How To Make $100,000 As A Life Insurance Agent!

Cool, thanks for having me, dude. I, um, I kind of want to know what you guys want to, want to talk about today. I, um, I like to, I like to do these things a little bit more interactive and, and get some help, but you guys have to not be shy. Um, I can cover anything you want from sales to building to mindset, whatever you want. This is your meeting. I could talk at you for as long as you want, but I assume you guys came here to learn something specific. Who wants to know what? Give me a couple of like— building. Building. Who else? Building stuff. Was that you that said that? Okay, sorry, echoed from over there.

She's coming in with adversity because you think it's just the 5-star car.

Building. Okay, when you say mindset, clarify. Like, what are you struggling with? It could be adversity, like dealing with other stuff and staying focused, distracted. Yeah. You struggle with that?

Yeah.

Okay. Like personal stuff? Okay. Um, do you know why? Family. Family stuff. Okay, cool. How deep do you want to get on that?

I know where it's going.

Meaning everyone deals with it. Does that make sense? So if you feel like there's stuff you want to share, you can, but you certainly don't have to in front of a bunch of people. We were talking about stuff earlier outside, just dealing with shit. Like, who in here dealing with shit? Raise your hand.

No, nothing for you.

You got an easy life, nothing going on hard in your life. You better be careful going home tonight, bro.

He's 85, man.

He's happy to just be here. Um, yeah, I think that, um, you know, some people use— most people use it as an excuse to not do things. I'm saying you can be an excuse or it can be a reason, you know. Um, and for me, I've just learned like in my life, I just call it noise because it's all the stuff, you know. I just try to do my best depending on the situation to either ignore it or like in her case, she's trying to like sometimes we're trying to be right about something, right? And I'm like, do I give a shit if I'm right about this actual situation? And it was just like an epiphany to me. Dude, that like most of the stuff in life tends to be disagreements or whatever it is, you know, and I've just learned to like, who gives a shit if I'm right or wrong, you know? I feel like if I do things for the right reasons, I just, so I don't respond. Like no response is a response, you know? Huh? Yeah. And so for me with personal stuff, and I don't know if your adversity is the same, but my adversity in life has always been personal stuff.

Stuff—

relationships, family, kids, just shit. And I've just learned to not engage, you know. And even in business, like, her stuff was more business-related, but I told her the same thing. I'm like, what do you give a shit what that person thinks? And why do you need them to approve of you to be successful in this space? You don't. Like at all. You know, none of you need whoever hired you to be successful. Does it help if they're good? Sure, yeah, it helps. But there's plenty of people and plenty of opportunity, you know. And I think I've learned so many people over the years blame their situation, whether it be their upline, their hierarchy, where they live, their office, no office, telesales, not tell— all the stuff. And they blame all these things for why they're not successful. And I'm like, I mean, there's people with worse stuff in life than probably all of us. I use sports a lot because it's, it's, it's very well known. Or like, uh, I don't know, people in Hollywood or whatever, people that aren't in like public eye. How many times have you seen someone deal with some family stuff, get divorced, lose a kid, lose a parent, lose a spouse, and they show up the next day? On the field and play whatever sport they play, you know, or your favorite actor. They got stuff in life and they show up and they perform for the movie you like to buy. You know, I use Broadway a lot. I've seen a couple Broadway shows and, you know, it's all right. And they do like— I saw— I always forget the name of it. What's one where they rap?

Cats?

Nope. They rap like the history of the United States. Hamilton. Yeah. So like the first time I watched that, my wife took me and I was like, whoa, is this stuff real? And she's like, they taught us this in 4th grade, dude. And I'm like, if they had only wrapped it, I would have known the American history.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. So I'm like, oh shit, that's how the country came about. Who knew? And for those that haven't seen it, go watch it. It is a cool cool musical. But that was one of the most famous ones ever. They performed typically twice a day, live, every day of the week, especially in New York City. And they have life. And if you actually pay attention to the actual cast, there was a shitload of drama in some of the main characters' lives. Yes, yes. Yeah. But every day they had to get on stage in New York City and do their deal? Does it make sense? And if they showed up and they were depressed, or they're like, I'm dealing with A, B, or C, I just, I just, I can't work today. You know, me and then think of you as a consumer. What if you try to consume something, you're in a Yankees hat, what if the Yankees were like, I don't know if you're a fan or not, but I'm gonna use it for the analogy. If you go to a game and they were like, you know what, life is hard today, we're gonna, we're just gonna go home. We just, we don't feel like swinging or pitching today. We're just good. People would be outraged. So our expectations of others are to ignore the noise and service me.

Yeah, that's good. That's good.

Fair. You go to a restaurant, they mess up your steak or bring you unsweet tea instead of sweet tea, which by the way, is Virginia the North or the South? It depends on where you go. It's 'cause like they don't know what sweet tea is here and it weirds me out. I don't drink sweet tea, but when I went to get some for Amanda, they were like, They looked at me, they were like, we have sugar. Yeah, I thought I was still in the South until this morning. Yeah, well, I don't think— I don't know, they don't— I think my house where they talk like this, when they put a W in the word talk, you're in the South. I don't even know what you just said.

So I'm saying, when you can't— when they don't touch their lips together, you're in my neck of the woods.

Like, hey, hey, Dad!

I don't know what I need to— that's how it was for you. Decoder pin.

But again, and you're in that situation and they, they prepare your food wrong. You're upset. And I'm like, do you ever go like, what if the chef in the back just is dealing with family issues and he's having a bad day? You ain't willing to do that for other people, but we want the entire world to do it for us. You know, I'm like, careful. You know, so I just— you just gotta unfortunately learn to suck it up. I mean, that's the reality, you know. Life ain't gonna stop. And do you think successful people don't have stuff to deal with? They just get through it, you know. Does it make it easy? No. But in the moment, whatever adversity you're dealing with, you have to learn to catch that moment and not be willing to lose to that moment. And what was a real trigger for me is like, if like adversity slows you down, is that fair? So, you know, it's not the adversity you're losing to. It's yourself in your own thought process, you're losing to your unwillingness to go anyway, because you have a choice. We have adversity. Now we have a choice to make. Do I go or do I stop? And when you choose stop, That's on you, you know. And when I learned that, I just— I was like, yo, if I lose to him in anything, we're in a battle, we're selling more, we're fighting, we're racing, I don't matter, and he beats me, like, all right, he beat me. But to lose to me, that's really stupid, you know. And I used to be that way early on. You're struggling. It's okay. You need a little cough drop or something? I got one. Serious. A little honey, a little honey thing. You know, and early on in my career, I would lose to myself a lot. And it cost me a lot of money. It's expensive to let things get in your way. And that can be anything. You know, I was talking to Dan, we were talking earlier. And he's trying to figure out how to invest more in leads so he can sell more. And he's a— do you mind if I share this? Or hell, you can share it if you want. But it's like, he was looking at his lead spend versus what he, what he sells. And he makes good money, decent. He's lived a decent lifestyle, you know, um, and his ROI is pretty good. And I'm like, but he's been the same for 3 years. 3 years, you told me, right? 4? 3 or 4, whatever it is, same. I'm like, why? Oh, I don't want to invest more. And I'm like, well, wait, can I share the numbers roughly? What I remember, I think it was like, uh, $2K a month roughly spend equals $20K roughly. Ballpark is what he's— is what he's spending. Here's what he's making. It's done 3 years straight. And I said, why don't you just make that $4K? And then wouldn't that just equal $40? Like, it seems simple. And he's like, I have fears of that. I'm like, well, why? He's like, the pay comes slow. And I'm like, are we in the same industry? Because the pay don't come slow. Even the slow pay is fast pay.

It's gonna come, correct?

And his, his daily is spending $75 a day. On ads. And I'm like, why don't you make it $150? And I'm like, because that's only $75 a day. You don't have to put the extra $2,000 up front today. Does that make sense? Like, do you not think if you spend $75 a day for the next few days, you'll get a couple policies to pay for itself? He's like, well, yeah, I know it will, but I'm like nervous. I'm like, okay, so is everybody else, you know. So I told him the way I do it for me Which is one of my favorite acronyms that I use for myself.

Don't be a little baby.

No, that's not what that says at all. Hey, there's no L in there.

Don't be a baby. Don't be a bitch.

Yeah, it's funny enough, it's our— y'all cut— y'all like 4-year-olds. I feel like I'm a teacher at the front of the class.

He started it. He started it. Do you want me to separate them? We are separated now.

You know, and so for me, I just, I've learned I have to talk to myself. I assume everyone does that. I don't know, but I don't know how we talk to ourselves. I'm kind of aggressive with myself, you know, and funny enough, when I started sharing that, Then I don't know how it got to merch, but somehow we made like— I think we have shirts and stuff. Yeah, like we have stuff with it. And dude, it's our most popular stuff.

Yeah, my kids wear your bracelets. Yeah, what does that mean, Johnny? Don't be a bitch. No, the bracelet says get shit done.

Yeah, it's just how I speak to me, you know, when I'm, when I'm being weak. In my opinion, that's what he's being, because it's not like he doesn't— it's not his first day in the business. Doing this shit 3 years. Don't be a bad You know, and then we looked at his total because he tracks his numbers pretty good, and I think it was something like— what, like, I think it was like 70,000 dials, something like that. Is that the right number? Something like that. And then like $1.2 million in premium, some— somewhere in that ballpark. All right, pretty good. And when we did the math because I just like to do it. We divided one by the other. What did it equal per dial? $17.77. And who's read the— who's read the chapter in the book? It's the same. My number was the same. It's literally a chapter in the book that's like, 17, the number that changed my life. When I understood every time I made a phone call, I made this, I was like, well, yeah, like, what do I give a shit what anyone says or thinks? You know, and then his appointments— I don't remember how many appointments it was, but it came up to like $320 every time he books one, which mine was the same number. Why? Because it's insurance. The averages are the averages, and it's the law of large numbers. And most people's mistake is they have such baby numbers the averages can't take, take into account. They just don't come for you. You know, it's the consistency of this thing that, that really helps. Um, and a lot of people struggle with the ups and downs of it, you know. And what I always try to— like, who sells $40K+ in here?

Two?

You ain't there yet? What are you waiting for?

No, I got on— like, I'm on my way. I got on a consistent lease.

How close to on your way? How much could you sell if you really wanted to?

At least 40, probably 50. I don't want to be on the spot. No, it's okay. No, no, no, no, no. I'm sure I could do 50.

Yeah, agreed. Consistent.

Yeah.

So it's like, again, some people go from 10 to 0. She went 40 to 30. It's the same spread. It's still up and down.

Right.

But some people's up and down are like way down here with the 0 to 10. They go $7,000 this month, $3,000 the next month, $12,000, $5,000. It's just like a little roller coaster.

Yeah.

When I hit Hall of Fame, I issued 460. but one month it'd be 72, then the next month it'd be 48, then it'd be 63, then it'd be 32. You know what I mean? It's still that roller coaster. And then the parts that we don't like about the business. Think about the thing you, the things you don't like at all about what we do, which is buy leads, call people. Perfect. Chargebacks. What else do we hate? Broke. Fine. That's building. Totally different game. Just as a producer?

Oh, producer. Chargebacks, making phone calls, making phone calls. Okay, basically does the activity.

Rejection. Yep. Okay, so when you sell $70K versus $10K, are you going to have more or less shit? Well, you better get used to it now because it ain't going to be less, it's going to be more.

So don't be a bab.

Don't be a bab.

Don't be a bab, Johnny.

That's not how it worked either, but it's close. It's closer.

You know, John, can I add?

Yeah, please.

Something. So one thing John told—

we have an eraser.

It's a 30-second change.

It doesn't take months or years.

Yeah. So I went back in the office and I pulled it up and I changed my ad spend. I made $150 a day. Let's go! Then I made a phone call, booked an appointment, made $320. Wow, there it is! Then I've got new leads coming in. I just booked another appointment through the text, auto text.

Easy game. This is an easy game when you understand it.

It gets fun.

And I don't believe that anyone doesn't understand it. The ones that struggle the most think the stuff goes away. The reality is you will either get better at handling it and you'll figure out how to do more and just adapt to the negative. Or you'll stay where you're at and you'll be— it'll be inconsistent and suck forever. You know, and most, most do. Most do. I mean, two-thirds of our agents— we had, I don't know, 5,000 agents sell a policy last year in my group. Yeah, but we only had like 1,800 last month. Why? Because the other 3,200 quit already. What do you think? That makes sense. Like, someone's in here mad that someone quit last week. I'm like, no, we had 3,200 quit last year. 3,200 agents quit my agency this past year. Not ouch, I don't give a shit. Why?

How many are writing?

1,800 a month. We had 5,000 sell last year, 1,800 a month. Why do we not have 5,000 every month? Because they quit.

Well, those $1,800 are—

yeah, I mean, and but of those, some are at the bottom and they're going to quit too. But if we keep hiring, we can outdo the quit. How— where else does that work? Chargebacks, roll-ups. Does that make sense? We get chargebacks and people go like, oop, I'm gonna stop selling. I'm like, like, what? So when you get a chargeback, what are you supposed to do?

Fix it or just keep running?

Sell more.

Sell more.

Does that make sense? And it's like you said something earlier and I don't know that you caught it. I did. I just didn't use it till now. But you said something about the money because you've sold a little bit and you were like, I was depending on that money. What's the percentage average that falls off the books?

25%. 30%.

30 to 50%. So why were you depending on 100% of it?

25 is not coming.

Why is this news to anyone that 25+ percent falls off? I was taught 30, but I'll accept this. Does that make sense? And it can vary a little bit person to person. Sure, you know, you get really good and it can be 10% fall off. Or like Kim, he gets zero chargebacks, but he's a fucking unicorn. Whatever, you know, for the most of us normal people Yeah, whatever. Keep your head down.

That's not real, so don't try to get there because you can't survive in the final expense world.

I mean, but it's like when you go like, that's, that's a really shitty version of a bell curve, you know, that is. And like the middle is whatever that percent is, 68%, whatever the hell it was. Well, he's like one over here, but everyone wants this one. And I'm like, no, the law of large numbers says there's only a couple people that can have this. And guys like him, we give a high five and get out of the way, but we don't train on that shit because it's not real life. No, but I love it for him. Yes, home run, you know. So if we know this number, why do we get paid? And then how much do we gotta put for taxes? Perfect. And now we need some for leads.

Yeah, then you have to pay yourself a salary.

So y'all getting paid and you're spending all the money that goes to chargebacks, leads, taxes.

You're out of business.

And you pretend you don't know this already, and then you complain to someone, and then they tend to listen and tell you, be okay, it'll get—

stop.

I go like, yeah, no shit, Sherlock, that's how it works.

Welcome to the insurance business.

Like, 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. Matt, my son Maddox plays baseball. He gets, he gets that 10. I saw them interview. It's a weird question for a major league player, but he goes, 100 at-bats, how many hits are you going to get? Anybody know baseball? They bat 100 times, how many hits they're going to get? 30 if they're great. Does it make sense? 20, 25. You know what I mean? A guy gets 35, dude, he's on the news. Out of 100. So he's failing 65, 70, 75% of the time. The best of the best in their career. But then when Maddox— when they're little, their whole goal, they want, they want to hit a home run at every at-bat and they don't want to strike out ever. So what do we spend most of the time teaching the kids as they grow up? It's a hard game. It's a game of errors. It's a game of mistakes. You got to move on from the mistakes. You can't let them linger. You just have to move on. Next play. That's what they tell me every time. Next play.

Next play.

Next phone call.

What was next?

Correct. That's normal in life everywhere. And for some unknown reason, in this little bubble of our industry, people allow us, 'cause I fell for it, to pretend that this ain't real life and the shit don't happen. You know? Now, can you get wealthy with it? Oh yeah.

Yeah. Once you accept—

Correct. When you know your game. Yeah. You know, again, you go out and hit 30 out of 100, 3 out of 10, you get 3 hits, you strike out 7 times, you're considered great. Now imagine— I'll get you in a sec. You run 100 appointments and let's just pretend you close 30. What's the average one pay you? $1,000.

$1,000.

Okay. But we're all mad about the $70,000 we missed. That's good.

No, $70,000 is—

Why?

Because we don't like being told no.

We don't like rejection. So for me, I go $30K, $100,000. Well, now I know what I make per appointment. I just— I get paid per appointment that I schedule. I ain't got to see them, I don't got to talk to them, I don't got nothing. If I book the appointment in my head, I get paid. I get paid on all 100. Does that make sense? His was $300 an appointment. Imagine that. So you want to write $60K, run 200 appointments. Do we need to figure out leads? Yeah, I got it. I got— we got to figure that piece out. But it's not difficult to ramp up lead spend, you know.

You get paid the same for no-show, for cancellation.

So actually I get paid more because now I have more time to dial. So don't spend any time on it.

So don't focus on that. That's good. Don't focus on what you're going to make, focus on the activity.

Yeah, the hard part of it is when you make $85 grand on one fucking— right? No, for me For me, I only made $300. I got deposited $34,000 on annuity. In my head, I only made $300. Why? Because I make $300 an appointment. Correct. Because then it became a game.

Yeah, it's a game.

Now it's just a game. How many of these can I collect? And how quick can I collect them? Now what I told him, he ran again whatever many appointments, and he— I think you showed me 3 years.

Of stuff for 4 years?

I was like, imagine if instead of dragging that out 4 years, you did it in 1 year. It's the same numbers. Some of y'all take— yeah, some of y'all take a month to issue $7,000. Anybody there? $5,000, $7,000, $8,000, $9,000, $10,000? That guy? Some of y'all like lower end. You ever thought about looking at the activity and go, what if I just did this activity out a month? That model seemed better to me than to try to be like him. Because there's always guys that have crazy success on small niches. Yeah, that's just normal, dude. It's okay. And it's okay. I'm not that guy. I'm a hard worker. I will do whatever. I'll outwork people. I don't care. You know, and I didn't play in that market. Do I— looking back, do I wish I learned that stuff? Wouldn't have been mad.

He doesn't like final expense. He'll tell me you don't like final expense. Give it to you. Yeah, he literally told me.

Why wouldn't I if I were him either? Because he's really good at the piece he does. No different than I don't like selling, period.

Oh, it's even better.

It's better than that.

Yeah, for sure. Build a team.

I don't want to sit in there and deal with the shit he dealt with for $80 grand. I don't want to do that. I'd rather make $80 grand not selling, by teaching y'all to make money.

So can you talk about that, how you want— when you saw the big vision of like, you know, it's time for me to build, it's time for me to get out of the field, and like—

is your question related to this? Totally separate? Is it related to that? Okay, tell me yours first and then I'll get to his.

It's really for the new— newer people in the room.

Yep.

What would—

what do you need? What would you say are the 3 things you need to do to be successful? If you master those 3, you can hit any number you want in this.

Leads, work, train, rent, that's the game.

If you can get these down— now, what do people not understand? How much of this And most people don't get enough of these to be able to do enough of that, and they spend all day doing this so they don't have to do that.

Complacency.

They want to do this. They want Americo in here talking about fucking product all day long, which great, they have it, I love it. But that's all they want to do because they don't want to do this until they know everything here. Now let's go back to base— let's go back to Maddox's baseball. Imagine all he does is train, watch videos on baseball, but he never gets a bat, never picks up, puts on a glove, never throws a pitch. He's going to suck forever. Fair? Okay, so why do some people think you can out-train?

Because it's very simple, they don't want to keep themselves accountable to work.

Some of it's that, and I think deep down a lot of people think this is necessary. Now, where does it work great? When you do it in tandem. Work, then train. Work, then train. Work, train, go, oh shit, that ain't how I did it. Let me tweak this. Let me train again. Oop, let's make another tweak. Oh, let me train again. Oop, make another tweak. Train again, make another tweak. Hey dude, what do you do here? I'm struggling with this. How do you handle it? Go back to work, do it again, train a little, another fix. But we have to have this under control or we literally can't do that. You know, I get a lot of people over the years that are like, you know, one, some go like, I want to just see if it works. I'm like, you heard anybody say that? I just want to see if it works. Any of y'all thought that? I'm like, you, you want to know if the insurance industry works? You want to know if sales works? If it works for them, that's what they convince themselves of. I believe they don't think they're going to actually do the work. You know, everybody wants the upside. And I'm like, yeah, you think you're getting rich without hard work? Like, I just, I don't know that path. I mean, it's always, it's phone calls and presentation. This whole business is prospecting, presentations, prospecting, presentations, prospecting, presentations. You go, I don't have money. You better prospect your ass off out there in the world. However, however, it's like you don't need a lead. To prospect. You can create leads. You walk out that door. How many people in this country?

Millions.

Hundreds of millions. Yeah, that don't have insurance. Everybody knows the stats of how many have insurance versus don't, right? Like, no one's confused. Most people don't have insurance. So it is 54. So every other person you pass does not have insurance and you have a license and you don't open your mouth. I mean, you're in sales. We're in sales. You know, when I leave Atlanta Airport, dude, go on a Monday, Atlanta Airport packed to the gills with salespeople getting on the plane to fly all across the country to go sell shit. You know, we're in sales. Is this a cheat? Yeah, it's just like pick a company, they advertise on TV, you then call that company. They pay for prospects. So you either have to pay for them or you have to go find them. Those are your options. Does that make sense? And I don't— pick a business that works the same way. A pizza business, you're either going to pay for advertising or you're going to go stand out there flipping a sign on the corner.

It's true, very true, right?

So what equivalent of that are you doing for your sales position? Most people aren't doing anywhere near this, you know, and I just, I don't know, I don't, I don't, I don't know anyone presenting I know almost no one presenting 10 times a week, making great money. I just, but I bet you if we took a poll, fair? Who does 20+ presentations a week every single week? 4 or 5 people in the room and one is shaky. So 20, how long does one take?

30 minutes, an hour, average?

Give me a number. Let's go 45. I can't do the math. I don't know what 20 times 45 from the opening to, um, sure. So we're like, even if we give you an hour, it's 20 hours. So, but listen, 75% of the people in this room are not doing 20 a week.

5 hours of talk time a day.

You're working, you're spending less than 20 hours a week in your sales career. You are not doing 20. I know. You're not doing 20. I'm not doing 20. And I think that's low. Now we work 5 days a week.

Or 7. Or 6.

I like that number better. But people want to be complacent and only work 5. It's only 4 a day. So 75% of this room is talking to less than 4 people a day. And you're confused at why you're broke. It's true. There's 24 of these suckers in a day. You're spending under 4 doing your career. I'm like, fine, if you just want to be mediocre in life, but if you want to be rich, this ain't going to cut it. And I don't, I don't know if people lie to you and say this gets you rich. I don't, I don't ever hear that. But I try to go to the such extreme to point it out because it is really easy to make really good money in this space. It's really easy. Half the people in the country don't have insurance. You can get unlimited leads starting today by paying for them. If you don't have the money to pay for them, you can go out there and talk to as many people as you want to generate cash so So you then can then cheat and buy them. So you don't have to keep generating them yourself out there. Now I know people that make $1 million a year in multiple companies that don't buy a single lead. Some people look at our space and they're like, why would you buy leads? There's people out there, you just talk to them. They think we're nuts paying for leads. Now I don't want to go talk to strangers. I like leads. I don't even really want to talk leads, to be honest, but I wanted to get rich.

So talk about that, please. That's what I want to hear from you.

So, so it is hot as fuck in here. Can, can someone turn the air down more? Someone, can you ask Dave to like lower the air somehow? Save us.

So you're saying multiply what you do if you're doing okay, but because I know I don't do—

How many you, how many you do a week roughly? Yeah, no, not for fake. Okay, do you mind sharing how much you're making? I probably make 18. I probably, um, write 18 or 20. Wait, what? You're writing 20K a week on 12 appointments? How much you issue? How long you been here? Why keep looking at her?

How long you been here? How about you write? Yo man, you look good. Answer the question, Cal. Is it 20 or 10? We're gonna, we're gonna go through it though. How long you been here? So this is my first full year.

I was in the military the last 2 years. 20— what year are we in? 25? Or would you— were you here last year? Yeah. You did all last year full-time?

No.

When did you start? So you're at 12 months? We're in— we're in April now. Okay, how long you been full-time?

Um, from last April.

It's a year.

Yeah, she's gonna get it. You were supposed to look down. Dirt your questions and count.

It's really easy to make money in this business. So you've been full-time for a year. How much has she issued in the last 12 months? 12 months issued, roughly. Do you know since you've been here? Do you know how much you've made last year? In the last 12 months since you've been here full-time?

April to April.

Thank you. Perfect. So $300. Okay, that's how much you deposited in last year. It's great, it's good money. Is it more than you made in the military, I assume? Okay, are you excited about that number? I agree. You want it to be more? So you're running 12 a week. Okay, we're gonna do stupid simple math. If you went to 24 a week, how much you gonna sell now?

Hall of Fame. 600 grand a year.

It's double.

600. You're just adding 12 more appointments.

So when you stop at 12, every time you stop at 12 from now on, I want you to think you're sacrificing another 300 grand.

I like that perspective.

Yeah, because it is a comfort thing.

But she has 10 kids, but she gets to make the choice.

Yeah. Now, if you— if you're okay with it, be okay with it.

Yeah.

I mean, I had 5 kids. I have 5 kids. But when I started, not— my youngest was 9 months old and my oldest was probably Let's see, how long I've been doing this? 12. She was probably 17. I probably had— yeah, I had a wife and an ex-wife.

Yeah, both.

Do you think, do you think that's the only reason I won? No, no, but I'm saying we all get to make choices in life. I'm not saying she has to do this. I'm just telling her how easy it is. You're already doing it. Would $600 change your kids and your family and your life more than $300? Okay, so then the question is, would you be open to doing that instead of that? It's only 6 a day, 4 days a week. So you have a presentation, huh? That's what I said, correct? So you go have one at 8, you have one at 12, you have one at 2, you have one at 4, you have one at 6 and 8. You barely did anything and you can hit this very easily. Or you could go, let's do one at 8, do one at 9, do one at 10, do one at 11, do one at 12, do one at 1. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. You could be done by 1 PM every day, 4 days a week, hit 24 appointments a week. And that would be your number, assuming you keep the averages you have now. What I would venture to guess what happened to me and what I told him, when I did this exercise, this number tripled for me. It didn't double. So you're saying make your appointments. Yeah, the appointments is where you get money. That's where you get paid.

What do you mean it tripled?

My income, when I doubled my activity, my income tripled. I did this basic, like, I think the word's like linear, if it increases equally. So I increased my appointments like this and my income went like that. Why? I got better. I didn't give a shit if they closed or not because I knew I had a ton more. My demeanor was different. I wasn't worried about making the sale. And then you start seeing things at such a rapid pace. You're sharper at what you do for a career. You don't talk to someone for 6 hours. I'm sorry, you're going to kind of suck at the next one. You don't see someone for 3 days, you're going to be off your game.

You're going to be rusty.

So you gotta, you know, so I like, give me on the hour every hour, you know. And again, imagine what you could do with it. You could, you could play the time zone game and start at 7 AM and work till 2 AM. Just call a different time zone.

Hawaii. Asked.

You know, y'all heard like international business, you know, people sell here overseas all the time. Yeah, it's just people— your potential is so much higher than you allow for, and we limit ourselves. I'm like, why, why, why do you limit yourself? 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. I'm 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 in. There is an application process. I'm only looking to work with like high-end people who really want to make big things happen. Couple recent clients that we've had in the, in the coaching program: one dude as an individual went from selling like $8,000 a month, barely getting by, about to quit the industry, found the book, hit me up direct, started the coaching program, went to $35,000 his first month, has issued like $150,000 in the last 90 days, and has changed the trajectory of his career working with another agency builder. Very first month went from doing like $800 grand a month to almost $1.1 million. We added like 10 or 15% production in 30 days and continue to work on things there. So if you're interested, click the link, apply, and if you're a fit, I'll reach out. And so for me, early on, I thought, shit, why not me? Why not you? Why aren't you up here? How the hell are you still not up here, bro? Confuses the shit out of me. Most likable people on the planet, you know what I mean? Like, some of y'all belong up here. I just made an active decision to go, I want that, I want that role. I don't want that role. It takes time, you know. But when I saw the business early on, man, I, I was— people always go like, when do you start recruiting? Dude, I started recruiting like before I had anything ready. I was part-time doing this, part-time. I had a full-time accounting job and I was recruiting on the drive to and from my accounting job. Yeah, dude, I was selling 3 grand a month recruiting. Why? The insurance industry's been around for a couple hundred years. Amanda looked it up recently. Amanda, is she right there?

Yeah.

Um, you know, and I was like, do these people actually need me to succeed? Hey, remember when you looked up— when I talked about how long people have been selling insurance and you looked up the first insurance policy was sold? What year was that? $1,800. $1,800. Yeah. Yeah, I'm like, why do they need me to be amazing to introduce them to the industry? And I get paid just by making an introduction. Okay.

And you grew their warm market.

I mean, did all kinds of— I just talked to people, dude. Meaning same, no different than all the people. Think about, think about this. We go, half the people out there don't have insurance. Okay, think about this. What percentage of people out there do you think would like to make more money? 100%. Everybody.

99%.

There's so—

in every bunch.

You said that right. He said there's an idiot in every bunch.

99% out there want to make more money. There's 1% every bunch.

So I'm like, 100% of people you pass every day would like to make more money, and you don't talk to them. Like, all right, that's another choice. For me, I was like, I'll just talk to them. It was really easy for me to go like, hey, you interested in making more money? Yep. Hey, this dude over here is teaching me to sell a bunch of insurance and make a ton of money. You open to a conversation? Come over here. And that was it.

You ever have your kids do it for you? Your kids watch you when they're little. My little girl was like maybe 7. We're at Walmart and she— I'm in a nice suit. She walks up to this guy, she goes, I bet my daddy makes more than you. I was like, that's not what she meant. I'm so sorry, but here's my card. Give me a call.

True story.

What an introduction.

The business is really simple. Some people are like, I don't know how to get people started.

Yeah, no, I recruited the enterprise. It's like, intentional.

You all got started.

Yeah, somebody recruited us.

You, you, you can't tell people to do that piece of getting started? You don't know how to tell someone to get in class? You don't know how to point them to go like, you go there to buy leads, and then you go here and you grab your phone and there's a phone number on the thing and you just type the same digits here as are on the piece of paper or on the sheet or whatever. Hell, hell, half them automatic now. You know, I mean, we overcomplicate things. I don't know how to get people started. I'm like, would you like me to buy that? Because I don't want to. No, but it will if it appeases you.

No.

Okay, so why are we waiting? We are waiting. Every time I come back here, this room, same fucking size.

Fair?

Why are we waiting? You have to talk to a lot of people. I know a lot of them quit. I'm aware. I work here too.

3,800 quit.

Okay, they rolled me dead. Okay, I'm aware. Okay, someone stole some shit from Walmart today. They don't stop opening.

Yeah, that's a chargeback, correct? 100%.

Everyone has chargebacks, dude. Yeah, you know, we just built a new house. We moved in like 6 months ago and, uh, all the windows— they came to clean it at the end, like at the end of construction, they went to clean all the windows and, you know, little squeegee things they use. I had a little piece of metal sticking out of it, and when they were wiping the windows, it scratched every window in my house. Every window in my house. I don't know what we spent on windows. I bet it was 400 grand on windows. Holy moly. Every window. They filed it with insurance, the cleaner. They denied it. The builder filed it with his insurance. They denied it. The builder has to pay for it. That's a chargeback to him. Damn, it's business. Name a business that don't have it, right? I mean, not compared to what I paid them to build it. Does it make sense? Yeah, it's $60 grand. He probably made— I don't know, what the hell you think Justin probably made? $700 grand building my house, like his part. It is a nice house. It's a really nice house. I don't think anybody here has been to it besides my crew.

I just see you on your Instagram.

Yeah, but it all— it's all from this, and I've just done it for 10 years, you know, and I don't let people overcomplicate stuff. And I used to— I used to overcomplicate stuff, and then someone helped me not overcomplicate it. You know, my deal was I was worried about $1,000 a month for one thing or the other, and a dude walked in. The whole story's in the book. I'll skip the story, but like, dude walks up to me and he goes, are you really losing your ever-loving mind over one policy a month? I was like In fact, I am.

You get so fixated on that one situation.

Yeah, one a month. Yeah, you know, it's like, man, so I just, man, I got tired of being in the situation, you know. And I, again, insurance is cool. I liked, I like the money. I like the money that it paid me, but to me there was a ceiling there. And I didn't want to be a sales guy forever. I knew that from the beginning. I wanted to build something. I want to have a company. I wanted— I want to build, you know, no matter what I do.

So do you look for leaders? How do you— how do you build like a strong leadership?

I just look for people who want to make more money than they're making now, and I help them make more money than they're making now. Leadership is taken, not given. The leader's gonna pop, dude. Can I— can I notice it? If they're showing leadership qualities and go like, yo, yo, come over here. Yeah, but I don't have a clue. You pick this room and go, who's going to kill it next year? I don't have a clue. 12 years into this business, I don't have a clue which one of y'all is going to kill it this year. I have no way how to tell. Building an agency? And how much higher can he get? Like, how many IULs and annuities can he sell? Can he make a couple million bucks a year? Yeah. Can he make 40?

Yeah.

40 million? Well, selling by himself?

Does that make sense?

Yeah. I'm like, and that's the 1%. And I'm like, again, I can make a few hundred grand. Cool, it's good money. 4, 3, 4, 5, 6, 700 grand, you can make that all day selling. Go buy a nice house, 2 new cars, and private school tuition for 2 or 3 kids. There ain't no money left. I'm like, I don't, I don't, I don't want— then now you have to sell to maintain your lifestyle. Careful. I know agents that y'all know them. Y'all know someone, somebody in my group, been here selling 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 years, Hall of Fame every year. Then they can't slow down because it has to sustain their lifestyle. I don't— I didn't want— I don't want to be in that spot, you know. I ain't mad at it being a part of the process, but long term, that's just not what I wanted, you know. And so when I— when I— when I hire people, that's one of the first questions I ask: do you want to be a life insurance salesperson for the rest of your life? Do you have any interest in one day building a company?

Yes.

Everyone says that. I go, got it, cool, we'll work on it. Hey, who do you know? And I start there. Hey, who do you know?

This guy named Shannon, he's a crazy—

Yeah, well, get me on the phone with Shannon, I'll take care of it. You go sell. Yeah, go sell. I got him. That's how I built my whole agency. Then Shannon comes to me, I go, hey, you want to be a life insurance sales guy forever? You one day want to build a team? Hey, who do you know?

A lot of people.

Give me the lot of people. Get out of the way. Go sell. I got you. That's it. That's how I built the whole team. And then they start going, and then one day he goes like, how the hell'd you get him to sell? I go, great fucking question. Let's talk. Teach you how to teach people now. Does it make sense? It's like, you got to learn it. You got to teach it, and you got to teach someone to teach it. So meaning I sold, then I taught Zach, and then Zach taught Eastern, and that group is now deep as shit. That makes sense. And then over here, I sold, so I got Nick. He taught a dude who taught a dude who taught Bosworth. Deep as shit. Does it make sense? And then this— I can keep going.

Makes sense.

Easy business. Doesn't mean it can be shitty days. A lot of drama. A lot of stuff, a lot of personalities, a lot of headaches. A lot of people quit you. A lot of people who do— you didn't think will quit you will quit you. People will learn to hate you. Some will love you. Some can't stand you. It's just part of the game, the game of life, you know. And so for me, we just keep moving and we keep building and we keep developing stuff. And when I see opportunities, I take them, you know. Now we got a lot of stuff going on in my world. We do a lot. We got a lot going on. Some of y'all come around the office like, holy shit, you know. I like building stuff. I enjoy that piece. Questions? I don't know what time I'm supposed to go to, but it's your meeting. So do you have an office in Georgia? Do you have one around here? I had at one point— I had 5 offices at one point. I would actually buy my office. I owned So in 2019, um, a lot of us were renting offices early, like when offices became cool. 14, 15, 16, 17, we just get an office, get a bunch of agents there, just like this. And then at 19, I'm like, what if I buy it? So I actually bought two in the same day, bought two office buildings, set up an owner finance deal. The guy who owned it financed it for me so I didn't have to go to the bank, get gave him 10% down. It's like $150 grand down. Got 2 buildings, they were like $700 grand each, 5,000 square feet each one. And then I took them and I chopped up the offices, and I had 10 offices in here, and I rented them for $500 a month. I had a tenant on the bottom of this one that paid me like $300, so I'd make $8 grand a month there. That paid the mortgage for both buildings. So that's how I did it first. Then I was like, oh, I should probably charge myself rent. So I started charging my insurance agency rent because the rental company— and then Integrity bought it. So Integrity pays my rental company today rent for the building that my agency rents. And then I went to— we went to Tennessee, Alabama. Yeah, I mean, I owned— my rental agency owns the fucking building, and I rented the building from myself. Yeah, so when they bought it, they bought the lease. I didn't plan that, just it's business. No different if anybody, you know, Froot Loops bought me, they'd pay the rent too, you know. And then we opened one in Alabama, Tennessee, Colorado, and, uh, and I taught other people to do it. That's how Zach's office opened, Schroed's office, Gary, if y'all remember him. Like, all their offices we bought, and I was like, I'll put y'all in there, I'll rent it to you guys, and when you want to buy it from me, buy it from me. It worked out a deal. So at what point would you tell an agent when they should set up their own LLC? I mean, I would say your accountant would know better, but it's not near as early as most people want to. Like, some people want to like get their whole LLC license and all this crap. I'm like, I never did that. I didn't do that. Integrity did that for me. My whole career, made millions of dollars, 1099 was John Wetmore. Now I had an LLC and the tax— the guy moved the money over to LLC. We wrote it. Yeah, but my agency was never licensed. Never.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Integrity did it. They wanted it. So when they bought it, they, they got it like— they got Wetmore Enterprises licensed. I never did it. Um, so licensing, not important at all. To set up an LLC when you're making good money, you'll know. Like, you go to the CPA and they're like, you owe $72 grand in taxes, like, you should have one set up. Does that make sense? Like, you'll know when you're, when you're making real money. There are tax benefits to having it set up the right way, but early, it's, it's almost irrelevant. You know, there's so many write-offs when you're 1099. You don't have to do it early. If you make a couple hundred grand, probably, probably time.

You know that one?

Yeah. Huh?

Hire your kids.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's $60,000 right off for me, man. 4 kids.

There's a lot of things you can write off.

Makes sense. Thank you so much. Y'all got anything else?

Easy game.

Always good stuff.

Yeah, yeah.

Don't got anything else? No, make sure this room's filled.

Please.

Well, I told Dave I'm gonna be flying in because I don't live in Virginia, I live in Florida. There's a lot of opportunity here.

There's opportunity everywhere in the country.

—people in there and there and out there listening.

And, uh, for me, I was coming, it's like, you know, it's just a very slow and steady grind, the building, and it, it takes a while before it like waterfalls and just sort of happens on its own.

We're getting good people though, like, I'm pretty excited. The young man that you met, the college— he played college ball. And I'm like, dude, you have a network of people that are going to go to the NFL.

Yeah, you can make NFL money The mistake I see a lot of people make is they start hiring a few and then they get a handful or a dozen or whatever, and then they— two things happen. People stop selling to try to build and they mess up their money. So don't ever let a recruit mess with your money. So you got to eat first. Yeah, you got to eat first. So like, you're making phone calls and they need something You don't have to answer. They should be making phone calls. You deal with them later. Yeah, just here's just schedule. It's so— it's like, you go protect my dial— you got to protect your dial time, and then you answer the phone during your dial time, which teaches them what? That you don't protect yours. Talk to them at 6 in the morning, dude. Talk to them at 9, 10, 11 PM. I had two people text me on the— they want to talk. They text me yesterday, day before, whatever it was. And I knew I was flying here. We were going to the airport at like 8:45, and they were on the West Coast. Two people, same day. Hey, can we, can we chat for 10 minutes? I'm like, yeah, call me at— I told one, call me at 9 AM. One, call me at 9:20 AM. They said it's 6 AM my time. I said, cool, talk to you then.

Yeah, yeah, I think you talked about that when you were building. You were like waking up at 6 in the morning.

I used to get— I was getting about 5. I got about 5 Leave the gym 5:30, hit the gym by 6:00, leave the office by 7:00, be down at 7:30.

This is a question that is curiosity for me. Are you ever going to buy the boutique hotel or what? Yes, 100%. Because you talked about it.

100%. It's pretty cool. Yeah, I will one day. I will have a hotel. I don't know why. That sounds like a good name. The Wetmore.

Yeah.

It's done me well my whole life. I don't know why it creates giggles all the time, but it has since I was in second Great.

I've just—

in the— for those that don't know what he's talking about, it's in the book. I've, I've always had a mindset of like, if someone else can do something, why can't I? Yeah, I like that. That's cool. I've had that as long as I can remember. I, I agree.

And I speak Spanish. You don't speak Spanish?

I'm learning. We ain't going there now.

I'm gonna talk to him in Spanish. He's gonna answer to me. He's like, hola, hello.

Yeah, that's it. Another day. Yeah, I can read it really good. See, that's a different game. I ain't learning though. No, I'm like, I had a private. I'd hired a private one-on-one.

Yes, a Cuban Yeah, my team has them out there.

Um, but yeah, when I was— when I was a kid, I remember saying— and this isn't anything, don't go political at all— but when I was a kid, I remember being— I was like 8, being like, yo, this— if this dude Donald Trump can open a damn hotel, why can't I? And I've just never forgot that, you know. When I sit in a hotel now, like the one we're in, uh, what are we staying at, Reese? What's the name of this thing? What's the name of the hotel we're at? What's the name of— what hotel we at? What's the name of that thing? Bell? Liberty Trust?

The little one that looks like a bank?

Yeah, so like one day someone sat there and went, it looks like a dope spot for a hotel. And they called their buddy and they were like, hey, I think we could build a hotel over here. And they went and did it.

Will we have your hotel in Georgia?

I don't know yet, man. I'm just going to wait for the opportunity to present itself and make it happen one day.

His team is everywhere, like Colorado.

Yeah, we got a lot of stuff planned. It's like, I just don't ever want to slow down. I'm afraid to go backwards.

You know what's pretty beautiful that I learned from you, and you know, because you've been here from day one, yeah, is the fact that you never You have blinders because it's unfortunate that this one, you know, you know, we have growing pains. Yeah, you guys are gonna be sued with it. All right, cool. I mean, I don't care. The party's still here. The party's gonna continue with you or without you. It is. So I'm wondering, that's pretty awesome. Yeah, thank you, bro. Yeah, that's pretty cool.

Thank you. You've always remained the same.

Thank you. Because he has a deep mentality.

I'm just trying to get a little better every day. So, appreciate it, guys.