How To Make Your First $100,000 As An Insurance Agent

How you started and also like, you know, where you're going with this and how far you've come.

It's really easy to answer all of your questions because you implement everything in like 2 seconds. And people like you are really fun to work with because it's easy, even though you go through complicated stuff and you still deal with emotional shit. And some days you want to kill people like me, but we power through it and we move on and we figure shit out and how to adapt. And, uh, you're one of my kind of people, so always willing to help you. Um, I would say, you know, for those that don't know Some of y'all do. I recognize a ton of names on here. Of course, I've been on y'all's call a ton, and I do pay attention to leaderboards and stuff and follow people on social. Yeah, I've been the long— I'm going to give a short version of it. I've been in the business. For those that don't know me at all, for some clarity, I am not— I've been with FFL since the day they opened the doors. I was literally like my FFL, my AmeriCo agent number is 013. Like I was literally one of the top couple handfuls of people contracted at the company. It all sort of happened in the first day. So actually been with most of these people, Sean, I was at the old company. I worked where he was previously as well. I actually got attempted to get started in the business in 2008. And again, even though I was here at the beginning, I was not one of, I was not what people see today. At the beginning, if who's out there that's like trying to figure this business out, maybe they're going through the roller coaster still. One month they have a decent month, next month, or one week they have a decent week, next week they have a next one. They can't figure out lead flow, they get chargebacks, they just can't figure out how to connect all the dots, trying to figure out like how to pay their effing bills or mortgage or kids, just figuring life out still. How many, how many of y'all can relate to that kind of start? Just like, I see all these people killing it, I just don't know what to do to get to that. Kind of next level and get out of the rat race, if you will. If that's you, would love to just— there you go, somebody, Maria, admitting it. And I can see a lot of y'all shaking your head. That was me early on. And so I was not a quick start. I didn't come into it killing it. I was not a Hall of Fame producer walking in the door. I was not that guy at all. I actually got started really slow. I actually applied to be in the business I answered a Craigslist ad in 2008, a mortgage protection ad, and, uh, it took me until March of 2010 to get my license, and then it took me until August of 2012 to write my first policy. So 4 years from the time I applied till I wrote my first policy, and 2 and a half years from the day I was licensed to write my first policy. My first year I started out part-time and had a job. I was an accountant trying to get out, have 5 kids. Maddox, my youngest, is now 12, be 13 soon. He was like 9 months old when I got started in the business and I lived in my wife's house. My kids, you know, crammed into her basement when they were with us on the weekends. And, you know, she, we were clipping coupons and just trying to figure out how to make a living. 12 years ago, 12, 13 years ago. So, you know, for me it was trying to figure the thing out. It took me a year to go from part-time to full-time selling after work and on weekends and just door knocking and just trying to figure it out. Getting kicked out of houses was pretty normal for me. Getting cussed out on the phone was very normal. I'm from Boston. I'm emotional. I'm analytical. So I struggled with that part of connecting with people early on. I, um, I had to learn that and study it and, and really get punched in the face a lot. Um, but what I did have is like a willingness to stick through it. And I, I always saw other people having a lot of success. Um, and I found that the ones that didn't continue to make it, they just kind of gave up on themselves. You know, and I was like, if you look at all the top salespeople, anybody you look at and you're like, holy shit, they're killing it, what I noticed is they're all very different personality-wise. They speak very differently. They're from all different backgrounds. Um, they have different scripts. They have different leads they prefer. They have different types of products they like selling. Some are good at IUL, some suck at it. Some like final expense, some hate it. Some are good at mortgage protection, some hate it. There's all these like differences between them. But what I noticed, the commonality between all of them is they outworked everyone else around them and they studied their craft a lot and they, they got good at a couple things and they just went after those couple things really hard. They didn't try to learn everything under the sun. They stopped overthinking things and they stopped being They weren't emotional about individual days or individual transactions or individual conversations. They weren't, they weren't like results-driven emotionally. The result part didn't get them stressed out. You know, when someone says no or hangs up or charges back or cancels or whatever it is, all the stuff, they just weren't emotional about it. And I'm like, I I can work hard. That seemed easy. I thought I had to learn all this stuff. And I'm not saying you don't have to learn stuff, but I thought I had to learn all this stuff before I started working hard, Caitlin. I don't know why. You know what I mean? I thought I had to be amazing at some phone script before I could make 500 phone calls. Because on my first 50, I sucked. I don't know if I thought on the next 400 I would suck too, and I just didn't want to do it. I just, I don't know. There was this wall. You know, and, um, one of the things I kind of figured out, and I, I don't know if any of y'all seen— I damn literally wrote a book on this shit. I don't know if you've seen it yet or not, I can't remember. Um, hell, I might have sent you one for all I know.

Yeah, I love it.

I put it out just a few months ago. It's a super easy read because I like suck at grammar, but it goes through the entire story. Um, super cheap because I didn't want to I didn't want to, I wasn't trying to make any money on it. I want to get it out to people. And we've had a ton of success from people reading it. But I go through the whole story and one of the things that really clicked for me, um, one of the chapters, let's see what chapter it is. It's, uh, uh, chapter 4. It's a 17 or the number that changed my life. Um, one day I was kind of looking at numbers and I was, I was very mediocre at this time. I was selling maybe, I don't know, 6 or 8 apps a month. And I was probably making 300 or 400 phone calls a month. So like 100 a week. I wasn't doing anything at all. But I looked at what I was making and I was making like 4 or 5 grand a month. And then I looked at how much activity I had. And I remember one day, I was, I am an accountant. I'm kind of a nerd and analytical. I'm gonna answer if you want. The book is available on Amazon. If you buy it from my website though, I sign them and personalize them. If you get it from Amazon, they just send it. So if you want one from me signed, order from the website. I'll put it on there now. Johnwetmore.com, a little one there. But I remember looking at making like $4,000 a month or so and making a few hundred dollars a month. And, uh, one day I divided one by the other and I'm like, all right, if I make $4,000 and I make a few hundred dials, I wonder what I make per dial. And the number for me came out to $17. Again, making no money, making very little dials, right? And when I looked at that, that the deposits account for all the bullshit, right? When you make deposits, it's after chargebacks, it's after cancels, it's after no-shows. It's after one legs, it's getting, it's after getting told to fuck off. It's after getting told I didn't fill that out. That's not my name. This is fraud. You, all the stuff they tell you, the deposits are after all that crap. And when I looked at the average, I was like, you know, if I was getting paid a dollar a phone call, I would go at this thing like you've never seen someone work. And when I went, and again, I sucked ass. And my number came to $17 a phone call at the beginning, which is really low for those that haven't done the math on their own thing. And I, I just started looking at this thing differently, Caitlin. I was like, knowing that, do I give a shit what they say to me on the phone? Knowing if they pick up or don't pick up, if they say yes or they say no, if they cancel or if they don't, I still make $17. Does that make sense? And all of you have that type of number. Whatever your activity is and whatever your deposits are, activity equals money. And what I found is, me included, we all, we get worried about all the stuff in the middle, right? Their activity happens, y'all dial today, and then at some point you get paid. It's the shit from the pick up the phone to the get paid, all that crap is where you all get lost and we become super emotional about it all. And we think it's never going to change, and we think like we believe all the stuff they say, you know what I mean? It was like when you get the objections, like you really believe they couldn't afford it, that's a problem. You really believe that they didn't fill it out. I saw a message from an agent today and they were bitching about leads, and they were like— I saw the message they sent to corporate where they got the leads, like, y'all should be appalled that the number is— and you should be embarrassed by yourself. And they spent all this time to create this insanely emotional email over like $15 leads, you know what I mean? And I'm like, but they believed all of the objections and excuses the person, the people gave them, and they had them lined out. Number 1 said this, number 2 said that, number 3 said this, number 4 said that. And I was like, imagine if you spent that time making phone calls or getting your mind right about the activity, you know, versus taking the time to complain and do all this stuff and be negative. I'm like, do you, do you not understand how this works? You got fail— you got people who want something over here, then you got salespeople over here. And kind of when you suck, and even when you don't initially, these people have their guard up. They have their guard up. They think you want their money, and they're defensive because they think you're over here trying to chase their money. So you have to learn how to navigate that stuff, right? And so many people give up and they believe this person over here on the first spot. And again, I can give a million examples. If again we go into a car dealership, they're like— the car guy walks up to us, what do we all tell that guy? Hey, can I help you? And we all go, just looking. We're in the store, pick a store, your favorite mall, you're picking up a pair of jeans, whatever it is, a little sales guy waggles up, can I help you? Just looking. We all do this bullshit where we have our defenses up. It's just a human, like, mindset. We all have that. And so many of us forget in that moment, we now have to turn on and play this emotional game. And so many of us are trying to just sell, you know what I mean? Like ram through people and just sell right off the rip. Thank you, Mama. Look, we got, check this out, we got dinner delivered. Thank you, baby. So it's like people's approach is incorrect and then they, and I think logically most people understand this. Like, I don't think anyone here is confused and like, oh shit, you're right. Like, I think people understand it, but in the moment is where you lose it and you lose that control. You know what I mean? You lose that intentionality. And one of the things I go over in, in the book, the acronym of DO MORE, my favorite part of this. So if you go through, that's what it actually, there's an acronym to it. I do mean do more. Like most of y'all should get off your ass and work more. Just being really honest. Almost everybody should get off their ass and work more. That will solve most of your problems. Does that make sense? However, as you start going, you do need to have some discipline with stuff. It's not that deep, right? Ownership means like own your shit. Like stop blaming the leads. The leads didn't suck. Maybe you suck and that's okay, right? My favorite part of this, what I'm getting at is mistakes. And it's, it's my favorite chapter in here in terms of thought process because I think that mistakes are so valuable and so many of you let those mistakes slip by you without getting the value out of them. And I think there's 4 major keys to mistakes that people mess up. Number 1, being willing to make mistakes. Most people are not even willing to mess up. Like, intentionally. Like, you know how okay I am with fucking things up? Like, you were a little stressed out about the Zoom. I don't give a shit at all if the Zoom's messed up. Like, at all. Like, why let that bother me? Like, who cares? Does that make sense? I don't care that I mess up on a script. I don't care that I mess up on this training. I don't care in my office when we make mistakes. Now, I don't love repeated mistakes because that means you didn't do anything about it. But the unwillingness to make mistakes means you aren't willing to learn. And I don't know who thinks they're really gonna learn something without mistakes. Give me one thing you're amazing at that you've never messed up. I would love for y'all to type the one thing you're amazing at and you never messed up, you know. So being willing to make mistakes is the biggest piece of that. Number 2 of the 4: owning that you made the mistake. Yeah, backflipping, I can feel the sarcasm, Keith. I love it. Owning that you made the mistake, right? So people go and make mistakes, but they want to, they want to try to validate why things are not their fault. So by default, all of us do it. We all have it. Our natural inclination is to blame someone else immediately for our circumstance. This is how we're wired. So you have to catch yourself doing it. And I always use the example of my, my youngest, Maddox. He plays baseball, and it drives me crazy watching and listening to the parents after our games. So we have a tournament this Sunday, and obviously we play whatever team. Someone's gonna lose. Do you know who the parents are gonna blame? Who do y'all think? Type it. Who do you think the parents most commonly blame for the loss? Not the coaches. There you go, Seth. Umpires. Bad calls. That was a ball, it should have been a strike. They missed that play, they missed that, da da da. And so the kids naturally— now some coaches do the same thing. They blame the umps. Good coaches don't. They take ownership of stuff. But almost all the parents blame the umps, the refs, whatever you want to call them. And it drives me mental. So when Maddox tries to do it because he's a kid and the other kids do it and some of the parents validate it, so the kid will slam his bat, be mad, and dad will go, it's okay, it was the ump's fault. That was a shitty call. You should have had that one. It's not your fault. Da da da. I tell Matt, I'm like, you ain't blaming the ump, dude. There's no way you're getting away with blaming the ump. He's like, it was a bad call. I go, neither here nor there. First of all, to the parents, I'm like, they are qualified to umpire 12-year-olds. Like, how good can you expect them to be? Two, they probably make mistakes both ways, right? So who gives a shit? It's like we all go, I got life going on. I got this, you don't know this, excuse that. It's just like, okay, we all got stuff going on. Who cares? But I always tell Maddox, he's like, I struck out, it was a bad call. That should have been a ball. I'm like, even if I agree with you, why did you put yourself in the situation to where a bad call caused you to get out? If you hit the ball before that you watched go by as a strike, you would have never had the bad pitch to begin with. You could have fouled it off even though it was outside. It was close. You could have fouled it off and got another pitch. You had 2 strikes. You know you're not supposed to watch one go by. Does that make sense? Or hey, what if we scored 19 runs? Would that bad call have mattered? You wouldn't have cared at all. If we were up 19-0 and you struck out on a bad call, we'd be doing backflips at the end of the game, like Keith. You mean like it wouldn't matter. And so many of you people put yourselves in situations to where the bad things impact you. Do you know who doesn't give a shit when they get a chargeback? Hey, who was that person that was— I didn't see the names, it was such small print and I'm blind— the person that was already like 100-something grand over Hall of Fame? Who was that? Mara? Am I saying it right? Mara?

Mara?

Pronouncing it right? Mara? Like, you know, she don't give a shit at all if Mary cancels the policy today. Why? Because she's up 19-0. Who gives a shit? Like, does she prefer that someone cancel? No. But is she gonna lose her ever-loving shit like the people that weren't on the leaderboard? No. Why? Because they set themselves— she set herself up for success, right? Somehow y'all expect the bad things to stop happening. And that's the— that's part of the mistake there, is like, you think it's going to go away eventually. Do you know who has the most chargebacks in here? I bet I'd be willing to bet money it's her. She's selling the most policies. She probably has more cancels and no-shows and gets told to fuck off more than everybody. I know when I was selling $40,000 a month, I got significantly more chargebacks than I was when I was selling $4,000 a month. So if you can't handle negative things at this level Buckle the fuck up at this level, you know what I'm saying? It's like, so we've got, we've got to learn how to deal with these emotional things and stop putting ourselves in the environment where they impact us. And the reason they impact you is because you don't sell enough, and you don't sell enough because you don't make enough phone calls, and you don't make enough phone calls because you either don't have enough leads or you're only willing to try to sell people if leads magically fall out of the sky and hit you in the head. We are all in sales. If you don't have money, you got time, and you can open your front door. I could— oh, I got like houses right across the street. I move in, uh, like 9 days, Caitlin, to our new house, and we're on 12 acres, and then I won't have houses because I hate living in a neighborhood. But like, there's a house right there. If I were broke, I could cross the street, knock on the door, and go, hey, I'm your neighbor, do you need help with life insurance? And I could do that 100 times a day and someone's going to say yes to me. I could go on Google and go like, insurance agencies near me, and I could go to every single one of them and go, hey, I'm in life insurance, do you have any interest in exchanging business or maybe sending me your declines? I could go to every real estate office near me and I could go, hey, I mean, I do mortgage protection. When you close houses, I'm sure some of your clients need coverage. Would you like to create a referral relationship? I could go to mortgage companies, I could do the same thing. I could go to networking groups near me and I could be the insurance guy, put a little tag on and wear my khakis and show up to these stupid networking events and go, hey, my name is John and I sell life insurance. But most of you sit around on your ass and you sulk and you bitch that the insurance industry doesn't work for me. And I'm like, you know, the industry wishes you would work harder. Your family wishes you would work harder. All your friends and family that you complain to wish you would work harder so you'd stop complaining, you know what I mean? And, and you all deserve it. You all deserve to win. This industry is so lucrative and so easy to get business off of. But again, the downside is you think the nos and the negatives are going to go away. And that's like Maddox playing baseball and thinking he's never going to strike out again at some point. Bro, I'm sorry, you're going to strike out more as you get older. And as you get better, the competition gets better, you know what I mean? Try to be number one. It's a different game. Make six figures. Making six figures in this business is like one of the easiest things on earth to do. It's an activity game. Now you want to make— you want to hit Hall of Fame? We got to learn some skill set stuff. Does that make sense? But to sell more than the 1, 2, 3, 4 apps you're selling now a month, or 5 apps, or 6 apps, or 8 apps, like, that's not difficult. And I would challenge all of you to look at, like, think about this. I want you all to type this. I can't believe you have 100 people. 3 people can squeeze in real quick. I'm a big fan of this 100 cap thing, by the way. Y'all better text all your friends and be like, there's 3 spots open. Get in. Um, so I scared 3 away, which I like. Set— type this number. I want you guys to think about this. In the last 7 days, just ballpark it. Don't go analyze stuff. You don't have to look it up. Just the first number that comes to mind. In the last 7 days, how many presentations have you made? In the last week, type your number in. The first number that comes to mind in the last 7 days, how many presentations have you made? I would love to see what we got there. Jared, not bad. I'm gonna let them all come in before I, before I talk too much, Caitlin, because I love to see this. This stuff fires me up. 20-ish, 30. Someone's working. Jacob. I know Jacob. Jacob Senna. I want to see a picture somewhere. I know the name. I've definitely seen you. I feel like I've met you too.

Right here, bro.

Hold on, there's 100 people on the screen. I don't know who I can see. Maybe if I raise my hand, maybe. I don't fucking know. I know, I know the name. We've met, right?

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, here I am. I see 5 people. There's 100 in here. There's only 5 on my screen, so it is what it is. Good to see you. I'll figure out— Justin got 30. Uh, let's see. All right. That's a lot of people. Check this out. Only, only, we'll say 20-ish. I'm gonna give you 20 plus. Only 3. I see the other Justin. 4 people have over 20. Seth, 5 people over 20 so far. Right? So here's how I look at this, and I break this down in the book. Now, you don't have to type this number. Hey, Justin. It was Justin, right? Jacob. No, it was Jacob. Hey Jacob, you still unmuted, bro? Yeah. How long is the average presentation?

Anywhere probably between 30, 45 minutes, 25 if it's a quick one.

We're gonna, you, you must be really good at selling, I'm sure, 'cause you've been around I think for a minute and your, your name sounds familiar, so you must not be broke. So we're gonna, we're gonna give people that are slower and newer a little, little grace and say an hour of presentation. Sure.

Okay.

So now I want all of you to look at your number, and if you multiply that by 1 hour— remember, we're in sales— how many hours did you spend presenting to clients this week? It's the same number you typed if I give you an hour per presentation. And I want you to really think about how mad you are about your current results how much you complain about your situation, how hard it is for you to pay your bills, all the things you're struggling with. And ask yourself, if I say out loud, this is how many hours I put into my sales career this week, how many of you are— on a scale of 1 to 5, call it— how many of you are level 5 excited out of your mind to announce your number of hours for the week at your career based on the numbers you posted. All right. And I know we gotta make some phone calls. Those take a minute. You know what I mean? It's like even if you're doing 1,000 of them, it's not that many hours if they're timed. You know, and I, I looked at it for me, Caitlin, and my, my number was 8 a week. I was presenting 8 times a week. And again, I said I was at my peak, at that point, I, I'd be rounding up if I said I was making 300 phone calls a week, right? And if it takes me an hour to make 60, I got 60, 120, 240— call it 5 hours on the phone and 8 hours presenting. Does that make sense? I was, I was, I was either prospecting or presenting for 12 hours a week, but I was mad at my result. And I had to look myself in the mirror and go— this is how I talk to me, so don't take offense, this was my conversation to me— I was like, bro, you're being a fucking bitch. 12 hours a week? What are you doing? And the biggest change I made in my career is I decided I was going to spend 40 hours a week Prospecting and presenting. I included recruiting for those that read the book and know my story fully. And again, 40 hours is the standard at full-time. That's mediocre at best in terms of number of hours. You don't get any awards for working 40 hours. No one's like, holy shit, you should slow down. No one in your family is wowed by 40 hours. Does that make sense? You get no awards for that. Any of y'all ever have like 2 jobs and struggle and work 60, 70, 80 hours a week? Any of y'all who's done that? Imagine if you put 60, 70, 80 hours into this thing. You know, imagine John Wetmore sent you a check for a dollar every phone call you made. Every week, just direct deposit, just, just a buck. You've been having people make 2, 3, 4,000 phone calls a week, but then I get to keep the overages, the deposits. I'll send you the money. I get to keep all the, all the, all the commissions, not even the overages. I get commissions. I would win obnoxiously, you know, and I wish people would just keep it that simple. And again, everybody goes, I don't have any money. I already, already overcame that objection. You can get your ass out there and work. And my opinion is, my personal opinion, I had to do this to myself. I was spending 8 hours a week presenting and a handful of hours a week prospecting. I would tell myself I started dialing at 8 in the morning and I would dial to 8 PM, but I'd do 127 dials in that window or 200 or 300. I'd take 12 hours to do 2 and a half hours worth of work. But I always go, if I had a gun to your head, how quick could you do 500 phone calls? It'd be a lot quicker than you do the 500 now. You know, I don't still dial, Walter, because I want— I didn't want to do sales forever. I didn't want to be an insurance sales guy for my career. So what I focused on was, one, how quick can I get myself out of the hole? And by doing that 40-hour thing, I went from selling $8,000 issue paid, $10,000, which y'all know that are doing that, it's no money. You're making $4,000 or $5,000 a month max. I went from doing that to putting in 40 hours. This was— I made this decision in March of 2015. I'm now 2 and a half years into the business. Nobody knew my name. Nobody gave a shit. I was sitting in the back of every training, just kind of watching. I wasn't teaching on stages. I wasn't who y'all see today, but I made an active decision that I was going to do no less than 40 hours making phone calls as if they were timed and presenting to clients, and that was going to be my deal. The very next month, I issued over $40 grand. I went from 8 to 40 overnight. I hit $460 grand that year, and And again, I didn't change this until March. So in 9 months, basically I did $450 grand 'cause I had barely sold any in January, February. And a big part of the revelation for me was that convention. The first convention FFL had was in February of 2015. Had a conversation with Mark Mead, who I'm sure most of y'all know. And I started looking at his numbers and he was the threshold for me because he was running significantly amount more appointments than I was. And he had got himself out of $250 grand in debt. He had young kids like I did. He was married like I was. I related to his personality and I'm like, yo, this cat can run that many appointments, why can't I? Now, I didn't know how to get on stage and speak like Mark, but I'm like, I can go see as many people as Mark, you know? And that year he had sold like $350 grand. It's the first year at FFL. And I was like, I can— why didn't someone tell me this was just working harder? I wish someone told me that because I thought it was all this other stuff, all the smoke and all the knowing the lead type and the county you pick and what time you make your first dial. I thought all that shit mattered. Quick break in the video. This is John Wetmore. I want to invite you to join my new school community. You will get access to tons of free sales training. There's a community of other insurance agents looking to win. We have hundreds of them already in there. Where we're giving out answers to questions people have, coaching, guidance, tips on not only selling but building, team, team stuff, leadership tips. And I'm personally in there responding to messages, putting out challenges, talking about our wins, our losses, our struggles, and sharing things that'll help you win as well. To join now, go to JohnWetmore.com/School, which is S-K-O-O-L. The link is also below. And I'm like, oh, you just have to work hard? I had my first kid at 16 coming on the way. Like, I've been working hard my entire life. I wish someone told— spoke to me like I'm speaking to y'all. I wish someone did it. I'm somewhat glad they didn't because I get to tell the story that's very relatable to a lot of you, you know. Again, I'm not the guy that's like, come in first day, sell $1 million. I don't know that path. But for me, I, I changed that year, $460 grand issued, uh, 2015. I, I, I was number 4 in the company that year amongst the Andrew Taylors and Mark Meads and some of the other guys that maybe, maybe do, maybe you don't know. Um, and for the next 2 and a half years, I ran that schedule. I put a schedule together. I've talked about it in the book and a million other places. So I ran that, ran that type of schedule that I changed to for the next 2 little over 2 years, 2 and a quarter years, I put a million bucks in my own pocket on my own pen, um, and I started teaching this method. I literally turned it into literally fucking do more now and we'll worry about getting better later. I, I do want you to get better, but what I've learned is people prioritize training number one and work number two. I see so many people on training calls in the morning and they don't start battling until 10, 11, 12 o'clock in the afternoon. And then they take a break and then they dial for an hour and then they get on another training. And I'm like, how about we go shift it? Work your ass off, then train. I'm not saying eliminate training. I'm not saying you shouldn't study your craft, but why are you doing it at 10:00 AM? Yeah, I can give you a schedule in the book. Actually, there's a picture of it. I'll give you the schedule. Anything anyone else wants to know? I'm going to kind of take a deep breath there. If you want to know anything, and Caitlin, if you got anything, obviously just shut me up and I'm in no rush. But schedule, anything else you want to know? That was the change. And to whoever asked if I still dial, I started teaching this concept from that point on. And end of 20, the start of 2015, I had no agents. I was trying to, but I had none. Selling monthly. And for perspective, 10 years ago, a little over now, January of 2014, I made $800 for the month in this business. Just over 10 years ago, my deposit in January of 2014 was $800 for the month. And so I started teaching this. And I do teach people sales. I just won't teach people sales till they work their ass off. You want to know about phone script? You better have 500 phone calls a day. I'm not teaching you phone script. You want to know how to overcome objections in the house? You better be seeing 20, 30 people a week, or I'm not teaching you how to overcome objections in the house. Why? He's like, that— you're mean. Because it won't help if you're seeing 3 people a week. It doesn't matter. I don't— I can tell you everything to say. You see 3 people a week or make 62 phone calls a week, nothing I tell you will help. And I feel like I'm lying to people when I go, just use this phone script, it'll fix everything. Whoever tells you that is full of shit. Go work hard. And then when you make a bunch, when you have a bunch of reps, now we can tweak stuff. If you don't give me a bunch of the mistakes, which we talked about earlier, the things about the mistakes, right? And it's like, so after you accept that you've made the mistakes, now the third thing is taking feedback from others who are better than you at what you're trying to do is the third part of those mistakes. And then the fourth thing, and the most critical that most of you won't do, cuz you've all been on trainings and you still don't do the stuff that they've said. The number 4 part is implementing the stuff you've been told to do. From someone who's better than you, not your buddy who bitches, the people that are better than you and making the money you wanna make. If you implement it, although it's uncomfortable and although it seems counter to what you think and some of the things don't make sense, you are the one who's stuck and doesn't know what you're doing, or you wouldn't be in the situation you're, you're in. So you've got to be willing to be coachable. And open your, open your mind to different ways of doing things and attempt them even though they're scary, even though they don't make a lot of sense. And if you don't want to do those— so 4 keys to mistakes, how valuable they can be for you— if you don't want to do those things, it's okay. Just stop complaining about your situation because it's not going to change. Accept it. And be okay with it, because success is just a decision for every one of you. All of you are a decision away from changing your entire world. So I go into that year, 2015, I start recruiting a lot more. I start recruiting appropriately. I start teaching people how to make money. I start teaching this method. Um, 2015, I make— I I net, 'cause advance money, chargebacks, things like that, I netted probably $350 grand that first year making a change. Second year, 2016, I netted $650,000. Started getting to more agents. 2017, I was up to probably 40, probably 40 agents selling every month. By the end of the year, I might have had 60 or so. Made $1.8 million in 2017, 40, 50 agents. And I got out of the field that year to whoever asked if I'm still dialing. Because I just started— I started being— I started being really attractive because I was keeping it really simple. I was being really honest with people. And this business is not complicated. Is it hard? If you call getting yelled at and getting told no to make $200,000, $300,000, $400,000 hard? Yes, it's hard. Sure. Do you have to learn some skill set stuff? Yes. But you want to make that kind of money, where don't you want— where don't you have to learn hard stuff? You know, you want to be in the NFL, you got to learn a big fat playbook, and then you get traded to a new team, you got to learn another one. Hell, some of y'all know the fucking NFL playbook better than the players, and yet you won't make phone calls, you know? And you have expectations of other people be professional. Your favorite player messes up, runs the wrong route, drops the ball, and you lose your shit. And I'm like, do you lose your shit when you drop the ball in your career? Because you should. And this thing has just been insane since. And fast forward today, we're up to— I don't know, we did— we've done since this change cumulative to date, Caitlin, we've done— we've issued some— somewhere we're getting close to probably $750 million in premium cumulatively lifetime in the last 9, 10 years. Um, we did a little over $200 million last year. We issue a few million, $3, $4, $5 million a week. We had, I don't know, 6,000 agents sell a policy last year, a couple thousand a month sell every month. And, um, I've only taught this— go back and watch them all— this is, this is a very simple way to do business. Um, the schedule, Jacob, I'll tell you, y'all are going to be disgusted if I tell you how many days I worked and sold insurance. Um, there's actually a picture of the schedule in here somewhere. I'll find it. But I sold insurance to issue $460 grand. Anybody know? Does anybody actually know the number? Anybody in here read the book to know enough? How many days a month? There we go, Seth. Hey, Jeremy. But y'all know, some of y'all know the story. Do you remember the days? Who knows the schedule? Who can type it? See how good you are. I've been preaching it for 10 years. Who knows my schedule? Be really interesting to see while I try to pull it up. Hell, who knows what page the schedule's on? That'll fucking help me. It's in here somewhere. There it is. I actually have my actual handwritten schedule. There we go. There we go. Line it up. I ran 11 days a month is how much I sold insurance. I come from field sales. I would go see clients, kitchen table. Hell, I used to fly to Utah to sell from Atlanta. I've flown to Ohio and I've sold all over Georgia. I've sold in 50 counties in Georgia. But my schedule was make phone calls Monday, and you can use some variation of this. Obviously, telesales is different. It's the intentionality for me. But I, I only sold insurance Tuesday, Wednesday every week. Monday, Tuesday appointment, Wednesday close. I did Tuesday, Wednesday every week and I had my kids, um, every other weekend. So I didn't wanna work every other weekend. And then I had my 4 kids for dinner. Obviously I live with Maddox, but I had 4 kids from previous marriage. I would pick them up for dinner and I'd take 'em to Wendy's every Thursday night. So I didn't wanna work Thursday nights and I didn't wanna work every other weekend cuz I wanted my kids. And so I, I ran appointments every week, Tuesday, Wednesday. So that's 8 days a month, Tuesday, Wednesday, all 4 weeks. And then I ran every other Friday when I did not have my kids for the week. The Fridays I had my kids, I didn't run. And then I ran one Saturday a month. But I would see, I would schedule in-home, I would schedule 10 or 12 appointments a day. So my in-home appointments were 120 a month, 1,500 a year. I figure 500 no-show me, I see 1,000 of them. And my goal was to sell 250 apps out of 1,000. I was okay with a 25% close ratio. Let me go see 1,000 people a year and who gives a shit what the rest looks like? I just don't care. And I messed up and sold like 400 of them. So life was good, you know, picked up some annuities here and there and made a shitload of money. And, um, and I've been, I've been teaching this thing since. So there is actual copy of the schedule. Uh, let's see if there's any other questions. The first month you did 40, how many dials? I didn't. So for me, Bryce, I had a, no, I, I was going to schedule 10 or 12 people a day no matter how many dials it took. Um, early on when I changed it, sometimes it would take 4, 5, 6, 700 phone calls. That became super rare though, because my give a shit level went away because I understood it was the numbers part of it. And it made my tonality stay really smooth. I stopped caring about the result. I was just like, hey, this is John, getting back to you about the form you filled out about the mortgage. My job's really simple. I gotta come out and get you the information. They got me out there tomorrow. What time you home? Do you prefer morning, afternoon, whatever? However I ended it was based on my schedule. And I would just do that so smooth. I just didn't, I just didn't care. So the emotionality was removed. So there was less like friction between calls. With time, my, my goal, just being real. So Mike Kilimatt was, was my closest mentor. He's, he's since retired. He really liked to eat lunch and he was really good on the phones. But I used to want to go to lunch with him so I could pick his brain, if you will. And so I knew I had to get to work hard because I, if I didn't have I had my 10 to 12 appointments booked for the next couple run days. I wasn't gonna leave to go to lunch. That was the punishment. I had to keep dialing. So I would start dialing at 7:00 AM so I could get a head start. And a lot of times I was done by lunch just because I would knock out 400 phone calls before lunch. And, you know, sometimes I had to make a couple phone calls at night to clean some stuff up, but Every once in a while, you know, but as I started going, the momentum caught in. I got really good. I got really confident. I didn't— I believed, like, when you get a level of confidence, you believe in this thing more and you start speaking differently. Your whole aura changes, and it's a lot easier to book appointments when you're confident than when you don't believe in this and you think the leads suck and you need to pay your bill. It, it is very different. Um, so I started, I started— I sometimes I could book 20 appointments on like 50 phone calls. I mean, like, not every week, but sometimes, like, a great day, I'd be done in a couple hours. A shitty day, I'd be done by 5, 6, 7 o'clock, whatever. Um, you know, there was never— it wasn't always the same. Let's see, sacrifice. Let's see, with kids full-time, best advice is to schedule out quality time. Yes, I agree, you should schedule— which again, I did. I scheduled time with kids and all Jazz. Uh, how'd you train people from when you first started? It's a lot to go through, Seth, because I could talk about training people forever, but I'm a big, like, short-term goals and structure is the best thing I've ever learned from Sean. And so for me, I, first of all, when I'm looking to recruit people, probably what I do counter to almost everyone else is when I'm interviewing, I, um, I'm looking for a reason to say no and not hire them during the interview. My interview is trying to weed them out and get them— get off the phone, man. So anything I can do, anything I can find to get off the phone, that's what I'm hunting for. So I'm like interrogating people when I interview them because I want to make sure they're a good fit for me. Because if it ain't a good fit for me and you ain't going to work hard and understand commission, you're broke as shit and aren't willing to get off your butt and get a job, like Again, for me, I start looking at like people that run 5, 6, 7, 8 appointments and then complain and also don't have a job. I find it really weird. I'm like, what do you do all day? You're willing to make no money in insurance and not work? I don't— I mean, unless it's like a single mom and she has no choice, I don't have a ton of respect for people that sit around like that. So if someone's broke as shit and they don't work, I don't hire them. So for me, I just give them one thing to do at a time. Hey, can you get in class? Yes. Can you register tonight? Yes. I'm gonna send you the link. Shoot me a text. Let me know when you register. Hey, Seth, if you don't shoot me a text tonight, I'm gonna assume you quit. Is that okay? And you'll say yes, and you either text me tonight or you don't, and I move on with my day. Because I'm interviewing— I was interviewing 30 people a week no matter what. So it's just, you know what the steps are to get licensed. I have a rule that I won't give you step 2 until you complete step 1. So when I'm teaching people about getting started, rule 1 is buy leads. What about phone script? Phone script don't matter if you don't have leads. Buy leads. Let me know when you bought leads. I'll give you step 2 next. All right, I bought leads. Cool. Here's the phone script. Study it. Can you dial Monday? Yeah. But what about in-home? What about product? Dude, you don't even have any appointments booked. We don't need to know product yet. Go book some appointments and then I got you. Remember, code, I got you. Go book some appointments, then we'll talk. And I just, one step at a time, I'm always just challenging people to move one step further, one step further, one step further. And I put the burden of communication on other people. I always give people homework and I always tell them to get back to me when they're done. And for me, I always assume that they quit if they don't, if I don't hear from them. And I've always had a willingness to Like, I understood I was as 1099 as the rest of y'all. So if you don't— if you're not coachable and you don't do the things you say you're going to do, I'm 100% sure I'll quit you before you quit me. And that was my recruiting pitch. And I didn't give a shit because I was making half a million bucks on my own pen. Like, who cares, you know? So I wanted to— I wanted to work with people that, um, that wanted to help their family as much as I did. And even though I made mistakes, I had a willingness to learn and get better, and I just want people who are willing to work hard. I don't care if you suck. I got the great pleasure of being able to train Easton when he was new, in combination with Zach. Zach was still pretty new at the time, and I loved working with him because he worked hard from day one, and he sucked ass at sales. He was not good, but I got to be there at the beginning working with Easton and coach him one-on-one a lot. But he was so coachable and he was so willing to work hard. He was so willing to make mistakes and he was so willing to be honest about the problems he was having. So it was really easy to tweak stuff. And I was just looking for people like that. I wasn't looking for people who had to come in and kill it. I really enjoy helping people like that are struggling but willing to work hard, make some tweaks to mindset and activity. And those are really the only two things I ever focus on, it's mindset and activity. 'Cause just be real, for over 90% of y'all, none of the other shit matters 'cause you're gonna quit anyway. Some, you know what I mean? Like, that's just what the stats are. And so for me, I'm always looking for people who are willing to get to that next level or stay here, do your thing, just stop complaining because it's going to be inconsistent and stuck forever if you don't change. It's just what it is. And most people aren't willing to tell you that. I, I just, I've been doing this 12 years. If you don't change, it will be inconsistent and suck forever. Is that fair, Caitlin?

That is completely fair. Yes. Thank you, John. You answered every question, um, wonderfully. Thank you so much for everything that you do for us. Um, you guys, I would highly recommend getting that book and just, you know, everything that he's saying. He's so raw and real. It's like You hear me say it all the time, but like to hear it from a third party and somebody that's done a lot more than me in this business, it's like it's the same exact thing. It's like, yeah, we work hard. That's it. We put our emotions.

Here's the thing. Caitlin is really good. She's really fucking good, but she's really good because she put in the reps and she's coachable as all get out. And if y'all knew, I can't wait till one day— and I know a couple of people probably know Caitlin because you got some people you're close with. If they knew, oh my God, the stuff that you have to go through, you personally have had to go through, like all of us, everyone has. You're not unique in that way, but the things that you've gone through to build what you've built and help the people you've helped, and how different you are to most people in this industry relative to how much you care and your willingness to help other people win. I wish we could sit down and chop it up and share like the real, you know what I mean? Like all the details one day, but it'd be a little too deep for some of them. Um, I love what you're doing and, um, I'll share with them too. Y'all have a school group. I have one if y'all want to follow some of my shit. Obviously I'm on social. Some of y'all follow me already. Um, but I certainly have a school group. I give away a ton of free content and trainings and all kinds of stuff. I just put the link in there, um, as well if, um, if I can help. And I'm open. I don't know what your schedule is. I'm in no rush.

So if you have questions, John, you sent that directly to me, uh, in messages. If you want to send it to everyone, you sent it directly.

Oh yeah, yeah. I see. That's 'cause I'm an idiot. There you go. Normally Amanda does this stuff for me when I'm on these. Thank you, bro. I just, I think I got it right that time. So anything else you need, Caitlin? Again, I'm in no rush. So if you got anything, I would love to talk about it.

I mean, this is all super useful. I mean, I think that the biggest thing that like I learn every time I speak to John is just that, you know, we all go through our stuff. Like every single person here has their stuff. But if you let that stuff overwhelm your life, you're never gonna get past it. And the stuff is what makes you stronger. So it's like, take it from me, like John and I have chopped this up multiple times. I mean, he's helped me through adversity. There's been stuff that's gone on that you guys don't even have any idea. Like you guys would like throw up, you'd be like, I quit, you know, like I'm done, I'm out. Like I just run off the rails.

Hey, the guy that went off his rails about the $1,200 chargeback, or the person that got a $2,000 rollup is losing their mind.

I'm like, excuse me, it's nothing. It's like, you have to have the mentality of the— this is like live or die, guys. Like, when I was actively in the field, it was like I either hit my goals or like I die. That's how I felt about this business. And I believe in this business so much, and I believe in every single one of you, or I would not be here right now. I would not be— I would have not called John and been like, hey, let's get on a call if I didn't care about you guys. I want you guys to win. I know you guys can do it. There is nothing that separates you from anybody else on this call than your own, than your own belief in yourself. Do you believe in yourself? Do you believe you can do it? Get rid of the self-limiting beliefs because that's only going to hold you back. Bet on yourself, invest in yourself, and see where it can take you.

I mean, I like seeing, uh, is it Kinsley? I like seeing a little guy on here with us. I'm a big— I got 5 kids. I love seeing babies. Well, he's not a baby, but in my head all kids are babies. So what's up, little man? Hope you're good. Jacob, I see you now, bro. I got you. I see a shitload of people now.

Yeah, thank you so much. We appreciate it. This is, um, recorded, so, you know, we can obviously share it in our course as well. Everything just goes into our school course. So, um, you know, we got your school course.

Yeah, yeah. If I can, again, if I can help or anybody has any questions, I'm wide open to help if you want.

Okay, one more question before we let him eat his dinner though.

Someone unmute.

Waiting. One, you gotta unmute though. Nope, you gotta unmute. You can't just—

Ravens are cheats, huh? Chiefs. Going Chiefs. Boo. I don't know, John. I got a bad answer.

As far as recruiting, if that works, one question for recruiting. We're getting a lot of contact with people, and, uh, you know, big that I'm getting is just like, you know, give them the spiel and everything. I know you want to weed them out, um, and when you find these solid candidates, what's, what's, what's the major factor as far as getting these guys to just make that jump, uh, to schedule their exam? Because I feel like I'm getting them all the information and, you know, they're, they're, you know, you know what I mean? I'm getting them everything they need to hear, uh, but what's it going to take to get them to make that jump?

So when you say give them the spiel, so if I'm, if I'm on with you, I go like, hey dude, so you, you call me, I'm applying, hey Jacob, just, just Jacob calling, what's up? I go, yeah man, hey dude, yeah, just trying to figure out this insurance thing, you know, can you, can you give me some more info? Yeah. Where do you, where do you go? What's the very next thing you say?

Uh, if they're trying to like get into the business and they want some more?

Yeah, yeah, dude. Hey man, saw the ad. I just want to get started. Looks cool. Tell me a little bit more.

Well, I'd probably want to have to have that. I'd probably ask them a couple of questions first. I mean, what made you even want to hop on the call with me to begin with?

Thank you. Right. I'm, I'm, I'm out of my mind excited that that's your answer, to be clear. You know, I got nervous when you said I give the spiel, because if you remember when you first started, you would have answered all their questions to start.

Right.

And you know, that's something that I, you know, from the last time that we talked is I try and get them to ask me some questions, you know, and also I got you on this before.

Uh, yeah, but I was trying to catch you again.

No, my biggest thing is it's like I do a two-timer, right? So I'll talk to them the first time and just kind of get a feel for them. Then I'll send them.

They see something before y'all talk, uh, just watch a video.

I got on social media, everything on social media for the most part, and I got to reach out directly and they put them on.

One of the, one of the things I did, dude, um, and we, we, we, we still do it a lot. I don't, I don't personally, I do every once in a blue moon I'll talk to someone now, but I, you know, I haven't, I don't do the one-on-one interviews every day anymore. Um, but I'm a big believer in sending people. I always had One, I would leverage Sean's video. I think it's on the whole recruiting site now that y'all get access to, but I made my own also, like a very short 5, 6, 7, 8 minute video. And I would make everyone watch that first because it was like, here's who I am, here's what we're about, here's who I'm looking for. So that weeded out a bunch of people to begin with. And the 3 main points for me I always want to articulate is that invest in leads, 1099 commission only. That's the biggest hurdle for almost everyone. Yeah. So when I get started, they do what I did. I'm like, yeah, dude, great question. Do you mind if I ask you some questions first to see if you'd even be a good fit for me? And then like you said, hey, what got you interested? I assume— for me, I'm going, I assume you got a chance to watch the video. Yep. And I make sure they understand leads, 1099 commission only. If they do, I'll proceed. If they don't, I'm out. I just— I'm not— I'm out, you know what I mean? If they didn't even take the time to watch the video and wrap their head around it, do you think that they're going to pay attention to anything else I send them? I just have no interest, you know? So I'm looking for those things, dude. And then from there, I'm really trying to get an understanding of who they are. I certainly want some— I, I do want them to answer very generically what what gave, why they have interest in it. I just wanna hear 'em talk and I'm, there's no magic answer I'm looking for. I'll pick up things along the way. I'll pick up cues, I'll pick up little verbiage. I'll just pick up things and that'll help me navigate where I want to go. But ultimately what I'm really looking for is like who they are, kind of where they're at in life and where they say they want to go. Does that make sense? So I'm gonna, I'm gonna find out, do they work or they not? Have they ever done commission or not? Have they ever called leads or not? Have they ever been on, you know what I mean, like 1099 world or not? Do they work or not? Is this their first thing, shiny thing? Are they like a thing kind of guy? You know what I mean? Is this their 27th thing? Now they gotta, 'cause the thing you gotta remember, dude, as soon as you hang up with someone, everything sounds exciting and they go, yeah, it sounds great. They now hang up with you and they go tell someone and that someone's like, you answered a guy on Instagram and he wants you to buy leads? That's a scam. Insurance and tech, you know what I mean? Like, you just— there's all this noise that happens. So I'm trying to figure out dynamic. If they're married, I'm like, does your wife know you're looking to get into insurance? Do you pay the bills or does she pay the bills? Like, I want to understand why. Why do I want to know that? Dude, one day when it comes time to buy leads, I don't want her to go, let me ask my wife. I don't want to have that conversation later. I want to have it now. Does that make sense? I want to figure out, do you have any money or not? Do you have money to invest in leads? Well, what do they cost? That means no, right? You have no money. When you ask that up front, that means you have no money. Well, no, dude, are you worried about paying your mortgage on Friday, or do you have like 6 months worth of money in the account? Oh no, I don't get that kind of money. All right, cool. You said you understood investment. Are you prepared? You want to do this full-time, part-time? Kind of figure that out. Are you prepared to invest like $1,000 a week into leads? Are you like trying to scrape by? I mean, and I just read it, dude.

Yeah.

If they're like, yeah, I can invest, I'm like, all right, let me ask you a question, Jacob. You invest $1,000 in the leads, $500 in the leads the first week, you call and all 30 people, you get 30 leads, call it whatever the price, there's all different price points. It's irrelevant today. But you pick up 30 leads, all 30 tell you to fuck off. How are you gonna handle that?

I'd probably still buy some of the views.

Oh, I want, I want to hear what they say. Yeah. Right. I mean, if that's the answer, fucking home run. You're my guy. You're my kind of guy.

Right.

Most go, can that happen? I go, no, no, bro. That's going to happen. My question is, how are you gonna handle it? Does that make sense? And I want to understand this stuff. Are you willing to sacrifice stuff? Because you're gonna do this in addition to your current job. What are you willing to give up to make this happen? 'Cause you have to go get a license first. You're gonna have to spend 20, 30 hours over the next week to get your license. Does your family know you're gonna have to give things up? Do you have 2, 3, 4 hours a night to study? Are you willing to get on a training call at 8, fucking 8:00 PM Eastern to learn some stuff? Are you willing to give up soccer on Saturdays? I wanna know all this stuff now. Why? Because most of y'all on here, when someone goes, hey, can you dial tomorrow? You're like, I have the barbecue, I have this, I have that, I have that, and you deal with it all after the fact. It's like spending an hour and a half with a client and then getting, I want to think about it. Why do we get out— why, why, Jacob, do we get, I want to think about it, after an hour and a half? What's the main reason?

Uh, it's probably, you know, either credibility on your end, you didn't build the value, something along those lines, or after an hour and a half You suck fucking ass at asking questions. That's probably it, yeah.

You suck ass at asking questions.

I ain't staying an hour and a half on no call, that's for damn sure.

Me either, dude. But it's the same concept. How do you hire people and then you find out after they're contracted they have no money and they can't work Saturdays and the barbecue's— how does that happen? You suck ass at asking questions.

Yeah, you're not right.

That's why, because they're afraid.

Same structure every single time.

Just like sales. Why do new agents suck at asking questions? Questions. You know the biggest reason they don't do it even though they hear us tell them to do it? Why? I have fear. Um, let's see that. So why do people that are recruiting have fear? Why do they not ask these— into these what sound intimidating questions? They have fear. Yep. They're dying to hire someone and they hear all the noise. Yeah, man, I work hard. I'm your guy. I'm going to be the best. I was the best sales guy at my last 17 jobs. I have no fear of the phone. Yeah, I'll be on everything. I'm your guy. They're all going to tell you that shit. It's like when y'all are on Tinder and Bumble and all the other stuff, they tell you how great they are and then you meet them and they look like, holy shit, this isn't anything like you said. You know, it's the same thing. Sure. So it's like I'm just trying to get— I'm trying to do all the heavy lifting up front. But I don't waste all my time over here, you know what I mean? I just want to know as much as I can about who I'm about to get in business with, and I'm making the decision if I go forward. And anything I see, red flag, I'm like, I'll call it out. I'm like, yo, wait, you said this, can you, can you expound upon that more? You said you might be able to invest in leads, can you— what do you mean by that? Hey, you said you're going to try to get done with the course, what do you mean by that? Hey, you said I'm going in, dude. I'm not letting them like fluff me. I'm not taking the noise. No, I'm saying, yeah, and that doesn't mean every person I get started, um, lights it up, dude. Yeah, but there's, there's extreme clarity, right? And then I give them coachable and do what you say you're going to do and communicate if you can. But if I go, hey, make X amount of phone calls and send me your tracker tomorrow, If I, if I told 90 people right now, 80 people, I, I challenge 80 people right now. If you— I want you to go and dial a minute a dial, spend 8 hours dialing, 3, 4, $500 tomorrow. Do your little dial tracker, dials, contacts, presentations, however you do it, and DM me a picture of your activity tracker. I'll give you feedback. How many of the 80 do you think will do it tomorrow, bro?

Less than half.

Oh bro, I won't get 10. Yeah, yeah, I don't get them.

Yep.

Why? Because they aren't going to put in the fucking activity and they're embarrassed.

Yep.

Right. So now it gives me the power. They won't come to me and complain because I'm— and if I do it the right way and I'm like, are you willing to start at 8? Are you willing to start at 7? Are you willing to make 60 phone calls an hour? All right, I can work it. Are you willing to do 500 phone calls? Are you willing? If I get the yeses out of them and then I go, hey, cool, do this and let me know. If they don't do the activity, they're not gonna reach out because they said they would do it and they did it and they know my rule, which removes all of the mental, uh, strain that we have from dealing with all the noise trying to drag people to success. That make sense? So I make it so easy for them to do one step and let me know. Do you know how valuable it is to have someone send me a dial tracker and me give feedback on it? You know how much you can learn from something so simple? 90%. I challenge people every day, bro. I did with 2 people yesterday, bro, that pay me for coaching. They pay me to coach them and they didn't send me their activity tracker at the end of the night. I'm like, they pay me and still didn't do it. You know what I'm saying?

That's crazy.

So I'm just— I'm looking— I hope that helps. You know, I mean, I know, but you know, going towards it, dude. And then it's a lot of reps, bro. How many people I've hired? It's obnoxious. The numbers are— you think— hey, you think dialing leads sucks? Dialing y'all, the numbers are worse, right? Yeah, and y'all the ones that made it. But it's like, it's no joke. But I have such a willingness, man, to help people win and get to the next level. I was willing to go through that. I just wasn't willing to let people drag me down emotionally because I did that far too long. And what I learned, bro, is if I let the people who are negative and complain and bitch about everything drag me down, I don't have the energy for the good people. Does that make sense? Yeah. Caitlin and I talked about welfare systems. Like, one of my least— can I say it, Caitlin? Do you care? Can I let it rip? One of my least favorite things on fucking earth in this business is free lead programs. I hate them. I'm like, y'all know that's welfare, right? And welfare don't work. Free leads are not free to y'all. They're free to y'all. They're not free to me. They're sure shit not free to Caitlin. They're not free leads, you know what I mean? Like, we adjust con and all this stuff. It's like, don't y'all want to be independent? Isn't 1099— you're independent contractors. You're independent contractors. Y'all are all independent contractors, and we put ourselves in a position to where we're dependent on someone else to drag us and beg us to have success. And I'm like, yo, if my brain is like— someone already said it in here— I'd rather take the higher commission. Like, especially if you take a lower commission, it's like, y'all know they ain't free when you make less money, right? And if someone's willing to give you free leads, you know there's enough cushion in the way all the numbers work for them to not lose their ass too. And for me, if I was giving someone freely— I taught you, I told you how I do it, Caitlin. I hope like hell you change it. Um, you know, for me, if I'm, if I'm helping out someone with leads and they don't work, I'm like, that's like me just paying your water bill and your electric bill. Like, what are we doing? You know what I mean? And I just, I want to create such a community of independence and, and, and people who are willing to go after it, dude, that I just like— I don't know, I had to, I had to learn the hard way. And I hope a lot of this stuff teaches y'all to not run into the same brick walls I did, and you learn a little faster. But don't, don't regret and don't take for granted the hard pieces of it as you continue to grow and learn. Because again, the mistake piece, if I didn't go through all those phases, I wouldn't know what I know today. All the shit I complain about, those were the most valuable pieces of my journey. So I don't regret any of them. I just try to minimize and not continue to make the same repeated mistakes over time. But I'm so thankful I got to learn from them. You know what I mean? Absolutely.

Thanks, man. I do appreciate it.

That was huge.

Huge.

Thanks, John. You've really put a lot of things into perspective for me as well. And, you know, we all like— if you guys want a guinea pig, it's me and John, really. We've gone through it all. We know exactly what works and what doesn't work. I've made plenty of mistakes in this business, and I'm thankful to be able to have those mistakes. I don't regret anything either because I can teach you guys better. But it's like at the end of the day, like the key things that, you know, I always take when I listen to John too is just like consistency, hard work, and do more now, get better later. So we'll leave it at that. John, thank you so much for the short notice and just hopping on with us. We really appreciate it.