Knowing Your Numbers, Sales Tips, & More! - Mastermind Event: May 2 (pt2)

I'm gonna have you guys do a little exercise that helped me. And do what you want with it. It's gonna help. So what I wanna go over, a couple things like actual nuts and bolts stuff. So I think for me, building a schedule is super important as part of this business. But I think what I learned for me is when I put my goals on paper, and you can, we'll start the exercise now if you have some that just literally off the top of your head stuff. We don't have to get too deep, too crazy, too long. Please finish it later. Just do like the top 2 or 3 things that come to mind. And the way I set up goals for me is pretty different, I think, in a lot of ways. Like, I like goals, whatever they are. I want to make a zillion dollars. I want to donate to church. I want to buy a giant house. I want to fucking live on the land in the middle of nowhere. Whatever your stuff is, it is, right? I think what people missed that I very mistakenly did well is kind of the next steps. So it's like, all right, the next steps would be like, again, as an example, I want to make— how would you say— $250,000, right? Yeah. All right, cool. What do I need to add? I need to run 28 appointments a week. Whatever the answers are, the things you need to add to hit the goals you want, right? What I believe is the most important is the third column, the things you need to get rid of, because if you don't get rid of shit, you can't add stuff. Does that make sense? And for me, I just— I did that by mistake at the beginning. I don't know why. I don't know if I read it, heard it. I've And that just— I look back and I'm like, everyone always did goals. Most people just do goals. Here's my goals. Some people put action behind the goals, very few. I don't know anyone that also goes like, I gotta get rid of this stuff, and writes it down. So basic stuff, literally just write down your top few things you need that you've learned today, or know you need to do in your case that you need to add. And then y'all know the shit you gotta get rid of. I've never met a person who don't know. So this is the sacrifice piece now, right? So things you, you got to be willing to do them. This is for you. I don't care. We're not— I'm not going to make people share. This is just y'all do you. And then I'll explain kind of the, the rest of how I did it. So take like 2 or 3 minutes to do that and let me know when you're all done. I think everyone's done.

Yeah, cartoons were better back then.

All right, if, um, so for me, mine are written up here. So at some point it got to be I want to make $250 grand. I was kind of going into '15, um, pay off debt. I had like obviously a house, I had cars, I had student loans, I had probably like 30, 25 G's in student loan debt, probably like, I don't know, 50 G's in credit card debt. And sadly, that was after filing bankruptcy and losing 2 houses and getting a car taken away. I still, I racked up more debt because I didn't learn the first time, so I got more. And then, uh, so I wanted to pay off all that. You can just drop it here. Uh, so I wanted to pay off that. I wanted to get Steph a house because I, the entire time I lived in her house I went from when I— right before, a little bit before I got an insurance, I lived in one of those like efficiency lodges by the interstate behind the gas station. Lived there for a while. I got an apartment. I got like a, like an actual apartment, like, you know, walk— like 12, 15 of them in a building, whatever type apartment. I made it maybe 60 days before I couldn't pay rent, got kicked out of there. Go in one day, eviction notice, and my kid The little ones were like babies, like a few months old. Gabby was like a year. And I had like a, I don't know, TJ and Shay, they were probably like 7 and 12 or something like that. Maddox wasn't born yet. I just met Steph. And so I got kicked out of there and she let me move in with her. So that's, then I knew her life. Like we connected quick, like early. We started talking marriage like within like, I think 30 minutes. It was really crazy. But so within a few months, I got kicked out of that apartment. I moved in with her. So I lived in Steph's house from 2000. It was that 2000. We met in '07, the end, probably beginning of '08, end of '07, beginning of '08 till 2016. Other than the house she bought when she was like 21. It's about like $130,000 house, you know, 1,200 square foot, split level, 3-bedroom, you know what I mean? Half-finished basement, whatever. Little, little place, but it was hers, you know. So I lived there for a while, and when I first met Steph, she made more money than I did. She was making like 60 G's a year. I'm making, you know, 30, 40. I got 4 kids, she's got none, you know what I mean? Her family was like, yeah, what do you do? And she's from the country, like she's a country girl. So like her cowboy boots, brother's wearing cowboy boots and chewing that shit in their lip and they shoot animals and then eat it right after they cook it in their backyard type like country family. And the first time I meet them, they bring me to the backyard and they live on a bunch of land. And we're sitting down around this like fire pit thing. And they're cooking frog legs that they caught out of their pond and they're eating them. And I'm like, where am I? And they're talking in country and I'm brand new to the South and we ain't from the country. I'm like, yo, what are they saying? And so Steph had to translate because the dad and the brother were talking and, you know, now I understand country and it's 7 words into one mumble. Means something and it's a new word that they don't say up north. Like yonder is an example that we— they don't teach that word up north. And so I'm like, why do they— and Steph would be like, well, this means that. I'm like, why don't they just say that? Like, it means over there, so why don't they just say over there? Why do they get to use a made-up word? And I was struggling with it, right, to understand it. But so I'm living with her, I'm in that environment, she's making more money, I got 4 kids, we got child support. I got child support. I say we— I had it, but she was helping pay it. Because I was— I couldn't, you know, if you— I don't know if any of you dealt with it. If you don't pay, you go to jail. So it's not good. So I'm like, all that culminated into that whole, let me, let me do the 40-hour thing, get out of it. And for me, this was really important because I wanted to get out of her house and buy us a house. All right, so that was a big goal for mine. And then one of the things that I really wanted, because I have 4 kids with my first marriage, which was really young, yet first came at 16, then I had one She was born at 17, then I won at 20, and then I had 2 more at like maybe like 26, 27, so I can't remember. I was like 28, 29, whatever year I was, maybe 30 with 4. Um, and then I had Maddox with Steph in 2010, 2011. We got married in 2010, had Maddox in 2011. And so the 4, 2 kids, one went to Ohio State One kind of did his own thing, ended up going to KSU. I had two little ones in North Paulding, and then I had Maddox. So they were all in separate places. And one of the things I wanted— I knew I couldn't make it here because these kids only grew up with broke dad. These two saw— now have seen both sides. And this one, all he knows is money. But I wanted these to go to school together. That was one of the goals of mine. And I want them in private school. So I'm like, those are the goals, right? This one, Maddox, Brayden, Gabby graduates next week from private school and she's going to work at Georgia College. So these were the goals, right? And then for me, I knew I had to do the 40-hour thing. One of the decisions I made is I was going to be the first one in the office dialing every day. Mike Killamant was my mentor. When I got there, he was always there and he'd always bitch that no one was there on time and people come late and it frustrated him. I'm like, "All right, first one to the office. That'll probably help. And it'll stand out and get me recognition from people." You know what I mean? So I literally, my goal was to race to the office to be the first one there every day. Appointment goal, again, these are things I'd add to my world. 30 appointments, 120 a month, 1,500 a year is what I had to add to get these things. And I wanted my lead flow as automatic as possible. Those are the things I knew I needed at the time. In order to do this shit, what did I have to get rid of? I was a junkie here. Big Brother, Survivor, the one— what's the travel the world one? Amazing Race. Amazing Race. Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, the old one with like Tamra and all them. I knew all of them back in the day. I still somehow remember her name because I thought she was hot. And I'm like, I watched all that shit with Steph every night nonstop. I'd watch football from Thursday to fucking Monday every single week, and I'd watch it on SportsCenter on repeat even though I just watched the game. I played flag football every Sunday for 15 years from the time I was 20 to the time I was— so I stopped at 35, and I would sleep in like a mother. I mean, if I got up— Steph used to have to go to work at 10, so her schedule was 10 to 10 to 5, 10 to 6, I think. It's been a while. I think it was 10 to 6. And, um, so she'd get me up at like 9:30, 9:45 before she left for work. She worked right up the street. So my typical day, I'd get up at 9:30 and then watch SportsCenter and eat Cheerios while she was at work. And then maybe I'd dial a little bit, maybe I wouldn't, you know what I mean? I was just that procrastination crap. And so the reason this helped me is because, again, the whole thing where I had that desire to do more and I started to have a little bit of belief in myself, but I had to, I had to make that decision. And this is the things I want to do. And now this just became like, you know, how do I execute this game plan every day? You know, for me, the reason this worked really well, adding this, is because if I sleep in It means I can't do that. If I catch myself thinking about flag football, I can't get Stepper House. You know what I mean? If I'm not the first one to the office, I'm like, shit, I can't do that. If I don't hit my appointments, I can't hit that. You know what I mean? So to me, these goals tie to to the things I had to get rid of. And when I started doing these, I knew I was avoiding these and I knew I would never have that. So this became like a trigger in a sense, you know? And I started, I remember one day I was sitting around like a bum watching football on Saturday, 'cause the NFL, they do Saturday at the end of the year, right? So I'm watching football on Saturday and I watch all the guys who are making money, they're out, selling, uh, policies on a Saturday. And we used to post our numbers in a group, little chat, so you could see who was, who was active, who wasn't. Some people use Slack or Facebook groups or things like that today, but we used Twitter back in the day. So we, we had this little following, and everyone would post how many appointments they ran, how much money they made, whatever. I remember I'm watching them all, and one day I did all the nerdy math like I did a little while ago based on my numbers, and I learned I figured out how much I made per hour when I was sitting with clients, and then I figured out how long a football game is, and I learned that watching a football game cost me $3,000. I was like, yeah, huh? Hey, not on TV, bro. I'm dropping $3,000, bro. I'm sitting front row. I'm gonna hit Tom Brady in the head with a football. You know what I mean? I hear you. So I just, if I sat and watched football, I'm like, now I can't help but sit down and watch TV and think, is this worth 3 Gs to me? Is this worth giving up private school for my kid? You know what I mean? Like, I had to make those triggers because we're all human and I can get you all fucking excited out of your mind today. But when you leave here, you're on your own. You know what I mean? You're gonna be sitting in your own environment. It's gonna wear off unless you put things in place. To keep yourself on point, you know what I mean? And for me, this was an accountability. I didn't really know it at the time. I wasn't like that smart and that intentional when I did it. I just, I was ready to change, you know what I mean? And I started doing things and I was reading books about goals and it just kind of all sort of happened separately. I didn't sit down and do this exercise. Just kind of slowly over time built it. I'm like, ah, I didn't know I need to do this. Ah, shit. You know what I mean? It kind of developed. I'm like, damn, there's something here. And I said, so like, I saw like these are handwritten goals from '14. It's 2015. I heard Mark Mead say on a training call in 2015, it's probably 2014 because I usually write these a few months before. He did a training call and he shared that he made $41,000 in a month. So that became my first goal for 2015. 41K in a month. I put not happy and I crossed it out because I didn't like saying that. I put not satisfied. I was making 8 to 10 grand a month and I put not happy slash crossed it out, not satisfied with 8 to 10K at all. I underlined at all. And then I wrote grow team, million, million dollars, million dollar team a year. If you remember on the board, we did $1.1 million. I didn't think—

attention—

when I put deposit $20,000 to $25,000 a month and double every year, $1 million by 2017. I actually did more than $20,000, $25,000 a month, and my goal was $250,000 or $300,000 IP. I did $460,000 and made whatever I made, $370,000 or something that year. I put make a million bucks by 2017, which happened. Be the number one writer on the team I was on. And then I listed people there by name here on people I want to pass. I said pass more people, and I put their names. Fuck yeah, I did. I hit every goal on here. I hit every goal on all of these. There's not one I haven't hit. I used to go like, these aren't the fit— these are the copies I say, but I check them off as I hit them. There's not one on here I haven't hit. But 2013, buy Steph a house, earn net $70K, win a free Carrier trip was a goal, read 12 books was a goal because I wasn't reading at the time, donate $2,000 to church. I wanted 5 riders by the end of the year. We have 6,000 now. Yeah, read 2 books a month.

The power of setting intentions.

Now I want to read 2 books a month in this year. The next year, I ain't there yet. Save $30,000 for a new house. Donate $5,000 to church instead of $2,000 from the previous year, which is cool. I put get one new mentor. Really cool. Get a CPA because I needed my business shit set up. See, '16, '16 was the dad's buying a house. Make over $500 grand for the first time. I'm going out of order a little bit. Team $3 million a year. Helped 20 agents get to $20 grand a month and more personal development. 2018, $15 million in agency a year. Help develop and mentor 4 direct VPs to me, find a secondary cash flow, which who knew would be real estate. I've made a fuck ton of money in real estate by mistake, and I don't know what I'm doing. But I bought these buildings too in one day, and I didn't know what I was doing. But the guy— I came, we were looking for a new office, 2019, maybe we moved in. So this is 2018, we're trying to find a new office. Kilimanjaro had an office that we rented and we subleased from him, and it was a shit hole. Like, had rats, and the plumbing didn't work, and it was nasty. Like, we should go on a tour one day. It was nasty. Fair? Like, I don't even think nasty is doing it justice.

Yeah.

And you still somehow came to work for me, and we'd have it packed out with people dialing, because my belief was like, who gives a shit? It was like boiler room shit. Like, we were cranking out. It was nuts. Um, so anyway, we're trying to move. Kilomet was buying a house at the time, so he couldn't like buy something because he was trying to finance his house and the whole however it works. So I'm like, I'll go for it, I'll figure it out, dude. So I go start looking at offices to lease. We start trying to find places, and one of my agents at the time says, are you open to buy something? And I'm like, you realize I just only bought one house in my life. And it was just a couple of years ago. I don't know anything about buying an office. She's like, just come look, they'll lease it, they'll rent, whatever. So we come look at that one and we're sitting outside with Billy. That's like, were you with me when this happened? It might've just been me and Steph, I can't remember. And I come outside and I look at it and go look and we're like, how much does it cost? And we're going through numbers and then he's like, well, would you be open to buy it? And I'm like, how the fuck does that work? And he goes, well, I own or finance it. I'm like, what the hell does that mean? He goes, if you give me 50 G's, I'll finance the rest. I was like, huh. And again, this is 2019, so I got some money now. And, uh, so we start looking at it, and we were going to lease the upstairs only, and downstairs has a tenant in it. So this, what you're in now, is a tenant, and upstairs where my office is in that building was empty, and it wasn't quite enough space. So I'm like, Shit, it's 10 offices. We can't really have trainings. And I'm doing the math on like the financing. It was going to be like 5 G's a month on mortgage. And I'm trying to figure out like rent and where we can fit everybody. And it just wasn't kind of working. They paid like 3 grand, I think, like 3 G's a month or something like that. I'm like, it wasn't working. And this, what you're in now, this was just a slap. There was nothing here. And I go, if you own or finance one, will you own or finance two? I hope, like, do more. I figured out late, he was like, you got $100 grand? I'm like, yeah. He goes, yeah, because then if I rented both of those, the rent from that— because then I could rent 10 offices there. So I was like, I can rent it to agents. There's 10 offices, $500 an office, 5 G's, 3 G's down there. The mortgage was like $4,500 each. So I'm like, if I buy both, the rent from that pays for both. Fuck it, let's do it. I gave the guy $100 grand that day and he built— he built— we built this one custom. That one you can't get upstairs to downstairs, so we built this one custom and I had the stairs put in the way we did it. And I literally just bought two commercial buildings off the rip. Now we're selling that one and I'm probably gonna make like— or so— how much we selling it for? I bought it for $700,000. Not bad for a dude who didn't know what the fuck he was doing. Then I bought a piece of property in Blue Ridge for 8-something and sold it a year later for 1.9. Just, I was like, fuck, let's buy a house. It wasn't on purpose, I just bought it. COVID happened, timing was worth a bunch. I'm like, fuck it, let's sell it. Who needs to come to a cabin anymore? A million bucks, I'm out. We sold it, you know. And now we're building our house with some of the money, certainly real insurance, but from real estate stuff too. And for me, I didn't know that when I put great second— you know, I mean, I've made like Probably. And my old house I sold, made good money. And the shit, the one I'm in now, probably fucking $3 million in real estate.

You've got Birmingham in Colorado and Tennessee.

Yeah, about 5 commercial buildings after that. Because then the model became, oh shit, that worked. Why don't I buy commercial buildings, put insurance agents in them who can't afford rent at a big space because it's expensive? Let me rent it $500 an office. And that became a model. We bought 5 buildings that way. Cash flowed like crazy. Sold the office in Nashville.

Yeah, the first one.

Not Nashville, sorry. So I was the first one at F&Fell to buy a building. So you just see where you have a bunch of agents that aren't close to you and you just throw it on? Yeah. And then I teach people to do it. So I'm like, here, if you want to do it, here's how you build a team. Get an office, do this, blah blah, culture, yada yada yada. If you can't— and they're like, yeah, that office is expensive. I'm like, well, I'll buy it if you want to rent it. So I'd go in and buy it. They'd run the office. I'm like, you want to buy it from me? The one day, buy it from me. Great.

Then we got 5 of them.

Huh? Nah, I mean, I, I was only gonna mark it up 10% if I sold it back to them.

That's awesome.

Yeah, I didn't need to make a bunch. I was going to cash flow and make 10% profit, move on. So we built that in. Just none of them bought it, and I sold it. I made 50% or whatever that number is. It's a big number, you know what I mean? But I just don't think I would have got that if I didn't put shit down, you know? Help 2 people get to a million-plus income. We definitely passed that. Mentor 20 agents to over $250 grand, no debt. Pay off my house before 2020, which we did. Pay the cars off. Help more people discover their gifts. You know, so kind of the combination of writing these things down and I look at them. I had this bitch taped to my office wall and in my bathroom. So I saw it every day. I put it in the dial room. So when I was dialing, I saw my goals. So when I wanted to— Right on the wall. And I had that sign in front of my desk at the old office. My goals and that sign, every single day I looked at. I'm just like, how do I feed myself the right stuff all the time? I mean, because the environments, man, mess you up. So again, it all ties together for me. If any of y'all— you definitely don't have to share if you want to because it's your thing. When you think you need to, you can, because I said I'm not going to make you. But then I thought, shit, maybe someone wants to. If you do, you can. You're more than welcome to. Or we can just move on. Next part of this thing, if you go to— so kind of one part of it I have to skip a little bit because to be honest, y'all don't have like the best numbers on earth, like cracked. So I'm going to, I'm going to go over that again. I think we get the concept of this one right now. For me, it was like, let me figure out ultimately how many appointments, how much activity I need to do. That was the— that's the goal of this sheet. Y'all just do that offline. We can't do it here because literally, if you suck at math, there's a key there. It's not that deep. If you can't figure it out, throw it away and pretend you never saw it. Kind of the last step to this thing, which I'll give you like 5— again, 5 minutes to figure out. Just— you got the 3 calendar months. Just take one. Literally take May. And what I did, I'll show you the way I did it. And that we've done this for an obnoxious number of agents over the years. So let's see if I can make a quick calendar. I go— be Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. Is that right? Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. So Something like that. What I would fill in first, if you're me, is the shit you either can't or don't want to move. So for me, my ideal schedule, your ideal schedule— mine was church on Sundays was ideal, and I didn't work. Church is an hour, so I don't— I certainly believe in working on Sundays. When I was part-time, I dialed every Sunday for a year. You could sell a shitload of insurance on Sundays, but I preferred to go to church. And be off. That's just what I wanted in the ideal world. I used to get my kids every Thursday night for dinner. The four that didn't live with me. And then every other weekend I had the kids Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Whoops, this board doesn't erase very well without this thing. So I had the kids every other weekend. That was all I gave a shit about. I preferred to not move those things. Okay, now there's some spots at the top of the calendar on the right. What in my head those were— again, I knew I had to run 120 appointments a month. That was my focus. You want to be Dallas, you want to be something else, make it something else. I don't give a shit. Mine was 120 appointments a month, and I'm like, here's what's open. So now it became fill in the blank. Does that make sense? Here's when I don't want to work. Now, for me, if I didn't hit my goals, I was going to work these days. So the result and the consequence of not doing that meant I had to miss these days. I'm a very big, like, consequence guy to myself. So now I was like, all right, well, what do I do here? Again, I come from an in-home world. I'd probably do it very similar even if we're telesales. I'd come up with something very similar. I'm just going to share my schedule, make the concept apply to you, do it how you want. I dialed every Monday. That was my schedule. I was going to be the first one in the office. I was going to dial, and I was going to book appointments. Here every week, Tuesday, Wednesday. And for me, I'll finish the schedule before I explain, which meant this week the only days I could run appointments, like in this week, in my ideal world, I only got 2 days because I get my kids Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Sunday and I'm off in church. I would take— I would pick them up Thursday for dinner, I'd get them after school Friday, and I'd bring them home Sunday night. No, not my ideal schedule. Does that make sense? I built my ideal schedule. In the perfect world, this is what I wanted. So appointments here, cool. Then I went, all right, every other Friday I can run appointments because I don't have my kids. Then here and here I was with only Stephanie and Maddox. So I had all the kids these weekends. Maddox lives with me, so I went, I'm going to work one and I'll be off this one. That was my ideal world. How does that add up to 40? Yeah, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, We got A here, so we got 2, 4, 6, 8, right? 9, 10, 11 days in the field. How many appointments do I have to run 11 days to hit 120? 11 a day. That's it. I run 11 appointments here, 11 appointments here, 11 appointments here. I just run 11 appointments every day. That's it. That was my life for 2 and a half years. I wrote $1.2 million doing that. I'm all in. That's the magic to my world. I, I worked 11 days a month selling insurance, but I didn't dink and dab. All day on the phones, as long as it took. And I got really fucking good. You know, my goal became here: be done by lunch so I could go to lunch with Mike Killerman, because he was really good. He was a great mentor, and he went to lunch, and he did not miss. And he liked to eat early. By 11:15, he was busting our ass. Like, yo, you coming to lunch? And almost everyone said yes. But if I didn't have the 22 appointments booked, and maybe I tweaked it, maybe I did. Now if I do 9 here, I'm like, shit, I gotta make it up, you know what I mean? Like, I'd rather be over than under. So I, you know what I'm saying? Now if life comes up, I have vacation, what do I got to do? We're off this week, I got to do 15 here, I gotta front load it, I gotta skip some days, maybe I'll work this Saturday instead, maybe I go Sunday. Like, if I gotta adjust, I adjust. Christmas. I ain't missing my 120. New month, new calendar. Let me map it out, you know what I'm saying? November, December is mapped out slightly different. This is a normal everyday month. This is most months of the year. But if I want to do some other stuff, all right, how do I make it work? Just adjust, move shit around, you know what I'm saying? So it's like the rocks. I ain't moving. I don't want to move the cave with the kids. I don't want to move it. And I like the idea of off Sundays. I don't know what that's like. I didn't really have that my whole life. If I did, I was off and I was broke and it sucked because I spent all day thinking about all the shit and money I owed. I mean, it wasn't the most fun, but do more or work 11 days a month, you know what I'm saying? I wasn't— I'm not the guy who was doing 4, 5, 6 days a week. Now this is just selling insurance, you know, build an agency. Buckle the fuck up. I was taking calls when I had my kids. You know what I mean? Just is what it is. I didn't— I didn't know how to do that when I was little. My kids saw me on the phone a lot. Did you have like a recruiter that was never— I was the recruiter. I never had a recruiter my entire life. So I am the recruiter. Why? Because I can't teach people to recruit if I don't recruit, and I want duplicatable. So if I hire a recruiter and I want to teach him to recruit And I go hire a recruiter, and he says he can't, what do I do? I can't teach him to do it because I don't do it. And truly, who's going to teach the fucking recruiter? The way I hired her is I was— all the stuff I was doing, I had this coach once, and he had me do this exercise where I put down all the shit in a week and pay attention to it, write it all down what I was doing. And then at the end of the week, kind of look at it and go, which of those things are not making me any money? And I think I hired her to be on set like $35,000 or something. Maybe when she started this was again 2017. So a little different. What do they call it? Inflation thing wasn't quite here yet. So I put all the stuff down like that's actually kind of what she was doing. You were checking people's pending, I think is the first thing when pending used to be a thing. If any of y'all don't know what that is, there wasn't instant approval shit. So yeah, yeah, used to be every policy you wrote. When I used to leave a client's house, I'd be like, I'll let you know in 2 to 3 weeks. That was standard leaving every house. So she would, she would check the pending for my agents. She never did mine. I submitted all my own app, I dialed all my own leads, I made all my own recruiting calls, and I submitted all my own applications. I never let her touch my client stuff. I just— that was my big mistake. Yeah, now some people disagree with it, but I'm like, I'm OCD, I have trust issues. She was newer, I didn't know her really well, you know. Now today she fucking The building, we're closing on that. She did 100%. I don't know one thing about it. I don't know any of the paperwork. I don't know when it's closing. I don't know what paperwork's been signed. I don't have a fucking clue. I'm just like, I want to sell the building. I called a real estate agent. I'm like, hey, can you sell the building? Send Amanda, whatever. She deals with everything— attorneys, real estate agents. She does it all. Yeah, now we close. I always write her a fucking check and I'm like, here. And she goes, Disney, or I don't know what you do, buy Louis something. I try to help, I try to help her out, you know what I mean? Like, she has helped me make a bunch, so I just, I'm like, now my goal is like, how can I get her to make even more, you know? And now new staff is learning that. I'm like, cool, make us a bunch of money, I'll help, you'll get paid, you know what I mean? Because we, again, we interviewed every one of them. I'm like, we already make what we make without you. You know what hiring you does? It makes me less profitable at the beginning. So I got to go backwards before I can go forward, you know what I'm saying? But what we did is we started looking at everything. Then I was doing— I was checking agents pending. I was running ads online to do recruiting calls. I was taking calls and forwarding, contracting to carriers. Yeah, back in the day, paper stuff. Um, I don't even remember some of the stuff I gave you at the beginning. I remember I was distributing leads to agents. Um, fuck. Oh yeah, I was sending all my own emails to the agents like, hey, training call this week. And I was making the template and putting it in fucking Constant Contact. I was doing all that shit. And then I'm like, again, hired her right out of high school, $35,000 a year, $700 a week. I'm like, yo, that's like a baby app. And if I have her doing all this stuff, couldn't I do one more lease? Oh my God, that was really dumb waiting. Like, that's a mistake I made. I waited too long because I thought it was expensive to hire someone. I'm like, I look back and I see how expensive it was to not hire her. I hired her, we blew up. Yeah, yeah, you know, I like people around me, you know. I'm— I go a million miles an hour. I have a lot of ideas. I have a lot of questions. I'm like, hey, come here, and we fucking talk about— I just, I like that. Yeah, you know, I don't, I don't, I don't, I dislike people away from me. That's just not my thing. Um, I don't know. So kind of the game plan of how to execute it. And, um, I like that way better than what I'm doing right now. Good.

Dialing 9 hours a day, not getting shit, honestly.

Yeah, I mean, maybe I'll dial 9 hours a day, but I'm going to eat from it, you know what I mean? But again, here my goal became What? Can I be done dialing by 11? Yeah, that was my goal. How did I do that? I started dialing at 7.

9 hours a week, 6 days a— or 9 hours a day, 6 days a week, and it sucks.

So if I get on the phone at 7, and more importantly, someone said about the phone scrolling thing— I don't know who, was that you that did that? So I'm a big fan, like, this thing tells the truth. Yep. So what I love about this is it used to go to— I fucking dislike Apple. I just recently found out this used to stop at 100. So I used to see, this is your last 100 phone calls, and I go look at it, see how old it is. And if you're in the business, that should— like, the bottom one should say today, their latest update. Now you can scroll like this. It now stores 1,000. I found out. So if you go back and see, like, just for fun, how old your oldest one is at 1,000 like it tells a lot. So I would look at it every night, dial day, and I would look at when I was recruiting because if I was building a team, that 100, when I went to bed at 11 or 12, that shit would say like lunchtime, 100 phone calls. I'd make like, I'd fill more than 100 in one day when I wasn't in the field dialing, you know, because I was talking to that many people either recruiting or training them. You know, it's for me, that was the truth teller. So the way I like to look at it now, and you can all do this if you dial on your phones, you should. If you don't, I'm, I'm convinced you can be more effective doing it. If I sold insurance today, I'd be on this sucker. You know, I'd have some combination of some cool CRM stuff because I'm a nerd. Sure, switch it out because I've heard of like, I don't know, like sometimes like you're, you call too much, you're calling, yes, flag, you know, like for spam and stuff like that. Oh yeah, if you, if you between dialing on PhoneBurner and using your cell phone? Like, use your cell phone every day of the week and twice on Sundays? Yeah, just, I don't know. Again, I don't— one called Wave, and apparently like you can dial 3 numbers at once and it flags it so it doesn't get marked as spam. I've talked to some people that are smarter than me that's like, that is literally impossible. Yeah, I just, I'm simple. I like simple, dude. What about your calls? They're not recorded though. You use this, they just give that No, you can record calls.

Get one of these.

Yeah, get your laptop, get an iPad. Dude, I went to— bro, I went to Radio Shack and plugged the thing in there. And you know what I mean? Like, this doesn't have to be that deep. Yeah, just pull up— so $14.99 a month for the Zoom thing so you can go over an hour. Yes, there are all kinds of ways to do it. But my point is, find some accountability method to yourself. What I would say I like most about the phone Is it— you make a shit ton of calls. Can I— do you mind? Yeah. Sorry. Yeah. So scrolled all the way down. I don't make near as many calls anymore. So like, oh, you didn't update yet. I know. Oh no, wait.

So that's probably when it updated.

Yeah. Is when it started recording more calls. So use something else to use other things to talk. Yeah. Yeah. No, no. There it goes. It's updated. Yeah. So it's back to January. Yeah, okay, there you go. Yeah, so January 17th is your oldest one. For mine, since October, right? So I don't make near as many phone— 90% of my calls now are spam. I got this thing set up in a way where I don't have to— I don't have to do near as many calls unless it's recording. So, but what I like, especially if you're looking at it day to day, it doesn't show yesterday. So you didn't dial a ton today, you didn't dial at all today, obviously. No. So like, yeah, But this is how a lot of agents would look. If you look at the most recent one, it tells you the timestamp. So my favorite thing to look at on the agent's dial day and my own is to look at your timestamp to see how your dial day went. And like in this case, her— she had a call at 8:50 and her next one was at 11:32. I have agents all day long that are like, I dialed all day and I didn't book shit. And I'd be like, you had a call at 8:50 and a second one at 11:32. Great. It's not about that. Like, you know what I'm saying? But this is real. Yeah. So I would look at it, and for me, one of the ways I judge myself and I hold myself accountable is I look at the gaps between calls. I found that's the most expensive part because again, it takes a minute. So meaning 11, you start at 7:30, dude, your next call should be before 7:31 unless someone answered. So your call should be like 7:30, show 3 times because you tripled out at 7:30, maybe 7:32 if you tripled out on 7:30. Should be back to back. What most I'll look at, it'll be like, first of all, they won't start till 9:47. Then it'll be like 9:52, 10:12, 10:17, 10:45. And it's not like back to back to back to back. And where I found riches was in the efficiency of dialing and connecting them all together. Where most people are like, I dialed 3 hours and it's— there's more gaps there's more time in gaps than there is time on the phone. Again, think timer. It's my brain works that way. So I'm like, if I'm gonna spend 3 hours dialing, why wouldn't I get as many as I can in that window, right? So for me, physically manually dialing the phone, that 600, that's 60 an hour. I was racing to 60 an hour. So every hour I'd look at my ticks and I'd be like, did I hit 60? Ooh, I'm at 52 or I'm 71. Sure as shit better not be at 30. 30 calls an hour. I'm fucking pissed at myself. You know what I'm saying? That whole, like, judge your activity thing. I'm pissed that I didn't hit 60 an hour. What if you catch a call? I mean, a call should be 2 minutes max. I was booking appointments. Now, again, you're present concept. So he's doing one call closing. He can look at it and go, I made 6 calls, but I had 3 presentations. Amen. Fucking high five. Take the concept. Does that make sense? Create your own accountability. Mine was dialing like this, you know what I'm saying? I did it today. I would just have the math. I'd be like, cool, I made 15 dials, I got 3 people on the phone, I made 2 presentations. All right, math works out, you know what I'm saying? It's just creating— it's creating systems that check yourself and more concerned about the gaps. So again, you got a presentation, you end the presentation, how long does it take you to get back on the phone? Yeah, you're gonna say when you're like, yes, yeah, correct. You know what I mean? I'm like, yo, I wouldn't want the gap. Yeah, because again, you have an hour and you make 32 phone calls, you got, you got as big a gap not calling as you do calling, you know what I'm saying? And it's like, so you're in, your efficiency is terrible. So I wanted to be, if I was going to do what I hated doing, which was dialing, I may as well be efficient as shit at it and knock it out. Again, yeah, my goal was Mike— again, he always wanted to go to lunch. I want to get time with him. A lot of people would go to lunch either way, so Steph would pack me a lunch every Monday. And in the field, she actually packs— she does. It's obnoxious. She packs, picks my clothes, she does all the shit. But she would, um, she would pack lunch and then Killam would come in and be like, you coming today? Like, nah. I'd say no a lot because I'm like, I got to get— I got to fill in. Having lunch wasn't worth missing. Get paid to just shoot this. It's not like it was a massive presentation. You know, I mean, over time I learned a lot, but one individual lunch, everybody's dicking around. You go to TGI Fridays, you know, I mean, like, have a drink at lunch. I just— I was like, I can't anymore. But I did want to go. So I started dialing at 7:00, 11:00, 4 hours, me on the phone. Just 250 dials, I can book some fucking appointments. So if I can book up by then and I'm comfortable my next 2 days, I'm like, cool, I got to go to lunch. And then we had training from 1 to 3, and then I'd go home. And then it was like, all right, if I didn't do my job then, then I was forced to dial at night. I like that. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. I'm like, I'd rather start early. And maybe worst case scenario, I would go home and I'd get on the phone for like 15, 20 minutes and just catch the people I missed and book up some after evening, quit, you know what I mean? Feeling 2 or 3 here once in a while, I'd be okay with that, you know what I'm saying? But I wanted nothing to do with the clock ticking and me being like, now I'm down to the window because I can only dial so late, you know what I'm saying? And if this is my work day, again, make it work for you. If you're doing one call close, whatever it is, it's like I didn't want the clock ticking. If I need to do 5 presentations a day and you don't start till noon, buckle the fuck up. Might not be a good day unless, unless you're so good and so efficient, you have it down, you know you can do it, you know what I'm saying? And I just, I don't know, this again, people are usually wowed. 11 days a month for all that sold insurance, $460K, 11 days. That was it, you know, where most people do— most people, I've had plenty of people do the work, but they spread it out over 20 days, 25 days, and I'm like, not me. So I wanted to be here Because again, if I mess this up, I can't get back on the phone till here. So I gotta go have to book 3 appointments here and 4 here. I'm making no money. I have a lot of time to think. Now I'm 2 days in the field, non-stop stress. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5th day before I can get back on the phone. Yeah, one dot away. Huh? I would do so here. AMs, I would dial here in the AM because I got the kids after school for dinner. So I'd book if I— but this week I didn't dial at all because I had the kids. Yeah, so I didn't have to dial Thursday here. So this Thursday and this Thursday I would dial. Oops. So here I'd book those two days, and here I'd book that Friday. Does that make sense? But again, I'm booking one day here, so I'm done in fucking an hour. Yeah, I mean, like, this was easy. 'Cause it was one day. Yeah. And then, but this was a big day 'cause I had to book up two full days. You know what I'm saying? I just did it before and I picked up my kids from school at 3. So I had till 3 to do whatever I wanted. You know what I mean? I'd dick around, do admin work, do recruiting stuff, do whatever I do, go to the gym. You know what I mean? Like that would be like my time. I could choose what I did with that time. Right. You know? So again, knock out the house, be done by 11, pick up the kids at 3, I can do whatever, you know? So. Day and a half of dials. You know, I'm not— I don't like phones, but they're a necessary evil and I'm willing to do it. You know, I just want to do it my way. I want to be stupid efficient. You know, I like efficiencies. I don't like— and everything I do with them, and 3 of the staff are pretty fucking new, and like they're learning me. And I'm like, I like numbers, I like data, I like to look at stuff, I like to see where efficient— I'm like, yo, what percent of it do we do this? How do we do this? And sometimes I think they want to kill me. And Amanda's like, can we just You'll learn. I mean, I just want to understand. And to me, data and info tells— it's like, tells you a story. It says who you are, you know what I'm saying? I can look at it and go, all right, how do we adjust? What's making money? What's not? Let's move things. And I just— I don't know, it helps me orchestrate stuff. So this just became like my life, you know? And I still run it very— so I just do it on my phone now. I can tell you everything. You could literally look at my entire life is on my company. Amanda and I, it's shared and everything's there, you know. So, um, let's go. When I was new, brand new, I did probably 75% final expense, maybe 25% mortgage. Again, it was 2012. I sold a lot door knocking. I was selling after work. I was dialing on Sundays and booking appointments for Monday and Tuesday. And then I would dial at work on Thursday and Friday and run Saturdays. I ran Monday, Tuesday night after work, and I ran Saturdays, and I made phone calls on Sundays from like 2 to 6. I would call after church and before dinner kind of window worked for me. So I'd make phone calls 2 to 6 on Sundays and book Monday, Tuesday night.

So your average policies on that was basically like $200 a month? No, no, no, no, no.

Our average— our Our average back in 2012. Yeah, I mean, it's not crazy different today. Average policy is $1,200 annual. Annual, all in with everything. When I was new, if I broke it down, my early, early days, my average, my average app back then, probably fucking $400. I was writing a lot of $5,000 a month, $40 a month apps because I thought everyone was broke and didn't have any money and I was afraid to show big pricing and I was a wuss. I didn't uncover policies. I didn't do a good financial inventory. I sucked.

So really, if you're looking at what built you with those low annual premiums to what we can actually do now—

correct. It's obnoxious. Yes, that's hence the frustration you hear in my delivering messages. You know what your cost is average, uh, you all target premium? I don't offhand. It's definitely higher than $1,200. I could figure it out, but I don't, I don't think it's hard to read. It's around that probably. Yeah, it's all right. I was, I was going to say with off the hip, $2,500. I was going to just shoot off the hip to say that. I could get it exact, but it's, it's in that ballpark. And it's also different if you break down the guys who know what they're doing, and if I put everyone in a bucket, they're very different numbers. Yeah, you know what I'm saying? Like, some people just write them right, some people actually know what the fuck they're doing. Their average is fucking like 10 G's. I know some guys that write They make— Target, for example. Oh, yeah, I know. I know some people that write really, really wealthy people. So yeah, it's possible. So it depends what segment you break it down. If I got everyone in a bucket, probably in that range. That's so great. Yeah, it's not bad. Um, other thing we'll talk about, uh, lead plan. Obviously you should get one. Um, If you're looking for— do you want me to share that stuff, Amanda? Leads? Yes. IUL leads? Yes. Certainly, if you're with us, ILC is an option. They have them in inventory. You can get real-time and you get inventory stuff. If you want something ongoing, do they— who do you want? It's up there. They made a QR code. You have both? Life jacket too? Can they just connect with— Yeah. Who wants to do it? Angela? So both? The QR code for one? What do they sign up? QR code is an IUL.

That's usually a signup form.

It's a signup form.

Yeah.

$25 a lead? Is that what it is? $25 a lead, IUL stuff. They're generated on Facebook. It's literally what our team writes. 2, probably 2.5 million a month in IULs using these leads. They're not magic, they're just leads. They're IUL leads, they're targeted. It's again, they're not— they're leads. Um, again, ILC, these, whatever. The difference is ILC, you're chasing 18 million other people. If you sign these up, you can sign up to a recurring thing. What's the minimum? 500 a week. 500 a week. So they get some— is that 20 leads? Oh, what is it, combo? Because it goes like 75% of the money goes towards new leads or second chance leads too. So it's kind of a combination of new and What, are they 30 days old or 20 days old or something like that? The Second Chance, 20 days? 25 days. Cool. So combination, and those are my $5, right? So put the $1,000, it gets some for $25 new, $5 Second Chance aged, whatever you want to call them. So if you're interested in that, QR code or talk to Angela. Um, and then, uh, one of the guys in our group, Ben, runs Elite Agency. They do like veteran-focused leads. And what's— how do I describe what legacy is? Uh, straight up final expense? No, it's just straight term. It's a term-targeted but not vet-specific. The vet-specific can be— it's literally vet-focused. Could be final expense, could be term, all ages, but it's a veteran, like former military-focused ad. His agents kill it. How many, how many agents are 75 agents we have getting those right now? Something crazy. How much are those? $30, $35? $35. Um, so if you're interested in a final expense and/or vet-focused— I mean, uh, sorry, a term or a vet-focused lead, just get with Angela. The term one is like targeted towards like there's an individual that I've run some of his leads and they're term for parents to be focused on the new benefits. If you haven't got to know me yet, in 5— I, this— I'm— we're way too simple for that. Yeah, no, I don't do that shit. Just who wants term insurance, dude? Just— we're really simple. So that's it? That's it. There's no more. You don't generate those yourself? I'm not doing them. People on our team do. Gotcha. Yeah, I don't personally know how to do shit but get up here and talk, which is why I keep checking with them and they're giving me hand signals and gang signs and shit in the back trying to tell me what to say. Does that make sense? I don't make anything. I do what I do well, keep shit simple and do a lot of it. But again, it's not that deep in targeting because again, we're trying to pitch simplicity. You know what I mean? It's humans need life insurance. Now, is a vet targeting a little more? This much, but we're not getting into like— Yeah, dude, I'm just like— because you can relate to that. You know, I mean, it's an easy entry point. It's an easy way to build, build rapport, you know what I mean? You know their background going in. It's a very easy demographic to target. But we're not going like men between 36 and 38 whose favorite color is blue and work on cars on Sundays. I just— we don't get that deep, dude. We're just super high level. You just say we've got all these leads, you know, pick a combination of all three and you're selling insurance and, you know, close. So again, I think of that thing as simple. So that's just an IUL vet term. If you want to get with them, again, if you're with us, there's obviously a CRM with all different types. These are just ones I know our agents are on so we can vouch for them because they print fucking money or we wouldn't let them get them. I'm not saying the others can't because I'm a big fan of lead diversity. I think multiple lead types, multiple lead vendors is the best route because if you stick with one and you're like, this is the best one and it's my favorite one, Buckle the fuck up. One day you're gonna wake up and get smacked in the head because it'll be gone. It won't work. Something's gonna— shit changes, you know. So I like a bit of diversity, but these few work well. They've been running for a while, and we have— we sell it on a premium model. Um, if anybody is at a point— you want me to tell them CRM automation stuff? So like, if you want stuff— like, if you're kind of an automation nerd or CRM guy or want to do like you you at a point where you're making money and you're efficient and you can do some stuff, Andres on the right, our right, can help with that. We do all kinds of shit, go high level. He built out like a whole AI bot that books appointment. Like he's a fucking machine. So we book an ass ton of appointments automated. Like we do, we do open up, but I'm like, if you're getting started, you're trying to get out of a hole, don't worry about AI bots. Does it make sense? But if you're like at a point where you got some money and you can do some things, we can help point you in the right direction, get a CRM. You can pay for different things, you can get things programmed. Like, we got some, some options if, if you're interested in that. Um, certainly you can. And, uh, what else am I supposed to tell them? Another event, we have an online one. Again, I do a Zoom once a month. When is that?

The online one is on the 15th.

What month are we in? May 15th. Yes, 2 weeks from yesterday. It's on the thing up there too. All this shit's up.

The registration link is—

yeah, and you can get everything just by going to my site, johnwetmore.com. Register. I'll— we'll spam you until you unsubscribe, and usually with value. I mean, that's the goal. And if you hate it, all good. Uh, but you can register there. There's links up there. I don't know when we're doing the next—

June 6th.

June 6th is the next one. My vote is, unless you're doing something different, June 6th, please don't show up. Like, if you haven't improved and can't tell a dope story, stay home. Because I don't want to— I just don't want to repeat the same shit to the same people. They asked me over there, do you get bored talking? Because they've— it's funny, they've only been with me a little while. I think, what, 6 months? Maybe like 3 months, 3 or 4, and like a month. So yeah, I got you. I heard— I said 3 or 4. I'm in the ballpark. And I think 6-ish. Maybe 8. And who asked me? Was it you, Reese? We walked back there and he goes, you ever get bored saying the same shit over and over again? He's been with you a month and he's realized I say the same shit nonstop. So I'm like, it's really simple. I said, I only get bored when it's the same people. That's why I haven't had people in my office in a year and a half, because it became the same people every week. And I'm like, you don't fucking listen to the coachable thing. I'm out. So I quit on them. How many agents do you have in your offices? Zero. I never have anyone here. No, I don't like people here. I like them to come in and—

He doesn't like people.

Yes, we used to have people in here, but what happened is, like, them over here, we're training, and they're over there shooting the shit. Yeah, I— that drives me mental every day. I don't care if they're doing it, but every day I would be like, stop coming. Yeah, when I was at the— to go home— the Brandon office, there was a group of people in there and I'm like, yeah, yeah, now they're all killing it. It's like, shut the fuck up and work. And, uh, gang signs. Thank you. Um, so yeah, I just— it became frustrating and boring for me, so I literally made everyone leave because it was the same people every week and nobody was growing. Yeah, so I'm like, all right, I don't— I don't have any new messages. I apologize, I haven't helped you get where you want to go. I have nothing new to say. And we are growing so much outside of our office, which proved it worked. So I'm like, they're just not being coachable. I quit. What percentage of your agents— I know a lot of percentages and averages. I mean, is pretty much everybody in your agency right now virtual? I don't know. I can make up an answer. I'd say probably 75% versus in-home, you mean? Yeah, yeah. If I had to guess, but I don't know, we're tracking anymore. I don't care. I just care that people are making money.

I know I'm here making money.

We had— so 6,000 wrote a policy. What they wrote, at least one policy. The lowest one on the list I don't know how it said like $0.15. I don't know how. Maybe with the charge. Okay, keep the sign up so I don't forget. No, I don't know the answer. I don't. I'm not that deep. But for instance, we had last— so we have about 1,800 people that write a month consistently. Okay. We had over 500 make over $100,000 last year. I think the number was I think like 350 were over $250,000. There was like 200 over $500,000. We had 6 or 8 over $1,000,000, just personal production. That's not including team stuff. Yeah, we have some people printing fucking money, you know, but we had— I looked last month, we had 1,200 people do under $5,000. But I'm 100% sure they don't work.

Correct.

Because they don't listen. So I don't— again, I can't touch everybody anymore. You know what I mean? The agency's so big. Like, he was like, yeah, I'm in your downline. I'm like, sweet, good to meet you. You know what I mean? Like, I don't— I don't— I have no idea who most people are anymore. You know what I mean? So I just do this early in the— when I had 50, 100 agents, dude, I knew everybody's name, address, Social Security, kid's name. I knew everything about all of them, you know, because I was so tied to everybody. Now it's become like I work with select people.

And you train everybody that you bring into the agency with the same exact system every single time?

Yes. If you speak to me again in a month, I promise you, if you come next month— and you will be— it will be a challenge, and I'll say most of the same shit. I don't— it will change if we're growing, because as you grow, things change. But in the spot you're in, nothing new is going to happen relative to where you're at today. Does that make sense? Same. The answer is going to be the same. Now, if we go, hey, I came back, I got 20 agents, what do I do? Hey, I made 50 G's, what do I do? Different conversations, you know what I'm saying? So it's like, as you grow, this thing evolves. Base level, getting started where we're at, message is same. So my, my goal is challenge people to do it or scare them so bad they won't come back.

We don't want to waste your time on people that don't want to invest in themselves.

Nope. You know what I mean? So if you come back, please have new questions, please have growth, please have new problems, please have new things we can work on. You know what I mean? Like, we can't come back and be like, contracting, ah, you can't, can't do it. You know what I mean? No more percentages next month, bro. I love you, I ain't mad, but I can't. Does it make sense? We get— you can't be in a hole next month. You know what I'm saying? You can't be stuck on your own shit next month and not doing what you know you need to do. Y'all should be dialing, make some money, you know what I mean? Then we got different conversations. What do we do with it? How we reinvent, you mean? Like, you can, you can evolve and learn, and you know, you, you know. Yeah, you don't turn around. Yeah, you know what I'm saying? Um, how you doing that QR code thing too? Which one? The one he just— yes. Cool. It is out there too. So yeah, yeah, all of it.

Um, or you can send me— respond back to the email that I emailed you on earlier.

So one of the things that I'm doing out of like a non-stop request, I think I mentioned it briefly earlier, we are working on building like a coaching thing, um, gauging interest. More than anything. I don't have anything in place. We're going to have a complete fucking waiting list for it, and we're going to like be picky as shit because I don't want to do it mostly unless it's like really people who like want to engage because I don't want to quit it, you know what I mean? But I get asked quite a few times a week, so I'm building some stuff out. So there's a little form that is really meant to gauge interest, something you're interested in, if you want to be part of it. Great. I don't even have— we literally don't have anything built at all. So it's something we're thinking about. We're definitely putting together— we're thinking about how to structure it. It's going to be based on interest, how many people, where you're at level-wise. There's definitely going to be different levels. More, more pay, more access, low pay, less access. Like, you mean like it is what it is. I just want to help a bunch of people make a lot of money, you know? So I'm trying to figure out the right way to structure it. And the lower, the lower cost, the more group stuff it's going to be, which is cool because I like group stuff. I'm actually more worried about the higher cost stuff because those people are paying the ass like me. So I'm like, I don't know that I'm even going to do that one. But there's a thing back there if you have interest and be something you'd be interested in, just again, fill it out. There's, there's nothing else to it. There's nobody collecting any money here at all for anything today. But we have— they are trying to figure out like, is this something we want to launch and how do we want to do it, the angle we want to take. So that one back there as well. And I think I messed everything up. Did I mess anything else up? No. I got 2 thumbs up. You good? Angelo's got a half one. You went sideways. So, you have any questions? We got 12 minutes because I don't want to go over. Anything I can help with? Anything I missed? Anything you want to know at all?

Thank God. I think the only thing that I'm really stuck on is I have the— wanted to be perfect with knowing my products. So I find myself watching training videos in the shower, when I'm sleeping, probably subconsciously. Like, I'm literally want to make sure I love it. Best product for my customer, and I'm stuck there because I—

so what product have you written your customer so far?

Only an LT.

Nothing else? So all the other clients you could potentially write don't have anything? Correct. Because you're overthinking? Correct. So hold on, hold on, dude, I got it. So hold on. So there's people who need insurance right, right, that you've not written solely because you're obligated, right? Meaning if you're— if, if, if you're looking— if you're sitting with Mary who wants 10 grand to take care of her kids and grandkids when she dies, is it really that deep?

No, no, because then I put in with somebody else.

Go write it. Like, don't overthink it. And understand, even if you studied it all now with no real-world application, you're not really learning a ton, okay? You know what I'm saying? And when you're with clients, worst-case scenario— worst case, like really worst case— you have to get back to them because the carriers are closed, because it's 9 PM and there's nobody open, and somehow you don't have someone to call. Which is not possible in my group unless you choose not to get to know people. Does that make sense?

Yeah.

If you're in the Slack group, there's fucking 7,000 people in our Slack group or what? I don't know. The number might be higher today. You know, I'm saying that was on the same email, by the way. Slack group.

Slack. Yeah, I actually—

there's always someone to go, yo, I need help. Hey, I'm sitting with a client. They have such and such. Can you help me? Especially when you're new. But you got to be willing to go out of your way and ask the questions.

Have that with the first company, that support. I am so absorbed with—

now again, try not to do that too long. You're here 3 months, 6 months, 9 months, you're going to be like, again? She's asking again. It will get exhausting. They'll ignore you. Yeah, you know what I'm saying? But up front, hey, I'm brand new, da da da, sitting in the house, anyone can help me? I got this situation, you know what I mean? Hey, Wetmore told me to post in here, I'm brand new, can someone help? Someone Someone's going to fucking answer. Again, it may not take 30 seconds, you know what I mean? But as you start to get to know people, grab a few numbers of the top people. Watch the trainings on our teams, and most of them tell you to reach out to them. You know what I mean? Like, connect with some people at the meetings. Exchange numbers. Don't do it with people who suck, please. But the ones that are good and willing to help, get some numbers. You know what I mean? When they do something good for you, call them back, thank them. Be like, yo, appreciate what you just did. It helped me, right? Fucking make $1,200. Thumbs up, dude. Post in the group. Hey, Bob helped me. Appreciate your help. You know what I mean? Like, give them, give them some credit where it's due. People like that shit, you know what I'm saying?

So in the Slack group, well, I find a lot of support.

Yeah, I mean, you'll find access to people, right? At the end of the day, you should study your product, you know what I'm saying? So now as you're starting to see clients, when you get health information, or maybe you'll miss a sale, hey, maybe go after the fact and go like, all right, they had A, B, and C medications. I wrote them this, go study the other companies and see what they would have done with those medications. That exact scenario. That's how I learned underwriting. I'm like, that thing that everyone uses today, I'm like, I didn't, I didn't need or use that. Why? I took every underwrite— not saying you shouldn't— I took every underwriting guide, and over time I actually did it one weekend. It was about a year and a half in. I started at A and I went, all right, A, and I read all the questions on every application. They're all about the same, every application app, but they're slightly varied, slight variations. This will be like, in the last 2 years, have you ever blah blah blah blah. This one will say, in the last 3 years, have you ever blah blah blah. This one will, you know what I mean, it'll be slight variations in wording. Does that make sense? Yeah, that will change underwriting completely. This one will say, have you ever had blah blah blah, or this one's only, in the last X, have you da da da da. This one will say, you know, have you had any complications from diabetes? This one will just say, have you ever had diabetes? Does that make sense? This one asks about cancer. This one says, have you had cancer and/or has it spread? Oh, this one doesn't ask that. Does that make sense? And I literally, line by line— I still have the spreadsheet today— went through and I put every possible question on and I put every possible carrier over here and I went through each one. This one says yes, this one says no. That's how I learned it.

I'm starting to build, and then, and then I start now.

Some nerd built an app that does that for you. Am I mad at it?

No.

No. Where is that? I— it's— what's that thing called? Insurance Toolkits. Someone did that and made it electronic. You're underwriting will be like 95% of your property if you use that app.

What's it called?

Insurance Toolkits.

I think I have that.

But again, for me, okay, I wanted to know it.

Well, especially if you're—

I mean, with time, one, it didn't exist, but I like— with time, again, it's the equivalent of my kids play baseball, right? We played this team last week, okay? They're 12 years old, they can understand signs. Coaches do fucking all this shit on the thing and they touch the— you know, they're doing all this shit and it means something to the kids. This other team we played had wristbands. And he would go, 413, and every one of them would look at it and go to every play. They all had to look at the wristband. That's insurance toolkits to me. My team, kids do that, kids know what to do. That's learning your shit. I really don't. Me too. Does that make sense? I ain't mad at it temporarily. I think your first week, insurance toolkits, home run. I think if you're here in 9 months and you still need that to underwrite, I think you suck. Personal opinion, at underwriting, or you wouldn't be, because it's not that deep, you know what I'm saying? So I just, I wanted to learn it so I knew with time, but I didn't need to know it right away. So right away I just needed access to information. Insurance will get you access to the information right away without really knowing it, having connections just in case some weird-ass fucking scenarios come up, you know what I mean? Someone gets the client, like you just connect with people, you know what I mean? Yeah, I mean, it is what it is. It's a good resource. Very good too, because if someone wants to turn, but they're on medication that could be on that fine line, that could kind of ensure the product doesn't just— for us, give yourself grace in learning the business, you know what I mean? And I'd rather you write them something, because again, at the core of this thing, what's insurance? You remember? No, John. Yeah, all they need to know. If you get them covered and they got a policy, they die, they get a check. Is it the best? It's all relative. And they have to be older. Like, who says it's the best?

I'm all about those living benefits.

You know what I mean? Like, living benefits are great until they die and they don't have the benefit. You know what I mean? It's like, it's not— there's no perfect— it's just, it's not, you know. And then again, if you do the business right, you do annual reviews and you go back and you check on your clients after a year, maybe next year you've learned some stuff, you identify something you wouldn't have seen the previous year. But at least they were covered, you know what I'm saying? So I'd rather you cover people now and don't be so analytical. Yeah, get them something, because if they die, they get a check. Yeah, you know what I'm saying? And with time, as your expertise in the business gets better, correct, you can, you can improve on your skill set there. Okay, you know, anything else? Anything you would do differently, John, like from when you look back in your history, man? I know it's a lot. I struggle with that question a lot because All the stuff I've messed up has taught me everything I know, dude. You know? So, I mean, I would've been more coachable sooner 'cause I was a pain in the ass. And I would've been, I would've been better with people sooner. I was really bad with people, clients and agents and staff, to be honest. I was fucking trash, dude. I regret— it taught me a lot, and I'm thankful for the lessons. But I would have been way better with people. I would have been more intentional, you know. And I would probably say on the recruiting side, I would have put my phone down a little bit more in certain times. What do you mean by that? You put your phone down? Like, if I was playing kickball with my kids in the backyard, and some dipshit called me because he didn't study his underwriting and he's been here 2 years, I'd pick up, you know what I mean? He'd waste 45 minutes of my time asking a question I already fucking answered. I would have not answered a lot more of those calls. It makes sense. It makes sense. Yeah, because now I can look back at all those agents that took advantage of my time and what most of them do today, and they don't appreciate none of it, and they quit, you know what I mean? I'm like Fuck. But it taught me what I know, so I have a hard time. But that's a big one that sticks for me. I wouldn't have— I would have still taken a lot of calls, but like certain ones, yeah, they're like, you can wait 20 minutes, you know what I mean? Because I knew, I knew what— I knew why they were calling because I had set it up in a way where it wasn't so intentional and I was the answer guy, you know what I mean? And I didn't help people like truly learns the business, which makes people uncomfortable, you know what I mean? After a little while, I started— you call me with some underwriting stuff, I'm like, you've been here and I've already kind of told you how to get it and learned it, and you ain't been here a week or two, like you've been 3 months. Yeah. I'm like, do you have your underwriting guide with you? Well, no. All right, have a good day.

Well, you can call the carrier too directly, correct?

All right, be like, pull it up, you know what I mean? Yeah, I got it. Pull it up. Be like, open it up. Hey, they got this, they got this, you know what I'm saying? I would— some equivalent of it today, right? You know, I mean, sometimes I wish I'd held people more accountable to learning their, their, their profession more. Yeah, versus, um, kind of letting them off the hook. Again, there's a balance. Week 1, week 2, I'm in. Yeah, but after a little while, I'm like, man, because I'd hang up frustrated, I'd be mad, mean to them, you know what I mean? I'm like, I could have I learned to do a lot better. I wish I did it sooner, you know. Definitely the phone. A lot more people would have got the fuck read by me for sure, because I learned with time. When I started doing it, I'd call people back and say— I'd be sitting there doing nothing. They call, I'd be like, hey, call them back in 2 hours, like, yo, what's up? 75% of the time, you know what they said? I was like, fuck. Yeah, makes sense. Makes sense. One more. What was your script that you would use? I know you said you don't really use a script. How did you book those 11 appointments? Like, what were you saying to them to get them in person? What I did earlier.

Yeah.

Hey, Joe. Yeah, like, hey man, this is John. Get back to you about the form you filled out regarding the mortgage at 123 Main Street. How are you? Yeah, doing good. Or they'd be like, who? One or the other. 75% of the time, you're like, I'm doing good. I like asking. Yeah, like, cool. Hey, real quick, my job is real simple. I just need to verify a couple things you put on this form so we can get you all the information. Shows your date of birth is 3/28/77. Is that right? Yeah. Says you're a smoker. Yep. Hey, real quick, last one. Do you work, retired, or disabled? Right. So I'm thinking schedule in my head. Retired. Cool. All right. My job, real simple. They send me out to make sure you are who you say you are. Check a couple of medical questions. That way I can get you all the information, see if you're even eligible for anything. It literally takes 10 minutes. Do you prefer 8 AM or 10 AM tomorrow? 10 AM. Fucking like that nonstop. 100%. Why would I not? They filled out a form. Sure. You know what I mean? 100% assume it, you know. I also know that they're not gonna— like, people, what I learned is people fill shit out, fill shit out. So the chance of them being like, oh yes, the one I filled out Tuesday, November 3rd with the blue pen, that's you calling me— I don't have a fucking clue. You know what I mean? You know how many people I've called that I've assumed and they have like a copy of the lead out and it's not the one I'm calling on? I've shown— I've booked appointments with that multiple times in the past where I show up to the house and I get in, you know what I mean? I'm like, hey, I'm here for our 3 o'clock. Just assume— and I assume I just start walking in and they let me in the house and we sit down. I'm at the wrong fucking house. Go to the neighbor by mistake. I swear to God, I've stopped at a bunch. I saw I sold insurance to one one day. I was like, he's at the end, he's like, so you mentioned something I filled out, bro. I didn't fill anything. I found out at the end of the appointment I was in the wrong house. Like, yeah, like, we found out like through it, you know, like at the end of like not final app. I mean, I didn't fill out the app, but like he was buying by the time I figured it out, you know. Like, Steve, right? He's like, no, I'm Joe. I thought it was weird. I didn't remember having an appointment. It was really fucking weird, dude. I sold one, another one where I went to the house, missed the sale, right? I remember I missed the sale. I was pissed. It was like a buying time concept. He had a big mortgage, old dude, veteran. I go in, I miss it, miss the sale, but sell the concept of covering for 6 months payments. And I go and I miss it. A couple weeks later I show, I show up. I don't know, pulling in, I pull into the house. And you do this enough, like I still can drive around and I'm like, well, I remember being that that neighborhood. I was over there. I just— I flashbacks where I was. So I pull up and I'm like, this house looks familiar. Shit, what the hell? Walking up, I ring the fucking bell, the dude opens the door, and I'm like, this motherfucker. I put— I called the lead again by myself. I didn't know he didn't fall on the lead. I just put it in the wrong pile and called it again, booked an appointment. So I walk in like no big deal. He didn't recognize me. I was at his house 2 weeks ago. And I'm like, all right, I know everything about him in the back of my head. I'm like, is he really not? I'm thinking the whole time, this can't— there's no way he forgets me. I sit down, I start going through the thing. I'm like, all right, man, well, obviously you did this to take care of the mortgage. Can you tell me a little bit more about the situation, what's going on? And he, he gives me a different reason this time, and he presents to me the reason that I tried to cover him. He's like, I just want to make sure that, you know, when, when I die, I got like 6 months of payments for my mortgage. And I'm like, Motherfucker, you're using my script! Because that's not what he wanted when I sat with him. He was like, I want the whole thing or nothing, dude. So then he pitches me what he wants, which is my thing. I write him like a $300 a month— it's that email I get every month from Royal. I write him a $300 a month Royal Neighbors, and it's, uh, he wanted to do this like it's where they take the money directly out of his out of his military bill, that billing thing. I get the email every— it's still on the books to this day. Every month I get the email saying the payment has been made for such and such. And it just— it was like 8 years, 9 years, I don't know how long ago it was, but I literally sat with the same dude. So 2 weeks after, and he did not remember it was me, you know what I mean? And sometimes we get in our head that we're overthinking, like they told us no. I'm like, I sat and presented to this fucker 2 weeks prior. And he forgot, you know, and it's like, so I think like overthinking this thing can be, can be a lot. And I left the house and I'm like, hi man, good to meet you. He's like, great to meet you too, you were better than the last asshole. So anyway, hope y'all have a good day. Appreciate it. Good meeting you guys, for those that I haven't.