How To Go From BROKE to RICH in Insurance Telesales

Oh, that's right, he was the crazy one. A DM, he was like, fuck it, I'm signing up. He signed up 2 people. I remember that. I was like, we got a crazy one. Hey, but look how quick it can change too, you know what I mean? Where most everyone else— dude, you know how many people sign up to shit of mine? Like, actually, how many inquire? To sign up, and then I'm like, here's where you sign up, and then they wuss out, or they start panicking, or they— it's like clients that get on the phone with you and give you all their shit, and it comes time to pay, they freak out. Literally, agents are the same way. We get a— I get an ass ton of people that sign up for coaching, and then when I go, all right, here's the link, go pay, 95, 95% freak out. It's like people want more, but then when it's like, all right, here's the path to more, and it's not always just about money, it's just making decisions and doing things or going to an event. So it's cool to see all y'all coming up out of, you know, out of your comfort zone, probably for most. And certainly a lot easier to sit at home and dial in your PJs, but you know, when you make big moves, big shit happens. So anything specific you want to cover today, Giovanni? We can go over whatever. I can talk my face off. We can Talk about who needs what. I could let them ask questions, but usually everybody looks down when I do that. Okay, y'all start getting them ready while, while Giovanni and I figure out.

Well, I mean, I'm not off the top of my head, but I'll go.

That's what I say. In the next 5 minutes, just write down a question, anything that you want to know, that you want to be better at. It can be anything you want. and you— we're gonna do it in advance so you can't steal the other person's question, say, that was my question too, because that's usually what happens. Um, but as a whole, dude, anything— where do you think— I don't want to say people are weak because you have so many new people. I think it's the wrong wording. It'd be good to explain, I don't know, what to expect, um, lead by, stuff like that. Kind of like— okay, who's, who's besides the obvious? I know some of y'all, I know some of y'all own these. Who's, who's not buying their own lead yet? Just 3? Yeah, I mean, y'all buying your— you buying your own leads on your own, like enough to run full-time? Good work. Y'all not— remind me your name again. Tyler? I got to get through the accent too. By the time it gets up here with the accent, it doesn't process really well. So I apologize. Tyler, cool. You're buying leads? Okay, like every week? Let's do this. Who's, who's, who's not buying leads every single week? All right, now see, poor quality question gets you shitty answers. It's a learning lesson there. You understand that you have to buy leads every week. To keep the momentum going, even if it's— they don't have to be brand new leads, they just need to be new to you. So I, I think— and Giovanni's really good at, at watching this stuff— but I think where, where most agents over time fall short quick is they— when lead—

when you—

first of all, they limp in on leads. Typically most agents don't get enough leads to stay busy for an entire week full time. I mean, if you buy 30 leads, 40 leads, 50 leads, after a couple days you've been through them a few times, it's like they're probably still not going to pick up. Now, if you got 50 and you only call them once, that's not enough either. But if you're following the path of triple dialing them 3 times each and you're calling them 9, 12, 15 times in 48 hours, after 48 hours the likelihood of them picking up day 3, day 4, day 5 is basically zero still, you know. So I think learning the game of— and I always explain it in a, in a way that made sense to me, um, and I, I use this story. A lot of y'all probably haven't heard the little Easter egg thing. Kylie, you probably have because you've been around a while. I don't know if you've heard this, Craig, or not. Giovanni definitely has, and Reese is probably sick of it. But like, when I was a kid Like all of us, you ever been in like Easter out back? They hide the little plastic eggs and you've got crap in them. Well, when I grew up, we used to play at my aunt's house and most of them had candy in it. And we grew up broke as shit, um, literally on welfare. And my mom would put like 50 cents in a couple of them. Most of them would have candy in it, you know, just plain old candy, whatever. But every once in a while, there'd be one 50 cents. And I didn't care about the ones with the candy in it because I knew the candy was just hidden in the cupboard and I would get the candy anyway, whether it was in an egg or in the cabinet, I didn't care. I just wanted the money. So I would run around the backyard and just shake it and listen for the change to rattle. And if it didn't rattle, I literally just put the egg down and get the next one. I wasn't worried about the candy part. And for me, that's how I approach leads. I'm literally just picking up a lead, I shake it, if there's money in it, great. If there's not, I put the fucking thing down and move on to the next one. I don't care if I don't get something out of every lead because I know there's not going to be money in every lead. I just like candy in the backyard in the Easter egg. I'm 100% sure you can't convert every lead. So I see new agents getting emotional about that process, much like I did early on, because you get frustrated when someone hangs up on you. It doesn't— and it, it is frustrating. Yeah, it is frustrating. So it's like there's a combination of learning how to get through that process quicker. But when you're new, it's hard to do quick and, and not mess it up. So at your stage, it's okay that it took an hour because if it converted, that hour is worth it. Yeah. And someone wants— you've been paid on for an hour and you get paid 2, 3, 4 G's, like, that's stupid too, you know. So I think if you, if you understand the approach on let's see if there's something there, and if there's not, let's move on. It doesn't mean don't keep calling them, right? There's a balance. I would say in the first 48 hours you should be in the ballpark of 15 times a lead. If you're close to 5, it ain't enough. And if you're at 50, you called them way too many times. It means you didn't shake it, move on. You're just dying to get money out of a lead that's never going to pick up, you know. So I'm a big 15-attempt guy, 48 hours. Now if you take those 15 attempts and drag it out 2 weeks, that's not good either. So I'm like, 48 hours, let's hit them 15 times and move the hell on. Meaning new lead flow. Because if you can get through the leads in a quick period of time, you know, you find out who answers quick. And when you get them on the phone, do something with them if you can. If you have to book an appointment, fine, book an appointment. But if you haven't figured out by now, the no-show rate on booked appointments over the phone is like all of them, literally. They're not going to be there almost ever. I'm really good at this, and I think I've written like 5 or 6 in 4 months on booked appointments. Again, I'll take some and I call them, but I don't, I don't book the appointments and then not have a plan for the day. If I have 8 or 10 booked, like, I'll be lucky to talk to one. You know, and I have systems. Some of mine are booking automatic by text. I do a little text thing which will get you guys into as you get a little bit further on. But I think again, for leads, let's have the right approach of— I think 50 leads you can work for maybe 2 days, you know. Much past that, you're going to need probably new lead flow. Now, if you're getting— if you're on a hot streak like I was a couple weeks ago and every other lead damn picks up and you're presenting to everyone, you're closing a lot of deals, You're not going to get through quite as many as you would in a week where sometimes you go 300, 400, 500 phone calls and you about talk to no one. That's part of the game. So let's make sure that you have enough lead flow and lead inventory to be able to keep making calls on future call days. And plan that stuff in advance. You know, not like the morning of, Giovanni, on the way to the office. You know, like ideally you want to have leads prepped and planned prior to the dial day. You know, we all mess up and we all do it and whatever, but if you can have lead flow starting to trickle in, that way when you sit down you got a gang of people to call or buying inventory. I assume a lot of y'all buying aged leads. Yeah, I mean, then you can buy inventory, you buy a bunch. The game changes a lot when you start buying, buying new leads. So if you turn on new leads now and you get 50 a week and you turn them on right now— hell, I've only got like 8 leads so far in today. Not that I don't have inventory, I got plenty of people to call. But if I were only relying on— let me turn on leads, I turned mine on yesterday and I was relying on my new leads to have a full dial day today, I'd have been bored by 10 o'clock. Because when, say, you turn on 50 and you're waiting for people to fill out a form And then you— and if you limit it to how many you get per day, which you can change that on the leads, you can get them all in one day if, if, if they're available, or you can cap it and go, I only want so many per day. You can, you can choose the strategy. But let's just say you want to spread out even 100 leads over the course of a week. Over 7 days, you're getting 15 a day, 12 a day, whatever the number is, 12 to 15 a day means you get one at 8 AM, one at 9:12 AM, one at 10:07 AM, one at 11:03. You know what I mean? And you just— it's like, who do you call between? If you don't have lead inventory, you can get hurt just ordering 50 new leads and like hoping like, shit, your week works out. So I see a lot of people make that mistake of transitioning from aged leads to new leads, and they're like, sweet, new leads, I don't have to call these anymore. Oh no, it don't work that way. You call these when they come in fresh, and then you call these in between because it takes a while for new lead flow to be able to have people to call all the time. And the reality is, if you can't drop a couple grand a week, you're probably not going to be able to run off just fresh leads. It's just— you just won't have enough people to call. You know, I can, I can spend enough to get— you know, if I get 20 or 30 new leads in a day, I, I'll have plenty of people to talk to. You make 5, 6, 7, 8 presentations in a day. You don't spend as much time listening to dial tones. But it takes a little while to get there. So I think as you guys start looking at your lead inventory, Giovanni can only watch your stuff so much. So make sure you're planning. Like, you should know what's tomorrow look like, what's Wednesday look like for people that I have to call. And if you don't— if you're unsure if you have enough to continue the week, reach out to Giovanni or myself and go like, hey, what do you think? Here's where I'm at. Here's where I got for money. Here's what's coming up for deposits. Help me plan this thing. Because in the ideal place, you are— it is better. Like, new leads are better to have. But they don't make you good. So if you suck, a new lead will hang up on you quick. So it's learning to build up the skill set along the way and being willing to do that. On the aged leads because it's a cheap way to do it, and there's plenty of opportunity in those. The return on investment is actually significantly higher on aged leads. So if you look, I spend a dollar, how much do I make? You'll make way more money back on an aged lead. It's just because you get them so cheap and there's a shitload of sales in it. It just takes longer to make the money back because there's more reps typically. So I might make a lower return on a new lead, but I can make my money back in 48 hours, like 3, 4 times over. Whereas the aged lead plan, I could probably make 10, 15, 20x on my investment, but sometimes it takes a week or two, you know, to kind of play out and find all the people. So just understand there's different strategies, and it will change and evolve as you grow in the business. And the more you communicate with myself or Giovanni, the more we can help, um, help plan that stuff, because this is where most people die. Especially when it comes to, all right, I'm getting paid now, what do I buy? Bills versus leads. And you got to learn how to have this balance. You know, a lot of people are going to default towards, I got to pay the bills, which makes sense. But if you understand the game and your bill, it could— and your bill could not be due for another week or two, you'll survive buying more leads because you can make the money back so much quicker. Before a bill is due. So it literally takes sometimes day by day, but definitely weekly planning. And if you don't know the right strategy, I'm sure you can ask Craig because he's over there giggling if you can't see it, because he's fucked it up so many times. Yeah, everyone does, dude. I mean, most people have made that mistake, you know. And so probably one of the things that I would, I would advise that I probably did well early on— I had a job when I started doing this, first of all. I had a full-time job. So any of the money I made in insurance went into a separate account, and I spent all of it on insurance. I didn't need any of the insurance money for my bills. Um, but something I still have done my entire career is I put myself— I think most agents make the mistakes of if your commissions go into the same account that you pay your bills out of I think it's a mistake. Personally, I think this should go into a different account, i.e., a business account. Doesn't have to be a true— you don't need an LLC, you don't have to— it can just be a separate checking account, and that becomes the account you operate your business out of. And then over here is where you pay your bills out of. And just like when you had any other job, this account pays this account every week. I see the agents that do that consistently last longer in the business. And if you're used to making $500 a week instead of like this week not paying anything, and then next week you're like, shit, I gotta pay $2,000 worth of stuff, it's not a smart way to live. Whereas if you just pay yourself $500 a week no matter what's happening, it tends to create more consistency, and you can build up a little pile of cash in your business account. And then you can get more aggressive if you get 2, 3, 4, 5, 10, or maybe ask what Giovanni has in his because I know it's a lot more. It does get easier to become aggressive in the space and then just go, eff it, let me just buy as many leads as I need to get ahead. And this is a conversation— you feel better this week than last week? Are you still freaking out about the lead investment?

Um, I mean, I've already re—

I mean, you already got paid and reinvested every week.

Yeah, yeah, I'm all in.

But you're seeing more conversations happen faster now, I assume?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah, which I mean, I bought aged leads with them.

Yeah, yeah, you should.

Yeah, like you said, I only have like 20 I think that have came through so far, and I paid for that 2 or 3 days ago.

How many states do you have, Giovanni?

On the fresh leads, we just did Tennessee, right? Yeah. Just Tennessee.

Add more if you want more flow.

I mean, I'm only, I'm only licensed in Hawaii and Tennessee.

I'm saying you can add another state easy. Meaning you could add Georgia, Alabama, you mean North Carolina? Yeah.

Yeah.

Yep. If you want to really kill it in telesales, it's hard to do it with one state. It just, it is because only so many people are going to fill out a form in that one state in your demographic and you're competing with everyone else who has that state. You know, so most lead vendors recommend— most won't even— if you were to do an only— Goat works because he has so many people ordering, but if you were to go to most lead vendors, most won't even take you unless you have 10 states. I was thinking because they, because they can't get the flow in. I have 15 on my order. Really? Yeah. Yeah. Now I'm licensed in every state, right? But on my order, I pick 15 states. I like the southern type states. Typically I have a couple up north just because I'm familiar with them or I know them or whatever. I can talk to the, to the agent or to the client about stuff. Um, but yeah, having one state is going to be rough, and you're gonna— it's gonna be very inconsistent. Yeah, because if someone orders a big batch and they don't limit how many they get, they're like, I'll take as many as I can get. He's going to send more flow to them. The system will automatically— if they got to fulfill 50 to one guy and they only have to fulfill 5 a day for you, it depends if you have it maxed per day too. You can limit per day how many you do. Um, so I, I would definitely recommend adding more states to anyone that's trying to do this, and ideally do it in a state you're comfortable if that matters to you, you know, meaning I wouldn't do New Jersey if you aren't from there, you don't know the style or the people or the demographic, you know, country bumpkin, you call Jersey, bro, they're gonna hang up on your ass in a second. It just is what it is.

Yeah. The veterans, what's— how do you buy those? Same way that you just like, but they're like $43 a pop.

Really? Yeah.

I think I would do really well with them.

You would. Now you can buy aged and they're not that much more. You know, they're— it's again, it's— yeah, they're probably 7 instead of 4 or whatever it is.

I feel like I do better with people I can relate with.

Yeah, if you can— and vets want people to relate to. They're no— they don't want any BS. They want direct, they want to the point. And if you can relate at all and speak with some family in military— you, you are specifically Was.

Yeah.

Got it. Where? In what?

Army.

No shit. High Stoke. Yeah, when this happened. What happened? You don't want to know. I actually want to know. No, you really don't. You don't want to share?

No.

Okay.

I mean—

Because I definitely want to know, to be clear.

I was smoking for like— it did not happen while I was in training or anything.

Got it.

It was— I was being—

Dumbass?

Yeah.

Okay. Happens.

And I had a grand old time doing it. It was worth it.

That's good. It's good. If you're in the insurance space and trying to build an agency or you're trying to like break records in sales, just hit new levels, new heights, click the link below to apply to my consulting and coaching program that I have out there. I'm helping tons of people get to new levels, get to new income heights, help them build their teams, put systems in place, staffing stuff, recruiting processes, automations, just teaching people how to get to a point where they're selling on their own pen, 30, 40, 50 grand. A month. And if they're building a team, teaching how to have an effective structure to your insurance agency for the most profitability you can. There is an application process. I'm only looking to work with like high-end people who really want to make big things happen. If you're interested, click the link, apply, and if you're a fit, I'll reach out. Yeah, you would. I mean, again, vets are— you've called vets, they're different. It's different than a final expense lead. They're a different person. They would. If you can speak their language, it's a different— I'm not from the military, but I'm really, but I'm really direct. If you can use lingo, oh, it's a wrap, because that opens them up. Military by default are not easy to open up. They don't want small talk. They don't want to bullshit with you. They just want the fucking price. It's— it is a— so someone brand new, it is a little bit more difficult to work a vet, and they're higher priced because it's It's more direct targeting. It's a little more niche. They have more money because they typically have two sources of income, not one. Those are my bigger premiums for sure, but I get a hold of way less of them. And they're really stubborn. They are. They're stubborn too. Yep, they are. But I'm— so am I. So I can relate in some ways. I don't know military lingo, but I've talked to enough vets Yeah, they are, you know. So it's like, if you, if you're okay with that, try it. It's worth it.

Well, the people that I have talked to that have been in the military, um, their whole mood changed whenever I was like, correct? Yeah, it immediately— they were like, oh really?

And that's like anything. If you can relate to anyone about anything, it will open them up, you know, especially when it's natural, not weird and awkward, but you find someone local to you or with your— it's it's bound to work. You know, if I get leads in Ohio, I talk about my daughter going to Ohio State, it brings up— they typically know someone that went there, they went there, it's in that neighborhood. That's why I run that, that area. I used to sell up there and I know the area pretty well, and I can drop that and people like, oh. Or if I call up in New Hampshire, I used to live there, I can talk about certain cities and towns and areas. And it's, it's always just finding something to be relatable to. So that would be a home run for you. For sure. You know, you gotta be ready to spend some money. You know, it's 2 G's a week for 50 of them. Yeah, but the premiums are— the premiums are massive. I, I think on my, on my sheet, um, actually I'll show you. I think I have it up here. Let me see if I can bring it up. So I've written $32,000 off GOAT final expense and 31 applications. And on my vet leads, I've written $27 grand but only 13 apps. So 13 apps and 31 apps got me about the same premium. It's just, it's much bigger cases, but I don't write as many. So it's, it's not necessarily the best plan if you have a smaller budget, you know.

Why is that?

They don't—

that's just—

they don't pick up the phone quite as much. I can't get quite as many on the phone. Um, I'll fucking call you back. Um, yeah, I don't know. I could make up all kinds of bullshit. I just— I know not as many answer, and a decent amount of them have insurance. Some of them are going to compare it to their— they want to be at the VA. Some of them— most of them think the VA benefits are better than they are.

Right.

Some of them still have that VGLI, SGLI shit, you know. Some of them, because USAA and all those banks promote to them, they'll have some fully underwritten something or other. There's just more stuff to work with. Where's final expense, dude? For the most part, they're broke as shit and either have no insurance or they only got 10 grand, right? And they got $1,100, $1,200, $1,400 a month to live on. It's really cut and dry. There's more moving parts with vets. They're smart, they're more educated. They know more, you know.

It's just probably be just fighting with the VA benefits that they think they have or they think are so good.

Yeah. And I, I have documentation on that type of stuff. There's not a ton. They don't get a ton. And most of them that think their burial's paid for, this shit ain't paid for, you know. And if you can speak that language, I get through it and I don't even know it really well. I just know it from talking to enough people.

Well, I don't know about all the, like, different benefits. I just know, like, for the— all of that, because I didn't—

they basically give them like a plot, but they ain't paying for the funeral and the full service and that. And some of them do think that. What's crazy though is the VA, the life insurance that— and I have stuff I've filed. You might have this stuff. You have the VJLI and VA benefits documents and stuff. They do. Their insurance actually sucks ass. Their life insurance. It's trash. It goes up as you age every 5 years. It's like the— it's like the, uh, yes, it's just like the ARP thing. It's really awful. And more often than not, when I'm talking to vets, they're pissed that they weren't taken care of from the military because they find out way later in life that the benefits are going away, or they go up in price, or go down in coverage, or whatever. So Cool. But any questions specific to lead flow on that, or any clarity I want to— you want me to provide? Okay. How would you break down how much to spend on leads, including even the phone call? Is it for someone specific? Because I know you know the answer, obviously. I know you're asking for them. Yeah. Um, what I've learned, dude, is like when people spend X amount on leads to make Y, whatever that is— you spend $500 and you made this, whatever the number is— people's level of my, my profitability is skewed like crazy. I think people look at it wrong, first of all. The answer I'll get to, but I think the reason the answer is hard, because to you and I it's so easy. If you spend a dollar and make 5, why would you not do it 100 times a day? You know what I'm saying? It's literally, so it's getting people to understand it more than it is just saying what they should do. And— Meaning someone in here spent $500 in leads and had $1,200 in deposits and is mad. Is that fair? Like, does someone— right? But I'm like, dude, if we hung out in Vegas for a day and you play and you put $500 into the slot and walked away with $1,200, wouldn't you come home and tell all your family how fired up you are? Yeah, you'd be out of your mind excited. Or if you went into the grocery store and bought one of the scratch-off tickets and you spent $500 and you won $1,200, you'd be fired up out of your mind. But somehow in this, when people spend $500 and make $1,200, they're pissed. And I'm like, I, I get relative to what we say, that's not a great return on investment, but it is also within a week. Put $500 in the bank and go back in a year and see how much you have. You'd be like, 502. You know, and so I think it's helping people understand how quick the money can be made back, what the return really is. Um, and also I see, dude, that people look at profitability and they look at what they spend on the lead, what their deposit is, that their deposit is, then what their bills are, and then what's left is somehow their profit. I'm like, you know, the profit isn't after your bills. That's not— that's not what profit is defined as. Profit is just the money I made minus the expense to buy the leads. That's your profit. Because you spend the rest, that doesn't mean you had no profit. That's where most people— that's almost every agent messes that up. I'm not profitable. And I look at their bill and their stuff and I'm like, bring me 4x your money. They're like, yeah, but I have nothing in my bank account. I mean, you did spend it on dumb shit and hookers and cocaine or whatever you spend it on, you know. Um, so I think that's why it's important to know your numbers, which is why some of the stuff I'm going to show you in a little while— I'm determined to force people to not know their numbers somehow, some way. And I think this thing's going to help. Um, at its simplest level What I always explain to people is to be willing to invest on average, on a minimum really, about 25% of what you want to make. So if you want to make $400 grand, you're going to probably spend $100 grand on leads. If you want to make $100 grand, you're probably going to spend $25 grand on leads, you know, about 20. And when you're new, you probably have to front load that percentage, and it's going to be closer to 50%. At the beginning depending on how quick you pick this thing up. You know, I mean, if you want to make a couple grand a week, you probably aren't going to do it on $500 a week when you're new. The 25% thing is a long-term average. Up front, you want to make a couple grand a week, you're probably gonna have to spend $1,000. It's probably what it's going to be, you know, especially if your skill set sucks or you don't make enough calls or you don't listen to Giovanni or you don't study your underwriting and you lose stuff. And you know, I mean, there's so many things, there's so many variables. So for me, it's, it's teaching people early on that, I mean, you're probably not going to be balling out the first couple months. It's just the reality of it. And I think where people go wrong too, Giovanni, is they think the spend this and make this, that feeling that they have after explaining all that stuff about profitability and what's left and reinvesting and being scared and all those things they think that feeling's there forever. They don't— it's hard to articulate that it goes away, you know, and that it does get easier and it become— it doesn't, it doesn't feel like a gamble like it probably does to a lot of you now. To me, it's just ordering money. Y'all are like, I'm ordering leads. I'm like, no, I'm ordering cash because I'm 100% it's coming. I just got to put in a little bit of work in the middle to make it come. And even after all the stuff and the cancels and the chargebacks, which I get also, the return on it is just obnoxious. So I think it's starting with a 25% average, but if you want it to get there quick, making it more early on, especially having your money deposited into a separate account and being willing to spend— that's a business account— and being willing to spend as much of that as possible to create more cash. You're— when I was taught that you're buying cash flow, that changed everything for me. You know, I remember I called Sean Mike early on when— early, we didn't have leads, period. Like, as a company, the FFL had no leads when the company started. There was nowhere to get them. And at one point, probably 12 months in, the first year, first 3 months, 2 months, there was literally no leads. It— the plan was call your current clients. That was FFL's plan the first 2 months. I was like, I have no current clients, I'm new. So then he got us aged leads, and it was like, uh, old mailers, the data from old mailers. You didn't even get the mailer, you just got the Excel sheet with people's information that filled out direct mail. And so I sold my first year on just those, and I would show up with a spreadsheet to the house. I'm like, hey, is this you? And it worked, you know, your name with 40 other names on it. But about towards the end of that first year, that's where LeadCo— Cheryl, I don't know if you any— I don't know if you know her. Yeah, Cheryl was the account rep. She still is, funny enough. They came out with the ability to lock down areas, right? So if you're like, hey, I want to get Cobb County, Georgia— if you choose to have Cobb County, Georgia, no one else could have it. So they gave you the ability to lock down areas. And where now you can order on Facebook, you— everyone can order the same area. So because there weren't leads, those who were able to lock down areas were able to control their income more. And I had a couple counties and, um, people were letting them go because the same reason everybody lets leads go, period. And at this time, direct mail leads were about $45 a lead. And I called Sean one day and I'm like, hey, some dipshit let go of these counties. I'm thinking to buy to lock down more counties. Do you think I should? And he does the old like, hey, can I ask you a question? I was like, shit, yes. He goes, do you understand that leads equals money? You've been here long enough to understand that, right? Again, I'm a year in to FFL. I was like, yeah, makes all sense in the world. He's like, then why did you just call me to ask me if you should order more money? I was like, got it. I hung up and I locked down all the counties. At one point I had like 45 counties in Georgia locked down for direct mail, and I controlled all the leads here. That's how I built the team early on, because I didn't need that many counties, but I knew if I locked them down, no one else could buy them. So when I hired agents, I had the leads. So I was literally like a little lead pimp in the office. Anybody needed leads in Georgia, they'd come to me, and I'd be like dealing out leads and doing splits and You know, so I learned that lesson early, you know, that I just— the mindset towards what a lead is. To me, it wasn't an expense, it was future cash flow, you know. So if you, if you can start to understand that ordering leads is just ordering next week's and next month's cash flow, is all you're doing. And it takes money to do that, you know. So it's kind of the gist of— yeah. What about— what do you say, or how do you stop people? I got a call at 3:45. I got an interview, actually. If y'all want to see me interview someone, you certainly can watch. Um, who spend like more money the first time, let's say kill it, and next week they think it's gonna be less. Yeah, what's the advice there? How do you stop that? I like to do the math on it, dude. Like we did with her. Remember when it was like, if we take— where was her example? She spent— what was that number? It was obnoxious. It was like $300 and you made $2 grand. I think it was $2 grand or something. You spent $300, made $2 grand or something like that, right?

Yeah.

And so there was, call it, $1,700 left. And I'm like, all right, well, if you spend $600, what do you think you'd make? $6 grand. Yeah, yeah, $4,000 if you did double. But in your head, I think you did say $6,000. Right, so even if we stay conservative and go $300 makes $2,000, $600 would make $4,000. In the first example, you have $1,700 left over. In the second example, you spend more, but you have $3,400 left over. Like, why would you not want more left over? Because they're so caught up in the spend. So I just focus on the leftover, like what's left in your bank account. Now they have to have confidence. I feel like she was confident. Like, I think she doesn't hesitate with— if I talk to enough people, I'm gonna sell them. I'm just very impulsive, which we took advantage of in that moment, to be clear. But it worked.

Yeah, y'all are successful in this.

I'm gonna listen to you guys. Yeah, I mean, it's not a risk. It's a risk to you. To us, we want to bash your head against the wall and go, the only way it's a risk is if you don't work. Is there a chance that that particular lead order doesn't convert into 5x or 10x? Hell yeah, shit happens. I mean, y'all watch me 2 weeks in a row. One week I couldn't miss, I sold $20,000 on like no fucking dials, and the next week I dialed significantly more and sold $3,000. You know, shit happens. But over the course of time, it's just, it's just not a risk because the people are looking for insurance. The only risk is if you don't put in the work or you get in your head and you find some reason why you can't keep calling someone, or, you know what I mean? Like, you just— that's the only way where it's really a risk. I mean, technically I get your point, but there's— in a batch of 100 people, I mean, there's always a handful of people ready to buy. Yeah, just most people don't make enough calls to get enough people to pick up. To kind of shake that egg and go, holy shit, there's money in this one. They get emotional about the process. Where you see risk, I see like, no, you're just being emotional and you stop calling. So it feels risky because you didn't make this when you spent this. I'm like, well, that's only because you called them twice. That game just doesn't work. That's why we try to be so direct about it. It's like, the game does not work if you don't work your motherfucking face-off. I just— I don't know how to limp into this thing with money or time and do well. But you put in the time, even if you're bad. Like, between Giovanni and I, we can be like, stop saying that, say this. And if you can at least adapt, you know, you can make changes quick. I won't forget, dude, the video. It's just his— I think it wasn't his first sales video, the one you sent. Where it was, he was, it was, he was doing like the Giuliano guy, right? And then it was like, now, do you just be you, you know? And you've seen him like open up and his personality come out. And him, all of a sudden he starts slinging insurance that one, one or two days. It's like every other damn phone call he was closing an app, you know, because we can go like, nah, stop doing that, do it this way. I thought I had to sound professional, bro. But yeah, yeah, that's it. Oh, I'm going to show you this thing. What up, insurance agents? If you're looking for a roadmap on how to win in this industry. Check out the book I wrote about a year ago, Do More Now, Get Better Later. Check out the reviews here somewhere, my team's putting them on. I'm getting tons of great feedback about all the people it's helped. Appreciate those of y'all that have bought it, appreciate all the reviews that are going out. If you're new to following me or the industry, check out the book and get it in your hands now. Let's see, preview that. All right, check this thing out. So I've been playing with like some AI building stuff. Obviously y'all know we have the dial tracker, we have the client sheet, and we have our leaderboards, which I apologize are a mess because someone doesn't work here anymore and we didn't know how the hell he set them up and it's kind of a shit show. So we're kind of rebuilding stuff, but I put this little thing together. And I just want to show you guys a little bit of it. We're still building on some of it, but I took, um, literally the dial tracker, and I'm trying to— we're making a web-based version. Um, so we have this little thing here where you can like track your dials each as you go, how many contacts, how many appointments, yada yada, and it'll keep track of all your stuff. So as you go, you can— yeah, so you can add one at a time, you can add whatever you want. There's different ways to track it. And at the end of the day, end of the week, you can come in here and plug in like your weekly numbers. So if I would just plug in whatever, you know, I made 286 dials, I had 10 contacts, whatever it is, like 7 appointments and 2 sales, you can put it in, it'll update, and it'll start doing stats. Um, I took this, that client worksheet, and I put it digital so you can type everything in here as you go. Everything you would write down on the sheet. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's spelled a little funny. Where does it say it? Oh, because my thing— yeah, that's a little thing. Yeah, John Jeffrey. See, my family spelled it E-R-Y. Jeffrey. Jeffrey. Yep. Most people are REI. I don't know. Anyway, so this is literally the client worksheet, like digital, so you can type stuff in. Because I obviously, I handwrite it, and then you got to type it in the carrier sheet, and then when I'm done, I got to type it in my CRM, and then I got to type it in the submit, and then I gotta type it on my Google Sheet. And it's like, why am I typing it 19 fucking times? Um, so if you put here they have no life insurance, or they have life insurance, or you want to add whatever they have, and that's policy number and it's whatever coverage amount, you mean whatever they got going on, you can put it in there. You can add a policy, you can do multiple, you can say you're replacing it, whatever medical stuff or no medical stuff, you can type whatever you want there. I added this so maybe we can start selling some annuities. I'm going to add that into like when, when you go through underwriting, now you're then confirming the questions you put into underwriting. I'm going to ask it then instead of upfront and early, I'm going to do it during the underwriting stage. I'm going to get income and anything else at that, like right before I get to that, whether or not they're approved. Then you can put in the quotes here that you do. You get the point. You can add your quotes, you can put it on, you can put in all your banking info, notes. And you put the lead type, appointment type that it was, and then you can go where it was approved. And then if you hit save, it'll post to Discord, it'll post to the leaderboard, and then you can watch. I'll show you what it looks like after. So these are all my clients, legit, like my actual clients. Um, oh, his post went in there. We got some— a couple glitches, but these are all clients. And then I can sort by, like, if I'm waiting on deposits. So these are all pending deposits. If I want to sort by, I don't know, approved, for instance, I could sort there. I can add the deposits. So if I get paid a deposit, I can add it. Um, and then, like, that client inventory sheet You can print it like in a PDF. So all the stuff you put that you typed into there that saved, you can just go right on a PDF that you can save if you'd like. Um, let's see, these are the— this is y'all sales. So that spreadsheet, you know how like when someone types it in wrong and you go like, help staff, fix my number, I typed wrong, we go into a sheet and fix it. Now it's here. So like the sale you just sold earlier, y'all's are here. This is from this morning. You have lead purchases. So these are my actual lead purchases. So I spent $29 grand in leads since I've been selling to sell, uh, $138K. So every time I get a lead order, we just add it. Um, and then there's crazy analytics. So I can see like my all-time how many dials I've made. Oops, sorry, the wrong button. How many dials I've made all time. Uh, let's see, analytics, all time, how many contacts, how many apps, how many hours of work would I've made. You can see it by month stats, pickup rate, close rate, blah blah blah, average AP deposits, literally every— anything, anything I can fucking think of I can make this thing do. Sales by lead type, sales by carrier, appointment type, sales by day of week. And then we just added a leaderboard. So if I go like, yeah, let's see if I can— so I can go, that's our all-time. So if I go, let's go month, let's go January. So it's like January's leaderboard. And then we can filter it by team. So I go watch Giovanni's team leaderboard, or if you want to go, Kyla, you can see your team's leaderboard. Yeah, and then you can like save it. So if you want to make a little picture and share it on social or whatever.

Oh my god, this is so cool.

Yeah, so— oh shit, I think I just closed the whole internet. I did. So the question is, will y'all use that? Yeah, I was gonna say, my question is, how do you convey the importance of this? Because we're even struggling with getting people to write stuff down and remembering where they put the paper. Yeah, so I think part of it's gonna be when you start doing leaderboards and their stuff's not on there. That's one piece of it, because people want to be part of something. So like, if I want people to track their deposits we have a leaderboard that shows deposits and your shit says zero, you're probably more than likely going to update yours. But I, I think it's weird, and I always have, for, for people to not want to know their basic stuff. You know, for me, I come in and edit anything I want about any of my clients. I can go back and see all their personal information. This one's a new— that's his. Let me see one of mine. But I can go in and see all the shit on any of my clients that I have that I've entered in and I like having a record. So if a client calls me and they're like, hey John, blah blah, I need this, you don't remember shit. So I like to be able to access it and see it. And I have ways that I do it now, it's just a little slow. So this is going to be all in one spot. Um, it'll teach you like to track. Again, if you see what you're getting paid and your deposits are zero, I'm like, I don't know, I would want to see mine, you know. And then I can even go here and go, who am I not paid yet on? So So pending deposit. So I got 16 people that are approved that I just haven't got paid on yet. So I got 11, almost 12 G's coming to me, you know, in the next couple days. So I can go in here and I can use this as kind of like a pending. I can go in and select, um, I can literally go in and select pending, like have some that are still in underwriting. So I'm going to go, oh shit, I gotta follow up on Mary, I'm gonna follow up on What about, like, can you see every person's, like, breakdown like this, or only yours specifically? I can see everything because I'm building it, right? Yeah. And then, like, we'll probably have it to where I'm testing it now for users. So I'll need a couple of y'all that will actually use it to break it because— yeah, yeah. I mean, Giovanni, when, you know, the little thing when we had him submit the sales, like, oh, we figured out what that was. We figured fix it in 2 seconds. So some of it's— a lot of it has to be kind of in test mode, but ideally we'll have a section here. Again, I can see everybody's stuff, um, but there'll be a section where if you want to see your team's stuff, you'll be able to just click a button and be like, all right, how much money did Craig make this week? How many pulses do you have pending? Did he forget to— and it's just teaching people business, you know, I think, to manage your client base and For me, it's doing this side, this piece. I'd rather have it typed in one spot because as you know, when you go, when you do this thing, especially when you're using multiple carriers, I'd rather just be like copy and pasting than reading off the sheet and typing and trying to read my own handwriting and can't read it and I spell it wrong. You know how many times a week I put in the date of birth or their email wrong because I can't read my own scribble? Yeah, so this will let me just quickly copy and paste stuff as I'm doing second or third apps or whatever. Um, you know, so I'm just trying to make it easy to use. And I'll— for me, I'm going to use this no matter what. This is quite frankly to help me. I'm like, if y'all like it, cool, we can make it, make it for you guys too. I just hate— I hate typing someone's name down 7 times in a day, you know. And then again, how do you remember everything? Or you lose the— even the piece of paper. Like, I have them, they're all in a drawer upstairs. But then I put them in a Google Sheet so I have them in one spot, you know. And the Google Sheet's fine, but this is— yeah, I mean, it to me, it's better because then I also have to type it in the Google Sheet when I just typed it— when I wrote it down on a piece of paper and I typed it in the app, then I have to type it in Google Sheets. I'm just like, I don't know, I waste a lot of time doing the same shit. This can do anything I want. Are you tracking like recruiting interviews on this and stuff? I can, yeah. Yep. Yep. It's on this piece somewhere, recruiting interviews right here. So you can add them there. Not a lot of reporting on it right yet, but yeah, I mean, I can do analytics for literally anything. And over the course of time, it's easy for us that are managing people when someone goes, I've done so many dials, or I'm making no money, or— we can log in and see your lead orders. We can see how many times you're calling each lead, if you're tracking your stuff or not tracking your stuff. And quite frankly, if you're bitching and you're unhappy and you don't track your stuff, I'm definitely going to tell Giovanni to move on and find someone else to work with, quite frankly. You know what I mean? It's like, I don't know, if you're gonna make it difficult, I mean, what do you want us to do? And this stuff is easy. You can— so I have it set up a couple different ways to where you can, like, you can do it as you go and dial. Or if I like using the piece of paper as I go because it feels— it's just, I stay in a groove. I wouldn't quite do it on here. So I can just go in at the end of the day and enter my totals or go in at the end of the week and enter the totals, you know. So I'll probably always use the paper because I like getting in that rhythm, but I don't like writing their stuff down. The client inventory sheet I won't use on paper anymore. I'll do it here. I did it twice this weekend just testing it. I fucking love it. So, and then there's, um, the submit thing. Y'all saw this. So if you go like, say you got someone new, it'll pop up and be like, oh, we don't know you. Who do you work with? And you can pick your manager. So there'll be a manager list right in here that's pending. We fixed it, but it's still in the— I haven't published it to live yet. But you— actually, if I show you over here, uh, let's see. Well, I think I can show you on this one. If I go submit, it should work in here. So you can go here. It didn't, it didn't work. Anyway, there's going to be a dropdown list of all the managers there so you can select the hierarchy. And on the backend, it tells us like Steve sold and picked Giovanni as the upline. Is that right? And then we approve it on the backend. And yeah, this is how it's getting posted to Discord now. So this post, some of y'all saw the test ones. That was all this. So as soon as you— like, for me, if I post a sale, I don't want to then go post my numbers too. And it's like, this will just do it automatic. So we're working on some cool shit like that. And I think the leaderboard piece is cool for us to be able to share on social or Teams or not have to, you know, wait for my team to update the Google Sheet or some shit like that. Is it gonna send like weekly insights to email? We can. We— I can do whatever. If you can dream it, I can do it on here. It's just like, yeah, it'll be live in there, but then you could have it once a week. Give you— Reese is upstairs working on like individuals' dashboards and what they look like. Yeah, so yeah, yeah. So I'll, um, I'll have a couple of y'all test it this week because some shit will definitely break. I've broke it like 40 times already, and I did it without Amanda. I just started doing it. Someone taught me how to use it, and then I started figuring out. So I had— I spent the morning kind of showing her and Reese how to use it, and so they're in there making tweaks to stuff I can't think of. Um, but yeah, anyway, questions? What do you want me to— what do you want me to be good? Perfect. Yeah. Off topic, if I need Craig kind of help with this, I just want your insight. So I, I had, uh, one of my clients that I very first sold to call me last week, and he was like, he's like, Bryce, he's like, I just had a gentleman call me that he was from American Midwood, and he told me my monthly rate was going to be $100. And this, you know, no way. And I was like, whoa, hold on a minute. And obviously he was just trying to scam him. What can I do now and start practicing now telling my clients beforehand, like, I know, like, obviously warn them that it's gonna happen. Yeah. But what would you do? Like, who was it that gave out the code this week? Was that someone in this group? It was, it was. Yeah, I went mad at that. I've heard some other people do that before. That's been at FFL for a couple years where people go like— and you just tell them, hey dude, there's some other people out there that are gonna end up calling you because sometimes you fill out multiple things, and they're going to approach you as if they're calling from my office or from the carrier. So I'm going to give you a code that if anyone else calls you about your insurance, if they can't tell you this code, don't talk to them. It means a scam. Anyone that's calling from my office or the carrier will have that. A lot of agents at FFL do that. It's one of the most common things because you can go, I'm your agent for life, call me, bro. They forget your name as fast as you forget yours, as you forget theirs. For sure. You know, I've seen that work. It's not perfect, you know, but if you have them write it down and put it in a spot and, you know, I don't know, I'd probably try to make it something that's theirs. I don't know what I would use. I mean, hell, last 4 of their social. Someone's not— or maybe the first couple of digits of their address and their last 4 of their social or something like that. You know, if I was going to do it, it wouldn't be a random number like Brandon did because they're going to forget that shit. The past, well, since then I've had a Sub 4.5 now and I've been using the same code obviously for me to remember. Yeah. Yeah. You know, maybe ask them something that, again, maybe something like that. A couple numbers they would know or be like, what's your mom's maiden name? I'll put that on the 5. You know what I mean? You come up with something that they'll know easy. Or something if you were to log in, something they ask you like for your password. Yeah. Yep. What school did you go to? Hey, we come up with a code word. Here's why we do it. You know, I just would want it— if I'm going to do it, I would want it to be something that they ain't going to forget, that they could recollect, you know. Um, again, that's— that's— so that's one piece of the answer. The other piece of the answer is that's not going to work 100% of the time no matter what you do. So you better sell enough insurance that you don't have to worry about that a ton, you know. Just part of it. I mean, dude, I had a big one, $400-something a month, cancel this week. Just part of it. His fucking son found out he had it and he was pissed. He didn't like the price, da da da, and just whatever. Cancelled after 2 months and, you know, a couple thousand all charged back. Just is what it is. And the guy, dude, I was on the phone, I helped him cancel 3 policies, helped him find out his wife had died and they had like fucking policies everywhere. A bunch of them had expired and lapsed and weren't— I helped him call like 5 carriers, figure out his life, organized all his insurance. Dude, he didn't give a rip. You know, it just is what it is sometimes. So that helps, you know, and not being a douchebag certainly helps, you know, following up with your client certainly helps. Well, I've been— okay, so I'm glad you said that. On every Friday I've been sending texts out to all of them, just checking in. Yeah, yeah, okay. I have a one— yeah, I mean, I think just calling people to— I mean, you should— when you know, when you say, hey, your policy should be there in X amount of time You should put a reminder in your fucking calendar to call them in that 2 weeks or 10 days or 3 weeks, whatever it is you tell them. Yeah, so you're saying just call them? Yeah, my— I have a system we use. I use that Lead Champ, but we're gonna— I'm gonna eventually— my goal is to build that into this thing I just showed you guys, so it's part of it. Yeah, so as your leads come in and you write your clients, to have it automatically drip on them, because I like theirs, but there's some things annoying about it that I would do different. So we're going to make it part of this eventually. Um, but I think a simple way for you to learn how to service clients I, I would set up a time. I'd literally just, as soon as you close, someone put a follow-up on your, on your calendar. And it wouldn't hurt to have multiple. They may follow up in a week. Hey, just checking in, want to make sure you know your policy's going to issue on this day, money's going to come out here, don't forget, here are the 4 benefits. Because they forget all the shit you tell them. It's whole life, it's gonna last forever, living benefits, heart attack— they forget all that shit, you know. Do that after a week, follow up. Takes 3 fucking minutes, you know? And then follow up a couple weeks later. Hey, don't forget, said your policy would be, you know, you draft on the 15th. And you got to know carrier to carrier, they're all different. If y'all haven't figured that out yet, you know, Trans, they ain't mailing that shit till after their first payment goes out. Whereas like AmeriCoat, they'll fucking mail that thing out quicker. So it's learning how to do that. So at the beginning, I'm like, you know, hey, you'll get your policy in 7 to 10 days. Dude, they're postdated out 3 weeks. They ain't getting their policy for 5 weeks. We're trans. They're not mailing it until they pay first, and it takes them 7 to 10 business days after the first payment, you know. So learning, learning to articulate that right's important because I've had a ton of clients follow up, be like, I didn't get my policy yet. I'm like, that's because I'm a dipshit and didn't know when it went, when they mailed it. So I had Amanda call the carriers and figure it out. Um, but I think just basic level customer service Set it up exactly X amount of days from when you closed it. Again, you're only closing 1 or 2, if you're lucky, 3 deals in a day, you know. So 2 weeks from now, you got 2 extra phone calls to make. Who gives a shit, you know? So I think that's a really— and that'll stand out because most agents don't do that at all, you know. And then certainly long term, having annual, 6-month or annual reviews is a no-brainer. You know, and again, we can work on automating some of that stuff, but it can also go right in your calendar. 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. At some point, you feel like it's almost like when you— I mean, I'm not saying I agree, I'm just saying once you start getting these, start selling a lot, kind of like how you were important thing. It's just you might as well just get CRM, take that, just keep yourself on the phones. I don't think dialing— you need a CRM. I like a CRM more for client management than I do calling people. Do you feel like you should have a CRM to kind of handle all the follow-up and stuff like that? Yeah, like mine, for instance, does all the— as soon as I close the deal, it emails them all the policy details. So the second I put their stuff in, it sends them a text and an email with the carrier, their policy number, the draft date, all that shit goes to them. Um, so I like stuff like that. And then it— mine also, which again, we're going to merge into this thing with time. It's going to take a minute, but over the next quarter, the next couple months, my goal is to have that in there. So like at birthday, it sends payment reminders monthly, it sends birthday messages, holiday messages, shit like that. Um, and then I think where a lot of y'all are weak is the follow-up. So any, any leads that I don't get a hold of My shit sends texts and emails to them to follow up all the time. I have 3 appointments booked today and I haven't touched the phone, just from text going out, you know. And I think some agents use that as a reason to not make phone calls. For me, it's just more of a cherry on top. So I like teaching this way first and then adding those things secondarily. Otherwise, agents spend 4 hours modifying their CRM settings instead of making phone calls. And I think it's— so we're going to manage it on this end, have everything set up, and then just go, here, just sign up, sign into it, and yours will go. I feel like that's something I'm really bad about, like, yeah, like calling carriers in. Like, this one guy, I got his kid, he couldn't validate his identity, so I could call it. But I just hate calling in. I feel like I'm just wasting time. That's where you make a lot of money though, just doing those little things. I mean, yeah, I mean, the reality is if y'all don't have your own staff, it'd be really smart for a few of y'all to start splitting a staff to do some of this dumb shit. You know what I mean? 2, 3, 4 of you get together, hire one person, you pay $200 a week each, and all they do is call your carrier shit, follow up with your clients, do things like that, enter your paperwork in. I mean, keep your shit organized. Like, that'd be so easy for y'all to do. You know, Kilomet and I, early on, we split Danielle. She worked for both of us and whatever we needed. And then I hired Amanda. This is my first or second actual hire on my own. But I've been bugging the shit out of Giovanni to hire someone for at least a few weeks now. Every time he messages Amanda, I'm like, respond to him and ask him if his assistant can do it. I don't know if she's done it yet. But I have told her to do it at least 4 times. I keep saying to ask if his assistant will do it. Yeah, you know, I mean, it's his power. Like, Matt, look how much shit— I didn't do anything for any of, any of anything that ever happens here other than probably have an idea. You know, without Amanda and Reese, I couldn't get fucking anything done. You know, my world is I get to just show up and talk. That's what I want to do. And whether it's on the phones, whether it's making calls, whether it's trainings, whether it's whatever, I just want to show up and talk. And I'll play like this. I'm playing with— because I love shit like this. But once I get the base down, they'll take it over. I won't— Reese is already like hooked on it. Some of the design stuff, like the leaderboard thing, he did all that piece. I just had the idea and the structure and I put it together. And I came in today, I'm like, look what I did. And they're both like, holy shit. So now they're both playing with it, you know. So I do more of the idea stuff and the vision stuff and maybe get things started and work with them a little bit. Um, but then after that, dude, I, I couldn't do anything without help. Yeah, it's hard. What's your question, bro? Oh, I saw you. You're next. Also, I got a recruiting question. Like, when you're doing your interviews, are you asking like any specific— you're about to see one in 6 minutes. I said, are you just like kind of having a conversation with Yeah, I don't explain shit at first. I ask a lot of questions first. I just kind of like where they are and like what their mindset is. Yeah, yeah, I want to know what they know. I'm gonna— you can sit here and watch it legit. I'll fucking do it right here. I don't care. Um, but yeah, I want to know a lot about people first. I will certainly explain things, but I want to understand what it is they're looking for, how much they know about it, if they're comfortable with leads or not. You'll see, I'll ask a lot of personal questions. I'll ask about lead investment, if they got money. I'll ask if they're making money now, how much they're making. I ask a lot of questions. So that kind of ties into another question. Like, what happens if you like have somebody text you and they're just like, I have like no money since yesterday? Just like, move on. I go, how did you expect to get clients? And then they stutter, and I say, all right, have a good day. I just get off the phone. For my interview style is trying to find something wrong I'm not looking to hire people. That's not my goal when I'm talking to people at all. If it works out that way, it works out that way. But I'm trying to find a reason to— I am. I'm trying to find all the red flags now instead of me pitching, because I can pitch, I could sell the shit out of this thing. You think I can't convince someone to do insurance? You know what I mean? That's the easy part. So for me, I want them to convince me that I should work with them because my part I I already know how to do it and I don't need them. And some people get stuck and go, well, you can do that. I'm like, no, no, no, I can do that now because I've been that way for a long time. And I did it the other way wrong early on, dude. I used to spend 45 minutes pitching this shit to everybody that I spoke to. And then at the end, I'd find out they had no money and no car and lived in their mom's basement and didn't want to work. I'm like, shit, how did I mess that up? Or someone would get contracted and I'd find out 6 weeks in, they're like, oh, I have to buy leads? I've had people I've talked to for an hour and they're like, what's the starting pay? I'm like, fuck, how'd I mess that up? So you learn from your mistakes along the way. And like this whole process, I think any sales or any— that's sales too, in a sense. For me, when you start getting a lot of negatives or objections, if you will, or people hanging up on you, or just shit that doesn't go your way. You learn how to ask questions to eliminate that earlier in the conversation. That's the skill set that y'all— most of y'all don't have yet, is you just run into problems after 20, 30, 40 minutes that Giovanni and I would have seen coming. But you have to go through that phase to be willing to change and be more direct with people up front. You'll get sick and tired of people toying with you. That's the only way you're all going to change. You'll get so sick of people pretending they're going to do something at the end going, I gotta think about it, and you being pissed off that you'll change and ask the direct questions that you're too timid to ask now, you know. And that works that way with recruiting too. People are afraid that they're like, you ask how much they make? I'm like, is it my job to help them make more money? Of course I ask how much they fucking make, you know. I ask how much they can spend on leads. Like, I will, I will know her budget on the phone now if we make it that far. And she sent me along— I don't do a lot of one-on-one interviews anymore, to be honest. I send a lot of them out. But she sent me a cool response back. She applied to like, uh, one of the— what do you call these fucking things— workshop. We have like a little workshop inquiry on the website, like if you're interested in the next one. So she responded to that, she attached a cool message to it, and I liked it. Just, she wanted to do well, and I want to be a savage. She was in real estate before, blah blah. It stood out from the rest of the people. So I responded and I asked her a question or two. I liked her response, so I'm like, yeah, let's jump on a Zoom today. So let's see how it goes. You got one? Yeah. Um, so when you first started, what did you, what did you stop doing to help you grow fast? Um, when I first started, I did not stop doing the stuff, so I did not grow fast for 3 years probably. So I started growing at a good clip. That's when you were transitioning from the mortgage, or was it Little Caesars? Mortgage. Uh, no, accounting. Sorry, accounting. Yeah, accounting. I, um, yeah, I stopped kind of like dinking around, to be honest. I was like Not real— oh, hold on one second. Hang tight one second, Alicia, okay? Give me one second, I'm just finishing up a quick meeting. Hang tight. Um, yeah, I think I stopped— people say treating it like a hobby, you know. I, I stopped trying to hire everybody. Um, I stopped worrying if you needed help if I hadn't made the money I need to make. You know, if you're worried about phone script and I'm worried about calling clients and you weren't worried about calling clients, I stopped caring what you thought. And I'm like, I gotta go make money. You want to learn how to do this? Watch me make money. And I started leading by example more than anything. Um, and that's, that's when I started selling like $40K a month on my own pen. And then that's what started attracting everybody to me. And then when I was direct, suddenly everybody liked it when I was making $40K a month. When I was making $4K a month, everyone hated it. Is because I was attracting the wrong kind of person. You know, and I can dive in. This is a good question. So I can dive into a little bit deeper in a minute. But let me— y'all want to stay here?

All right.

Let's see what's cooking. How are you? No, why do you say that? Oh my gosh.

I've been watching all your podcasts.

Oh boy. In like 2 sittings. You already read it? Holy crap, what'd you think?

I loved it.

That's good.

It was totally on point and written by a guy who I could tell has a mortgage industry background.

Ah, you're real estate, right? Is that why you say that? More so mortgages. Were you really? Yeah.