of us. And if we feel like you'd be a good fit, we'll set up a one-on-one call directly with me, um, and kind of go through your struggles, what you need help with, and what I expect of people that are joining the coaching program. Um, so if you feel like it'd be a good fit for you and something you want more of, Click the link below and we'll see you on the other side. Welcome to the Winner's Circle. I had someone at a meeting the other day ask, and I'm obviously, I'm a numbers guy for those of y'all that follow me. They were like, well, I'm trying to get to $1 million a month. What do those numbers look like? How many people do I have to recruit? I'm like, well, one, if you go on average in my world, for me, I'm trying to have an agency that has an average producing paid writer per month be at like $10,000 a month. That's an average. A lot of people are doing really well making money. A lot of people I look at— so how do you find that? For those that aren't amazing at math, you look at your total paid team volume for the month, called 100 grand, and how many agents did you have that month? Had 10 get paid. You take 100 grand, you divide it by 10 agents, you got 10 grand a month, right? A lot of y'all will be like, we did 50 grand and we had 20 agents. Well, heck, that's whatever, $2,500 an agent, whatever the math is. So you just divide one by the other. So you take the volume divided by number of agents, and that's how much average issued per writer. It's a big number for me. I look at it all the time. And most agencies that ask for help from me that are stuck, that are struggling, tend to be in the 3, 4, 5,000 per writer per month area. I don't typically see people struggling building that are at that $10,000, $12,000, $14,000, $15,000 a month average per month per writer, right? So I like looking at that first because it's like, how well do you help people get paid, or are you just someone that brings people in, right? I want to bring people in, yes, but I also want to make sure they get paid if they're going to go through the, the trouble. All of us, everyone, everyone involved in the process and getting someone started, from me as the person hiring to the person applying and their family and all the things they have to do and adjust in their life to get into, uh, the point where they're licensed and contracted and selling to the people at the carriers doing all the work and the contracting and the people at, you know, in a corporate office at your company or you're in your staff or all the people involved. There's a lot of people involved to get someone started. The people at the state doing the licensing and the people at whatever AML doing the— there's so many people that touch one individual agent, right? It's very expensive to get one agent started, even if it's not your exact cost. The cost is built in. It's built into our pricing and our commissions, and there, there's a cost of getting agents started, and it's thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars. So if I'm going to get someone to go through this entire process, and that expense is going to be paid somewhat by me, somewhat by them, somewhat by the carriers— everyone's involved in the expense part of it— and then I'm not going to pay attention to how well they're doing financially. I'm going to get them through the hardest part and then just go like, eh, now I'm not going to pay attention to how well I'm getting paid. So I'm focused heavily on what the average writer— certainly I'm trying to figure out what Bob's doing. I am watching Bob to see if he's succeeding. But as I start to get bigger, I do want to— again, if I got 100 agents, it's very easy to see where at. And you're always going to have some somewhat of an 80/20 rule. Certainly the top percent are going to sell a majority. That's part of it, yes. But again, if your average is $4,000 and you're 80/20 rule, those guys aren't making that much money. They're getting by, they're doing okay, or maybe a couple are killing it, but the overwhelming majority are broke as all get out. And I don't want that as an average. So I certainly look at the individual agent, yes, but I know I can't— I can't save them all. I just know it's impossible. So I like to look at the overarching number as well. Right? So average, average paid per month per writer. Um, and then from there, in order to grow that, I'm like, how much activity are we doing as an agency, right? So if, again, if I'm recruiting, fine, but how do I get more people in, right? Certainly we want to find other people that want to build like us. That's one strategy. But what percentage of those come in? That want to— like, you know how many people I've hired that want to do what I do? Now, a lot of y'all say you want to do it and you want the result, but you don't want to go through the process. But the percentage is really low. I've only had a— I mean, a handful max of people who somewhat wanted to do, you know what I mean? Like that really high level, especially hired direct. Oh my God, most of our volume has come from strategy, which I'll talk about in and finding people in depth. So how do we, how do we, how do we grow an agency? We get more people bringing the opportunity to more people. I can only talk to so many in a week, but if I can teach you to talk to as many in a week, that now my agency has doubled the conversations this week, right? And it sounds really basic, but are you intentionally doing this? Are there— and there are ways to do it. I'll share a few. Um, and I really dive into this when I'm coaching people and teams and managers direct. But it's like, there are ways. Some of y'all are like, my guys wanna, but they don't have the money to invest. I'm like, cool, I'll give you free ways to recruit. One, everyone that you specifically talk to— first of all, one of the things I like to look at, if I ask you right now, whoever's watching, how many people did you have on the phones prospecting, calling, if you're knocking on doors, knocking on door, whatever y'all do out there? Whatever your version of prospecting is, however you go about it, how many— I'm gonna say phone calls because we do phone calls, right? If your business model's slightly different, just insert your prospecting term. How many people, new agents, did you have on the phones calling potential clients, prospecting, for the very first time today? How many brand new agents did you have making phone calls for the very first time this morning? Almost everyone watching will say zero. Now my question is, how many do you have getting started for the very first time tomorrow? Most are still gonna say zero, right? It's like, all right, so what's wrong? Well, how many people did you get contracted today for the very first time? Hope that number's not zero too, because if it is, you sure can't have someone new dialing tomorrow, right? If you didn't have anyone getting contracted today, how many did you have that got their license today? How many did you have that passed their exam for the first time today? How many did you put into class for the first time today? How many did you quote unquote hire today? Like, I'm just going backwards in the progression, right? But I want to know, how many do I have doing the activity for the first time today? That was a big number for me. So I always want to pay attention. And again, I'm just going to use some of my terminology. When I was selling in the field, I had certain dial days. I was down on Monday, booking appointments Tuesday, Wednesday. I was down on Thursday, booking appointments Friday, Saturday. And some of y'all know my exact schedule. And obviously there's variations to it. But every time, as soon as Monday hit, my number was what it was. The rest of Monday, all day Tuesday, all day Wednesday, my entire focus was How many can I get on the phones for the first time dialing with me on Thursday morning? How many can I have? As soon as Thursday came, the rest of Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, my entire focus was how many can I get on the phones for the very first time Monday morning? Now, in today's world, telesales, you can be— you can do this process every day if you're dialing every day. Just like, just take the concept. Are you hyper-aware of how many you're getting started for the first time tomorrow? And most people aren't. And that was my focus. And in order to do that, I had to fill the funnel at the top. I can't get someone dialing tomorrow if I don't do each of the stages beforehand. And I know it's going to funnel down. I'm going to put in a big number of people at the top and it's going to whittle down to whatever it is. Right now, get to the person's question eventually that we're talking about. They asked about how many they have to do, how many they have to get started to have a million-dollar agency. All right. So again, the 10 grand a month, I'm like, a million a month, that's 100 people, 100 people doing 10 grand on average, a million a month. To get 100 people started, you're sure as heck gonna have to talk to a lot more than 100, right? Like, how many do I have to stick in the top of the funnel for 100 to spit out at the bottom? Then you spit out 100 at the bottom that dial for the first time. All right, how many of those are going to actually get paid? And then of the ones that get paid, how many are going to stay? You know what I'm saying? So it's like, if we go, I, I hire 10 How many are gonna get— and again, let's say on license— how many are gonna actually get their license? Oh my Lord, if I hire 10, the likelihood of 2 or 3 getting their license is really low. It ain't gonna be half, I promise you that, you know. Um, so what's your number? I don't know. If I had to guess, if I hire 10 people, I can probably get 6 or 7 to actually get in class. Of the 6 or 7, maybe 2 or 3 finish it. And of the 2 or 3 that finish it, maybe 1 or 2 pass their license. And of the 1 or 2 that pass their license, maybe I get 1 that gets contracted. And I'm trying to get 1, you know what I mean? It's like, dude, I— for me to get 1 paid, I gotta hire more than 10 people. For me, I just know I do, especially unlicensed. Now, are there different strategies? Can I hire a guy who has a bunch of agents, bring them over and help them? Sure, that's what I I got you. But I'm just talking about like the get down and dirty kind of way, you know? So it's like, all right, I'm gonna have to talk to— to get someone paid, maybe I have to hire 15, 20 people, whatever it is, to get them all the way through the process and start selling. And then maybe that gets me 2 or 3 paid, maybe. I know from experience, like, we had 6,000 writers last month— or last year. So 6,000 different agents sold a policy last year. I haven't looked at my number for 2024, quite frankly, um, as a total. I know our monthly, but on average we have about 1,800 to 2,200— we'll call it 2,000 writers per month. So 6,000 a year, but we only have 2,000 each month, and they have the same 2,000 people. So 4,000 people didn't stick with it. In some form or fashion. So two-thirds bounced, you know what I mean? And I don't love that, but dude, I— it's just what the industry is. That's what sales is. It's what people— it's who people are. So I'm like, I gotta get 3 started just to keep 1, you know, to get 3 started. And I just think people have unrealistic expectations. Can you hit a home run? Yep. Can you talk to one guy that does a bunch? Yep. I've had it happen, you know what I mean? But start from scratch. I just— I see so many y'all talk to 2 or 3, 4 people a week, and you get 1 or 2 guys started, and you think you hit hit the honey hole and you're off to the races. I mean, statistically, most of y'all don't stick with it. So again, to get to a million-dollar agency, I'm like, I didn't really build how to, how to, how to do that alone. I don't know how to do that by myself. It's hard. It's like damn near impossible. So how do I do it? I look at the overall number, like I mentioned, in the agency. So how many people can I do get doing what I'm doing, right? So I'm interviewing someone What am I doing right away? I'm immediately asking them who they know. I built my entire agency through the warm market of my cold market. So I built this business by going, who do you know? Who do you know? Who do you know? Who do you know? Who do you know? I ask everyone, who you know, right? So getting back to help— having, having, um, people help you recruit. I have to— I have to get more people talking about the business and the potential of making money. Who do you know that's looking for an opportunity? And everyone knows someone that wants to make more money. So I don't teach that you got to go out and throw up about how rich you can get this business. You make $1,000 a client, you just do X amount a week, and you da da da da. I don't teach it that way because that's overwhelming and that makes people not want to build. I just go like, who do you know? Like, you seem smart, you seem like you're probably around good people, you want more out of life. Me and you were talking, I'm guessing you know some other people who want more out of life too. Can you connect me? I'm hiring. And I'm trying to teach more than just you how to make good money. And I don't even get into agency building, overrides. I don't get into none of that yet. I just— there's no— for me, it's no pressure. I just want to know who you know because I'm going to help you make money in this business. In return, I would like to know who you know that I can also help. That question has made me millions and millions and millions of dollars, um, and I'm literally giving it to you for free. Most of y'all won't do it on an everyday basis. I'll give you a story. I used to fly to Utah to sell insurance. I'm in Atlanta, for those that don't— Atlanta, Georgia, for those that don't know. There was a period of time where direct mail was king. I couldn't get leads the way you can get leads today, and areas would certainly, um, what's the word, like saturate, if you will. And I was running a lot of different counties all over Georgia. I was— I mean, home sales guy, so I was driving all over Atlanta, driving down to Macon, Columbus, Georgia, all the way to Athens, Georgia. Georgia, and I'm in like northwest side at the time. I was in— I was in Dallas, Georgia, kind of west, direct west off 20, for those y'all that know it. And, uh, driving all over Atlanta, and I, you know, I was doing well. I was, I was selling a lot of insurance and all was good, but I wanted to take it to a new level, and I more specifically want to build, grow my agency. So I started looking for areas and pockets in the country that I could go fly out there, find a bunch of leads go sell insurance to pay for everything, and then recruit and hire while I was there. If I broke even on the sales that week, I'd be fired up. Um, you know, for— again, for me, the ultimate goal is to build the agency. So I used to fly to Utah. I'd go out, I'd, um, I'd start making phone calls on a Sunday, start booking appointments for Monday and Tuesday in Utah. I'd go to the airport, I'd be dialing at the airport before I got on the plane, booking a few more appointments. I'd get on the plane, I'd fly to Utah, get in Sunday afternoon or late afternoon, early evening. And then I'd hit the phones in the hotel, continue to book up from Monday, Tuesday. I'd get up early Monday morning, and I left like a 2-hour window every day. I didn't typically book my first appointment till like 10, and from like 7, 8, 7:30, 8, whatever it was, till 10, I would, I would start dialing, and I'd be booking on Monday. I'd be booking appointments for Tuesday, Wednesday. Tuesday morning, I'd be doing Wednesday, Thursday. Wednesday morning, Thursday, Friday, etc. And I'd stay up in Salt Lake City area. I actually stayed in Park City, but I would run in Salt Lake City in these 4 counties right there, um, Monday through Thursday. So I'd spend 4 days up in the Salt Lake City area. Then Thursday night when I was done, I would drive down. It was like a 4, 3 or 4 hour drive down to, um, St. George, Utah, which is like on the air— I think it's at Las Vegas, Nevada, where Vegas is. I think it's Nevada border. It's down south Utah, 3 or 4 hours. I drive down there Thursday night, I'd sell all day Friday in St. George. There weren't as many leads, so I'd only spend one day there. And Friday night I would bounce and I'd drive to Vegas and I would take a red-eye home to Atlanta. I did that a handful of times, like in 2015. While I was out there, I would do recruiting and I would, I would have people come to the either the hotel or I'd take them to dinner or whatever, depending on the situation. And I'd sit down and I'd try to hire people. And at the time it was paper apps and we were collecting void checks. And I'd show them, like, I've been here 1 day, 2 days, 3 days, depending on what day I was interviewing. And I'd sit down, I'd show them all the apps, and I'd show them the checks, and I'd show them all the addresses. I'm like, dude, I just flew across the country and made $4,000 today. Or— and by the end of the week, I'd usually do $15,000 or $20,000 in the week because I had so many appointments. I would let— I would let leads pile up for a month and I would fly out there once a month. And I did. So I'd take 150 leads, brand new direct mail mortgage leads, and I'd print money. It was great. So I'm out there, I interviewed this guy one day, his name is Jesse. And he's whatever, he's gonna kill it, blah, blah. And I'm like, cool. Hey, dude, so I'm hiring, obviously, I'm flying out here. Who else do you know? And he goes, and he gives me a list of names, some names or whatever. One of the names was this dude in Texas, I think Dallas, I believe. And I always forget his name. And, um, he— I interviewed him later. I just got on a call another day, you know. This didn't all happen in 5 minutes, you know. It was over the course of a couple weeks or whatever, I don't know. So I interviewed this dude, brought him on. Hey, who do you know? Meanwhile, I'm trying to get Jesse started. Slow start, you know. Gets in class, whatever. Talk to this dude in Texas. Hey, who do you know? He gives me the name of a person in Missouri. Talk to this chick Jackie in Missouri. Hey, who do you know? She's like, I know this guy James, he's also Missouri, they're together at the time, whatever. Um, so I'm working with all these people trying to get them all started, this whole process, they're in the funnel, right? Meanwhile, over the course of the next 6 months, James and Jackie became 2 of the top producers of my agency. He technically was direct to her, they built a team doing I don't know, $150 grand a month within that year. Um, the dude in Texas messed around a little bit, didn't do a ton. Dude Jesse never even got contracted, never sold a policy. I don't even know if he got his license, never did anything, but led me to an agency that has done millions of dollars of production to date. And, um, hell, James still set— yeah, like, there's some of them still in the industry. So that's just one story, and I can share tons of them like that, right? So for me, who do you know, that leads to stuff, and it isn't necessarily going to be the person who you think it's going to be. So now for me, every person I interview, much less every agent I hire, to me I look at them as a recruiter. And not in a way like I need you to be out there recruiting, but they are a conduit to other people. And when you get a referral from someone, the relationship If some— if, if Jesse had a relationship with the dude in Texas, that made the dude in Texas way more likely to work with me than Steve, who I interviewed cold. In fact, even Jesse, who I interviewed cold, I didn't know from a hole in the wall. He didn't really do anything. But because Jesse referred someone to me, they were like, oh, you're referring to me. The, the, the bond, the relationship, the, the buy-in was quicker. I didn't have to build as much. They had, they had more trust because someone referred them to me. You know, and I, I played on that a lot. Um, so that's one way to do it, is like, who do you know? And I just ask it all the freaking time. And then if they want to get into building and how it works and overrides, I get into it, you know. I've put people direct to me so they didn't have the burden of debt, for those of y'all that are wondering, if they wanted them direct to them. And again, once someone got started, I'd explain a little more. Hey, when they sell a policy, you'll probably make a couple bucks. That's how it started. And then if they came on board, I'm like, hey, so-and-so is getting started, you're getting licensed, here's how this works. If they sell, you get an override, cool. But if they have any debt or you buy leads, like, do you want me to take that burden, or do you want that? And I would explain it, and I would let them choose. And I would even let an agent that wasn't ready be like, hey, whenever you're ready, you want them direct to you, you let me know, I'll move them. You mean, like, there's strategy. I could get, I could get crazy deep on this stuff. But that's one way to find more people. More people going like, hey, this crazy dude Wetmore is hiring, teaching me to sell insurance, are you interested? And I did all the training. I didn't expect them to do nothing. I just had more voices providing an opportunity. Second way to do it, think about every client, whatever your agency is, right? However many people, whether it's you alone or a team, think about how many clients that each one of you comes in contact with every day, every week, every month, every year. For me, when I'm done with a client, I'm like, hey Bob, Mary, now that we're all wrapped up, I have a question. So a ton of people like you are in the same position where they don't have insurance, and they're reaching out to me like crazy looking for insurance. Do you happen to know anybody else that would be interested in making some extra money that could do what I just did for y'all? Because I'm hiring and I'm training people to do this part-time. I asked every client that. It's free, it's easy, and they trust you already because you did what they— you, you helped them. So there's obvious trust there. You'd be shocked at how many people are like, can I do it? Yeah, my cousin just got their license. My son's looking for a job. Like that. And again, it's not magic, and it doesn't lead to an inordinate amount of amazing— it's still, you got to go through people, but it's connections and it's conversations and it's opportunities. So at the point where I say I had 10 agents selling, if combined we're seeing, I don't know, 100 clients a week, My dude, that's 100 people a week going, who do you know? And then if, say, 20% give you a name, you get 20 new names. Why would I not ask all those 20, hey, who do you know? You know what I'm saying? I can trickle that down endless. We're still doing it to this day. Some of those conversations, we're 15 legs deep of paid agents and they're still asking, who do you know? I could give you a spider web of people that are in our agency that only came to us because of the trickle of who do you know. It went from this person to that person, this person, this one hired the cut, and all these people in between quit and came and got— it's just quantity of who's bringing the info to people's attention. So, um, I, I'd be willing to bet a lot of y'all aren't doing that. Um, and then again, I could get into deep forever about how to sell, how to, how to train this thing, how to get— I'm going to continue to provide value and details and be transparent and give this thing away. Um, so to, to this girl, I'm like, there's— the answer's tough because if you're trying to do it alone, if you're trying to get 100 agents paid a month, a million a month by yourself, it's going to take a really long time. But if every time you hire someone, they talk to a few people for you, you know, I mean, you get 10, 15 agents selling, you're having hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of conversations a week, you can get there pretty quick. You know, for me, I didn't really teach people how to get to $1 million a month. I'm like, dude, why don't I teach you how to get to $150 grand a month? Because that's only like 10 or 15 people, you know. If I can teach you how to get 10 or 15 people, well, how do I get to 10 or 15? Why don't we start getting 2, 3, 4, 5? And I just teach that over and over and over and over and over again. So even if I am teaching you how to get to $1 million a month, I'm telling you, you ain't doing it alone, more than likely. You're gonna need help somewhere from depth and other people. So it's like, the earlier I can get more people talking about it, the easier it is to build. And so I just chunk it down. I'm like, can we— so we had a deal. Again, I'm talking in-home days, going to kitchen tables. My deal was 30 appointments a week, 30 interviews a week. I still believe in the 30 interviews a week. I think most of y'all doing telesales should be doing more than 30 appointments a week, but that's just me. And if you're killing it with less than that, amen. But if you're— I just, I don't know anyone killing it in the building side that are talking less than 30 a week. And it's easy for me to teach. It's a handful of people every day. It's not that complicated. And my goal was always, again, going back to how many people are you getting on the phone for the first time this week? You want to build an agency. I wanted to increase my agency a net meaning after I lose people, I want to go up a net of 5 a month. So if you had 0, get 5 a month paid this month. How do we do that? Let's break it down. It's just 1 a week, roughly. Can you get 1 person a week paid? Certainly you got to keep them, and there's other things, but can you get 1 a week paid? And I always joke, like, if we do less than 1, it's zero. So if you get 1 a week paid, cool. It's 12 a year. Even if you don't retain them all, great. But if you get 5 or 10 people doing that, I mean, you can have an army of people in a year. And that's all I did is really utilize other people's connections to build this thing. And then there is certainly cold market. I can run ads till I can get unlimited. You want recruiting leads, message me. I get you unlimited recruiting leads. But it's what do you do with them? How do you work them? you know, and I work recruiting leads. That's how I built this. I work recruiting leads just like I work client leads. It's all about prospecting, and the more conversations I have, the more I prospect. And I could go as simple as like when you get gas, when you go to eat, when you're traveling and you're in a rest— do you like— do you talk to anybody about things? Do you ask questions? Your Uber people? I've hired people in airports. And it— I mean, this thing gets easier as it goes, and I become a smaller and smaller percentage of the person doing the hiring. I just had to teach it over and over and over again. Um, so I'm going to continue to give stuff. I, I went— I'm at 50-something minutes on like a fraction of what I can teach on this thing. So I'm making an executive decision, we're gonna do a part 2. I have some stuff coming up, um, that we're gonna dive in depth with. One, I have a, um, an in-person event happening in my office. If you go to johnwetmore.com I'm gonna go live with you, slash events. There'll be a link here, but just type it in, johnwetmore.com/events. Right now I got two on there, but in person, which I do very infrequently, um, just because— so it's rare we do them. February 27th, 28th, we're gonna have two days, um, in my office. You can register there. There's a couple different ticket options, cheap as shit to get in. Um, but every time I do it for free and I give away lunch, 70% of people bail last minute because I don't obligate anybody anything. So it's like a dirt cheap— I think it's like, I don't know, $197 or something for a ticket, um, to get in. It comes with lunch. We're gonna feed you. We're gonna give away some cool stuff. But I'm gonna give you millions more in value, like an obnoxious amount of value. It's gonna be workshop style. I'm gonna have some guest people here. I got someone coming in to teach you how to write millions of dollars in annuities. I'm gonna have some people in here making I got 2 people in here making over 7 figures a year, one making multiple 7 figures. We're going to be giving away some stupid, stupid value, and it's going to be like you're going to walk away with stuff. We're going to have some workbooks for you guys to go through things. We're going to make sure everyone leaves here with an obnoxious amount of value. And, uh, there's a second ticket here if you want a VIP. I'm having an event at my house after one evening where we'll come in and some of those people making like ridiculous money and doing big things. We're gonna have a mastermind, private, at the new house we just built, um, maybe 10 minutes from the office, and some more behind-the-scenes stuff. Be super chill, but we're gonna dive into some stuff. Wife's gonna cook dinner. We're gonna have a great time, enjoy, enjoy the company and presence and networking and brainstorming and just more tons of value. Um, so click on that, um, join, register if you'd like to be part of something big. If you're tired of being tired you want to hit the next level, don't mess around, register and, and get in. And then of course I still always will do free stuff. I have a free event, you'll see it if you're on the page, January 8th. It's a virtual mastermind, it's on Zoom, you can register on that link as well. Um, we're gonna be doing some cool stuff on that as well, some surprise guests that we're going to be announcing as well. And then I'll work on a multi-part of this. I'm going to be talking a ton about building agencies, so make sure you follow it. Subscribe, like it. Would love if you share it. Um, I do read all the comments, so if you DM me, message me, if you have something you're stuck on, something you want me to cover specifically, those of y'all building something big, DM me, I'll cover it. I might even message you back, voice— I answer everyone, but I might get in depth. Um, just send me, send me what you guys are looking for help on. And, uh, I want to make sure that, um, this year, 2025 coming up, we're going to blow up, um, this, our channel, YouTube brand. We've, we've got an an obnoxious amount of momentum right now. I'm just continuing to share everything I'm sharing. I get DM'd every day, which is dope. So I appreciate all of you that continue to follow, and it keeps me motivated and excited to keep helping because I do know a lot of you that I don't even know watch and get value out of this. So I, I love the messages that come in. Keep sharing them and keep supporting the brand and the message and the mission so I can keep doing big things for you guys. And I look forward to helping a shit ton of you make crazy money in, uh, in 2025. And our, um, in-person event is the Get F'n Paid workshop, because I do want that for people. Um, I don't get anything out of this for that, and even the cost of the tickets, it's like, dude, it's covering my staff's time and lunch, and I'm— that it's, it's very minimal. Um, so get registered, and then again, like it, share it, all that jazz, subscribe. And, uh, if I can help you with anything else, please let me You know, look forward to the next one and, uh, keep killing it. Later.