I Taught 15 Life Insurance Agents & Agencies How To Make $100k PER MONTH

He's known as the $100 Million Man. What's up? So I don't have like a— this is— if, if y'all follow me at all, this is pretty common. I didn't prepare anything, so it's like, do y'all want to learn more of— I can talk about whatever y'all want. Um, most people somewhat know me here. Um, we can kind of continue on this stuff. We can talk systems. We can talk recruiting. We can talk automation. I can talk about whatever y'all want. You don't know me at all. I'm some jackass from Atlanta that figured out how to sell a bunch of insurance and help a lot of people make a lot of money. I run an agency. Yes, 100%. You ever, you ever, you ever look at someone in the industry, and I'll bet a lot of y'all have had this, And I, I don't ever mean to offend people, but like when I got started in the business, I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't know the limits. I was just trying to make a couple bucks. I mean, I literally started this as a side job, a part-time job to make extra money so I could like buy groceries. But then as I started getting into it, you start seeing people that are like killing it that can't put a sentence together. Does it make sense? And it's like, and you ever go, if like damn, if that jackass can do it, so can I. Has anyone ever had that thought? OK, me too. But I'm also OK with being someone else's jackass. As I'm up here learning, I want people to look at me and be like, if that dude can do it, so can I. So I say it jokingly, but I'm also serious too because I do think that a lot. I'm a big believer that I can— I think if someone else can do something, why can't I? I think that's helped me a lot along the way. But at the end of the day, I don't think I'm anything special. I just think I work hard and put a lot of effort in and learn and make mistakes and figure this thing out. Tell me your name because I don't know you either. Ashley. Cool, Ashley. I heard some of your stuff last night. Someone came up behind me. Who was it? Was it you, Jaylen, that came up behind me? She— he goes, how'd you say it? Yeah, so there you go. Apparently we're a lot alike. Um, the very short version is I got in the business, like, I got my license in 2010. I dialed once and quit. Took 2 years to come back in part-time. Started selling, was mediocre as crap for 2 years. Made some changes, learned how to sell $500 grand of life on my own pen. Um, been, been recruiting and teaching it since. Um, that was 2012. Fast forward to today, a lot of stuff in the middle. Fast forward to today, we is— we finished 2024 with $172 million in life premium paid and $45 million in annuity premium paid. And 4,500 agents to do that. Yeah. So we have about 1,800 to 2,000 a month issue a policy. I had my agency acquired from Integrity Marketing Group 5 years ago. I've helped, I don't know, 4 directs get their agency acquired for multimillions and probably 8 more in depth had their agencies acquired. So I help people build I have a cool team out of Atlanta. What do we have in the office now? I mean, I always— I ask you like every day because I forget. There's 6 of y'all? How many in the office? 5? 5 in the office. Amanda runs my entire operation. She's been with me almost 8 years now. June, July is 8 years. I think 19 when I started, and she was my assistant's assistant. And she used to call them my pending— my agent's pending business. To help get stuff paid when we were doing— where were we at, like $400,000 a month or something when you started? Somewhere in that range? And she just worked her way up and took over and kicked everyone out of the way. And now she runs my whole life. And yeah, so I help people make a lot of money is my goal. So I can talk about any of this stuff. I know a decent amount of people here. So happy to talk about however you want. Or I can just talk at y'all for 40 minutes. I can do that too. I have a question about the— you take care of your agent's pending business. Yeah. I mean, that's got to help tremendously. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, certainly it's changed over the years, right? With all the e-apps and instant decision stuff, it's not quite what it was. Remember when she started? This was 2017. I mean, we're still in the paper era, you know what I'm saying? So it's like then it was still, hey, we got— we'll get back to you in 3 to 5 days to let you know if it's approved. And they just never checked it. But the concept still remains true for me. Is that I always want to focus on helping people get paid. And so if I'm working with agents, whatever it is, whatever process they're going through— like, for instance, say, chargebacks. One of the things that she would pay attention to as well, and I recommend everyone does now, even with instant decision, because it's not as much pending. Certainly a small percentage is. Maybe a bigger case is fully underwritten. Every once in a while, something simplified gets referred. Correct, yeah. You know, but the overwhelming majority of stuff, you know now, especially in the simplified world. But maybe I don't know other products. I don't know Medicare. I don't know health. I don't know ACA. Maybe it's not in. I don't know that, right? But for me, what I did know is you've recruited agents. You know how they can't find their agent number, right? Or what time the training call is that you emailed 72 times. Lindsay sent 400,000 emails and people still don't know anything about the event. Right? So like, I didn't want— I wasn't okay with that because it is my business too, right? And if I want to help them, it was easier for me to go in there myself and identify things that they wouldn't be able to identify and then go like, hey dude, FYI, this policy says, you know, whatever the requirements are. Did you see that? What? All right, and now I know where to train them, you know what I'm saying? So we were trying to get things through. We were trying to get— again, especially paper apps, dude, you miss a checkbox, a signature, of question, it delayed everything, you know. And I'm like, no, we need to get volume through. We need to get them paid so they can reinvest back into leads so they can keep seeing clients. So it was her very first job is to check all the stuff the agents were bad at, quite frankly. And I didn't have time anymore. At this point, we probably had 40, 50 agents selling a month, and I was trying to keep stuff moving. And I was focused on teaching them the sales side and how to close deals and talk to clients and recruiting side and teaching people to start building, and you know what I mean. So I couldn't mess with that. But like one thing I do a lot over the years, I don't do it today, but I've taught a lot of people to do it is like even paying attention to commission statements. You know what I mean? Agents don't check their commission statements every day. Hell, I bet a lot of y'all don't check them every day. I'm like, dude, I know what time every carrier comes up with their commission statement. You know what I'm saying? I know when to log in and look at it when it's updated for me. And I would check the agent stuff as well and I'd know who was getting paid, who was getting chargebacks. You know what I'm saying? It gave me a view of my business that no one else was going to give me. And then it helped me identify— again, it's like as agents get going, especially in the lead-based space where they're buying leads, they lack buying leads because they lack money. If I can get them paid quicker or keep things on the books or teach them how to— like when someone gets a chargeback, a lot of agents lose their mind and freak out. Dude, sometimes it's just a simple banking error. You know what I'm saying? So I can call them and be like, hey, did you see Mary's policy canceled today? Nope. All right. Well, I obviously did a poor job at letting them understand they have to check their stuff every day. So I'm like, hey, dude, Mutual of Omaha, they send an email every day at like 4:12. Can you check your— you know what I mean? And so I would teach them the things they were bad at because I want to teach self-sufficiency. I didn't want to do that forever. So it wasn't like, hey, we're going to do this for you. Y'all just go like pay attention to everything but your business. I just wanted to identify things that they wouldn't. So I knew how to train people going forward and get that again. It's all about getting them paid so they get paid, they can reinvest and keep seeing clients and not go out of business. You know what I mean? So that concept I still do. We watch a lot of stuff. Yeah, we're different now. Like we have an assistant that follows up with all of our business. Yeah. When I was in final expense, I was scared everybody wanted to cancel. Heck yeah. You don't answer. Yeah, 100%. That's most agents, dude. All my money was going out the back door from my mistakes. Yeah. I didn't know that. Yeah. So it's like you got to think the agents, how they're thinking. So I just, again, I want to identify opportunities. I didn't want to do it forever. Because again, you get to the agent size we have now, I'd have to have 20 staff to do that. To me, that made no sense. But I wanted to be able to teach it. And then as I started having managers starting to recruit, I'm like, hey dude, you need to start logging in and checking your people's commission statements and pending and teach that. You know what I mean? And I taught it in depth. So I don't have to do it for that group anymore. So I teach you how to do that. You manage your— we say we got 100 agents and you're 20 of them. I teach you how to do it. Well, now I ain't going to mess with those 20 anymore. I teach you how to do that. So you take on that. So Amanda don't have to check yours no more. She just checks mine. You know what I'm saying? And that's always been the process. And that's why we were able to scale from— I mean, I had 2 staff. She was the second staff I hired. We had her and another girl until the other girl quit. In February of '19. So 2 years, a year and a half later. And then by that point, we were probably at about $1 million a month, a year and a half later. And it was just me and Amanda till— when did we hire someone else? '22? 2022? So from 2019 to 2022, it was just me and her. And we probably went from about $1 million in 2019 to I don't know, $4 million a month with just me and Amanda. I don't— I didn't build this thing with like an enormous staff, right? I always taught people how to build an efficient agency where you can manage 10, 20, 30, 40 agents with you and the staff. If you want to have multiple, great. And I know people that do it differently with a lot of staff. I was just really weak at managing staff. It's not a strength of mine. That's why Amanda does it now. I just say, what's up? I give people high fives. I meet with them. Like, the best thing I did last year was I quit doing staff meetings. I literally quit one. I'm like, I quit staff meetings. I don't belong in them because I get annoyed. I get frustrated. I'm impatient. I don't see what they see. I don't deal with what they deal with. So I'm like, all right, I'm not doing these anymore. And so, what do we, once a quarter, maybe, I sit down with them and they give me updates. And we have a system, you know what I mean? I need updates, but I just, I go like, you're adults, and if things don't get done, nobody's confused on the consequence. You know what I mean? But I just— I was weak there with staff. So I'm like, I didn't want to manage a bunch of staff. I just didn't. And I've gotten better at it now over the years. But early, I was terrible, dude. You give me someone $10.99, teach them how to hustle, like, that's my kind of person. I know how to speak to them the right way. Staff's a different game for me, I think, in general. But for me, it was hard, dude. And so mine was like— I'm sorry. No, please. Did you just have her? Did you do any VAs? Or was it just y'all? Nah, just us two, dude. Yeah. And but now if I looked at the agency, we might have had 15, 20 staff in the agency. They just weren't on my payroll. So the strategy was, let me teach you how to get to— I don't know, again, you're starting fresh. Don't make it simple. I'm gonna teach you how to get to $150 grand. It's 10, 15 agents. I teach anyone how to do that. You know, me go, I want to learn how to do $1 million a month. Why don't we start with teaching you how to do $150 and then teaching you $250, you $150, you $150, you $150. Cool. We're at $1 million. Well, I want to do $1 million. Cool. Find 5 or 6 people to teach them how to get to $150,000. I've never taught someone how to get to a million-dollar-a-month agency, how to get 100 agents. Does that make sense? I'm like, who's going to manage 100 direct effectively? It's hard, dude. Right? So I'm like, let me simplify it. What'd you call the pebble thing or whatever you referenced? Wasn't that you that was talking about that? Who was that? That was good. That was me. Yeah, dude, I've quoted you like 9 times since yesterday. Yeah, I mean, it's so it's like it's that concept, you know, and that was really easy for me. So I just identified people who wanted to do more of what I was doing and I'm like, cool, well, what I'm doing is hiring this many direct and I'd have Amanda do this and da da da. And I used to try to teach you how to train your staff. And one day I was like, well, you don't have to train staff. Neither one of us do what the staff does. Granted, I've done everything especially early that my staff had done. But I'm like, why don't I have Amanda train the staff and I just train you? So that strategy is what we've still done today. Amanda's trained hundreds of staff over the years. And I'm like, all right, here's the strategy. We know what we do because that's what we do. And she goes in and teaches them how to do the back end piece. And I work with the manager direct. And I'm like, Amanda will handle this shit and I'll handle this side. And we kind of meet in the middle on some stuff. And it was just very duplicatable for me. I wanted duplicatable. And to me, hiring 8 staff is not duplicatable for a lot of people. But I think anyone can hire 1. So I'm like, I can teach you to build— I mean, I was knocking down $150,000 a month with 1 staff and me just working in revenue, not like paid volume. So I'm like— Tell me what percentage of agents would be happy with that? Minus a few of us like 1%ers, big vision people, the reality is 99% of people would be fired up knocking down 6 figures a month. Oh my God, I can teach that at scale, dude. You know, that's just kind of what we focused on. And it starts with little stuff like this. And just everything's— how duplicatable is it? Copy and paste process systems. And we have a ton, as you know. We have a complex backend today, you know? And I think one of the mistakes people make with systems, like we were working with this guy recently, he reached out and again, part of our funnel stuff is like people want systems and automations. Well, I'm a like go-high-level nerd. I like automations, I like process. I'm just, I'm wired like that. So I built a lot of cool things over the years. And today we have two like actual developers on staff and I was talking to this guy that wanted to purchase our recruiting and onboarding system, and Amanda's starting to set them up. And we were like, all right, what do you do here? Like, at this stage, you know, when you hire an agent new, what, what do they get next? Like, you hire them today, what do you send them? He's like, okay, well, I said, send me all that stuff at each stage, whatever you send the agents, emails, text, trainings they have to get on. Websites they have to go to, whatever the process is, getting licensed, getting contracted, all the stuff you do in the middle. Like, send me your process and then we'll automate everything. The first call he gets on, he's like, yeah, um, so how's it going? I'm like, you haven't sent us anything. He goes, yep, we want you to build it. I'm like, yeah, no, we're going to build it, dude, but I need your process. He's like, I don't have one. I'm like, you hire agents though. He's like, yeah. I'm like, what do you send them when you hire them? He's like, Literally was like nothing. And he started using these analogies. I don't know what it— we were really confused because he started using analogies of like having a Kia and having a Lamborghini. And he's like, and you have a Lamborghini system and I only have— and I want the Lamborghini and da da da. And I was like, all right, dude, let me explain something to you. Automations, systems, process. For me, there's always a way to replace something I already do manually. Does that make sense? And this guy couldn't grasp that. And so I said, who's the dude that the car guy, Ford, Henry, Henry Ford? I told some of this last night, like he made the assembly line. That's what made him who he is today. Right. But before he made the assembly line, you do know he knew how to build a car. Like he could already build the car. The system made building the car faster, smoother. So if you don't know how to build the car in your business, no automation is going to help you. Does that make sense? You can't just magically have an automation. You have to know how to do the thing first. And even if I give you an automation, if you don't understand what's happening in the backend, when the assembly line breaks down before the tire gets on, And you're sitting there going, what do we do with this tire? The tire fell off. Well, when you know how to build a car, you know what to do with it. Does that make sense? So with systems for us, it's always been very incremental over time. Where we have a problem, we identify it, and I go, alright, how can we automate? We send anything we do repetitively, or anything we wish would get sent to someone automatically, or whatever, anything repetitive mostly. I go, how can I automate that piece? And I don't ever build automations to not speak to people. And a lot of people want to build automations to not talk to clients and not talk to recruits and not— they don't want to— they want to remove the human connection. And for me, everything we build is to get rid of all the stuff behind the scenes so we can talk to more people. That's where the money's made. So I don't want to get rid of the speaking to people part. I want to get rid of sending the 52 emails a day or get rid of sending the text message reminders or get rid of looking something up. I just— I want to get rid of the behind-the-scenes stuff so we can talk more. And so for us, every automation we've ever built has always been to replace something manual we're already doing. Does that make sense? And that's how we started this. I mean, I remember the very first time we built anything was when I was out in the field and I was recruiting. And I would hire someone. And I'm like trying to drive— and field sales is my background back in the direct mail days. I don't know if that guy's here, but— I built most of this early off direct mail, mortgage, final expense leads. And I'd be out in the field selling. And I'd be in the car driving, trying to recruit someone. And then I'm trying to hire them. I'm writing their stuff down. I'm like, I got the ZipRecruiter ad printed out in my passenger seat. And I'm trying to take notes on the car. And I'm like, all right, Friday night at 9:00 PM, I'm hiring this guy. I know she's already off for the weekend. She ain't coming until Monday. I'm trying to like, all right, we'll send you the stuff on Monday. Amanda, is a chaos. And so she created a form that when I hire someone, I could put in the form and they'd immediately get the, the, the email to put them into class. That makes it really basic form, just like the one you saw up here a minute ago. Name, phone number, email, whatever stuff we needed to send them to get them in the class. We had an email that we always manually sent to someone and I'm like, dude, why don't we put a form together? As soon as I put their info in the form, it sends them the email automatically. I was like, Shit, so now she doesn't have to come in Monday morning and send 27 people the same email that I hired all weekend. Does that make sense? So it freed her up, and it made my job easier, and it got people in class now instead of having to wait until next week. And that concept is just stuff we've always done. I look at it— literally, what we were talking 2 minutes ago, I had an idea. Well, Cody was using me as an example. I pulled them in the back, and I'm like, hey, I have an idea how to do something with— 100%, dude. I mean, I'm like an idea— maniac, and it's like, how can we make our system better? It was part of the funnel. We have an event coming up, and it hit me. I'm like, yo, one of the things we question is, um, is systems and recruiting. Well, hell, that's what we're gonna be talking about at the event. I'm like, why don't we take that segmentation and create a very direct campaign to them? Hey, saw you coming to our thing. Your biggest struggle is recruiting and systems. We're having an event February, blah blah blah, and I don't know, they're gonna come up with something now. I just have the idea. You know, so does that make sense? Cool. What else does that help, by the way? Yeah, I've got like a million questions. Please. You don't want to steal the show? No, no, I think people should steal the show because Justin doesn't care and he's going to do it. Go. If you're in the insurance space and trying to build an agency or you're trying to like break records in sales, just hit new levels, new heights. Click the link below to apply to my consulting and coaching program that I have out there. Um, I'm helping tons of people get to new levels, get to new income heights, help them build their teams, put systems in place, staffing stuff, recruiting processes, automations. Um, just teaching people how to get to a point where they're selling on their own pen 30, 40, 50 grand a month. And if they're building a team, teaching how to have an effective structure to your insurance agency for the most profitability you can. There is an application process. I'm only looking to work with like high-end people who really want to make big things happen. Couple recent clients that we've had in the, in the coaching program. One dude as an individual went from selling like $8,000 a month, barely getting by, about to quit the industry, found the book, hit me up direct, started the coaching program, went to $35,000 his first month, has issued like $150,000 in the last 90 days, and has changed the trajectory of his career. Working with another agency builder, very first month went from doing like $800 grand a month to almost $1.1 million. We added like 10 or 15% production in 30 days and continue to work on things there. So if you're interested, click the link, apply, and if you're a fit, I'll reach out. Um, so for writing agents per builder, what, what have you found as like the, uh, number over to where they're like, OK, this person— is it individual? It's probably a little individual, but— It's 100% individual. OK. Yeah. I mean, different people hit a ceiling at different points. And I can certainly— meaning like each— and I think I understand your question. I don't know if they did. But each manager, how many people can they handle? Yeah. Like people write business— because they got issues. Dude, I mean, the average person can't handle themselves. Right? So it's like, man, everybody's capacity is different, dude. So I give people the doors wide open to build this to whatever size you want. I think after you start dealing with a couple dozen people direct, you're going to be busy. You need some help. I was signing— I tell people that I don't necessarily recommend it. But I was selling $40K a month, and I had 40 writing agents a month direct to me, and I had never hired a staff. And this is in the days of paper apps and paper contracting. I was doing all that myself. Yeah, face-to-face sales in the field, $40K a month, hiring. Again, I didn't hire— she was my second hire. The first one was in 6 months prior. We're still doing $300, $400, $400,000+ a month with no staff. You know, most people can't even wrap their head around selling and just doing recruiting calls at the same time. That's one of the most common questions I get is, how do you sell and build? I'm like, I mean, I'm not trying to be the old guy uphill in the snow both ways, but dude, contracting 10 years ago, bro, like I was having to like look at the coffee stains on the— they'd fax it a lot of times. Now we had the e-fax. I didn't have the machine. It came to my email. I mean, that's— yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, we've done all that, dude. But early on, bro, it was send stuff in. And the pages are all upside down. I'd get them 8 carriers. They get a stack of 75 pages all at once. And it was chaos. So for me, I somewhat don't understand why people get stuck. But at the same time, I do. And I'm like, all right, well, they're— they can only do so much. So I'm OK handling some of the pieces behind the scenes to let them build. But for me, dude, I just let people go to where they want to go. The problem I used to have early is I wanted everybody to be like me, have the vision I had, sell what I have, want to build like I want to build, you know what I mean, have my dreams, my desires. I wanted a lot of me. And I've learned, like, dude, if they were all like me, what would they need me for? You know what I'm saying? And it's like, the most common example I always give people that makes it make sense— I did this last night, some of the Chick-fil-A thing. I don't know who that was. But if any one of us decided we're going to partner up and we're going to go open Chick-fil-A franchises all across the country, right? Let's open 500 Chick-fil-A franchises, me and you. But the only people we want to hire is other people who also want to open Chick-fil-A franchises, just like me and you. We don't want to hire anyone else. How well would that business model work? It works zero. But yet everybody coming in, they want to hire people just like that. They want to hire top— it's like it's not a normal business model. And for you and me as an individual, it lacks— what's the word I want to use— like being dynamic. Does that make sense? It's like think about clients. When you're in a sales situation, you have different types of clients, different backgrounds, different ages, different ethnicity, whatever it is. And you by nature handle and treat each one differently. It's pretty common in sales. Like you sit with an 82-year-old, you know what I mean? Or you sit with a 23-year-old, you're going to very naturally speak a little slower over here. And you're going to explain, you know what I mean? Just by default. But when we get with agents, we tend to lose that like dynamic ability to adjust who we are. And we go, we're one way. Yeah, you're right. Right? And I'm like, why do we not have this skill set we use in sales? Because all that is is communication. It's a communication skill set. And we come over here with agents and we want one way for everyone. That's not how communication and leadership works. So I had to, for me, go like, dude, I have to learn how to work with the person who only— and to be clear, when I got into the business, my goal was to make $75,000 a year. My very first time I wrote down goals was like, I want to make $75,000 a year. So I didn't have big vision either. So I somewhat have to respect that and go like, do some people just— you know how many people on the planet would be fired up? And there are multi-billion-dollar insurance companies that target this demographic to make an extra $2,000 a month. Most of the world. You know what I mean? And we fall into the trap of, I only want to work with people who want to make $40,000. It's like, well, you're cutting out 99% of the world. Most people can't even wrap their head around that kind of money, especially early. Yeah, well, that's definitely true. So for me, the managers are the same way. I mean, if someone wants to manage 3 people, who am I to say no? What do I give a rip? You know what I mean? More power to you, dude. I'll help you do it. My goal is to help people get from where they're at now to where they want to go. And then I figure out what they're willing to sacrifice in the middle, and I make a game plan to go from point A to point B. That doesn't mean I can't challenge them along the way. It doesn't mean I can't add vision. It doesn't mean I can't use examples and feed them like energy that they might need. You know what I mean? I can work on that over time because people did that with me. You start hanging around with people doing well in life. It wasn't quick. I mean, I went from having a $70,000 vision to a million-dollar vision in 2 years. First time I wrote that down was 2015. And it was 2012 when I got started, said I want to do $70 grand. 2015, I'm like, yo, I want to make a million. And that happened by 2017. I was like, OK, now how do we keep pushing? So I think there's no exact answer. I could make up a number, an average, like what's the average agent do? Dude. Yeah, I mean, so I provide the recruits to my managers. Yeah. So where I'm looking at it, I see some guys will have like— I guess it's just some people's capacity is different though too, dude. Their willingness is different, their mental capacity is different. They're quite frankly, their give-a-shit level is different. Does that make sense? I mean, to build this thing, dude, a new agent's getting started and they're out on a Saturday afternoon trying to make a buck for their family, and you're chilling by the pool because you're making $300 grand a year. Some people pick up their phone, some don't. Dude answers in the shower. That's my style, dude. I was on the phone from 6 a.m. to midnight every day for 5 straight years building this thing. You know, but you know how many managers I have that will not only will they not pick up, they don't check their voicemail, the voicemail box eventually gets full and they don't return phone calls. I have plenty of those managers too. You know what I'm saying? It's like, yeah, yeah, but I can learn how to manage that person. You know what I mean? For sure. I have to adapt. And I just, I don't know, I started looking at this thing very differently as like, how can I adjust to manage all different personalities, all different types of people? That's what's really allowed us to scale, dude. We have a wild range of people in our agency today. Go, John. Sorry. Yeah, so I just want to add to that. So getting to, let's say, 2-in-1, um, how many managers are you looking for direct? Yeah, sure. Are you doing 2 interviews? You got 2 interviews to hire people on to kind of weed them out? Sure. Because right now we're just doing one interview and Mike is just essentially asking all those questions, trying to see if they're a good fit. So like, what's kind of your process How many managers are you looking for? Where are you looking for? I mean, I don't have a number for managers to get there. I'm trying to think how I want to answer this for you. So I've learned that leadership is taken, not given. Does that make sense? So if you look around, if you look at anybody in your group now, everybody can do this exercise. It's been one of the most powerful things for me to build this thing. If I asked you to tell me who in your entire agency stands out the most, every one of you already has a name. That fast. That's the first person I work with. Does that make sense? Then I go, all right, remove that person. Now who? Got the name too? All right, remove that person. Now who? Some of y'all already out of names. Fair? Some of y'all don't have to. And that's how I've done it. And I identify, I go like, that person stands out. I didn't even say stands out in what. I didn't say sales, I didn't say communicate, I didn't say nothing. Just who— that's a very easy measure of who stands out from the crowd. Right? Everyone in here stands out from the general crowd. So it was very easy for me to identify people that stood out. And people stand out in different ways. You know, you see Cody's events. Every time I come to one of these things, there's always some people that are helping put chairs in and organize tables and move things up and help them kind of organize. And they're part of his staff. Just some people here help more than others. It's really easy to see. You know what I'm saying? It's like, you don't think he notices? I sit in the back and watch it, and it's like, he was doing stuff yesterday. I'm like, dope. You know, it's like very easy to identify people that stand out from the norm. And so that, that's been a very easy marker for me to see who— like, there's always agents— if you, if you have a decent group, there's always that agent that will take calls from another agent and help them make sales or do things, and they're not direct, they make no override, they're not— they have no incentive whatsoever, they just help. Like, I like that person. There's always a person in events that will stay up after this and clean up all y'all's mess. There's always going to be one, at least one. Someone's going to stay here and hang out and help pick up the cups and the chip bags and the stuff y'all leave around. It's how it is. I go, I like that person. Let me feed into them more. Let me see where they're at. Do they want to build? Do they not? Do they want to make more money? Do they not? I like natural leadership ability. That's how I was identified. I just did little things. I didn't know this was a thing. I was deep in my agency. I was 5 deep from the dude who helped me. You know what I mean? Everyone's like, my mentor sucks. I'm like, no offense. Like, the guy hired me is a great dude, but he couldn't teach me how to achieve the goals I wanted. Neither could the dude above him or the dude above him. You know what I mean? I'm like, I want to go to that guy. And so everything in my strategy was, how can I add value to him? Well, I don't really know how to add value to him as a part-time accountant. But I sure saw at every meeting, he'd stay after and clean up all the stuff. I sure saw he'd go there early every time and organize all the chairs and make sure the brochures were out front, make sure the whiteboard was ready, and make sure that the heat was on the right temperature. I could see it. And I'm like, yo, what if I do that for Mike? That's good. Does that make sense? And dude, you didn't think he noticed? I'm the only one there early. At the time where he's running events, we used to go downtown Atlanta to a hotel every Wednesday night. That was the training when I was part-time. I'd leave my job, I'd drive downtown Atlanta, I'd go to the hotel, he'd do his thing, opportunity meeting/training, and then they have this event afterwards. And we'd go to Ruby Tuesdays down at College Park, Atlanta, because because after 10:00 PM, appetizers were buy one, get one free, and we all needed that at the time. You know what I'm saying? And I stayed the latest, and I went the earliest. And he identified that, and he poured into me. And I eventually became the dude's right hand, and we built this thing together even though we weren't financially tied together. Now granted, he made— because I was in his group. But we eventually ran things together. So I was always looking for that type of stuff. And I've just learned over time, man, different people hit at different times. And to give you a little more clarity, when we were at around $1 million a month, I had what I would consider 12 managers. Most people would say they're managers. They're doing some kind of recruiting. Our biggest group was probably— Athena was probably doing $150,000 a month, something like that, $200,000 a month. So it was a lot direct. I mean, the 12 were all direct to me. So I was 12 wide. In depth, the biggest group was about 150 grand a month. When we signed with Integrity— so this was 20— whatever it was, 2018-ish. 2 and a half, 3 years later, 9 of the 12 were still with me. Outside of their depth, not one of them grew anymore from that point. All of our growth came from someone in depth that identified a leadership skills in, and I worked with them direct. I was taught to treat everyone like they're direct to me. Cody uses examples about events all the time, his energy in events. It's not his event, but he's going to get up front row, he's going to clap, he's going to stand, he's got— you know what I mean? Like, he talks about the same concept, you know? And if the dude who taught me that didn't treat me like I was direct to him, I wouldn't be here. So without that concept, I'm not in the business today. So I'm like, well, that seems easy. Where most people are like, why am I answering that call? I don't get an override. I only have 5 points on the group. They figure it out. That's common. I'm like, yo, treat everyone like they're direct, bro. And so our biggest groups, all the ones that signed with Integrity that I mentioned earlier, those groups that I helped build and sell their agencies, not one of them did I hire. Literally not one of them. But I worked with every one of them. Same things I was talking about last night on how to identify different people. They were the warm market of someone else. But in depth, I was like, yo, that guy right there. Hey, come over here. Hey, you need anything? Let me know. Hey, I see you're killing it. You know what I mean? I just start pouring into people, man. When it reciprocates. You know how many people I've gone to a meeting, I'm like, hey, and I give them some kind of compliment. I'm like, yo, let me know if you need anything. I do it all the time still to this day. You know, and some people reach out and some don't. And some people attend things. Again, I'm watching how bad someone wants it. How many calls are they getting on? Are they doing trainings? Are they at events asking questions? Are they, you know, I mean, that's like there's so many ways to identify people. And then I just go like, hey, come, come over, come a little closer. Hey, come a little closer. You know, I mean, eventually I get behind the curtain with someone and be like, here's how we do the whole thing. So some people want to get a little closer to learn how to sell. Some people want to get a little closer to get an override because they want to make a few more bucks and get out of the field. Some people want to build a business. Some people want to help others win. I mean, there's different levels of managers. So as we get closer and closer, I just keep identifying things. And I'm like, how can I help this person get from here to here? Now that they're here, how do I help them get here? And as I continue to grow, my role is like, hey, let me figure out how to do something. All right. Prove that it works, then teach y'all how to do it so I can stop doing that thing and do something else. That's how we've continued to grow. And then as I keep going up, I go, hey, come learn this. Hey, come learn this. And this, this last year and especially this coming year, but 2024 for us, the focus was marketing. I'm like, yeah, I got to learn this. I got to figure this out. You know, I had a decent following by mistake just because I was, I was putting out enough stuff. My goal was never like, hey, let me have YouTube. I didn't— that wasn't the plan for me. It just came together because I was doing so much to help people win. And then I start looking at our stuff and people are like, how many are on your email list? I'm like, email list? What do you mean? How many are on my email list? I don't have an email list. What about— what funnels do you use? I'm like, huh? My first 2 years I'm working with him, I'm up here training people like, what do you do with them all? I'm like, what do you mean, what do I do with them? I just come in and train and I go home. Fair? I never had nothing. And I'm like, but I'm aware. And I see events and I see what people are doing. I'm like, I just can't give it away for free forever. That's not really smart. I should probably ask for a sale every now and again, ask to work with— you know what I mean? It's like, oh, dang. So my goal last year was like, let me start figuring out some marketing. How we figured it out, we had— some of y'all seen, I've shared that track. The tracker has been the most popular thing I do because I'm a little Excel nerd and how to track your numbers and the training many of y'all seen on how to work 40 hours in the right areas and track and dials. I got 5 minutes? Cool. Thank you. That was the first thing we did. And I'm like, yo, let me just start giving this thing away and then collecting their info. We had like 3,000 people this year download the damn tracker. Yeah, I was like, imagine if I've been— I've had that thing for 12 years. Imagine if I've been doing it right. You know, I'm putting out content on YouTube and I'm like, we don't ask them to go nowhere. We don't ask them to click nothing. We didn't ask anyone to subscribe to anything. We didn't ask anybody to do anything. Well, I wrote a book. We don't ask— you know what I mean? I'm like, we should probably get reviews. We're trying to figure that piece out. We had what we've sold. I don't know. We've either sold or given out a couple thousand books since this summer. And, uh, I had like, what, like 18 reviews on Amazon a couple weeks ago. And I'm like, hey, we should probably get better at this. So we add to the funnels, like, hey, after so many days, send a request. And then one day I'm like, I should just ask. So we get on one of the free Zooms I do, I'm like, yo, can y'all— if I've helped you, can you go do this review? We have 50 like 2 days later. I'm like, if only I've— sometimes you just gotta ask, you know. So I don't know. You have 50 qu— Oh no, you had one too. What up, insurance agents? If you're looking for a roadmap on how to win in this industry, check out the book I wrote about a year ago, Do More Now, Get Better Later. Check out the reviews here somewhere. My team's putting them on. I'm getting tons of great feedback about all the people it's helped. Appreciate those of y'all that have bought it. Appreciate all the reviews that are going out. If you're new to following me or the industry, check out the book and get it in your hands now. Now I'll come to you. When you're talking about when you're building the different types of people, the categories, I think you need all different types. 100%. If you just have generals, yeah, hence the Chick-fil-A analogy. Yeah, yeah, correct. Yeah, yeah. And that adds up. I mean, if I look at our leaderboard again, we got 1,800 people a month sell. I don't— she probably pulled up in 2 seconds. I'd be curious how many— can you pull it up? Pick a month. A full month. What's your question? Well, she's looking at— you have some— what's your biggest struggle now? Today? Oh, good question. My biggest struggle today. Figuring out how to— the right direction for me to— I get a lot of traction in the industry as a whole now. Does that make sense? So in the consulting space, we have people from competitors working with me to help them build. And I'm like, my biggest struggle now is figuring out what direction to go with that and how to properly monetize it in a way that continues to help people because I don't need to— like, I ain't trying to recruit Jaylen. You mean like, keep doing what you're doing, bro. And I help a lot of people like Jaylen. So I'm like, I probably should monetize this. You know what I mean? So it's like, I'm trying to figure that out. It's a weird— the industry is weird. I mean, I'm like, I work here, but I help people over here. How do I monetize? And we're doing well with it. Like it's starting to get some traction, but I still haven't figured that exact out. It's like how to build my own brand outside of the identity you form underneath whatever company you're with. And that's why I initially contacted Cody a few years back. I'm like, I love what you're doing for the industry as a whole. And in my little world, I've done well. But I go, in the industry— first time I went to his event, like if I went to my company event, I couldn't walk 3 feet without being all the time. First time I came to his event, I'm like, yo, I'm there 2 hours, nobody said hi to me. I'm like, whoa, there's a bigger world out here. You know what I mean? So now it's like, how do I tap into that and take it from let me just keep adding value to the world for free to how do I continue to make— how do I make a business out of it? You know, I don't— I honestly, I don't know how to do that yet. I'm doing it by mistake. I had so many people ask for help that we literally— I was like, we should probably create consulting. I'm like, what are the prices? I'm like, I don't know, I'll make them up. So I literally one weekend, I came in Monday, I'm like, hey, Amanda, I got a whole consulting thing. Here's the prices. I'm like, let's just start talking about it. What do we have, like 9 now, I think we said last night, that don't work with— you know what I mean, outside companies. So I'm like, oh, there's something here. So I'm trying to figure that out. You watch guys like a Jeremy Miner. Building big companies, training people from all across. I'm like, how do I do something like that? How do I build a massive platform based on who I am versus being stuck in a little IMO world? You know, I'm working on that piece and I quite frankly don't know how fully to do it yet. Do you have the leaderboard? How many we have issue in December? How many over $100 grand for the month? How many over $100 grand for the month? Individual. Give it to me. You have the leaderboard up? I'll end in a second. I promise, Lindsay, wherever you are. Where's the— no, no, no, no, no. Bring up the one from my mom. The Excel thing. I want to say it's about 300. No, no, no. A month. Just look up, pull up Julie's. Yeah, I'll look at it and then I'll— it'll help with this if you don't mind, Cody. Do you care? Any, any last questions before I go ahead? But so we brought Chick-fil-A before. Yeah, right. I mean, different levels. I need everything, right? Not just the— sure. But obviously they have a standard and why we like going to Chick-fil-A, right? Not for the chicken sandwiches, but they're just pleasant people. Sure. What standards did you have in your business for the different types of folks that you have if you're not keeping it to, hey, this is the model person that we're going to help people get paid based on their desires? Still to this day, my goal is to help people get paid. It's like, why does anyone work with you? Who did I ask that to last night? Is he here? I was talking to some dude. He was one of the guys had a ton of questions. Super nice guy. And he was talking about building all these systems and all this stuff. And I'm like, why does someone want to work with you? He's like, well, we're family-oriented and, you know, we really care for people and we're different. We really have a focus on all the things that I'm like, all right, so if you— if people make no money with you and they get that stuff that you just said, are they going to stay with you? No. Is that fair? Like, I'm not mad at all that stuff. That's all great things. But if you can't help them get paid, They will quit you. Fair? So I don't dislike all the other stuff, but my focus is how do I help them get paid? That's my focus every day, dude. We talk about it every day in my office. How do I help people get paid? That's all the content, all the training, all this stuff. How do I help y'all get paid? And can I dive deeper with it? Yes. Can I have good ethics? Obviously. Can I have, you know what I mean, a nice cult? Yes. I want all that stuff. But number one, help people get paid because they'll stay. I've had people dislike me a lot, but I help people get rich and they don't quit me. But they don't love me as an individual human. They're like, we don't— we butt heads, we don't align. They don't like my directness. Dude, I help them get paid. You know what I mean? I'm not trying to make them— but it's like, not everybody likes you. All of us. Fair? Dude, if you help them get paid, you mean you don't do anything to harm their family, they tend to stay. You know, that's why I stayed where I was at. Dude helped me get paid. So for perspective, month to date, we had one dude— we had last month 1,506 riders in December. One top guy, $212 grand. We had 9 more do over $100 grand for the month. We had 49 do over $50K. We had 145 over $30K. But to the point where we were talking about earlier, we had 460 do under $10K. We had— actually, more than 460. Sorry. Number 460 is at $10K. So that's 1,000 did under $10K. Yeah, and then number 700 is under $5K. What'd I say? What the total was? $15,000. So 800 did under $5K, you know what I mean? If I push those off, Justin, now if I go— let me see what the volume was for that total under $5K just last month. Equated to $2 million in volume for the month. Working with people aren't like me at all. They don't have big dreams, they don't work hard, they don't do it, you know, I mean, they don't sell a lot of policies, they aren't the Chick-fil-A franchise owner. $2 million a month involves $25 million a year in volume. That's bigger than most agencies. And most of y'all don't want to hire or help that person because they aren't trying to be here. I'm like, yo, I'm helping them get paid, bro. I probably paid their mortgage, their car payment, and their daycare bill. You know what I mean? If they don't have another job in addition to this, that ain't my fault. I helped them get paid. Does that make sense? I'll just show it to you, dude. Basically, $2 million a year volume was people under $5,000. Under $5K for last month. Yeah, yeah. $2 million a month. Yeah, yeah. Like, I was like, he's like, let's go to Parts and Armors, this, this and that. Like, I'm like, bro, like, do some freaking math. Yeah, you made a lot of money last year. Now what's the fear? Debt. Yeah, dude, watch your business. Any y'all ever go like, I didn't see the roll-up coming? Any y'all ever say that or hear someone say that? I didn't see the roll-up coming. I'm like, were you like this? You didn't see the 743 emails and letters they sent about the the debt on that agent? You didn't watch your commissions at all? You didn't see all the chargebacks they had at all? You didn't see that they weren't buying leads at all? You didn't see that when they had debt with Carrier A, they started writing with Carrier B? Y'all didn't notice any of that? You just were like this every day? Roll-up debt don't sneak up on you. It takes like 90 days, 6 months. You know what I mean? So it's like, I don't have a fear of that person like most people do because I watch my business. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, you take care of your debt, bro. I'm going to help you get paid, but if you don't take care of your debt, I'm going to cut you off. I mean, if you force me to make a tough decision, I promise you it won't be a tough decision. I'll make it like that. Does it make sense? I know I'm over, so appreciate you guys.