I Taught 50 Insurance Agents How To Make $100,000 (8% Memphis)

Please help me welcome to the stage, from Atlanta, Georgia to Memphis, Tennessee, John Wetmore! It's the right jam for Memphis. They don't play here. It is hot as hell in this town. Is it always like this? Is this normal?

Woo!

I got out the car in the parking lot and I'm in Atlanta. Atlanta's pretty hot. I got out and I'm like, what happened? This is a different kind of hot here today.

Shit.

It was wild. All right, cool. Well, appreciate y'all having me. Thank you, Cody. I'm going to get into just— I'll tell you a little bit about the background for those that don't know. It's like, I remember, so this month, 12 years ago this month, I wrote my first policy. And I didn't know what the hell I was doing. I was an accountant. I had a job, like a 9-to-5 type job, and just looking for some extra money because I couldn't afford my bills. Wife's like clipping coupons to buy groceries. We couldn't pay for anything. I'm buying like used toys off Craigslist for my kids. I got 5 kids, and, um, this was just like, hey, I need a few extra bucks, you know, let me, let me get into something. And I actually got licensed a year and a half prior and just never did anything with it. I called leads once, I had really shitty results, and I quit, right? Because of course it was the leads' fault. So going back to the job, you— it happens to you too, right? The leads, they suck, don't they? I had a guy ask me, uh, he hit me up on Facebook and he said, "Hey man, I'm new. Can you tell me where to get leads?" And he put "and" and he put all bold, you know when people do bold letters when they type your stuff, it drives me, I have like a mental block there. I'm like, why are you yelling at me? And he put "quality leads." And he's been DMing me for a few months and he just never takes action. He's like, just, he doesn't train, he doesn't study anything, he doesn't do much of anything. But he always wants to ask questions. And my response to him was, dude, leads are only as quality as your skill set. And he was like, thank you. And I haven't heard from him since. And I did give him some lead options.

Weird.

But yeah, imagine that. But I used to think that way too. I did quit. So it's hard for me to get on to people. It's funny, a lot of the things I say, I say through experience because I messed it up a lot. I'm not one of those guys that came into this industry killing it. By any means. And we're doing pretty well now. I have a lot of help. I did learn how to kill it. And it was through a lot of mistakes and learning from them. But I get into the industry August 2012, write a policy. About a year I did part-time, transitioned into full-time in August of 2013, and started recruiting right away because I saw the business side of things. I don't want to be a sales guy forever. And I always share the stat for the— how many of y'all want to like build something, recruit? You know, those leads suck too, right? Love y'all. Tough. You know, but my first 2 years, I did 700 interviews to try to recruit agents like by myself, individual interviews using Craigslist and different forms of resumes. And at the— at the end, beginning of 2015, end of 2014, I had one agent and it was me. Yeah, I was killing it. We did $174,000 for the year as a group that year, and I did $169,000 of it myself. And it took 5 other agents to do the other $6,000 for the year. Yeah, that's where we're at. Cumulative since then, we've done somewhere in the ballpark of 650,000 applications as a team, $750 million cumulative, something like that since end of 2014. You know, so things can change quick. I just kept at it, and what I really learned is I had to change a lot about me. I was the one that was there the whole time. I was the one thinking the wrong way. I wasn't necessarily listening. I definitely wasn't implementing things I learned. And I was overcomplicating it. I'm an accountant. I'm pretty analytical by nature. I overthink things. I'm a guy who wants to research stuff by default, like as I was raised. But I don't think that way anymore. Now I'm just like, let me go make a mess of it. And just, I will literally figure it out later. Hence the name of the book is Do More Now, Get Better Later. Like I'm just like, let's go and I will make a motherfucking mess of it and I'll just fix it as we go. Like, to be 100% transparent, Amanda was putting that QR code together back there in the corner like 15 minutes ago. I'm like, we'll just figure it out. Okay. Like, it's all good, you know what I mean? So you can build stuff without overcomplicating things. And I've kept what I learned that I made the mistakes of. And I don't, I don't teach a lot of different things in a broad audience until there's a lot of activity because I've learned you need a lot of mistakes to make tweaks. You know what I mean? Like people always want, I need help with my phone script, I need help with my in-home, I need help overcoming objections. I had someone complain to me, they got like a, everybody this week hung up on me. I'm like, define everybody. You're like, I mean, I had at least 8 of them. I was like, like all week? Yeah, yeah, no. So for me, it's like I had to learn how to put a high level of activity because then I could tweak things. And I always use examples of my son Maddox. He plays baseball. If he went out, took two— if he went out and took two ground balls a week, I hire the best coach on the planet, he's never going to learn how to take ground balls, you know. And so If he starts taking hundreds a week, which he does, you get pretty damn good, especially when you add coaching. So I've kind of broken this business for me the way I've learned it, taught it, and continue to talk about it. I write like crap. I'm trying my best to make this legible. I'm learning somewhat. That's work, leads, work, training. And what I've learned is the people that are failing in this business in their own mind, they're messing one, if not all three of these up. If you get all three of these down, you will print money in this business. And if you want to build a team, you still have to get leads, recruiting leads. You still have to work, and you still have to do this. Not only on them, on yourself. You know what I mean? So this works on both sides of the business. Is there a time? I don't know when I started or when I'm ending, Cody. So, dope. Thank you. So leads for me, what I always wonder with people is like, most people don't get enough of these to be able to do enough of this. And they spend a lot of time doing this one so they don't have to do that one. And most of y'all are afraid to get this one because you don't want to hear the truth. That's the reality. Everywhere I go, no one ever disputes it, and that was my problem too, right? Now the question is, why do we not get enough leads when we know we need enough leads? Why do we do that? What do y'all think? Fear of what? Why do you not get— when you know leads turn into presentations and it eventually turns into sales, which turns into money, why do you not get more of them?

Money.

Hmm.

They don't believe in themselves. Distraction. Yeah. Not know what kind of lead.

Yeah.

I mean, all of those are valid, right? What I hear a lot, most, I heard it a few times, is here's cost, right? So it's like, All right, now define a lead. Too many people think a lead is like a sale, and it's really just a chance at a conversation. Like a lead— a lead is only something that Cody goes and runs a Facebook ad for and sends to you by email or puts in your CRM? No, right? He obviously taught about the social selling side, but y'all are in sales. Anybody ever been to Atlanta Airport? On a Monday morning? What's it full of? Salespeople. Monday morning is by far the busiest place, time, in L.A. Airport. It's insane. It's busy all the time, but Monday morning, bananas. And the salespeople getting on airplanes to fly around the country to sell shit, right? Meaning, can leads not be— if you start thinking about it, it's like, the problem with the cost thing, right? You got time. Or you got money. You got money, you buy Cody's leads.

Cool.

Most of y'all worry about money. Fair. Which means you have a lot of what?

Time.

Okay, so what are you doing with that time to generate leads? Yeah, we got a guy that does $300,000.

Correct.

We got a dude on our team, does $350,000 a year cold door knocking apartment complexes. So how many doors have y'all knocked on this week? To get leads, or do you only expect them to fall out of the internet and hit you in the head? Fair. How many referrals have you got this week? Have you even asked for any? Most people don't even ask for them. Good. Keep doing it. How many meetings, networking, free networking meetings have you been to this week in your local community to generate leads? How many referral partners have you attempted to contact this week? You sell life, contact health people, P&C people. You sell health, P&C and Medicare, whatever, contact life people. Like, why not real estate people, mortgage people? Like, how many of those things have you done? Past clients, annual reviews, they're free, right? But most people, again, sit around complaining because they don't have money. And I'm like, what are you doing instead? Definitely not that, right? So this Be careful what you define this as. And a lot of people expect leads like, again, Maddox with baseball. Imagine what's the expectation when you buy a lead from most agents? Ideal situation. Everybody wants that every time they answer. They tell me to come over, virtual, whatever you all do today, and we make a sale. Is that reality? It's like, again, Maddox baseball. What's his ideal scenario every time he gets up to bat? Hit a home run. Does that happen? Almost never. But you don't need massive percentages in order to have success in that sport. And you don't need amazing percentages in this sport either. I had a 40% closing ratio and made almost half a million bucks in my own pen. See 1,000 people, dude. Close 40% of them. $1,200 a pop. I mean, $460 G's. We were talking about it in the back. I was okay failing 60% of the time of people I see. Forget how many I talked to. I was 40% closing of the ones I'm sitting with at their kitchen table. But I was putting in the work. Earlier I wasn't. Multiple years. I changed, put in the work, and I'm like, let me just play the game. Does that make sense? Generate leads however, anyway. Again, I'm a big fan of buying leads. I don't want to do all the other crap I said to do. Networking. I'm not your guy. I sucked at referrals. I didn't do any of that stuff good. But when I made a sale, I was like, how much of it goes here? All of it. Why? Because I can make money in 2 days. My mortgage is due. Cool. It can be 2 days late. It's $50. It'd be 15 days late. Who cares? I didn't care. My credit score was like 412 back then. Be 30 days late. I didn't care. Y'all do you. I didn't care. And in this business, you can make the money back like this. So many people make $1,000 and they go spend it on whatever. I had to pay the bill. Like, it's already late. Fair? Why not just buy more Kaboom leads and go make 3 grand, then pay the $1,000. We have fears. A lot of people said that. I mean, I get it, but it's like, how long do you not fear being in the situation you're in now? Forever? That's gotta suck. I mean, I lived there for 37 years. I was broke as a joke with 5 kids at 37 still. And I'm like, something's got to give. And I'm watching all these other people have success. You'll see everybody up here. Someone— what was the thing earlier? She said, what was the word you used? Like when there's too many saturated, like valid concern. But again, how many people are in the country? You said billions in the world. I don't know how many in the country. Anybody have a clue? How many? How many? What? 300-something million. And how many licensed agents are there?

1.5 million.

1 in 336. And what percentage of 336— I know we're talking millions now— don't have enough or any insurance?

Also, some of these agents in here, they may—

are doing things the old school way and aren't current. So they're like going off of old leads coming in. Yeah, I mean, again, define lead. You could— I could take the phone book today and make a quarter million bucks in this business for sure. Lead company don't matter. It's again, what is a lead? What makes a lead company good or bad? What makes a lead good or bad? Your result is what y'all judge it as. A lead is just a human being who has a family that they give a shit about, just like y'all do yours. Because the instant you called them, it didn't— it wasn't a home run. Doesn't make it a bad lead. Maybe you sucked on that call. That ever happen to anybody? You ever suck ass on a call? You ever suck ass and choke on a presentation?

Me too.

My thought was, if the lead company's in business, they must be doing something right. Or they wouldn't be in business, you know what I mean? So I just, again, I want to go like, what can I do about the situation? I can call more of them for sure. And are there assholes who do bad things with leads out there? Obviously. But there's so many opportunities to create potential presentation opportunities for you guys, you know? And again, when I go work, what I always say is like, I want to I'm going to give you just the way I look at it. Some of you all have seen me do this before. But what I love about it is it works every time. If we said in the last 7 days, presentations to clients, whoever is out there that thinks they did the most in the room— y'all that did 2, obviously you aren't the one. Who did like a lot of presentations last 7 days? Give me a number. Who thinks they have the biggest number in the room this week? No one presented this week? No one has confidence. How many? How many did you do?

8.

Did anyone do more than 8 presentations this week? How many did you do? 17. Anybody got more than that? How many you got this week? 30 presentations. Thank you, Jesus. Okay. You virtual, in-home, over the phone. How long does your average one take?

About 45.

All right. 45 minutes. Okay, average. Some take the F off in 3 minutes, some you drag out an hour and a half. Does that make sense? Anyone know how to do the math? 30 times 45 minutes. If it was, if it was an hour, it'd be 30 hours. So probably 20-ish hours, 22 hours. I don't know, someone can do the math, it'd be dope. Yeah, so 22 hours presenting. Then if we go prospecting, right, in order to present we have to prospect. So someone in here, give me who, like, made the most phone calls this week attempting to prospect. Ballpark. Just give me a number. Who made a lot of phone calls this week? How many you got? How many? How many did you do this week?

500.

Every day is about 100. How many did you do that to get there? How many? $325 for the week. Okay. You're doing a few hundred a day. Yeah. I mean, $500 a day. Yeah, $500 a day. Yeah, correct. Oh, I talk to him all the time. Like, here's a— hold on, y'all listen. Some people are like, I did 50 or 100 for the week. Did y'all hear how many he does a day? But here— but again, we go— for me, I go, how long does one of them take? Not a minute, because most don't pick up, right? No one's confused by that, right? So if you go 60, 120, 240, 480, you're spending 8 hours dialing. Why is an 8-hour workday phenomenal? That's like normal. Fair. So there we go. If we did 50 a day, I mean, again, even if we go, they take a couple minutes, which they don't, it's like an hour a day prospecting. Again, you're killing it with as many appointments you get. So for me, if you're happy with where you're at, keep doing what you're doing. But then I also go, how many hours am I spending prospecting? So again, the number one person in the room presenting only spent 22 hours doing it. You had 17 average. How long is your average one? 45 minutes an hour.

Okay.

17, 15, 17 hours for the week presenting. Top two guys in the room.

That was just Monday and Tuesday. Perfect.

But my point is, like, one day to me it clicked. I'm doing 8 a week, and I'm doing 150 phone calls a week, and I was doing no door knocking, no presenting, no referrals, none of it, no social stuff. I wasn't doing anything else, and I'm pissed about my result. And the math was I'm working 8, 10 hours a week. Max. You know what I'm saying? But then I go, how many hours, how many hours of videos training did you watch today on YouTube or your team call or your weekly mindset call or your— when I get people's schedules, agents, I have them map them out. Some of y'all doing 2, 3, 4 hours a day of watching videos. The videos don't help without this piece. Stop lying to yourselves. That's all I— that's all I changed. And I go through it in the book in detail. A bunch of y'all have it in here. We get— we get requests for it every day, which is cool. We got some in the back if nobody has them. But it's like there's a playbook to this thing. But none of this works without these. They just don't work. You know what I'm saying? So if you can master these 3 things, And all I wanted to do was these 3 things, really the work side of it. When I said prospecting and presenting, and for me it was also recruiting because I want to do that. Some of y'all don't want to do that. Prospecting, presenting, recruiting. If you can get to 40 hours of that, which is just a job. People out there work 80 hours a week all over the country, everywhere. In every industry. Fair. The top 2 guys in the room ain't hitting this number. I know his goals. Not this week. I know he's offended. I hope you're offended, dude, because I want you to go out and make $500,000 this year. I want to offend you guys. I hope you're pissed. You should be. But stop being mad at the result. And please start being mad at the effort you're putting towards the result you say you want. Does that make sense? All right, that's my time. Appreciate you. Concept of what he's saying isn't the problem. His concepts are great, but that's his personality, you know what I mean? So take his concept, just be you. So if you're confused and it doesn't go, so wait a minute, if that's not you, don't do that, you know what I'm saying? That's weird as shit for me too. But the concept of if it doesn't make sense, be like, I'm sorry, dude, I'm confused. It doesn't really make any sense. It's okay to do that too. It's the same. It brings out the same emotion and questioning that he's trying to do on the— from the client, you know what I'm saying?

That's all he's trying to do is get them to think differently and see things differently, trying to get them to answer the questions so you don't have to ask.

Yeah, correct. So just, just be you, dude. It's on you. It's fucking— it's insane what it'll do just being yourself. And just genuinely trying to help people solve problems. It's all about solving problems. Yeah, I mean, and there's some— certainly, certainly part of it, they are procrastinators. You certainly got to learn how to get people to stop procrastinating, pull the trigger now.

Dom was saying, yeah, are you procrastinating or are you sick?

Correct. Yeah, yeah, that's how I sold every one of my fucking final expense plans, 100% of them. That was my in-home.

Really?

Yeah, that was my opening. I've been teaching that shit for 10 years.

Yeah, so I've— I'm finally making progress. I feel like it's good, dude. And now it's just being more efficient and upping all my fucking numbers. Yeah, because the one guy said he's doing 500 aisles a day. Like, fuck, I've been doing 300, thought I was doing okay. Yeah, you do your numbers like you do in all your videos.

Yeah. I mean, the problem that some people do is they drag out the 300. Kind of like dude was, Hank was saying, it's like if you spend 10 hours to do 300, why waste 10 hours doing it when you can do it in 5?

Yeah.

You know what I'm saying? So it's typically the gaps between dials that causes people to do less of that. So Preston isn't doing anything probably any more extraordinary except I bet from dial 1, when he hangs up, dial 2 happens right away. Where you have more breaks between.

Like, I use PhoneBurner and it's like put 50 in there and I go through all them, or however many I have for that. And some of the guys you bring me, I haven't used that yet.

Use your damn cell phone.

Yeah, you know what I mean?

If you can get them in there, fine, but if it takes— if you're like spending 2 hours setting it up, just call people.

Or do it at night from the aisle. See?

Yeah, good. So they go right in. Yeah, cool.

Yeah, it pops right in there. So it's really quick and portable.

Yeah, you should get significantly more with that because the, the cadence of the dialing is quicker. Yeah, I mean, so it shouldn't be that hard. So just schedule it out, dude. Look at your schedule and goes, here, here's what I'm gonna dial, and have a goal per hour. 60 an hour minimum. With PhoneBurner, you could probably do 70, 75 an hour easy.

Yeah.

So if you aren't those things, then I can go, hey, remember the part where you said you'd do ABC? Yeah. Yo, if you don't keep doing it, I'm out.

I would always find that I would hang on too long.

Correct. And that, that which causes you to do what? What does that cause if you hang on to me too long? What does that cause me?

Money and pain.

And what else? Frustration. It causes you to miss her. Yeah. Because you focus on me.

Exactly. You're right.

Does that make sense? As soon as I learned that I was like, no more. I'm out. Because I'm not willing to sacrifice them for you.

So let me answer this question.

If that's all it takes to give you all the knowledge.

My problem is I never get the jokers committed, but I hadn't cut them off.

Yeah. So if after a couple of months, you're still— typically you're just repeating yourself.

Yeah.

And does it make sense? I'm not going to keep repeating myself. Hey, how do I do this? You do it like that. How do I do this? You do it like that. If I go, how do you do this? And I say, do it like that, and they don't do it, they ask me again. I'm like, you looking for a different answer, bro?

Because, you know what I mean, that makes what my original— the way I've been handling it for years. Yeah.

And it's been frustrating the hell out of me because I'm so good at saying, can you do this?

Yeah.

Yes. When you're done with it, let me know. After a couple times with them not letting me know and them not doing it, they ain't gonna reach back out. And for me, you don't reach back out, I already said I'm gonna assume you quit.

Yeah.

So I just move on. You know what I mean? So I get my answer quicker and it's way less emotionally draining because I don't deal with the excuses.

Yeah.

Does it make sense? Because I just, my questions are really intentional to get them to verbalize what they'll do.

Because everybody come claim they already know how to sell and then I find you don't know how to sell. Yeah, you just running your mouth.

So cool.

All right, brother. That's worth pricing. All right, my man. Glad to help.

Appreciate it.