Step-by-Step Guide to $100,000 in Sales As An Insurance Agent

What if I told you right now, give you a $100,000 roll-up, a $200,000 roll-up, whatever it is, and in return over the next 5 years you'll make $8 million. Would you then take the roll-up? I've never had someone tell me no. So I'm like, you'll only take it after the fact if you know how it's going to work out.

We're going to get right into it. How to, how to build a big business, the things to avoid, you know, how do you get to $200 million and 6,000 agents and counting? Right. And a whole laundry list of other things that I don't have time to mention because there's so many accolades. But if you haven't met him, look him up. What is it? Is just— what is it? Do— get it done. What is the name of the book? I'm sorry.

I'm killing me, Arturo. It ain't your favorite book ever? I'm playing, bro. I'm playing. Check it out.

Yes. Get Better Later. Do More Now. Get Better Later.

Yeah.

So without further ado, Integrity Partner, the $200 million man, John Wetmore.

My dude, I appreciate it, bro. Um, and you know, every time I do something like this, I always try to let people know, man, I, I want this to help you where you need help. So certainly if, if those— there's a few people obviously I can see. If some more others want to get on camera, if you have questions along the way, certainly don't be afraid to ask. If you even want to just type in for now, like, what your biggest struggle is in the chat. I'll try to address some of those things as I chat, um, here. But I, I like to make these interactive. I mean, I can talk your face off if you want, but for me, I do this to help people win. And I appreciate the intro, dude. And you know, for me, the book was like written— certainly I share the story, um, but it was to give the, the structure, the, the playbook, if you will, to how to have success at a really high level and really consistently in this business. Um, I've been doing this now 12 years, bro, and I have seen a lot of people come and go. I've seen people come in and sell $20,000, $30,000, $40,000, $50,000, $60,000, $100,000, and then quit, not manage their finances. Like you said, it what you make, it's what you keep. But I also think it's somewhat what you invest back in to keep it growing, you know, because if you keep it all and you hoard it all in a corner, that ain't, that ain't really doing no good either. Um, so for me, the, the, the, the playbook to this thing is kind of the DO MORE concept. It's an acronym. It stands for stuff for me, um, and things that I put into place to not only go from, you know, struggling agent to— then I got to mediocre, and then I got to like selling at a really high level. But for me, dude, I really wanted to build something massive, bro. I didn't want to be a salesperson forever, quite frankly. I didn't want to be calling leads forever. I didn't want to be on the phones forever. I wanted to build a company, man. So I went about this thing in a way that I could help others get to certain levels. And I went out and I set on a mission to build a sustainable recurring revenue business. You know, I wanted the time and money. I didn't just want the money. And when you're in sales and you make a bunch of money, you know what's crazy, dude, is at the beginning, like, if people are killing it, which they can do with, with all the resources you provide, it feels great at the beginning and the money is dope. But eventually you'll get used to that lifestyle and you'll start spending it. And what I've seen mess people up, man, is when they have to sell at a high level to pay their bills, you know, the stress of that. So for me, I really wanted to focus on building an agency to make sure that if something went sideways in my life, I still had a company, I still had revenue coming in. I wanted to be able to make choices, you know, money allows you to make choices and decisions that you can't otherwise make. You know, and again, I love all the salespeople. We wouldn't be where we are without them. But if that's all you do, you don't really get to make a choice every day. You gotta like, you gotta be on the phones and sell, you know what I mean? And you're making better choices than most, so you're making a good income. But it's like, how long do you just want to be a $30K guy, $60K guy, $100K guy? Like, how long? I'm saying monthly. Like, even if you're making a half million bucks a year, cool. But when it— when you're the driving factor, what happens? Like my wife, man, 40, 40 years old. She's 47 now, but at 40 years old, first mammogram, finds out she has breast cancer. I mean, like, if we didn't have a business, that changes. She's fine now, 7 years recovered from it, you know, which is great. But, you know, if we didn't have a business, bro, life would have been different. You know, I think 2, 2 years ago, 3 years ago, I can't remember, probably 3 years ago now. Christmas Day, wake up, she got a little thing in her eye, like a little red. You ever had like pink eye? Like, oh, got a little pink eye. Next day gets worse, it's like goop sticking to each other. Next day, start not being able to see right. Then we go, she's in the optical business, she started getting like a lump on her eyeball. Dude, we, we go to the whatever eye doctor, take her there. She has connections, so she calls someone. We go in for an appointment. They're like, yeah, you got like a— she had like a cyst on her eye. And dude, it turned into where she had to like wear like— she had to have these things on her eye and she couldn't— she basically couldn't function from the day after Christmas until early March. She couldn't drive, she couldn't see, she couldn't read her phone, she couldn't be like in daylight.

This—

the medicine that they had to put in to try to heal this thing made her so sensitive, she couldn't like— she couldn't function. She couldn't— if she were working, which by this time she no longer had to work, um, she just had some connections still, but if she were working, she would have had to go 2 and a half months without going to the job. You mean like they wouldn't have kept her? You mean had I just been— and I had to take her to the doctor 3 days a week. In Atlanta to get her eye checked and watch it to make sure she didn't have surgery, make sure she didn't go effing blind. Like, it was a, it was a, it was a scare. If I was a— sure, if I was a sales guy only, dude, my production would have went in the toilet January, February, March. We didn't skip a beat. We grew. My income went up during that stage, you know what I mean? Because I had, I had a structure in place to that was running without me. My staff took care of things. I could make phone calls. I was doing calls like this from the car, dude. I'd be sitting in the waiting room. I'm like, hey, I got to go in the parking lot real quick. I go in the parking lot, do a Zoom. I mean, I was able to do some things still. And so for me, I wasn't blind to that, bro. So I wanted to build something. You know, so for me, the sales side was a means to an end. It was getting me somewhere. And so I challenge all of you to not only continue to sell, but it's like, what do you want to do with that? You know, I want— you mentioned Josh Williams. I watch his stuff and he's taken it and he's put it into other business, the other things that bring him revenue, real estate. He's doing some— he's doing some cool stuff. I mean, I just watched that. I think he was in like Dubai last week, you know? I mean, like, he, he made it happen, you know? And can we—

can I ask you about that?

Yeah, 100%.

Yeah. Let's, let's kind of give a little bit of a journey, right? Year 1, year 2, year 3. And like, at those stages, it's like beginner stage, then you're like, oh crap, right? You know, you— when you— at what stage did you realize that you needed to build a business? Like, what happened, right? And then, you know, I mean, 6,000 agents, that's huge, right? But somebody, you know, uh, that's got maybe like 50, right? They can't fathom 6,000. Obviously, that's— that may be something that gets you, but some people may be thinking, I can't get to 6,000. But like, we come back beginning? What was year 1 like? Where, where did the jump happen? Because, you know, there's this shift that you made. And I'm just curious, you know, 12 years later, we get to $200 million a year and 6,000 agents. But, you know, what was the progression like?

Just the kick in the ass, you know, I love John Wetmore for that. So yeah, great, great event. If you're a struggling insurance agent, or quite frankly, an agency manager struggling to grow, and you're looking for some help, let me help you. My name is John Wetmore. I've built an agency of over 6,000 agents across the country. We're issue over $200 million in paid premium this year. And I have an event coming up in my office, Metro Atlanta, February 27th and 28th. I'll be spending 2 days teaching you everything I've learned in the last decade and helped thousands of agents build their agency and their business. Click on the link below, register. We'll see you there. I always, um, I always try to explain to people, dude, as I built this, and I— and, and the reason we're the size we are is I have a lot of help, bro. I have a lot of good people that want to build agencies. I certainly have taught it and they copy and paste and learn from others. But I have a lot of, there's a lot of leaders at this stage. Early on, 40, 50 agents, bro. It was just me. I had to be everything to everybody. You know, I was doing contracting. I was processing people's paperwork. I was like, send it all to this. And this is, you know, 10, 12 years ago where it was still paper contracting. You know what I mean? So it's like I had to manage a lot of stuff. I had to manage the sales side. And I was, I was taught in the business, dude, that the sales is the job and the agency is the business, and you do the job to fund the business.

Can you say that one more time?

Yeah. The sales, calling clients, selling insurance is your job. Building the agency was the business, but I had to do the job really well in order to fund the business. I didn't do the job to change my lifestyle. I didn't do the job to buy a nice house. I didn't do the job to pay the bills and go on vacation and travel. I did the job to fund my business. That's what built my agency, is me having a sales job, which was selling life insurance. And I chose to do it at a high level so I can invest quicker, more, more steady investing cash always created more cash flow, right? Because it gave, it gave me access to more people and to invest in leads or buy an office or invest in staff or all the things we did along the way. Travel around to speak across the country and go train agents and teach people how to put an office in place. Like, all the things I've done, I couldn't have funded that without being high level at the job. I see a lot of people really high level at the job and then they fund their lifestyle. I was taught to fund my business. So when I was knocking down 40, 50, 60 G's a month as a life insurance agent, dude, I was paying myself $1,500 a week, bro, to fund my lifestyle. The rest of it was to fund the business. And so I wasn't confused by that part ever. Now, I— it doesn't mean I was good at it. I still was— I still had a lot to learn, but I understood the concept from people pretty early. And so my goal from the beginning was to build something, but it took me a few years to figure that out. So to go back to the beginning, I got licensed in 2010. I sold no insurance and had no team. 2011, I also sold no insurance, had no team. 2012, I sold my first policy in August of 2012, 2 and a half years after getting my license, part-time. Probably sold, bro, 12 grand that year. I don't know, some pathetic number in 2012, whatever it was. 2013, also no team, but I probably sold— I don't know, dude, I made 60 grand. I know that, I remember that number. I made 60K. Most of the year was part-time, um, and I was at like a 55 comp at the time. No team still. I tried to bring some people on, but nobody did anything. 2014, I sold— our team did for the year like $180 grand. I sold, I think, $174. So I had like 5 or 6 agents that did a combined like $6,000, $8,000 for the year. That makes sense. 2015 rolling into 2014, dude, I was, you know, end of the year. I'm like in the insurance business now. I have my license 4 years. I'm selling for last 2. Mediocre, doing okay. Analytical, overthinking everything, just trying to find the perfect script, the perfect lead, the perfect weather, the perfect city to call, the perfect time to call it, the perfect zip code to call with the perfect caller ID number with the perfect system.

And that's with the best people that—

yeah, 100%. I mean, I had someone reach out to me last month and was like, hey, do you think people in Utah like insurance? I'm like, I'm sorry, that could be the dumbest question I've ever been asked.

You'd be surprised how many times I get it. Do we have a heat map?

Yeah, like who bought the most? I said, do you think people in Utah love their family? Do you think people in Utah die? Well, yeah. All right, they probably need insurance then. Like, why are we overthinking this? My area. Stop. Like, cut it out. Stop it. I was that guy though, dude. So I feel like I have the right to speak really directly about it because I was that dude and I want to go back in time and slap the shit out of that guy. You know. And so for me, man, I was— I was— I remember I was telling the story earlier, Christmas time, sitting around family, travel back up north, um, to go to like family Christmas thing, dude. And, you know, take some time off because it's the holidays, like why not? I can't pay my bills, but I get— you know, it's holidays, man. So I'm sitting back up, up at my aunt's house Christmas party, and, um, all I can do is think about like the fact that I'm not making money because I'm I'm, I'm, I'm there, right? And I'm thinking about the bills that are coming up, and I'm thinking about the lead bill that I know is coming up, and I'm thinking about the chargeback I just got, and I'm thinking about all the stuff, and I can't take care of Christmas the way I want to, and all these things, dude. And I wasn't present because I wasn't doing what it took to have enough revenue coming in at all times that if I slowed down, it affect— it affected me. And I didn't like that, man. And, and, and I'll never forget that Christmas, the way it made me feel. And I didn't like it, dude. And, uh, rolling into 2015, had some more personal stuff going on that required some, some more money to go out instead of in, and I kind of lost my mind about it. And I always ask people this, like, if I just slapped a $1,000 a month bill on you right now into your lifestyle, would that affect you? Like, all of a sudden you got a new bill, $100,000 a month, uh, $1,000 a month, right? Just would that, would that Or could you just like not even notice it come out of your account ever? Or would it impact you? And most people say it would impact them, you know? And if you need a bigger number, cool. What if it was $10 grand a month? Would that impact you? Does that make sense? Like, would it? Would you feel it? And I felt it, dude. It was $1,000 a month, new thing. I felt it and I'm pissed and I'm losing my mind. And someone challenged me, man, and he was like, I have a question, bro. And you can do this with any number. But for me specifically, he was like, are you really losing your mind over one application a month? And I was like, well, yeah. Yes, sir, I was just literally losing my mind over that, you know? And it made me look at the business very differently, you know? And I decided instead of being analytical and overthinking everything— and again, I don't, I don't rave about having— I can say this and give you a 98% close ratio. I'm not that guy. I closed like 43% of clients in my career, but I made $1.2 million in sales in like a 2.5-year period, you know, on my own pen. But I decided like, what if I just be who I am? I'm confident who I am. What up, Chick Kelly? Who the fuck are you, bro?

Dr. Chick Kelly in the building, the greatest.

My man, my man. It's hard to not be excited about you. I love what you're doing, dude. Big shit.

It's the annuity over here. Yeah, dude, got the VIP.

Yeah, so, you know, the, the whole concept that you try— that you try to bring up about the Do More Now, Get Better Later, that was a, that was a decision. It's not just the name of a book, dude. It was a decision that changed the outcome of my life. And I decided, what if I just stopped worrying about all the stuff, all the noise, all the things? I'm not saying don't try to get better. People always hear this wrong, and don't train, and don't educate yourself, and don't— I'm not saying that. But I just chose, instead of like slowing down and overthinking everything, what if I just chose to do a bunch more of what I know works right now and I worry about all the other stuff just later, you know. And I just started going at this thing at a different level, dude, activity-wise and prospecting. This business is about prospecting. Why does Jack Kelly sell the shit out of annuities every 7 seconds of the day? He's going for $50 million this year, would he say, all day long, all day long, all night. He's always prospecting, even with a cigar in his hand. He's prospecting. He's trying to find agents that need help. He's trying to find people that need help moving their IRA, their old 401 to the IRA. Like, he's always prospecting. Why does he sell so many annuities? Is he good? Of course he's good. He sold a zillion of these fucking things, right? But he's just a dude, you know, and he, and he, and he understands the prospecting game, you know, and he's turned into who he is today because he's had so many reps from it. And I just chose the same path. I'm like, what if I just do more of it and I'll get better later? I'll just literally worry about it later. And then I found out which I was too dumb to realize that by default you actually get better later on purpose when you do more of something. Fair? Like, if you do more of anything in your life— I want to get better at Spanish. I bet if you speak Spanish more or take— or do Duolingo more, you'll get better quicker. You know what I mean? It's like, if you do more of any activity, you will get better. So I not only made an active decision to do it, I learned that it's— everybody wants to get better, but they're afraid to do the thing. And I'm like, you know, that's the answer. The solution to what you want is to do the thing more. I want— you know, Maddox wants to get better at baseball. Is he going to get better at baseball by reading about it, studying it, watching videos on it? Is he going to get better by playing more baseball? You know, and, and so that was the, that was the, the turning point for me, dude. And to answer the, the going forward, I, I issued like, uh, just a crack under $500 grand that year on my own pen. Team did a little over a million for the year. '16, started to teach this concept. I sold like 350 on my own pen that year. We did like $2.8 million for the year. '17, I got out of the field, um, using this. At that point, I was making $150,000 a month, all overrides at this point. We did like $6 million in '17. I think we did $10 million in '18. 19, we did $22 million. Uh, 2020, we did $50. '21, we did $100. '22, we did $150. '23, '24, we cracked $200, you know. And it's— it, it, it was like this on paper when you look at it year to year, but in the middle, bro, chaos, ups and downs, problems to solve, trouble, people quitting, chargebacks, roll-ups. I mean, you name it, dude, we had it. You know, I just, I just chose to be someone that tried to be solution-based and solve it as I went and, and, and, and get help from other people, man, that have already done this. And I, what's funny, man, is a lot of people hear numbers, right? Like Kelly, $50 million annuities, which is badass. Wetmore, $200 million and whatever, great. Yo, you know we're both a rounding error to someone, right?

It's all relative, right, dude?

Like, the guy who bought my company, his accounting team just hits the wrong button, they lose $200 million, and no one notices. I quit tomorrow. I— the whole team goes away, dude. It doesn't really affect— they did like $25 billion. Like, the $200 million is not this much of the industry, right? How much in annuity volume sold a year, Chakeli? What's the number? I don't even know. I bet you know, like roughly annuity volume, like ballpark. Yeah, dude, I don't know. I don't know the exact number. I know that, uh, yeah, $30 billion. Yeah, I mean, so I'm— $50 million, killing it, dude, you are. But I, I, I only say that because some people think like we, we have the market cornered. You know how much potential there is for all of you to do some stuff? Every one of us in here could do $50 million annuities and there'd be still annuities to sell. Is that fair? Is that a fair statement, Ryan?

Yeah, absolutely.

You could do $50 million annuities part-time if you did it right. You know what I mean? I'm like, right. So I don't know, dude. I think when I see the picture that way, it keeps me going. It keeps me building. It keeps me humble. It keeps me not from being like complacent about stuff. And I just want to help other people have $50 million annuity businesses, which we sell a lot in our agency too. I mean, I don't sell a ton of them, but our agency does a ton, you know, and hell, I can steal his content and use some of the word tracks and be like, yo, this helps me, my team build too.

Facts. You know, John, you, you said something about, it said, you know, that there's a, it still was a crazy jump from like $1.2 to like $5 to like $200, right?

Yeah. Yeah.

And then, but when you said something that it looks like this on paper to get to $200 million, but it was kind of rocky like this, right? Hell yeah. So two things with that. You have this 40/40 rule with the managing and recruiting, like how the hell you do that, right? And, um, so I want to talk about the, the kind of the 40/40 rule, you know what I'm talking about?

Because you're always talking about that. Of course I know, right?

So that, and then managing emotions in the business, the ups and downs, living day to day by chargeback, living by, um, leads, living by, you know, all the other stuff, just the emotional roller coaster that comes with that. Because in my opinion That is kind of what's holding a lot of people back is some of the, the roller coasters of the business. That's just super frustrating when people just like, I just want to give— I want to go do something else. This is kind of annoying.

Sure.

Because with the success also comes with the more, the, the more stress, the more responsibilities, the more people that rely on you. And that pressure alone, you know, can be debilitating sometimes, as well as just getting to the success, because it is a sacrifice, right? So I'm curious if you would talk about those two things.

Yeah, dude, I'll start with, um, the frustration side, and then I'll go to the, uh, the rule that you mentioned. What, what do you think causes most people to be frustrated, like daily, right? And I get answers. Y'all can type them if you want.

Expectations, lack of—

yeah, I mean, you know the answer, right? But most people are like, the chargeback, the client canceling, the, you know, lead flow, the whatever it is. But the reality is, if you sit back and you think about anything that you're frustrated with currently, or maybe a person you're frustrated with right now, right? I'm pissed at someone today, quite frankly, in my life. And when you sit back and think about why you're frustrated, it's because your expectations of that situation are different than what actually happened. So I always have to sit back and go, is it the thing that causes me to be mad, or is it my expectations that are causing me to be mad, right? Meaning I got 3 chargebacks, I'm mad. Well, if you expected to get 5 and you only got 3, would you be mad or you'd be happy? You know what I mean? It's like, it's, it's the perspective of it. I, I, I listen to, uh, you all know Inky Johnson.

For sure.

Yeah, so I love his stuff. Um, his kids happen to go to the same school as mine, um, so I get to see him. Like, I don't, I don't have like long conversations. I say hey, whatever, but I get to watch like how he works and coaches his kid and stuff. It's kind of, it's kind of neat getting to kind of watch him from a different perspective. But I like his podcast. And Inky, I quoted him in the book, he says, uh, expectations are premeditated disappointment. Premeditated, meaning on purpose. So when you set— and now there is a, there's the other side of like, should you set expectations in your life? Obviously, you know what I mean? So it's a fine line, but it's like most of the things we're frustrated by are expectations that we determine of something we expect that maybe we shouldn't. And in his eyes, you on purpose chose disappointment. That's how Inky words it. He just has a really cool podcast about it. Um, and Serendipity Podcast. Yeah, yeah, it's badass, dude. Um, and in the DO MORE concept, the E stands for expectations. I explained my views on this, but when I heard his after, I was like, I gotta quote him because I like the way he words it really simply, you know. And I'm, I'm not saying you shouldn't have expectations, I'm just saying you got to be careful with them. You got to be aware of them, that many of the expectations you have are causing you to be frustrated. So can you adapt them, change them, shift them, or maybe we accept them? Meaning, in baseball, it's pretty accepted that you're going to get out 7 out of 10 times. They've accepted that. Nobody's trying to bat.750 in baseball. They know it's never going to happen. So it's like, they can't— you know what I mean? It's like, so there's a fine line between— are they trying to get better? Sure. But are they trying to never strike out? I mean, if they say they're trying to, sure, but they know they're going to. You mean it's, it's part of the deal. And so some parts of this, man, ups and downs are part of the— it's a package deal. Walmart, they're going to lose stuff when a tractor-trailer rolls over on the interstate and loses, loses its load. It's part of the deal. Do they prefer it doesn't happen? Sure. Do they put things in place and safety plans? Sure. But like, they're part of it. I got a buddy that works for FedEx. He's like, sometimes the planes crash. You know, FedEx does, they go, hey, insurance write-off, and they move on with their day. It's just what they— it's business, you know? And so for me, dude, I've just learned, man, that, that, that, that the problems don't go away. Like strikeouts don't go away. Can, can you see the ball coming better? Yeah. Should you hit off the tee? Yeah. Like, yes. You know, but for me, man, I just— I don't want the problems and I do my best to prevent them. Verse overcome them forever. But at the same time, when they come, I try not to let it debilitate me, dude. Um, and the roller coaster thing for me, what I, what I help people understand is whatever level of sales you're at, you tend to see like, if I sell X amount a year, no one's sales levels are flat. January, like Shaquille O'Neal, $50 million, let's use him as an example. Call that $4 million a month. He don't sell $4 million every month. Some months it's $2 million, some months it's $7 million, I bet. If I had to guess, you know what I mean? There's no way it's like 4.2, 4.2, 4.2, 4.2, 4.2, 4.2. I did 50. There's no way it works like that. Does that make sense? Some months are lower than other months, and when they're lower, I know him, he probably loses his mind a little bit because he's human and wants to be, be big in what he does. I'm the same way. But at the same time, he doesn't lose his shit and stop doing what he does. He knows it's going to get back up. So for me, where if you're at The average agent's doing, you know, $8,000 one month, $12,000, $20,000 the max, $17,000, then $6,000. And they do this little up and down thing. What happens is when you go up, especially in the life side with chargebacks, things like that, you do up, you got more money, and then you go down, you got less money, but the chargebacks from the up hit you on the down month.

Always.

Yeah. I mean, this damn down month. But why wouldn't they? You sell more. Why would you not have more chargebacks? And then worse, why would you not expect the wave behind it to come hit you? Why would you not expect that? I, I mean, you know, when you sell more, you're going to have more people cancel, statistically. So in a low month, why do we pretend we're not going to get whacked? I'm like, you know it's coming, and if you don't, you're lying to yourself. Do some months it not happen? Sure, lucky month. Keep it moving, right? So now you go, all right, I'm gonna sell $40 grand, $60 grand, whatever it is. Again, annuities— maybe you sell one a month, $100 grand a month, $500 grand this month, $200 grand this month, $700 grand this month, whatever it is. There's always this little roller coaster. So we still have the roller coaster, but it's way up here, and the downs are better than most people's ups. You know what I mean? So when it's a quote-unquote low month, dude, I promise you Kelly ain't checking his bank account like losing his mind, like, oh my God, what am I gonna do? How do I feed these animals? Like, he's okay, you know what I'm saying? Because he understands the game. Like, you— and at the end, if you understand the ups and downs, you hit your target at the end. Year over year, his probably looks like this too, but month to month, it's no different than when he talks about the returns. Now again, the annuities, he can say it smarter how they make money. I just kind of loosely know how it works. But it's like, at the end of the day, the thing they're measuring, even though they only apply it once a year, the measuring stick of it all, whatever marker or whatever, um, uh, what's the index or whatever they're using to determine the, the, the, uh, credit you get, that sucker goes up and down all the time. The news changes, it goes up. The news changes, it goes down. But but at the end of the year, here's your interest rate credit. It's just a one, it's like, boom, there it is. You know what I mean? If more people understood this thing was kind of like one of them damn fixed index annuities where if you put in the thing at the end of the year, you're always going to beat, you're always going to go like, dude, look what we did this year. You know? But I think people get confused and they think every day it's like this and that ain't real life, dude. You know? And for me to help protect that, one of the things that I had, and for me just being really transparent and the way it worked is I, when I sold, I was in the field, field sales, kitchen table. And so our rule was 30-30, 30 field sales appointments a week and then 30 recruiting interviews a week. And if you had that week in and week out, like if you book 30 field in-home appointments a week, every single week, 52 weeks a year, or 50 if you want a couple of vacations, fine. That's 1,500 people a year, dude. You could have a third of them no-show you. That's still 1,000. And you could have two-thirds of them tell you to fuck off, it's still 300 applications. You're gonna sell a ton of insurance, you know what I mean? And so I was like, why don't we just do 30 a week every week instead of do 7 this week and 12 next week, then 20, and have this craziness? Now you do 30 every week, the production isn't always the same, but it averages out over the long run. And same for building, dude. If people want to recruit, they want to build these big teams, they talk to 2 people a week, I'm like, you should just quit. Recruiting. Stop it. It— you— it's not going to do anything. It's just statistically it's not. Could you get lucky and hire a guy who does? Sure. But statistically, dude, for me it was the same. I'm like, why not? If you gotta— if you gotta have 30 presentations a week, why are we not having 30 conversations about what we do a week? And in our world, you know, a lot of people work for an IMO, right? Y'all know what the M in IMO means? Marketing. Yeah, buddy. So how much are you marketing? They ain't the only ones that got to be marketing. You're in the same business. So you're marketing every day. I know me and Kelly and Arturo market every day.

For sure.

You follow us. You see our shit on your feed every day. You know what I mean? And it's like, that was part of it, dude. For me, it was like creating River Easy baselines. And in today's world, dude, I say 40 in today because telesales, you're sitting at home in your PJs with your feet up. I'm calling people, you know what I mean? I'm being somewhat facetious, but it, it's, it's more like that than not. You know, you get to choose that. I'm like, no offense, dude, 40 a week, 5 days a week is 8. It's like 8 a day. I mean, I, I'm, I'm not trying to be mean, but that, I mean, that's, that's not a big number. It's just, and now if someone can kill it without that level of input, keep doing you, man. High five. I ain't getting in your way. I just know I'm not training on it because it's an anomaly. It's an outlier. It's not part of the bell curve. It's on the outside skirts, you know. I didn't have that talent level, dude. I'm— I just don't. I'm not a sale— I don't have the sales background. I don't— I know how to sell now, you know, but I still live what I— what I speak, you know what I mean? Like, I do these crazy endurance health things. How do I get better for them? I'm like doing these crazy hikes. How do I get better at hiking? I hike more. I just hike more than you. How do I run further than you? I run more often than you. That's it. I don't know the psych— like, the science behind running and the perfect shoe to get to make it to the end of a marathon. I don't know. But I know if I just don't stop running, I'll get to 26.2 miles eventually. And I ain't got to win the thing, but I'm sure as hell going to finish it, you know. And so, dude, I just— it's a— it's an approach for me, and it works for me. And I I've had success teaching it, and I think people find it very relatable. You know, I think people struggle with the guy that goes, if you just say this, you'll close 90% of people. Hey, if you just say this, you'll roll over people's IRA. You just one word track, you're good to go. You don't have to do any work, no knowledge, no profession. You don't have to learn your craft. You don't have to talk to a lot of people. You just do $50 million if you just say that. I'll never hear Ryan say that. You know, it's like, so for me, it just became kind of a mantra, bro. Because it worked well for me. So why wouldn't I share what worked for me? And I've just learned, man, a lot of us that figure out this business, we're just everyday people, bro, trying to take care of our family, you know. And, and, and I get a lot of praise for things, but I'm like, I'm just a dude in Atlanta that kind of works hard and studies and tries to be a professional at what I do. And I try to get better at my craft every day, and I mess up and I make mistakes and I do dumb things. And I'm like, my bad, I didn't— I probably I'm sorry, I'm not perfect, but I'm, I'm trying my best, man, to add value to people and, and be a good dude. And it's worked, and that's relatable, and people are attracted to that. When I can go, you just do this thing, and if you do it consistently, you can, you can hit new heights— people loved it, bro. They love not having to like think about all the details and actuarial science behind selling this product. Like, no offense, who cares? Let them figure that shit out. How do they— how do they calculate the interest, Ryan? Who gives a shit? They're getting 16% average returns and they're insurance companies. There— you don't need that to sell clients, I promise you. Is it good that he knows it? Yes. But is he overwhelming clients with the science behind how they do it? I'd bet not.

No, I mean, for sure, it's like this—

there's this kind of balance behind it, dude. And some— sometimes people hear me and they're like, they think I'm saying don't don't be a professional at what you do. I'm like, now this is like Tom Brady, dude. He was the slowest dude on the field. He didn't have the best arm. He couldn't jump worth the shit. He didn't have abs. He didn't have muscles. He didn't— he wasn't amazing at any one individual attribute, but that fool knew what every person on the field was doing before they did it, dude. He studied his craft. He knew how to make people move. He knew how to— the little things. You know what I mean? And that package together made him what y'all know today. You know? So it's, I don't know, man. What up, insurance agents? If you're looking for a roadmap on how to win in this industry, check out the book I wrote about a year ago, Do More Now, Get Better Later. Check out the reviews here somewhere. My team's putting them on. I'm getting tons of great feedback about all the people it's helped. Appreciate those of y'all that have bought it. Appreciate all the reviews that are going out. If you're new to following me or the industry, check out the book and get it in your hands now.

Well, I got, I got a question for you because you said balance, and I'm just, I'm just kind of playing off what you're saying. So the balance part, so the balance comes in. Dempsey's like, all right, he gets the hair up his ass. He's like, you know what, I'm tired of writing $40,000 a month, $80,000 a month. I want to start building a team. He does that for 6 months. It's going great. And then it happens, right? Uh, you get rolled up or you get charged back, or you realize that you've been chasing and helping out so many people, training them, right? That, oh shit, you haven't been producing. These people aren't necessarily writing a ton of business. You're stressed. Systems are kind of going like crazy. You're burning both ends. Right? Like, what's going on now? You're like, all right, the crisis of meaning is happening. Do I really feel like this is what I should be doing? And then that wave goes where it's like, okay, I'm shutting down my team. I'm just gonna go back to producing. And I've seen that cycle over and over and over again doing this with helping agents.

Yeah. So think about this, dude. When, when, when someone stops building, they're frustrated with all the things the agent does or doesn't do. They didn't run enough appointments. They didn't buy enough leads. They didn't call enough people. They didn't get on the training. They didn't take care of their dad. They didn't da-da-da— they, they, they, they, they, they, right? But it's like when the agent is lacking sales and they go, "It was the leads." It was the client. It was my area. It was the weather. Was they, they, they, they, what do we tell the agent? Why, why is the agent struggling with chargebacks? Why is the agent worried about a chargeback or turtle? Like, what's the biggest— by far the biggest reason they worried about a chargeback? You can— if I don't know if that was a raise your hand or hi, Ryan, but you can definitely answer too. What do you think, Ryan or Arturo? Either one, really. The, the reason an agent is worried about a chargeback or a lead bill, what's the main driving reason?

They wouldn't do what they were supposed to do the whole time.

They ain't seen enough clients, dude. If you were making enough sales, you wouldn't really worry about it. Now, if you got 10 out of 10 every single week canceling, I get different story. But for the most part, the overwhelming majority of people in the life space, in the sales space, they're worried about a client canceling solely because they don't make enough sales and they don't account for that client canceling. Typically is the main, the most common reason. Then we get to the building side, and so we try to tell the agent, hey bro, it ain't them, it's you. It ain't them, it's you. It ain't the leads, it's you. It ain't the client, it's you. It ain't like you don't, you don't, you don't know what you need to know. You aren't putting enough work. You aren't seeing enough people. We tend to know that, right? Then you get to the, to the, we'll call them a manager building and they're recruiting and they're like, the agents this, the agents don't do that, the agents didn't do this, the agents do that. I'm like, why is it not the same rule? Like, why are you worried about roll-up debt? To me, the chargeback is in the sales side, and the roll-up is the same thing on the business side. It's the equivalent of— it's the closest common denominator you can have, you know. So I'm like, well, why are we worried about roll-up debt? Not saying you shouldn't— there aren't ways to help mitigate them, because there are. But at its core, you quit building because I had $6,000 in roll-up debt. Okay. That, that's it? That took you out of the game? That's like Brady being like, I quit football because I got 6 sacks this month. It's me, you know. And so what I've learned, dude, is the, the, the person building this, like, so if the solution to the chargeback is sell more policies, why is the solution to the roll-up debt not hire more people? To me, it's the same. Does that make sense? Now, should you get better at managing it? Yes, yes, please, yes. Should they get better, better at, better at managing chargebacks? Yes, they should, of course. But at its core, most people are worried about rollup because they don't have enough people selling. Meaning, what if I told you, like, my biggest rollup is $150 grand one time, one dude, and I've probably had I don't know. I don't even keep track, dude, to be honest. But if I had to put a number out there, lifetime, probably $400,000 or $500,000 in roll-up debt ever total. If I had to guess a number, um, maybe I'm in the ballpark. Maybe it's not millions, and it's definitely not $160,000. I know that. So it's somewhere in the middle. I'll call it half a million bucks. And people lose their mind over that. But I'm like, what if I told you right now, I'll give you— I'll give you a $500,000 roll-up, $500,000, $150,000 roll-up tomorrow Later, Ryan. Appreciate you, bro. Let's catch up. I tell you, you have to get a $100,000 roll-up, a $200,000 roll-up, whatever it is, and in return, over the next 5 years, you'll make $8 million. Would you then take the roll-up? I've never had someone tell me no. So I'm like, you'll only take it after the fact if you know how it's going to work out. So you don't believe in yourself or the business or the process enough to know it's going to work out that way if you do it the right way. You know what I mean? I just understood, dude, that it's one— it's a dope tax write-off. I'm out of that because I need as many as I can get, especially when you start making real money. And then it, it— to me, it screams I did something wrong. You have a lot of cancellations and chargebacks, as a salesperson, you're doing something wrong. There's some percentage that are going to happen, just like baseball, it's going to happen. The industry's 30% chargeback. It is what it is. But it doesn't mean you can— mine was, my persistency was like 92%, so like 8% chargeback. You know, I did some things to improve it. So on the debt side, there are things you can do to improve it, but you're not going to make them go away. And I think so many people try to make roll-ups go away and it scares them. And I'm like, it doesn't scare me. It scares me to think that it was the agent's fault because I'm like, did I do a good enough job explaining the business to him? Did I do a good enough job giving him the best chance to success? Did I do enough— did I do a good enough job training that agent? Did I explain to the agent what advance money was? Did I explain to the agent what, what happens if they don't pay their chargebacks? Did I, did I, did I vet the agent? Did I watch the book of business the agent wrote? Did I log into every carrier and look at every policy they wrote and check them out and see if there's any weirdness? Or do I just hire people and let them free? You know what I mean? And most people that have debt, they're like, I didn't see the roll-up coming. Anybody ever have that, not see a roll-up coming? Can I ask you a question? How did you not see it coming? You got 743 emails and letters from the carrier saying the agent had debt. It was on your commission statement every day. We have daily pay in this industry. Most of y'all probably on that. How did you not see it? What do you mean you didn't see it coming? Because you were like this. That's the only reason you don't see roll-up debt coming. That shit takes 90 days to roll up most of the time. You missed all the emails, every one of them, that they CC you on with the agent telling you they have debt? You missed the termination emails that they got terminated? You missed the Vector emails that they sent that that person got put on Vector for not paying their debt? All the letters that they mail you, the junk mail, you threw them away, huh? No wonder why you didn't see it coming, you know what I mean? Like, dude, the day a chargeback happens, I see it. I'm like, yo Dempsey, what's up? First day, hey man, did you see Mary canceled? Wait, what? Mary canceled? Yeah, dude, remember I told you this was going to happen? Do you remember what I said we're going to do about them? And we start talking about it, and I start teaching people. I start teaching people how to check their commission statements. I start teaching people how to watch their book of business. I start teaching this stuff. You can't roll into this thing blind, you know what I mean? Go open a store, retail store, leave the door open and cover your eyes. You do that long enough, people are gonna steal some stuff, and they're gonna be mad at the crooks. I'm like, you did leave your door open and don't ever check the camera or even turn it on or do anything to prevent it at all, you know? And I found, dude, that's way more common, bro. Than any other reason why people get their debt and quit building is just they go through it like this and they say they didn't see it coming. And I just, when I map it out like that, I can see the smirk on their face. They're like, yeah, I didn't look. I didn't look. Like, all right, so was it their fault or was it your fault? And I started building my whole business like that, dude. Um, And during those ups and downs, again, I accept them. I, I go, can I get it better? Can I make it better? I never had $150 grand again after that. I promise you that. I learned that. I learned my lesson. I learned that when people do shady stuff, they tell really good stories and try to convince me to keep them on, on advance money. I just don't listen to the stories, dude. I watch. I watch my business. I learn my business. I learn people. I pay attention if they're buying leads or not buying leads. If they're not buying leads, they're probably not going to make sales. If they're not making sales, they're probably going to have a chargeback. If they ain't doing any of those and they have a chargeback, they probably ain't gonna pay it, especially if I ain't talk to them about it. You know, you have debt with me, bro, you get a phone call. Hey dude, I noticed you ain't taking care of that debt in the last 30 days. What's up? Hey, I noticed instead of writing this carrier, you now write that carrier. You know, they— we all know this debt game. I know you stopped writing that carrier because you want to get paid over here. You got to start taking care of the debt over here. Or we're gonna have an issue. You know what I mean? Just conversations, man. This stuff's relatively easy when you, when you know how to approach it, you know what I mean? So it's learning from those downs to make the ups a little, a little cleaner, a little smoother. But they ain't never going away, bro, you know?

Yeah, I think that that's so important too with the consideration, which is like, it's his responsibility. So it's like, hey, just don't forget about that over there. Yeah, just— yeah, buddy, you know, don't accept the responsibility and avoid the conflict. That's so good.

Yeah.

So what we're talking about that, you know, because I know you got to run and this has been super, super good. Drop a 7 in the chat if you guys have been getting some value from the $200 Million Man for sure. Uh, the last—

dude, to be clear, I'm going to do a run to do a Zoom call live right after this if anybody wants to keep saying sure and just jump on it.

So the, the cash flow management, you know, you talk about this a lot even though, you know, you, you had a huge jump, you kind of didn't increase your lifestyle for a little bit because you said something about investing in the business.

Sure.

And I know that it's really easy to do, especially for me, like for the first year, you know, when I started making money, I never made money like that. So I enjoyed some of it. I blew it, right? I did what I needed to do. But after that, right, it's like, okay, this is stupid. This is the opportunity to build wealth. And if you just want to just do it just to flex and do all this other stuff, that is irresponsible and stupid and is going to bite you in the ass, right? And, uh, you know, I sometimes learn the hard way, which I did, but you're account, you know, got an accounting degree and built a super, uh, big business. So can you just kind of, uh, yeah, yeah.

I think at its core, dude, I think where most people go wrong, overwhelmed, the overwhelming majority of people in our business, they, the first mistake they make is their commissions going to the same account that they pay their electric bill out of.

Come on.

I just— I don't understand it at all. Like, do you think when you go to Chick-fil-A and buy a chicken sandwich that that money goes into the dude's checking account where he pays his electric bill out of? Yet we try— we try to manage a business like when our spouse sees the— you know what I mean? It's like, it just doesn't work, dude. It makes no sense whatsoever. Like, how sloppy can we be? Not being trying to be mean, but like Like, I don't understand. What does that say? Your paycheck when you have a job goes into the same account as your checking. That makes sense. Where you pay your electric, that makes sense.

Well, it's ironic that you said that because that's the number one thing I talked about last week was the code name. Yeah, the phones.

It's like, dude, it just doesn't make any sense, dude. You're telling me now an independent contractor, self-employed, like it makes no sense. You know, especially when you're trying to build a business. It's like, why would— I mean, that's like breaking the rules 101. In any— like, I think they taught that in 7th grade, like, you don't commingle funds. You know what I mean? I just— I'm gonna be mean, but it's like, that was common sense to me, dude. The day I started in the industry, I had a separate account, and I didn't have to go start an LLC and get my agency licensed in 20— oh, I didn't do that, dude. My agency was never licensed. I was always 1099, but you can still do taxes, run it through an S corp, you still do the same thing. But early on, dude, I just had a separate account, bro. It wasn't that deep. I didn't make anyone go open a business. I didn't do that. It's like, just open another free checking account at the same bank, you know. And for me, the deposits went into the, the, the account. The downside of doing it the other way, where most people do it, where it goes into their, their personal account, is they tend to get deposits in their personal account. If you're good at this, your agents suck at it, which is— it's like something you should teach all the time. If deposits from commissions go into your personal account, it's like It's like clients, dude, especially in the final expense world or whatever. It's like they, they, they NSF, they didn't— they cancel their policy this month and they go, I just don't have money, I didn't have the money. They didn't— they, they know they did have the money, they spent it though, right? And people go, deposit income, Social Security income, your income, whatever. And then why do people not— most low salespeople, they go, they didn't have money. That's because they tried to slide the insurance in after all the other expenses. I'm like, are we so weak at sales that we can't slide the insurance in up here and knock some other expenses off? That's why most people don't sell to— and they get that, I'm broke, I don't have the money for it. It's like, because we prioritized it very last for the client. So when they cancel and they go, I don't have the money— no, you had the money, you just went to Mexican 6 times this week, right? We have— we, we bought whatever, went on vacation, did the stuff we do. And we do that as agents. So I go like, I don't have money for leads, I don't have money to invest. That's because you deposit your cash, then you have all your other personal expenses, and then you put your business expenses, your lead investment, your advertising, your staff, your office down here, and you try to slide it in after the fact. Or your agents are doing that, you know what I mean? And so for me, it's like, if it's in a business account, now I have business expenses, and if there's anything left, I slide them and transfer them to my personal account. So I had myself on a salary, dude, literally for my entire career. I transferred money from one checking account to the other checking account every Monday, and I did it Mondays because I'm weird and I believe in that, like, if you do it on Friday, it'll be gone before Monday comes, because that was my life. So I had to transfer every Monday, and if I didn't have the money in my business account, you know who got paid last? This guy. And I taught that. And then so if I teach that and then people do the opposite and then they complain about their finances, I can go back and go, hey, remember where we talked about doing this? I warned you this was going to happen, you know what I mean? And so when it becomes an active decision to do it, I'm like, well, that's your fault for sure now, because I definitely advised you against it, you know? And so many people, bro, try to slide their investment to grow more, their investment into leads, their invest— their investment into building their business and doing things to— like, we know if we spend a dollar, we make X. So why are we not buying twice the leads to make twice the X? Because we don't— we spend the money first, and then we try to, we try to use the investment, slide the investment in after the fact, you know. Same as the agents that are having trouble selling and buying leads, same concept, you know. So for me, it became deposits, business expenses. I worry about me later. And I did it consistently enough that it, that it stuck. So I gotta wrap with that, Dodie, dude. I, I got 3 minutes.

Well, thanks, man, for, for doing this. And, and, uh, just, man, so, so good. So good.

Appreciate it. Let's set up another time, dude. I'm happy to help when I can. And if y'all want to follow me, I'll go to the website, hit me on social. I'm not hard to find. Um, I do events non-stop. I got a ton of cool stuff coming up. Um, johnwetmore.com, and you can find everything. There's an events page. There's— I got tons of stuff out there, dude. Yes.

And this is your upline's upline's upline right here, right? So it might be, you know who, who it is. Like, this is the guy, Integrity Partner, there since day one. Yeah, you know what I'm saying? So, you know, there's levels to this. But again, appreciate you for taking time out, the $200 Million Man. Appreciate you. Uh, thanks again, man. Enjoy.