How To Make So Much Money It Feels Like CHEATING (Insurance Sales)

He's known as the $100 million man from Kennesaw, Georgia, right down the street. Mr. John Wetmore! Morning. Appreciate it, Cody. Thanks for coming. Thanks for having me out, dude. And, uh, thanks for coming yesterday. It was a blast at the workshop. A lot of people got a lot of cool feedback. For those that don't know, I am from right up the street. I drove a whopping 12 minutes to get here, and I was able to chill and get breakfast first. And all the other ones I do, I'm like, shit, we got to travel and spend 3 days doing stuff. So love doing it at home when he comes out here. Um, and I want to help you guys kind of— if you look at the business, I think that— does anyone ever feel like when you're new— and I won't go too much into the story, I'll assume some know at least a little, I might dabble it in, um, but I kind of want to get right to the meat of it. Um, super short version: been in the business like 13 years, messed it up a shit ton in the beginning, ruined everything I could possibly do, did everything wrong, and figured it out with a lot of help along the way. And we, we push a lot of insurance now and have a lot of, a lot of agents that do a lot of work. I do get a lot of credit, but it's because I have an amazing team of people that help and, and just kind of copy and paste the things I've learned over the years. And I want to try to share that, uh, some of that stuff with you guys. So I think if you look at the business, if I remember early on in my career here, and even still sometimes to this day, because like as you grow, I feel like you always feel like you aren't quite where you want to be. Like someone said it earlier, I don't know if it was Cody or Jalen, right? And there's always this like, shit, what do I do next? Even at this level, that still happens. Whatever level you think me or any of the speakers are at, we're still going like, how do we, how do we break through this problem we're having, right? So if I look back to the beginning, I was thinking about it the other day. I think I was explaining to Giovanni, like, in my head, or maybe yours, does this, does this business look like— you ever see one of those, like, uh, you ever build like a puzzle? Like a table puzzle, right? And you open up the box, 1,000 pieces, and you dump that shit out and there's stuff everywhere. Does the business look like that? Like that chaos? Like, damn, I'm supposed to have this nice pretty painting or puzzle, right? That's some kind of portrait, but it's like, ah, just pieces everywhere. You're trying to figure out like, what do I do first, right? If we're building a puzzle, where do we start typically? Corners. Where would it be dumb to start? Okay, in the middle. Now, when you're a new agent, all the stuff you want to know, that's the stuff in the middle. Does that make sense? Y'all are trying to solve the middle of the puzzle first. Okay, so if we look at the, the, the corners of our business, especially those that are right, like doing big— like, who's actually making real money in here? Like producing? Look, y'all look around, raise your hand, please. Like, for real, if you're making money, right? There's you know what, 20% of the room make— I know what— I don't know what it means. It means something different to everybody, but I bet they're all making 6 figures minimum, right? I definitely know there's some secret 7-figure guys in here who didn't raise their hand, right? But if you look at like you guys figuring out if we could only pick like 4 main things, like the corners of our business that are the most important to start with, what do you think some of those things are? Those producing leads. Why would it not be lead flow, right? Some people get confused. They're like, I don't have the money for leads. We didn't say you had to buy them. Lead flow is important. There's multiple ways to skin the cat, as Jalen said. There's multiple different ways to get leads, right? If you don't have a million bucks, it's okay. You can figure it out. Leads is important. What else do you think is out there? Say again? Product? Dialing? Could be. I like that. So that kind of incorporates a little bit of both. It's like leads, dialing. The leads aren't important if you don't call them. Does that make sense? Like, who has— be honest, who has leads in here and doesn't call them? Stop lying. You're full of shit. Who has leads in here and doesn't call them? Like, what? Right. Or prospects. Now, I'm not saying you paid for a lead. Human beings you're looking to sell your product to. I'm baffled by how many people get them and don't call them. You know who did it to me? I get it. I don't know why we do it, but we do it right. What else? What else do we think could be a major thing? So I like leads. I like activity. I ain't mad at it, but I know people who can't even open a computer or find their keys in the morning and make 7 figures. So for me, that's— I like it. I don't think it's a corner piece. I think it helps. Does that make sense? Say again? Yeah, discipline is a big one. Jalen obviously talked about that a lot. What'd you say to do? Getting in front of you, that's activity, kind of falls under that part. Discipline sort of falls under activity. Does that make sense? Like if you're disciplined at sitting on the couch, is that important? If you're disciplined at watching every Netflix series that's out, is that good? If you're disciplined at like sleeping in, is that good? So, ah, discipline, maybe. Just depends. Yeah, I think it, I think it could be important. I think it's super helpful. You know, sometimes it takes a minute, I've learned, to learn that piece. We come into it with an initial mindset, right? So I like a blank canvas. I don't really want you to have any mindset except the corner, like, you know what I mean? Like, let's just do the minimum we can to get the most benefit out of it. Right. So I think leads and leads and activity is a big one. It's like— and everything you say here for me kind of falls into two buckets. Everything's either been an activity-based thing or a skillset-based thing. That's really— that's really the business, right? If you look at whatever, wherever you're at in the business now, whatever you sell, however many people you see, whatever leads you buy, whatever money you make, wherever you're at now, if that's your baseline, right? You can only move a couple of levers to change your, your net money, your net income, right? Like, what can you shift? You can see more people. That's an option. Or the people you currently see, you can figure out how to sell more of them or and to them. Multiple policies, bigger premiums. There's multiple ways. There ain't a ton more to shift. Does it make sense? Like, if again, if you do all the middle pieces, the product training and understanding the under— I had someone literally— oh my God, sorry, I had a spasm moment. I had someone text me yesterday and they wanted to know if I had— and I'm not saying these things aren't important somewhere in business, but he was brand new, day one, hasn't sold a policy. He wanted to know if I would send him a grid of every carrier's— every carrier, every product, every comp on every product that every carrier sells. I was like, huh? Why today? I just said, right now, I used to be that way. I'm a super analytical guy. I used to be an accountant. I overthink everything by default, but I learned it wasn't important for me, right? So when I started to understand the concept of leads and the flow of leads and the importance of that, because the flow of leads controls a lot of things. Again, I don't care where you get your lead. There are strategies for any lead type on planet Earth, but your lead flow is a major important piece of it. Lead flow don't mean crap if you don't put in the activity with it, the work piece of it, right? And then it's like along the way, y'all mentioned product and all the other stuff and mindset and things like that, right? I think certainly training, learning, understanding what you're doing wrong, what you're doing right, right? Making little tweaks. That's certainly important. I find that a lot of people want to learn everything before they get started, though. You know, you know everything about everything. It's like, how do we learn? Pick a thing, pick something you're amazing at in your head. It can be any— I don't care if it was like ballet when you were 6. How do we get really good at anything you were good at now? Practice. So where's the confusion? Like, why do we get stuck when we know the answer, right? And I think The little piece people fall into a little bit on the other corner— so again, for me, leads, the activity side, work, right? Some training. We have to— we certainly have to understand it. I think a piece that a lot of people are intimidated and afraid to do, and you're doing it here kind of now, is— is this is more of the training side. But I think even more important, another big piece that new agents miss majorly is the getting feedback side, the coaching side, getting, getting feedback on the mistakes you're making. Right? So you can train your face off, but if your mindset's crap and you're learning something in the way you view it and you keep running out there and doing it and you're the one telling yourself what you think is going wrong, but you're the one not having the success, how good is it for you to train yourself? I don't— it like, again, can training help and reading and studying on your own? Yes. But again, if you think about it ass backwards, what's it matter? Right? So having somebody around you to go like, "Nah, tweak this. Hey, say that instead of this. I know you think that this lead over here is magic, but do we really think it's magic? Or are we trying to convince ourselves that the reason we aren't winning is because the quote-unquote lead was bad?" Right? All you're doing is trying to convince yourself that it isn't about the 4 corners we just talked about. Does anyone dispute those are important? Right? And then even if we— again, if we have all the stuff in the middle, the way an index works on a universal life policy, does that make sense? Who the reinsurance company is, like all these little details. And I'm not saying they aren't valid at some point in your career, but remember what the percentage of people that raised their hand that said they're making real money, right? So for me, when I was new, when I was struggling, I wish that people stopped talking about all the other stuff. You know, I just— I had a moment in my career where someone challenged me on my thought process and we started looking at my work and my activity and the things I was doing. And he literally was like, dude, why are you— why are you worried about all the other stuff? And his was even simpler. It was two things. It was just leads and activity. He didn't even have anything else. Just leads and work. And I was like, but what leads do you buy? What city do you run in? Hey, what time do you start making phone calls? If the weather's rainy, does that help? Does that help or hurt your conversion rate? You don't think I've been asked that?

Yeah.

You door knock in the rain, you get in a lot more houses. It's actually kind of a good question if you're asking in the right context. You know, and so for me, I learned like when you start, when you start in the business again, we want to have this big complicated puzzle. I was asking Amanda this morning, so my assistant, I say she runs my whole company. She calls herself my assistant, so I keep saying it, but she runs my whole operation. She's with me like 8 years and all the stuff you see that happens in my world, if you follow me at all, she does it all. Reese is amazing at all my social media, anything on social. I don't have anything to do with it except stand here with a mic and talk. And try to not get my water bottle in the shot because I normally put it there and Amanda yelled at me not to do it. But he takes care of all that stuff and I do the piece that I do, which is try to keep this thing really simple for agents. To me, as I see a lot of— who's trying to build? Everybody. It's weird. It's like this side's legit trying to build and this side was like kind of trying to build. What was the deal with that? Did you see that, Cody? It was like 95% of this side and like 40% of this side. I don't know if you lined that up on purpose. That was weird as shit. But if you're trying to build, right? I see people. Any of you like when someone gets started, you send out your 42-page getting started guide? Yes? Have you received one? Has someone given you a 7-page script to start? Of course they have. You know? And for me, again, I was talking to Amanda earlier. The point of the— before I went sideways on the water bottle, she has twin little girls. They're like 2 years old. All my kids are grown. One of them standing right there. I usually say all my kids are grown and assholes, but there's one sitting right there and it'd be weird if I said it. So my son Braden is 17 here. First thing, he's legit trying to figure out what his dad does for a living because he doesn't really know. All I do is talk. And this is his first event. Well, yesterday was. He came to my event and this one. But he's a young kid trying to make some money and he sees a lot of money around, so he's trying to figure it all out. But I think as the— from an agency side, I think you guys overcomplicate the delivery of, as Cody and Jaylen both said, the simplicity of the business. Right. And I always relate it to— let's take— let's take Brayden, for example. You know, 17. He's like beyond smart. My other— my older daughter, his— my oldest daughter, his older sister got like a full ride to Ohio State academic. I got all D's and F's in school. So I claim none of the smart part. I'm more stubborn and, you know, bullheaded, and I don't— he's, he's trying to get into like high-level colleges and be a doctor and do all kinds of stuff. And I'm, I'm— he's, he's wanting to make some money now, so I'm starting— he's 17, he can't get his license until he's 18, so we're starting to work with him on these concepts now, right? And so there's this weird balance of like, I get to live really good and he gets a lot of benefit from that, but at the same time, I don't want to give him too much. And sometimes he has like old ratty shoes, and I'm like, maybe you should get a job, dude. And learned to go buy them. Well, then he asked one day if he could work for me, and I'm like, does that mean you don't want to do nothing? If you ask to work for me, you're in for some trouble. But he wanted to. He wanted to see what it was like. So we started talking about it. And, uh, you know, I think as, as you're building the agency, as you're building your agency, you know, I asked Amanda about her girls, and I'm like, you know, you have a puzzle for your girls? You ever see like those little baby puzzles and they're like 4 squares only? It's not a good puzzle, but I ain't trying to do this business like a 1,000-piece complicated puzzle. I like them little baby 4-piece puzzles that her daughters can put together. One has a giraffe and one has an elephant, one has a monkey and one has whatever. Like, you can run this whole business like this with those 4 things. All the weird things I just said about indexing and, you know, Can I be honest? I don't know none of that shit. I just don't. I know enough to be dangerous if I had to talk about it, but I don't need to be a pro in every piece of this. I don't have a clue. You know, I have people that pay me for coaching in a different line of insurance I know nothing about. We were having a conversation yesterday about some intricacies of health insurance. I know nothing about it. I looked at her like she was a foreigner. I'm like, what are you saying? Right? It's irrelevant to build a big business. They're massively successful without that. Not saying those things aren't important. I just think too many of you put them first. Right? And for me, I was like, why would I not do the corners first? Well, I didn't know any better. So I'm screaming it to you guys. How simple this thing can be. Right? So if we look at the base, again, we'll go leads. Right. Activity, work, I like to call it whatever. The training and I'll call it feedback or coaching. Right. If we look at those of you that are still producing, that raise your hand, who's, who's, who's selling, making? And I know the life lingo way better. And obviously the conversion of the math on the commissions and stuff like that. So preferably some life people so we can speak the same language for most people. But if you got something else, if you're, if you're, if you're literally like selling and making, $30,000, $40,000 plus a month. Who's in here? Giovanni, come on, girl. First month you did it. Stop lying to people. Hey, Kyle has been in the business how long? A month. And submitted how much business? Yep. First month, $35,999. It was like Price is Right. How many presentations do you think you made last month? We talked about at dinner or attempted to make even. Give me the— give me the book. Yep. 110 in a month. Okay. Of all the broke people, how many of you ran 110 appointments last month? I mean, dude, can the day be over? Does that make sense? She's been in the business for a month. In one of the four corners, if I go, how do you make $40K a month? Who wants to make $40K a month in here? If I said one of the four corners is more activity than everyone else in the room, who else? Who's running? Who's selling more than 108 people last month? Giovanni, what was your number? 'Cause you— 125? So you're gonna do 126 this month, Kyle, aren't you? I'll do 200. There we go. You know, hey, what did you learn along the way? Right?

Yeah, do more, more reps.

Did you learn a little bit about product? Yeah.

Yeah.

Underwriting. Imagine that. Right? Did you learn a little bit more about how to say your script really good? Did you learn how to deal with some objections? Right? Imagine again, we take your baseline. We got— you don't see 120 a month. Cool. Now look at your number and go, how many do you see a month? Maybe you see 30. 30, 60, 90, 120. Maybe it takes you 4 months to see that many. If you're only seeing 30, what are you making? And then what are you making if you hit your 120? 30, 60, 90, 120. Some of y'all make similar money. You just drag it out over 4 months. She just did 4 months of your work in 1 month. How is that similar? Dude, if I hire some landscapers to come to my house and I got a pile of dirt to move right there, and you're the landscaping company and you move that dirt in an hour, and she moves that dirt and she lays in the grass for half the day and eats 4 sandwiches, Are you gonna want to pay her? But she worked 4 hours, but she didn't move no dirt. She didn't do anything, nothing productive, you know what I mean? And so for me, I'm trying to get people to understand how important that piece is. If 70 of you raised your hand that not— I did it in 20 appointments, I wouldn't hammer this every time I talk. It's such a simple hack. That most people won't do because they're intimidated and uncomfortable and scared and all this stuff, right? My son Braden doesn't know I'm about to do this.

He—

so he wants to get his license. He turns 18 in November and I'm like, dude, we get on the phones now, start dialing for agents. I can get you agents to dial for. If you want to dial, I can get you down. So we put him on the phones 2 weeks ago, 3 weeks ago. How long have you been dialing? How long have you been making phone calls in business? Couple of weeks. Couple of weeks. How much phone script training did I give you? None. What phone script did we give you actually? I don't remember, but I looked at it like once. It was like 5 pages long? 7, 8. 7, 8? Because someone gave it to you, right? What did I tell you to do with it?

Throw it out.

Okay. How many appointments have you booked in the last 2 weeks? 30. 30 appointments in 2 weeks. He's 17, no phone script training, and he doesn't know what his dad does. He can barely get a sentence out of his mouth without being uncomfortable. And you guys need all this other hoopla to win, and you got a 17-year-old kid here who knows nothing about what we do smoking you. Y'all do more. That's all I got.

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For an agency that's trying to build those legs that you guys were mentioning earlier, if we're not at the position where we can pay them a salary, how do you convince someone to come straight to build that leg for you on commission?

I mean, I talk to them all the time, so I was waiting for one of y'all to speak up. Uh, I can answer it if you want, but I'm kind of letting— I mean, I don't know, I'm curious. Like, I don't know how he does it. Does it make sense? We're both— yeah, you can— we do it with other things too. It doesn't just have to be a product line. Like, if— like, when with my mentor, I handled like all the techie crap that happened, and he didn't pay me. I was building leaderboards, I was doing reports, I was doing all kinds of stuff. And on my end, Giovanni, who you met, he built that whole Discord for us. I didn't touch that. Do you mean that's why I don't— he makes fun of me for not knowing how to use it. I'm like, bro, you built it. Does it make— and I didn't pay him for it. It's just finding people who can contribute their talent to the team right? Same as I try to contribute my talent to the team I'm on above, from an FFL standpoint, an integrity standpoint, any upline, things like that. You know what I mean? I was always trying to add value, and I found they added value back more to me when I added something that I had. Yeah, you know, and it's like, if you find other people— that was with that, like, uh, trust thing we were talking about and the control freak stuff the other day— if you find good people on your team, they'll add value to you in ways that you aren't thinking of if you allow them to.

You know, how much, uh, I know you said after script, I know you said that, and Jalen, you said follow one leader at a time. How much time should we put into like the education part of our presentations? Not necessarily knowing all of the carriers, but more so how to like tailor a conversation to each individual client.

Can I answer? Can I answer part of it? So like, people always hear— it's funny when I explain this, it's, it's, it's— I'd never say like, don't do that piece, right? I think it's crazy important. But like, uh, David just said, when the sun was up, he was working on, on the client side. It was the same for me. And when it was evening and early in the morning and all weekend, that's when I studied that stuff. Like, I still study my script and my talk. The second I walked off stage, I went back with my team and I told them about different things that I was working on, things I like, things I didn't, things I was for planning for July. Does it make sense? I was testing stuff up there, chit and playing with some words, doing things like that. I'll go back and study this, you know what I mean? So like, study is here, but if you aren't working, you have no reference when you do the study to feel it, right? It means nothing, right? So sometimes when we speak, it's like you don't understand it because you, you don't relate because you didn't do that thing. So you, the script doesn't mean shit if you don't do a phone call. That's what I mean. Does it make sense? But while you're again calling, what happens, you people make a few calls and then they go, ooh, that call didn't work, let me hang up, no more calls, let me go study script. I think that's a mistake. I think it's keep calling for a significant period of time, slow down, notice the objections. There's only a few. Presentations, phones, anywhere you can do this concept, recruiting, Speaking on a stage anywhere, you notice things that didn't go the way you wanted them to go, and you identify those things, and you preferably go to someone who's really good at it. You go, hey, here's where I'm struggling, what do you think? Right? You review your own stuff first. You'll hear where you suck if you listen to your own stuff. You— it will scream at you. But then you also want, as you start to— that's where the feedback thing comes, you know what I mean? So you need all of them, hence the 4 pieces. But so many people want to do the training instead of the work, and it has to be a combination of not only the work, the training, but also the coaching and guidance from someone who's better and will challenge you and question the way your thought process is working and your approach and things like that. The little details that you don't see.

Um, all of y'all said you need to get a good mentorship and you need to find a good organization. How do you determine that you are with the right organization and you're getting the most value out of it?

Good question.

And you're not, you know, contract level leads, a lot of that plays a part. And how do you just truly know? And instead of just jumping and changing, how do you know if it's going to cost you money and stuff?

Which happens a lot, by the way. Yeah, people freaking love to jump and then they're like, oh crap, my life got worse. You know, that happens a lot, by the way.

We're scared to jump because—

yeah, yeah.

Thoughts?

I think that I've learned that they all work, right? So even if there's a system that she hates, it works. Like, they're killing it, you know what I mean? You pick a style, pick an IMO, pick in-home telesales, pick a lead style, whether you do leads or not, or— yeah, it all works, you know what I mean? So I think it's like, are you, are you, are you— do you see Is the vision that they're giving you, do you feel that that aligns with who you are and what you want? Does that make sense? Are you comfortable with the people you work around? Yeah, they your jam, I guess, right? Because there are variances between our styles. Even if we— and now some people look at competitors and they like are weird and lose their mind. Some of us look at it, it's like, it's all good, there's plenty for us to all eat, you know what I mean? And there's someone rich at every company. Yeah. So if you're like, is it me or is it the company? Does that make sense? So it's like, it's you. But if the company aligns with what you feel and like and see in your life, dude, find someone there because there's someone there rich and align with them and learn from them. Does that make sense? Makes sense.

Yeah, there's good people in every organization.

There's also dipshits in every organization. Absolutely. All of them. And every one of us makes mistakes. And everyone else has pros and cons. You know what I mean? It just is what it is. Sorry. No, please. Is that fair?

No, that's a fair statement. I'm just going to say, yeah, you find somebody that aligns with your values, that's going to help you accomplish your goals and objectives, and you move forward. If at some point that's not working, then you got to back up and look in the mirror and say, is it me or is it them? And you got to be very candid and honest with yourself at that point, because a lot of times when you say it's not working, We want to project on somebody else because we don't want to take the blame that we're screwing up and not doing what we need to do.

Yeah, you got to still be willing to—

and you've got to be willing to learn.

And, you know, I would say don't go on a Facebook group and ask. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. Meaning like, who's the best? Come on, like, come on, dude. Yeah, yeah. You know, I mean, you start reading reviews and answers and negatives, it's like, yeah, that's good.

Look at the track record.

Records.

Yeah, correct.

You know, some organizations, like, they grew a lot and they're just like that. Probably not the one I want to grow, right? Yeah, we're like on the upslope, probably something I want to be a part of. So we're going down, obviously don't want to be a part of that. So like, to me, I'm like, I'm kind of looking at that because I want to be— I want to be in like the, the startup kind of phase, right, of like the, you know, like Epic Growth, right? I'd love to join Epic Growth when John joined Epic Growth.

Yeah.

Uh, right now I pay for a coach that's not even in this business just to get it out. Um, called my leads and I set 18 appointments and I was mind blown. I was like, never even done this.

So in our world, door knocking is the backup. So since you book a bunch of appointments— I come from field sales, right? Okay, versus telesales. So field sales, and we got a bunch of guys that still do it, a lot of telesales, but field sales, you book all your appointments for the day and then all the ones you can't get a hold of or they say to fuck off, whatever, you you schedule them around the appointments as a door knock for when those don't show or don't work out, or you leave early, or it ends, or whatever. Reschedules, cancels, all that bullshit. So you align the door knocks to the appointments and you are— you have them ready to go. Like, you just assume everyone's gonna no-show you, so you set the door knocks up. There's an app you can use, Road Warrior, I think it's called. There's a couple of them, um, and it organizes it all based on your appointments. So then if you can go right doors if you know how to do it.

Just that.

So I like the idea of both.

Changed my game. Yeah, I do. I've been like— and that's what I've been trying to implement. The organization I'm with only does door-to-door.

Yeah, yeah, I'm aware. Yeah.

And they tell you don't call the leads.

Yeah, just show up.

That's the old way of like, don't even call the leads.

Well, one day when there were no phones, that shit— it still works. That's the point, you know what I mean? It's like, that's— somebody went like, that works, why stop?

And I worry, like, is it my blinders and I'm And I'm getting— I mean, hearing the noise, like David, you know, all his posts about these numbers. And I'm like, is it me like listening to the noise or should I just keep focusing and doing this?

Again, does it align and can you build in that structure? You know what I mean? Like, does that type of work align with what you're trying to do? Because if not, there's options, obviously. You know what I mean? Because in this space, dude, 3 years that we got— I mean, you heard there's people fucking first month in knocking down $30 grand.

We got—

we We got, we got, I mean, we, they, they're telling the person in the room today is field sales, but we have tele— I mean, we have agents, we have more agents than I can count doing over 50 grand a month. Yeah, about $25,000 a month. Yeah, that was our first month.

I know, that's, yeah, that's impressive.

Yeah, so to get— we have $100,000 a month, I mean, 100-something appointments. You're not going to get that without probably a few hundred, few hundred leads.

I'm getting my 220, I'm going to build my own agency. We're like, help, do your job first.

So that's, that's why I like to ask people questions. It's like, hey, what's the plan for you here? Like, have you thought— and the first thing I do is like, when are you gonna do something, right? It's kind of where I'm going. I'll be like, what's the plan here? Have you like thought about your schedule? To transition? I assume, you know, you can't twinkle your nose one day and suddenly have a big agency, you know what I mean? Like, so what's the plan? Are you gonna do this part-time? Are you gonna sell? Like, what's the plan? And you just— you get him to start speaking, you know what I mean? All right, brother, pleasure, man. Thank you. Um, and you get them to— you even— and if he's not somehow thinking of that, it goes like, oh shit, I should be thinking about my schedule. Oh dang, maybe I should. And then you start kind of walking through the steps of what he needs to do. You know, and then if it's like, hey, all right, because then his only option then is yes, I'm going to sell, or no, I'm not. No, you're not. That's the answer. Yes, I am. Okay, when can you start? Next week? Next, next month? Tomorrow? In the morning? Saturday? Whatever it is, you mean you just, you narrow it down closer and closer and you kind of— it's just like sales, dude. Question after question puts them further and further into a corner where they can't get out of it with bullshit.

Because at the end of day recruitment essentially is a sales— I'm not good at it, I'm still new to it.

Correct. It's the quality of questions that lead you to where you want to go. And where you want to go with this dude is start selling. Does it make sense? All of your questions need to lead towards him telling you when he's going to start selling. And you can't go, when are you going to start selling, just right off the rip. You— I mean, you can, right? But if you, if you're not getting— if you're not getting it out of him Right, correct, correct. So if you're not getting him to articulate, then you just kind of go like, hey dude, I'm, I'm really trying to figure out how the hell to help you. Can you, can you give me some clarity on what you see as the vision? What's the path? What are you looking to do? I know you keep saying you want to build an agency, but I'm saying what's step one? Get your license. Got it. You know, just to have an agency, you have to sell. I assume you know that. I assume you plan to do that. What's the plan timeframe for that? Just so we can allocate resources. I want to know how serious you are, but we're going to help you with your schedule. We got to figure out how to help you with training.

He's like, come on, like buying a CRM.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's where, like, the stuff like this is why I do the weekly call. And all these types of things I get my team to talk to me about, and then I talk about them on the call, or I talk about them in that room. Yeah, you know, you saw me yesterday talk about CRMs multiple times. It's because there are people in the room doing it. Yes, and I don't have to go, hey, dipshit, don't use it. I'm just, I'm talking about it generically or about you knowing this person needs to hear it, you know. It's a, it's a really cool way to get people to go like, is he talking about me? I was talking about me, you know what I mean? And it's like, but I can do that with a lot of topics. Yeah, and that's one of them is like, like the coachable falls under coachable and moving forward.

How to—

how to— because man, it is draining.

We've talked about it. I am interviewing that many people. Yeah, okay, so draining.

Luckily, like, you've helped me as far as like shortening the interview. Yeah, like in the first 5 minutes, like kind of if they're not good with commission, let them go.

But sure, I don't know, like the one that helped me a lot was the one I mentioned up there. Have you read that? The 5 Levels?

We know we're doing— right now we're doing the 15 Levels of Leadership.

Okay.

I've read the 12 Steps to Irreputable Leadership.

I don't remember the context of those because it didn't have as much of an impact. It's kind of more— feels like more like generic principles, right? Where this one was very specifically— it's 5 levels, and it's—

it's—

but more importantly, it's the way— it's from the perspective of the way someone else views you as a leader. So it's someone else's perception. Yeah, you're either a level 1 through 5 and you don't get to pick. Yeah, does that make sense? So now, if— meaning we use it in the reverse, right? So y'all look at me however you look at me, rank me 1 through 5 if you knew all the things. You don't have to rank me, but right there, somewhere I'd land. And 1 is like— it's called a positional leader. So you're only a leader because they told you you're in charge. Does it make sense? So when someone comes in and they don't know you, that's all you are to They don't give a shit what you've done. They don't care about you at all. So you've got to figure out a way. And what the book talks about is figuring out ways to get people that look at you as a 1 to get them to look at you as a 2 or 3 or 4 or 5. And it helps you get someone else to climb up the ladder of their perception of you. And there's ways you can make it happen like that, right? A simple way that we do it internally is like when you start— when you edify— like, meaning if this situation right here, and we kind of all know each other, and I'm like Bro, this chick right here, she's fucking killing it. She's doing that, and you don't know her. I'm edifying the shit out of her, all the good things she's doing, things like that, right? And you don't know— you don't— you don't know me as a— I'm a positional leader, right? But I can edify her. That's gonna take, in your eyes, her up to a 2 or 3, right? And then all she has to do is edify me to you, and then you instantly have it from me. Does it make sense? I didn't do shit. Now, sometimes it's because of your production or what you've done, or I saw you on YouTube, or I saw— you know what I mean? There are other ways to do it too. There's multiple ways to climb people up that ladder. And that book was my favorite because it explained that. So when I was recruiting, now I know who I'm working with. Because if they don't know me from a hole in the wall, for instance, today, if someone answers an ad on a— hits on an ad on Instagram and hits me a DM, they typically don't know me. So the conversation is different versus like, yo, been watching your shit forever, man. Hit me, I want to work. It's a totally different vibe, you know. And so it's learning how to not only understand that vibe but how to control it. And that book helped me learn how to control one I didn't even know was a thing. I did not realize the other way there was some kind of ranking, you know what I mean. I just treated everyone the same, and you, you, you, you made a mistake doing that. So it allowed me to adapt more versus me always wanting the person to adapt. I was like, oh shit, it was a big light bulb moment for me that I got the work to do. Even though I'm saying they're the ones that need to work.

Exactly.

I just didn't understand the dynamic.

I'm completely aware that we're the ones that need to work. Like, we're obviously not attracting the right people, you know, and that's a switch that we have to make. Something that we're not doing right. And a lot of, a lot of the leaders have told us already, like, the way that we can't hold them accountable is because, like, they have nothing to lose. Like, if they don't show up, there's no repercussions.

Access to you is which we've limited.

Yeah, and that has helped.

A lot of them have shown up, especially if they buy into your vision, right? Big. Yeah, they don't want to lose out on that. Does that make sense? So not only is— not is it about attracting people, it's about attracting people to the vision and how they can align with it, because they'll, they'll buy into that more.

Hey guys, just created something really cool, and if you want to be part of it, join the Discord group I just created. The link is going to be in here. It's a dope environment. You chat with others that are kind of in the community. You can see beyond the curtain of our agency, have access to all kinds of stuff that we got going on, events, and my staff is in there. We have agents in there selling, me helping agents and sharing information. We're gonna, as we build this thing out, share everything out there with all of you guys. So again, follow the Discord if you want to be part of everything we got going on. Join it now. We'll see you in there. Hope to help you more.

I think if we provide also more leads, because one of the things that the Gold Agents will get is leads. We haven't been providing because we're not having any turnaround.

So I think it's just about showing up. How many times have we given them shit and they don't do anything?

Yeah, it happens.

We give them a lead and then it just sits there. Yeah, like, so we won't even— I mean, you can usually identify those non-coachable things along the way. Meaning they didn't just get lazy when it was time to call the leads. Typically, right? They were also lazy doing the paperwork along the way, responding to the emails, responding to the text messages. Those are just like the other problem with Progressive. Those are the signs up front you're not paying attention to, right? They— if they're that bad, they shouldn't get that far in your process, you know what I'm saying? So it's correct, yeah, you just don't let them You know what I'm saying? It's like, dude, they say they're going to send you something today and they take 3 weeks to do it. There's a bright red sign saying it's not your— it doesn't fit in your mold that you're looking for, you know? So it's just learning how to recognize and talking about it. I tell people that. I mean, you saw me do it 80 times yesterday. The things I'm— I get to choose those things, you know what I mean? So here's what I'm looking for, here's why. And I think being transparent about it helps me because then there's no confusion from the other people. Is it perfect?

I think we've never been transparent with them.

Correct. It's my favorite thing.

We're trying to build the agency. We're trying to find a strong person.

Here's what we don't like. Here's the things we hate.

Here's the director. Yeah, the P&C director. Like, that's what we— that's, that's the goal.

We're building out. We're looking for team and we're looking for it. Yeah, you're looking for both, you know what I mean? You're looking for the squad and you're looking for people to run the squad. Do you see yourself kind of doing this just as kind of a little bit, or one day you trying to get somewhere? Because we're looking for people who are trying to get somewhere, you know. And you just keep put— you keep putting it out there what you're talking about, and then you, you, you have those boundaries that you ain't gonna fuck because you're so serious about where you want to go. It's not worth making the mistake. You'd rather cut it off soon, you know. And people can respect that if you tell them that. And the hard part is if you don't do it consistently, it's like kids or dogs maybe, you know what I mean? It's like if they don't get in for, I don't know, they shit on the floor, nothing happens to them, they keep shitting on the floor, right? So what do you do? I don't know. You say, I don't know how to punish a dog or throw them in the other. I don't know. Right. But there's something that you, hey, you do notice though, when, when whatever, even, even a damn dog, when they do something they shouldn't do and you hold consequences and you give them the look, dude, they curl up and you know what I mean? It's like instant. Why? Because you're— it's stupid, but it's like it works with every being in a sense, you know what I mean? So it's just learning to, learning to be strategic with it.

Yesterday that we downloaded it on Audible, we're gonna— which one?

Oh yeah, Martel's Buy Back Your Time. Yeah, fucking great. Yeah, really good operational stuff in there that, that a lot of people leave out, you know, more con— more high-level stuff. He's like, here's how we do it, here's— he's like, it was really good detail, so you'll like that.

25 grand, and then last month it was exactly opposite, just trying to implement that new script.

And people are playing for sure.

It's what I would say is, if you did 25 grand, don't change anything, just do more of it. Okay, seriously? Yeah, you did 25 grand, dude, it's working. Yeah, it's more than most insurance agents. Yeah, it works so good you changed it, right?

Right.

Stick to what works, dude, and take some— I know minor stuff, take a little at a time. Okay. Yeah, you mean don't overhaul, right?

Right.

Like the, the, the, the way he asks questions instead of give information. But if you're not naturally really good at acting confused and you're trying really hard and it's not natural, you're gonna sound off, you're gonna feel awkward. Correct. So take the concept more than anything, which is the quality of his questions.

Yeah, just kind of gradually. Yeah.

So just take a piece, dude, don't overhaul.

Okay. Yeah, that's the— yeah, I'll go back to you.

Like, meaning minor thing. If it's a— how long is there a length of the program?

Um, well, it's months, and then it's his thing.

Yeah, dude. Yeah, I slowly Slow down, slow down with what you're tweaking.

Yeah, because I tried to just— it just— I was like, oh man, because I literally got on a couple of these activities and I asked too many questions early. Yeah, and she just felt uncomfortable.

Yeah, dude, we got this game figured out. Does it make sense? Like, his is more broad. Yeah, he's insurance agents, but dude, he's talking about people that sell whales or people that sell final— he's talking to everybody. Do we know our demographic here? Tell us. They'll still— yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's—

yeah, that's where everything—

there's a bunch of people that know their shit. I mean, just again, my recommendation, dude, stick to what works.

Yeah.

And for the at least short term, especially if you're trying to get out of a situation, pile up some cash, stack things, things like that, dude, again, take your $25,000, look at what you did.

Yeah.

And do a little bit more of it in that time frame and go, go 3 to 6 months and just go to town on that and stack some cash, dude. You know what I mean? Like, stack it up before you start overhauling the business.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You know, go issue $40 grand a month. You did $25, you can do $40, right? Right. You know what I mean? It's literally just a couple— two more, a few more leads, few more phone calls. Again, can you tweak a couple— can you tweak a couple questions? Maybe identify some annuities every now and again, you know what I mean? Make sure you're not skipping that piece. But forget the overhaul thing, dude. Okay. You know, and then again, listen to Jeremy Liner on your board and take one thing, uh, week and go like, oh, I really like that thing, I'm going to put it in here.

Right, right, right.

Makes sense. Makes perfect sense. Cool. No, I appreciate it.