I Taught 20 Life Insurance Agents How to Make $40,000 Per Month

We've got Mr. John Wetmore in the house today. I'm gonna get to him here in just a second, guys, but every time we get the, uh, the honor of having John address the academy here, we learn and grow and break mic stands and just about everything we can do. John, uh, for those who do not know you and, uh, your time in the industry Why don't you give a little background on what you do and just, just what got you into where you're at now?

I just conned Cody into let me talk on this thing. That was all.

You know, I believe it.

I believe I'm playing. Oh, man. I always— it's always funny answering this question on your own. I've been in the business 12 years, and the short version is I started out really terrible trying to figure the industry out, overthinking everything. Made some changes in my world, learned how to sell an ass ton of insurance on my own pen, and spent the first 3 years trying to recruit with no traction whatsoever. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of interviews with no agents sticking. Certainly some got started and many quit on me. And fast forward today, we had 6,000 agents sell a policy last year in my group, and we've done In 12 years, by the end of this year, we'll be, we'll be in the ballpark of $750 million in paid premium cumulatively over the span of 12 years.

Wow.

So we've pushed some insurance, bro, and I've helped a lot of people get paid. I train and coach and mentor people now all over the space.

So one of the things that I love about your story is you're not afraid, one, to say, hey, I was not good at this in the beginning. But two, you got to where you're at now with a really simple concept, right? Yeah, I just finished my— or my copy here, uh, Do More Now. I did. Uh, I've got some texts to send you shortly, but, uh, finished up just a couple days ago one of those. I'll drop a link to John's book here in the chat here in just a minute. But John, I'm gonna let you go ahead and take it away from here, man.

My dude, I appreciate it, bro. You know what's funny, bro? Some days I feel like I still suck at this. I had, uh, it's like, y'all ever have that feeling where like just things can't go right for the day? It's like everything's going wrong, feel like shit, things are just— oh, that changed my view. Interesting. Um, oh, there we go. I fixed it on my side. Um, hey, y'all ever have that like a frustrating day? Like nothing's going your way and you don't know how to get out of it and it's like, what the hell? So that's been today for me. So My advice is y'all better get used to it because it doesn't go away. It's always fucking something, um, you know. And it's like, I want to bang my head against the wall a couple times today, but I've learned like it'll all pass and everything will work out and life will be good if I keep putting in the work and time and energy and effort. Like, things always work, you know. And it's like, relative to many other situations on the planet Even though I bitched it was a bad day, a rough day, or whatever day, it wasn't really that bad, you know what I mean? I'm like chilling in an air-conditioned office with my staff here. All my kids are healthy. Life is good, you know what I mean? Like, my family's happy. It is what it is. We had a— I had a bunch of calls booked today, um, so I have like, uh, I have a lot of people trying to get help being coached. I, I help a lot of people in different companies and I had like 4 straight calls booked today for like coaching, like, um, inquiry calls or discovery calls or whatever. And then I had a podcast, so I had like 5 back-to-back calls. Literally not one person showed up, dude. Like 5 straight that booked on my calendar, to be clear.

At John Wetmore level, that still happens?

Yes. Yeah, like that's life, dude, you know. And, um, I'm like, what the hell is happening? So I text Amanda. If y'all don't know, Amanda's like my operations manager's assistant. She's been with me like 7 years. She runs my whole world, and she's in Disney right now. And I try to like not bug her when she's on vacation or whatever, but we text non-stop anyway. It's just how our relationship is. And, uh, I'm like, what the hell is happening? After the first one, I'm like, yeah, so-and-so didn't show. She's like, weird. I'm like, yeah, I don't know. Second one, I was like, damn, over 2. And 30 minutes later I was like, oh, for 3. I'm like, what has happened? Like, I think I'm going to quit today. And she laughed and I was like, ah. So I just went and I got lunch and chilled and ate, come back, couple more people no-show. And I'm like, what is happening? Then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, one dude texts my another, Reece, who set this up, and he's like, hey, so supposed to be on the call today. It's weird. The link didn't work. Something happened. My computer, he— something happened to him. And then the next one was like, she sent me a screenshot. She had her times— you ever travel and your time zone's messed up? She booked it and she was on like London time zone, so she had it at 4 o'clock when it was really at noon. Yeah, man. And then another one, I text just because at first I was like, want to kill people. And I was like, hey, what? And it was all just random ass shit, you know what I mean, that just happened. It just is what it is. You know, and I certainly wanted to lose my mind a little bit. But again, at the end of the day, it's like, is it really that big a deal? You know, if I'm putting in work every day, things are going to work out. And that, that concept, dude, hasn't changed in 12 years. It's just the thing is different. I'm not like starving to pay my bills this week and need an insurance sale to make, make it work. But I am trying to be productive and I don't like sitting around for 3, 4 hours accomplishing nothing, you know what I mean? And it was like my schedule was booked. So it's like, but I know years ago I'd have probably burned my building down out of frustration and emotions and, you know, I mean, like I would have, I would have handled it incorrectly. And I can, I can look back and relate to a lot of people who are newer in the industry, which obviously most people are either newer and/or struggling in the industry that are, that are getting on calls trying to figure it out or they're having ups and downs or just don't see the vision to where they feel like they want to be. You know, they're just not quite there yet. And again, my advice— we have a sign. I wish I could show it to you. It's upstairs in Amanda's office. It's literally a neon sign that sits in Amanda's office and it stays lit up and it says, "Always something." It's just— dude, and when we used to say it, it came off as a very negative— like it came out of my mouth negative. I'm like, fuck, always something, dude. Like, what the hell? Always something. You know what I mean? Like, it became a negative. And over time, I didn't really like it because what I learned— and now, so what we did is we got a second neon sign next to it because I wanted to complete the thought. Because in the always something, it was very negative. And I wanted to figure out— I'm like, but at the end of the day, dude, because we always have something, a problem, an issue, someone does something, whatever it is, I've learned that always gives me opportunity. You know what I'm saying? So I wanted to figure out how to spin it and verbalize it to where it wasn't negative. So now in her office, I should send you a screenshot or picture later. I should have actually— hey Reese, if you're watching, take a picture and bring it to me. I don't know if you're on this, um, but now it says always something, and then right next to it we put another neon sign that says do more. So this is always something, do more. Like, it just is what it is, dude. You know, for us, the, the something that always happens, I've learned that if we learn how to solve those problems, dude, my business grows, you know? And so I become thankful and grateful for the problems because it gives us something to work on to get better, right? So now we're looking at the details and it's like, all these people, whatever, today. But when I start looking at the calendar, none of them accepted it. So I'm like, huh, why didn't we notice that? Maybe we should do— have a different follow-up system. Maybe we should send them a text before. Maybe we should make sure, like, hey, they didn't accept it, that's kind of weird, they should have. You mean like now what we're going to do in my office is go, how can we solve this from happening again?

What's the more, right?

Yes, correct. Like, how do I fix it? All right, I'm bitching about it. Great. What good does that do? Literally nothing. How do I solve it?

You hit it so heavy, you know, it was a snowball there. Correct, right? It was just a pebble rolling down a snowy mountain. And by the end, it was— it could have been crushing. But you took that pause, you took that minute away, you stepped back and said, I'm gonna grab some lunch, and I'm gonna think through this.

Yeah.

And immediately it's what's the more, right?

Correct.

So how do we do more?

It's like, how do we prevent it from that? Like, again, mistakes are what they are. I'm not going to blame my team at all. I'm going to blame me. It just, it is what it is, dude. Like shit happens. So it's like, but I am going to go, all right, how can we own this problem? And no, we know today, how could we in advance have made this day go smoother next time? You know what I mean? Or if we knew, if we knew yesterday what we know today, would we have done something different yesterday to fix today? Now of course we would have, now that we have all the information. You know what I'm saying? Now me, the way I'm wired, the first person missed the podcast, I was like, what the hell? I'm frustrated, I'm annoyed. Do that. It was at, uh, 12 o'clock my time. 12:03, I get off the Zoom because I'm an asshole. Now, had I sent a text and be like, yo, it's weird that you're not here, everything good? She'd have been like, what? I thought it was at 4. And I've been like, nah, dude, it's at 3. And we would have, we would have hashed it out in 2 minutes. Instead, because I'm imperfect like most people, I let it bother me for 4 hours, you know what I mean? But it wasn't what I assumed. And I've, I've shared this while a million times before, dude. By default, I'm someone that assumes more on the negative side of things, you know what I mean? Like, I assume they ditched me. I assume she was like just being ignorant or whatever it was, you know what I mean? But like, someone like you or my wife would assume, oh shit, something might have gone wrong, we should check in. And I wish I had more of that innately, but I don't, so I have to work on it every day, dude. You know what I mean? And some of y'all have that innately. Some of y'all more like my wife, and you like assume something, you know what I mean? Like, we should check on her kind of thing, you know? Um, and so you just got to figure out who you are and learn how to— learn how to navigate yourself, because we're our own worst enemy, dude. In, in everyday life. We're all that way. Um, so for me, I, I just, as I was going through it, I wasn't as frustrated as I would have been 10 years ago, but I still look at things and go, damn, I could have, I could have handled that better, you know what I mean? Like, so my point is, I'm 12 years in and we're considered to be killing it, and I still deal with this shit every day, you know?

And reading through your book, right? Yeah, you, you kind of summed up exactly what your book is about in a statement. I have to know how to navigate myself. Yeah, you created your system. I, I think one of my favorite quotes that I've ever heard from you is, I didn't get good at everything. I found one thing that I was doing okay at and just did a ton more of it.

Yeah.

And so how do you identify those things within yourself, or the agents on the call, right? How do they identify where they're lacking?

Yeah, um, dude, it's really hard, bro, to, um, it's hard to do for yourself early, you know. I think that typically most of us have good people around us, and not maybe, not maybe everybody's good people around us, but we tend to typically have someone in our life that will tell us the truth. But we tend to get pretty defensive when someone gives feedback. You know, um, so I, I've had a couple people in my life that I've, I've been willing to take— I have 3 in my life that I'll take feedback from and they can tell me whatever. Um, and that was, that was always hard to do, but I've learned a lot of lessons from it, you know. And, and I want, I want good people's perspective, and then certainly I get to make the final decision, but at the end of the day, I do like different people's perspective on how they view things. But I have to trust those people, and/or they have to be doing better in life at what I'm trying to get good at than I am. I would not talk to the other kind people in your world that are in this industry that like to bitch all the time. I wouldn't speak to those people about that, you know what I mean? It's like, be very intentional about who you allow that with. You know, and do that, that, that piece has helped a lot for me is allowing that. And, you know, now today I think I've accepted that I always have to work on me. So I have a mentality that in every situation where I find myself frustrated or unhappy about whatever situation or result or circumstance, I do have the wherewithal to sit back and kind of, um, have like logical thoughts about it, you know. And I don't— what I do differently today than I did 12 years ago is I don't let it shut me down for days or weeks or months, you know what I mean. It's like I catch it pretty quick, um, and I try to just learn from it, move on. So now my, my mind has gone into like problem-solving mode And I'm like, all right, what, what about our process can we change to prevent this going forward? You know, and just have checks in place and safety measures, if you will, and redundancies or whatever it is, you know. And so we'll talk about it and be no big deal. And we won't have a, you know, 10 years ago, if I had a staff meeting about it, I'd have flipped tables and literally burnt the building. This time it'll be just an open conversation about like, all right, what's the solution? And I'll just be open forum. And everyone knows I think that way now. You know, and I think for other people, you may not be at a point where you can trust yourself to give yourself judgment, you know what I mean? Because you might give yourself really shitty advice, you know what I'm saying? It's like Preston and I had a conversation on a Zoom a couple weeks ago, and some of the advice he gave himself at the end of me and him talking, he was like, hey, you're right, I should have, I should have looked at that differently, you know what I mean? Not that he did it to hurt himself, or it's just It's just early in the, early in this, in the stage of it. You know what I'm saying? It's like, it's normal. So for me, that's, I think why a lot of people reach out for help and are in coaching or in the agency or whatever it is. And I'm sure everybody here has someone good, but it's sometimes uncomfortable, dude. You know, and to be honest, sometimes I've learned people don't put in enough effort towards their career. To warrant someone at a high level to spend time with them. You know, and that's a hard truth for a lot of people to accept. People are very entitled to other people's time, you know what I mean? And I'm like, I don't know, man. I think if you're putting in the time, energy, and effort different than most people, you'll get it. But if you're like the averages, it's going to— it is going to be a little bit more difficult, bro. You know, fortunately there's calls like this. You can get a little bit of stuff. And I don't— I don't mind doing a little Q&A time. If you all have questions, you can type them in the chat for now. I might certainly have someone come on or whatever, but if there's anything y'all specifically want me to touch on, I can. But I'll give you a— I'll give you a funny story, dude. I was, um, I was chatting with someone yesterday on Instagram. Fair amount of people hit me up, and I, I respond to everyone I can just because it's— you'd be surprised how few relative to how many have access that actually message and put a good message. But this one dude, he sends me a message and he's like, I've been trying to figure out you know, how to, how to— he sends me his numbers and we'll pull it up. He sends me his numbers over the course of— I don't know, he's been in the industry for a minute, maybe a year or two or something. And he says, hold on, I'm going to send— he goes, let's see, he's trying to figure out how to do $40,000 a month, right? So that's what I'm trying. And he's bought the course, he's bought the book, he's attended everything. So he's heard all my— he's heard all my stuff, if you will. And he sends another message last night and he says, I sent him a leaderboard and he goes, you have someone doing $1 million a year on their own pen. I said, we have a bunch. So I sent him a leaderboard to let him know what's possible for someone. I think I sent him a picture and we had our top— we see it. I don't know if I could show it on the screen, if you all will be able to see it. It's kind of small print, but our top 55 people this year are over $300,000. 40,000 for the year to date, the top 50 already. Like, and this was through week 3 in September, so as of 2 weeks ago. So I don't know, I don't know how much of that— y'all probably can't see this shit. The shine is terrible. Anyway, so I sent him a picture of it. And, uh, so he sends me his numbers and he goes, I'm right around 15 to 25 presentations per week, and I usually do a little over 20 grand AP per month. My goal has been 40 for the last 6 months, and I can't come close or figure it out. In order to hit those numbers, how many leads are needed on the prospecting side to purchase weekly, right? I'm, I'm, I'm spending X, and I'm running 15, 20 appointments. I'm making 20 grand, and I want to do double. And I literally said Welp, if you're doing on average 20 appointments and it's producing $20K on your current lead flow, wouldn't double the lead flow produce 40 appointments and produce $40 grand? And he responded, is it— and said, is it not any deeper than that? So my question back to him was, do you want a different answer? Because the answer is work more. That was the answer. Invest more, work more. And he said, honestly, yes. And that's what I've learned, dude, is like, I don't think anyone on here is confused that for the result they say they want, they probably don't work enough. I bet this dude, without knowing one thing, I bet my house that he doesn't run enough appointments to close $40,000 a month. And I bet the Bentley he didn't make enough prospecting calls. In order to book those appointments? And his response was, you're 100% right, I would lose that bet. And I would do that with everyone on here, you know what I mean? Now, I know Diana, Diana sells a shitload of insurance, so I'll be a little careful on that one. But for the most part, I don't know everybody, so if you sell a bunch, please don't be offended. But for the overwhelming majority of times I'm on a call like this, it's very funny, dude, that most people are dissatisfied with where they are financially but they also don't make a lot of presentations a week, and they certainly don't do much prospecting a day. And they bitch about leads instead of walking out their front door and prospecting. They complain they don't have money. Yeah, I mean, it's like there's a whole world out there you can prospect to. You and I both know people making a million bucks a year that don't buy any leads. Does that make sense? And most people make excuses, dude. And that part bothers me because I could certainly sell. And what I asked this dude when— after that, when he said yes, he wants a different answer. I said, I got, I got a bunch of magic pills I can sell you. I mean, if you want to fucking buy them, send me a check. I'll send you magic pills, dude, and tell you that's, that's the magic. And what I've learned, bro, is most people in this industry are looking for the magic pill. They don't want the answer to be it's work more. That's the solution to getting out of your hole. That is the actual answer, you know. And it's an easy answer for me. It's weird to me that he wanted a different answer. Because when I was given that answer in 2015, I was like, holy Jesus, why didn't someone tell me sooner? Because that seemed like such an easy answer for me. You know what I mean? Like, I've been working hard since I was 16, dude. I have my first kid on the way at 16. I'm working 70 hours a week since I was 16. Like, that's— working hard seemed really easy because I've worked hard my whole life and I was broke.

You know, I think one of the things that I run into a lot with these newer agents that are in that, that place that you're talking about right now, yeah, is they don't even know that they're not tracking the numbers to find out what they need to do to get to where they want to be.

So I agree that they don't track their numbers, but I disagree with you that they don't know they're not working much.

I agree, they know that they're not working enough.

Because they're on their couch or they're— correct, correct. You know, and I just find it funny. Like, I had a guy in my office from a different company Saturday. I had an event in my office on Saturday, and it was a mixed group of people from different companies. And one dude asked, what about our system makes us sell more than his system makes them sell? And I'm like, it has nothing to do with the system, bro. It's the culture. It's the culture that it's unacceptable to run this low of appointments a week in my world. And so I start asking him some questions. I'm like, dude, how many days a week? I said, how many appointments do you— presentations do you make a week? He says like 15. I'm like, cool. How many days a week do you make presentations on? And he said usually 3, 2 or 3, right? So 5 a day, 3 days a week, call it. And I said, dude, can I ask you a question? You call yourself a life insurance salesperson as a career, correct? He's like, yes. And I said, you only sell 2 or 3 days a week and try to sell 15 times a week, all week, and you call yourself a life insurance sales professional and you only try to sell 2 or 3 days a week? Now some people go, I sell 5 days a week. Yeah, but you only sell once or twice a day and you call yourself a life insurance sales professional and you do it this much. Just say it out loud a few times for me, dude. This was in my office on Saturday. Okay. Then he goes, well, I'm only making like, I'm trying to make my phone calls. I can only get like 30 phone calls an hour out. I was like, why? Like, why so few? And he's like, well, why? Because I don't use technology. I just use my phone. And I'm like, bro, all I ever used was my phone and I knock out 60 an hour minimum. He's like, but why? I said, do you want the real answer? He goes, yeah. I said, give me your phone. And in front of a crowd, I took his phone and I said, let's look at it. And we went to his call history. And I said, what time was your first phone call today? This was a Saturday and it was a, it was a lock-in, so it was a dial day. We were making phone calls on a Saturday to close deals. And the event started at 8:00 AM. His first phone call was 11:34. I said, all right, there's the first problem. Mine would've been at 7:00 AM, yours 11:34. So even if we have the same skillset, hell, even if you're better than me, I have a 4.5-hour head start over the course of a year. Dude, I'm gonna smoke you in prospecting calls. You have no shot at keeping up. Right? And then I said, all right, cool. 11:34 is your first call. When's your next one? It was like 11:38. I'm like, all right, so far we have 1 minute dialing, 4 minutes not dialing. Fair? He goes, yep. Cool. When's the next call? It's like 11:52. I'm like, all right, what's the, what's the gap? And it was whatever the, whatever the math is on what I just said, 12 minutes, whatever it is. I don't even remember what times I just put out. I'm like, all right, so now we got 16 minutes not dialing, 3 minutes dialing. Like if there was a timer when you were, when it was ringing and there was a timer when it wasn't, the timer when it isn't ringing is outpacing the timer when it is ringing by far. We're 15, 20 minutes into your day and the, the not ringing timer is 5x ahead of the ringing timer. You know what I mean? If we got two timers and dude, we went through the next two hours, this was at like 2:30 in the afternoon, we were having this conversation. We went through the next two, two hours and time spent literally on the phone either talking or having it ring was like 22 minutes in times where the gaps between the calls was like an hour and a half. You know what I mean? And the guy sold some insurance, dude. He's been in the industry 7 years, right? So he's like, to him, that was a lightbulb moment. He was like, holy shit, I never thought of that. I didn't know I was like slacking between calls that much. I never looked at it that way. So he texts me this morning. Let me find his text. And he says, hold on, Brian. There you go. He said he texted me at 10:57 today, dude. So for a full 40 minutes earlier than he started dialing on Saturday, he said, started dialing at 7:30 AM, 11 contacts, 9 appointments so far, 128 dials. I said, imagine that. He goes, I, again, I wish I could, you might be able to see that. He said, fucking worked. And I said, and your pacing can easily still improve cuz again, it's 11 o'clock. Uh, it was 10:57. So 3 and a half hours, only 128 dials. I'm like, you could actually improve your pacing even more, you know what I'm saying? And he goes, I did 73 my first hour. I was like, cool. He goes, I don't know whether to be pissed at you or fucking hug you right now. You know what I mean? It's just, dude, all he does is work more. And he— I said, bro, but you're gonna have 20 appointments booked and you're gonna have half a day off. Where traditionally he would have spread it out over the whole day, afternoon, evening, and he'd have been frustrated tonight because he didn't have the number of appointments he wanted. He's going to book more appointments in one dial session, bro, than he has for his entire week previously from one tweak, just paying attention to the gaps between calls and starting earlier. You know what I mean? And that, that's been the beauty of building this thing. There's a positive and a negative if I look at it from my standpoint. We grew, right? But this concept is so stupid fucking easy that I don't have a lot of shit to sell people. There's no magic sauce. If I made it like the 27 fucking steps to success, I would sell the snot out of it. But I don't feel authentic, dude. So I'm like, I just wish I could take everybody's phone right now and look at it with them and say it out loud in front of the rest of the group. 'Cause everyone on here would be appalled except for the ones that are happy with where they're at financially. Y'all are good. Y'all are excluded from the conversation. You know what I mean? But it's like the ones that are upset, I wish I could have it. I wish everyone would screen share their phone call history right now. And that, that's been the magic to growth, dude, is just being really honest about this thing. And can I help people get better at all the salesy stuff? Hell yeah, dude. But bro, if you're like seeing 5 people a week, I just feel like I'm lying to you if I tell you it's the sales stuff that's causing the problem. You know what I mean? I just don't feel like I'm being true. Because even if I give you the best stuff on earth, you know what I mean? If you do it 5 times a week, I promise you next year you're still going to struggle with money. Um, let me read some of these questions, dude, and I can read them down here. A little easier. I'm not looking away from you on purpose. So many of you have asked if there's an option for more access, more direct coaching, and so we've created a coaching platform called the Winner's Circle where you have a couple different options. There is a one-on-one option to where we can work directly with you on a regular basis, and then there's a small group setting, 4 to 6 people, really high achievers looking to get to just a new level in their career. We've had a ton of success in this this already. First month, actually, the first guy that joined deposited $7,500, worked with them back and forth one-on-one. The very next month, he deposited over $30 grand. So basically a 5x return on his income in 30 days. So if you're looking for something like that, you can click on the link below, get access to an application, because I'm not taking everybody. I do want to make sure it's a good fit for both of us. And if we feel like you'd be a good fit, we'll set up a one-on-one call directly with me and kind of go through your struggles, what you need help with, and what I expect of people that are joining the coaching program. So if you feel like it'd be a good fit for you and something you want more of, click the link below and we'll see you on the other side. Welcome to the winner's circle. Thanks, Preston. How many presentations? Here's what I say about how many presentations is this. Oh, this is Joey. Are you asking me that, dude? Do you want me to cover that?

No, I was just kind of listing off asking them things you were covering there.

Yeah. Here's what I always tell people to do. Think about this, and this is in the book. It's really simple concept. I mean, it changed my world, dude. But it's like, if you think about how many present— and if y'all wanna type it, type it in here. Be cool to see if you go, how many presentations have you made personally in the last 7 days? How many presentations have you personally made in the last 7 days? And watch the numbers. Like everyone but Preston and Joe— Joey, you're a beast, dude. It's like y'all should hang up and go work. I love you, but the zeros and ones are like, what are we doing? And I, I've, I've talked about this before, dude, in the, in the, um, road shows. There's like 3 keys to killing it in this thing. It's leads, work, and training. And I don't care if you buy leads or generate leads. Leads are leads. I don't give a shit how you get them. Leads, work, and training. And most people don't have enough leads in order to do the work, and they spend all day training to avoid the work. That's the reality, right? So if you look at everybody's numbers, the biggest one in our space— I know, Joey, you're obviously doing your sales side on, on that end, is a little different. Jennifer, 28. If you did 28 legit presentations, fire. I like it. And I know you follow all my shit, so you should be working hard. Um, I was gonna say Preston was the highest at 19, but even if you take the highest one at 28 and now go, Jennifer, what is— how long does your average presentation take? Tell me yours. Typically I hear 30 minutes, 45 minutes is typically what I hear.

I just do it quick, like 20 minutes.

Okay, can I— so for easy math, we'll say 30-minute average. 28 is by far the biggest number in the group. It's only 14 hours a week of presenting. It's still not full-time. Like, I'm not wowed by the number of hours presenting. It's not like she said, I present for 70 hours a week. It's 14 hours a week presenting. You mean there's— okay, you know what I mean? So it's like, if you're doing 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 presentations a week at 30 minutes a pop, an hour— even if you're new and you're like, I spend an hour and a half, okay, 3 presentations a week, an hour and a half is 4 and a half hours a week presenting your product. You have zero shot at winning. And that's, that's the hard truth. So people either love me or hate me because of the message, dude, but I just, I, I get to be authentic with it. And for me, I was 37 years old and broke, struggling, trying to figure out how to pay my bills. I had 5 kids— I have 5 kids, but at the time my youngest was, you know, uh, Maddox was 9 months old when I started in the business, but he was 2, um, when I still had my head up my ass, you know, and I was still having to say no. I was still having to you know, clip coupons with my wife on Sunday to buy groceries. We had an $80 budget for 5 kids. I had to bring a calculator to the grocery store because we literally had to fucking calculate as we picked something off the shelf. Then when we got up front, sometimes we had to put stuff back if the coupons didn't like work out the right way, where if you buy 3 of these and use the coupon just right, it's free. Like, if that math didn't work out, we'd have to put stuff back, bro. You know what I mean? Like, you know how many times I've gone to a grocery store counter with the WIC coupons in my life, you know what I'm saying? Like, I was tired of living like that, dude. And there was such freedom for me when someone told me I didn't have to be an elite salesperson to change my fucking career and my finances for my family. This dude was like, bro, I love you, but you don't work enough to deserve to be rich. And I was like, can you clarify what you mean? Because I feel like I work a lot. And he compared numbers with me and he showed me how many presentations he makes a week and he showed me how many I make a week. And when I looked at his numbers, mine felt pathetic. And I was like, he's just a guy just like me. Why can't I do what he does? And I, I decided that he was better at sales than I was, so I had to do a bigger number than he did. Right. He was presenting at the time. This was in the days of in-home field sales, driving to people's houses, kitchen table. He was doing 90 presentations a month. I was like, I gotta do 120 because I ain't as good as him. Let's go. You know, 120 a month, dude, over the course of a year adds up to $1,500 in the year in-home, driving to people's houses. You know, I mean, in today's world, dude, telesales, e-apps, automation, like you can sit on your couch with your feet up and have damn AI do half your work. You know what I'm saying? It's like I am. Why, why are we not doing 50 a week? I don't unders— I, I truly don't understand, bro, because the answer is so clear to get out of your hole. And it— you know what I love, dude, is it doesn't have to be a forever plan, you know what I mean? It can be a temporary plan, and you can work on the sales stuff, and you can work on getting better, and you can work at your— on your pitch, and you can work on all the stuff. And if you work on building a team You do this plan for 2 years where you run like crazy and you sell a bunch of insurance. It'll be very attractive to people because everyone around you will go, holy shit, what changed? And you just have to— you don't have to go, I went to this conference and I spent $28 grand and I walked on fire and they fucking put me to sleep and I woke up a magic salesperson. You just be like, nah, I just started working more. I just, I just started working more. I just started working harder for my family. I just stopped making excuses. I just started sacrificing more. And dude, it became very attractive to people because it was simple. And everyone feels like— everyone here knows they can work harder. No one will dispute that with me. No one ever disputes it with me. Every once in a while, which I agree with, I get a single mom who can't figure out her schedule. I have— y'all are excluded too, because I can't relate, you know what I mean? Like, I just— I, I got it, you know what I mean? Again, there's always something that can be done, but it's for the overwhelming majority of people, like, this can be fixed like today. Someone could pick up the phone right now till the end of the night and book 15 appointments before the night's over. I mean, that dude did it before 11 AM. You still got 4 hours, 6 hours if you call the West Coast. If you're on the East Coast, hell, 8 hours if you call Alaska or Hawaii from the East Coast. You, I mean, maybe you're on Central and you can do the math, maybe you got a few less hours, but, or an hour less, but you know, um, from there, dude, I think, you know, what I love about this is I always get people who are willing to put in the work and then I can start coaching them on sales stuff and technique. Scripts, and we can get into the details and how to build teams and how to communicate with people and how to, you know, like, I have a process, bro, that I will teach people how to print effing money in this business, but I've just refused to do it with people who don't put in the work, man, because it's, it's, it, it's a very hard uphill climb that I just, I struggle with battling because I'm doing more to the bat, more of the battling than the person who needs it, you know what I mean? When it's, you give me the work, dude, and you give me the mistakes and the errors, this thing is easy peasy to fix.

So kind of unpacking that, um, where is that determination when you say, hey, this agent is putting in the work?

It, it— I mean, you give me someone like— you give me someone running 28 appointments consistently a week over the course of a couple months, I, I get that person rich by next year. They'll get themselves rich. I just got to make a few tweets. My part's easy then. You know how easy it is? You mess up 28 times. How many did you sell, Jennifer? And out of the 28, how many sales did you make? You hear me?

15,000 points.

How many sales did you make out of 28?

Oh, like 10.

Respectable as shit.

Because it's family. Usually I work like not only one, like It's a family.

Yeah, I mean, 10 out of 28, respectable as shit. Third-ish, a little over 40%, whatever the number is. You mean, ain't mad at that? Make a few tweaks, make it 50, 60%. I mean, I'm never gonna make it 90. I'm not gonna pretend I can do that, you know what I mean? But it's like, and then learn to compound it, learn how to reinvest the right way, learn how to make some— you know what I'm saying? It's like, so for me, dude, it's very easy to go— if I take a room full of people in any room I walk in and go, who stands out? Meaning of everyone who posted their numbers, who stands out? Is everyone in this room would say Joey, Preston, Jennifer. It's clear as day. So it's always been really easy for me to figure out who to work with, cuz I just go, who stands out from the crowd? And then more importantly, who does it consistently? And then from there, who does it with coachability? And gratefulness and a positive attitude and a desire to win, you know what I mean? And contributes to the team. I just, I, I try to find more and more positives that people are giving to themselves. And then again, dude, my part's really easy, bro. Again, you get, you give me reps. This isn't rocket science, you know. You just don't know what you don't know at your stage. I had a guy today from Symmetry, um, in the group I was working with. The guy this weekend, he's with The Alliance. But this dude with Symmetry DM'd me and I had him record some phone calls and he DM'd me a recording of them. Dude, I listened to it for under 2 minutes. I was like, got it. Fix this, fix this, fix this. He'll book more appointments every week from now on for the rest of his career. It's a few small tweaks. He just didn't know, you know what I mean? And I'll give you the example. He was, he, his, first of all, I asked his tone was, I was like, dude, can I ask you a, and I don't know you from a hole in the wall. It's the first time I heard his voice was on the recording. I'm like, do you speak to your buddies that way? He was like, no. I'm like, then stop talking to clients that way because it's fucking weird. Like, cut it out.

You know?

And then the guy answers the phone like half pissed.

Hello?

Who's this? And he handled it well at the beginning, but he kept going on and on and on and wanting to ask more and more questions. He's like, hey, I'm just calling you back about the form you filled in about the insurance. Da da da. Do you mind if I ask you a quick question? Guy's like, yeah, sure. His date of birth is this. He goes, yep. He goes, all right, is your address this? Yep. Are you married or not? Are you working or not? Are you a smoker or not? All right, one more question. And they ask another one and he goes, all right, now I just have a handful of health questions. And he asks 5 health questions. I'm like, bro, didn't you hear the dude that was pissed at the beginning of the call? He doesn't want to be on the phone long. Get to the fucking point. And you told him you only had one more question. 3 times and you kept doing it. That's annoying. The guy eventually hung up on him. You know what I mean? It was going well, but he wouldn't stop. He kept sales mode, sales mode, sales mode, sales. I'm like, yo, book an appointment. That's your goal on this call. He's not doing one-call closes, this guy. Y'all do what you want to do. But this guy was trying to book appointments. I'm like, you, you, you, 16 minutes he had the guy on the phone. I'm like, that was the problem. You know what I mean? So just a few, few tweaks, dude. It took me, it took me literally 90 seconds out of my day, you know? But he's been putting in work. He DMs me, I like him, I tell him something to do, he does it, we get back, you know what I mean? It's like now he's reaching out and going, hey, can I, can I be in one of your programs? I'm like, sure, dude, if you keep putting in work, I'll help you, you know? So it's all that's who stands out thing, dude, has been critical for me just to know who to work with. It makes it really easy, you know?

So Michelle asked here, she said, risk assessment, losing so much time looking for the right product and then no-shows. Any tips on that?

How do you look? Meaning you're looking for products before you speak to someone on an appointment? Where is she? Is she on here? I don't see her. Let me see if I see her name on here. Oh, she's hidden.

Sorry. Yes, I am. Yes. So we call and book appointments. And that is a few questions with Symmetry as well. Yeah.

And so you'll ask health questions first?

Yeah, the basic ones.

So I'll be honest. How long you been in the business?

2 months.

Okay. Don't you know your underwriting by now?

No.

You've been in the business 2 months and you still don't know basic underwriting?

Well, basic underwriting, yes, but I still don't Let me ask you this.

Give me one carrier you sell. Give me their name. What's your favorite product to sell?

I haven't sold anything.

Oh, boy.

Okay.

Bigger issues other than my family.

Okay.

Yeah. I mean, maybe that— maybe this is deeper than, than, than, than thought. Because if you— do you do this full time? No. Oh, you do something else?

Yes. I work at a restaurant 7 nights, 6 nights.

Okay, got it. How many, how many appointments you think you've run in 2 months, roughly?

How many appointments actually showed? 3. How many appointments I have scheduled? Like 30, 40.

Okay, cool. How long you been in the restaurant business?

19 years.

Okay. If you went to a new restaurant this week, where do you work?

In Laredo, W.T.

What kind of restaurant? I'm sorry.

Bad question. It's a bar. I bartend at a beach bar restaurant.

Okay. So they all have different drinks, kind of.

Yeah.

Right. All right. So if you came to Atlanta where I live and you started working for my favorite restaurant here, how long would it take you to know all their drinks on the menu?

A week.

Okay, that's how I feel about underwriting.

I feel it's so much, so much more complex than that.

Correct. Now I feel complex about knowing what would be on your bar menu. Like, I feel like that would take me forever to figure out. Do you know why? No, because I'm not familiar with the business you are. So it feels comfortable to you. It feels uncomfortable to me. But what I'm telling you is if, if, if, if someone challenged me, right, and we're like, hey, you need to know all these drinks, food, everything on the menu. You know those people that like take orders and they don't need a pen and paper?

Yeah, I don't.

I'm a big fucking fan of those people.

Yeah.

Like a big fan, right? Because I think they're really professional at what they do. They're different than the rest. Fair? 99% of people who wait on us need a pen and paper. Yeah. And when they ask the specials for the night, they have to open their little thing and cheat and read it. Like, they don't know the specials for the night without reading it. Yeah, man, those are like people that don't know the phone script without reading it. Those people frustrate me. I don't understand it because it's your profession. Does that make sense? So you're bartending, you got down. I just need you to have the same confidence because you as a person have that ability because you're doing it now. I need you to have the same confidence in yourself here as you do there. Now you have the ability to remember things. Underwriting is very simple.

Oh God.

But when you don't know it, you don't know it. But there's nothing complicated about it. The core— heart attack, cancer, stroke, diabetes, COPD— those 5 things, those are the core of underwriting of every company on the planet. I haven't sold a policy in 7 years and I still know that because that's the core at every single company. No different than if you said all these different drinks, the base is some version of fucking vodka, tequila, sugar, water, whatever the shit is y'all put in drinks, right? There's a core base and this is the same thing. So what I challenge you to do is to be as professional in this as you are in your current career and learn your basic underwriting. Now, I don't think you need to do that in priority as you do figuring out a schedule to book more appointments and make more phone calls right now. I know you got a crazy schedule, but you should figure out some kind of schedule to where you can do more than 40 over the course of 2 months, because that's only like 5 a week on average. So I would figure out how to get that higher. I'd work on your schedule. Um, but my advice is for everybody, like Again, imagine someone asked for a drink and then you had to go back and research the drink before you made it. You're like, all right, come back in an hour, I'll have it figured out.

So you think like pick just the one carrier, one product, just go all the way through term and learn term and then go to IUL? I just feel like I'm so overwhelmed to like—

Yeah, I think you should learn one thing at a time. One. So take final expense or mortgage protection or whatever term, whatever you sell.

Mortgage protection. That's what I'm doing. Yeah.

Take one carrier and learn that product inside out. Like, I could give it to my 12-year-old for homework and be like, by Friday I need you to know all the main underwriting stuff. They all have guides, they're all relatively simple in concept. At the very least, you should know where to find the information real time. No different than if you don't know how to make every drink, if I show you what's on the drink, you can make it, correct? It's— this works the same way. If you know how to access the underwriting guide You can underwrite real time and there's cheat sheets everywhere. Yeah, you all have cheat sheets. They have that— what's that tool, Joey? Insurance Toolkits. That's a, that's a little thing. $10, $15, $20 a month, whatever it is. You can literally plug in it. That's the easy part. You know, you're— you should be— what I'll tell you is every top producer on the planet that I know doesn't pre-underwrite. Every new agent feels like if they do it, it helps them sell because all it does is help you look up pricing. That you hope is correct in advance. But the reality is you'll find out when you start doing underwriting, you don't know shit in advance because these fuckers lie. They forget stuff. You'll miss medications. You ask bad questions. You're going to miss so much stuff that doing what you're doing now in advance, although you think it's helping you, it's actually hurting you in more ways than one. It's, it's just you're going to have, you're going to have to learn how to do it real time. And I would, I would challenge you to just use the cheat sheets and guides and things like that. Currently, you'll scare way more people on the phone asking all those questions because the second you ask something that they have, they shit themselves because they think they're not eligible anymore and they freak out. They already think they can't qualify for stuff when they're sick, you know? So it's like, I don't know, it's like throwing a rock in the water when you're fishing. It's not good for the fish, you know? That makes sense.

So you're saying do less of this, uh, preparation and more like the appointment?

Yes. Book appointments. Yes. And study your underwriting. In 2 months, you could know every product that you have at Symmetry for sure, inside and out, for sure. You just have to put the time in every day. Just like when you went to the bartending school and took the test and all that stuff you had to do, you just have to put in the time to learn it daily. A little bit of time every day adds up. Just take one product. Learn it today and tomorrow. Take a new product, learn it on Thursday, Friday. Take a new product, learn it Saturday, Sunday. But please, I want you to hear me, don't wait until you learn them all to start working. Please start working and do it, do it combined, like together, you know what I mean? Keep making, keep making it. Just use the cheat sheets and don't be afraid to be like, you know, oh, Michelle, hey, let me— give me just like 2 seconds to look that one up. It's okay to tell people you have to look something up. It's okay to, if you're in person, to pull out an underwriting guide in person. If you're on Zoom, it's okay to say, let me look. Just like if I ask for a drink you never heard of, you might go, oh, let me look that one up. And I don't give a shit. I just want my drink.

Yeah, happens often. But, uh, so just take it away. The majority of the questions about health at the first call.

If you're booking appointments, just book appointments. Yeah, I promise you it works significantly better. And, you know, some people at Symmetry might hate me because it's their script, but when I get you making $30 grand a month doing it, they'll love me. I promise you.

Yeah.

Because this, I've trained on this for 12 years and it works really fucking good. And I've seen that script. It's long as shit. It makes me want to poke my eyeballs out.

It is.

And for clarity, I love everyone there, but my agency does more volume than their entire company.

Heard you.

So yeah, great people there. I know a lot of the guys there, so all good people. Um, you're in a good spot, so appreciate you.

Thank you so much, and thank you. Sign my book, I love it.

Awesome, you're welcome. Yes, I agreed, Preston. You don't need 25 carriers. Jesus Christ, I wrote $400 grand over— I wrote $460 grand with like 2 carriers, so you don't need much. Anybody else got anything? You raising your hand? Is it Deanne? Sorry, this print is so small, I can't read it.

I know, and I apologize.

I have a little bit of voice, but is your preference, um, one call close? They all work. Literally everything works. So take something and run with it. You— there's pros and cons to everything. I got people making $1 million a year on one-call close, booking appointments with leads, without leads, virtually, in-home. It literally, it all works. There's millionaires at every company, every single one of us. So no matter where we work, someone's printing money. You know what I mean? So literally everything works. So anyone that tells you this is better, it's just opinion. I promise you, they all work. Every style works. What doesn't work is going, let me test, let me get my feet wet on this one. Oop, nope. Let me dip my toe in over here. Oop, nope. Let me dip my toe in over here. Oop, nope. Take something and run with it. You know what I mean? If one call close sounds intriguing to you, dope. If I were doing, if I was selling today, I would be on the phone one call closing. I grew up booking appointments, going to see people in-home. But if I were doing in today's world with today's technology, I'd be like, why am I booking an appointment when I got them on the phone now? But I would have like a, you ever heard the saying, um, Joey, where it's like, uh, and not or?

Yes, sir.

Right? Like people go one call close or book appointments. I'm like, you know, you can do both. Cause even if you go, I'm a one call close person. If you call me when I got my kids, you know, I'm walking my kids into daycare and I have groceries, you know what I mean? Groceries in my hand. Like I may not be able to do it in that moment. So have some grace with people and be like, if it doesn't work in the moment, it's okay to book an appointment too. You know what I mean? So most, most of the people that I work with that I coach are one-call close first, and they move them to an appointment if it doesn't happen to work for either or. You know what I mean? Because if you're one-call close and you get no-showed, you can call and book appointments. You may not have time for a one-call close in that gap. Maybe you got 20 minutes to make phone calls. You might have to book appointments in that moment versus just kind of sitting around and waiting 20 minutes for your next appointment that's scheduled. Does that make sense? I'm like, so you can, you can be dynamic in it too. But I would lead, one call close. If I'm in today's world and today's the way everything works in insurance, I'd be one call close and then I'd be booking appointments next. The probably only asterisk to that is maybe some people selling higher-end shit. Yeah, I mean, sometimes those take multiple appointments. I mean, you're selling big IULs, big annuities, things like that. Sometimes those are— I wouldn't push those if— but basic level, term, final expense, basic leads, Kaboom leads. Like, for the most part, those are— you can handle those pretty much on the spot. For the most part.

That was perfect.

Thank you. Mm-hmm. Anybody else got anything? Don't be shy. Now's your chance. There's always shy ones. It's kind of funny. Joey, if you had only one book to share with people, what would it be? One book to share? And this for the selling side or more like you want something like personal production helps you personally, or something more like development team stuff like that. Leadership stuff. My favorite leadership book is John Maxwell's Five Levels of Leadership. My favorite one ever. It gave me the biggest perspective shift ever in my life. Reading that book, it changed my life forever. You got it right there. Dope. Yeah, Preston's got it there. Your little funny background's blurring it out a little bit, but I see it. And then if I were to— I'm going to give you both. There's two I like on more the personal side. It's a Maxwell book also called The Difference Maker. Phenomenal book. And I'm going to give you a clue. It's going to tell you you're the problem. The Difference Maker is you, but it's a very well-written book. And I like— Dave Anderson wrote a book that I used a lot called It's Not Rocket Science. It was very similar. My mentality and the way I teach is from a combination of those 3 books. So it's— if you like my style, like it's— if you're looking for a different answer, I wouldn't read any of those books. But if you're looking to reiterate it with people that are really fucking good, those, those 3 are probably the best that I've, that I've read that have helped me personally.

Can you cover those real quick one more time? You got The Five Levels of Leadership by John Maxwell.

Difference Maker. The Difference Maker, also by Maxwell. And then Dave Anderson. It's Not Rocket Science is the name of his book. Meaning it's not right, it's not rocket science. Fucking do more. That's, that, that's the summary of the book, to be clear. But he does go through some really cool— there's still some stuff today, dude, to run on my agency that I use from all those books. Um, so anybody else got anything?

If there are no more questions, guys, I think we're going to go ahead and wrap here for the day. John, as always, we appreciate having you on here, man. I like, I like to do this at the very end because I think I already know what yours is going to be. But if you had one sentence, one parting piece of advice to say bye to those on the call here and help motivate them for the week, what is it?

You deserve it too.

Okay, I didn't guess it.

I threw a curveball at you, bro.

Yeah, yeah.

You tried to think I was a one-trick pony right there.

Do more, guys. Just do more. But if you guys need help with tracking that activity, one of the things that I actually have pushed a lot of people to— John has an activity tracker on his site, www.johnwetmore.com.

I did post in the chat. You know what we did now too, bro? Just for you. You go to JohnWetmore.com/tracker.

Okay, I'll put that in the chat instead. There you go, Deanna got it. So that is available to you guys. I have seen several agents that I work with on the Academy actually start utilizing this thing and seeing their production grow. Yeah, to do the math, to work this backwards, to know what you need to do You have to know what you're already doing and track it and just do more. So guys, uh, again, I want to thank everybody for not only putting in the time, money, and energy to be here, but also to just absorbing this, engaging with our speaker. And at the end of the day, guys, just get out there, help more families. If you need anything, you know where to find me. John, again, thank you so much, man.

My dude, always happy to help. Y'all tag me online if I— if you got anything out there. And keep me updated on your progress. Later.

Awesome, guys. Appreciate you guys.

Thank you, John.