The EASIEST Way To Make $10,000 Per Week In Insurance Sales ft. Tray Honeycutt | Ep86

What up, y'all? Another episode of Insurance Insiders. My name is John Wetmore. Got my buddy Trey Honeycutt on with us today. Trey is one of these guys that has been in the industry a long time. A lot of ups and downs in life, a lot of ups and downs in business. Quit several times, wasn't really that good at the beginning, had a, had a mess. It's here to share it all with you today. Eventually became an elite producer, an elite agency builder, Integrity Partner. He's killing it in, in the business and life. So listen in, share, and I hope you enjoy. Those watching that don't know Trey Maybe some do, maybe some don't. We try to promote you, but you know, Trey's been in the business a long time, had a shitload of ups and downs. Dude is not the story that started out slinging it. Um, a lot of adversity in life, a lot, a lot of adversity in the business. Hell, quit probably multiple times. Um, and, and turned, turned this shit around. I figured it out. So I wanted to share that with you guys after— I don't know the timing in the years, I know it's been a long time. And I know eventually you figured it out and not only learned how to sell a bunch, but built a Hall of Fame team agency multiple who knows how many years in a row at this point and eventually sold to Integrity, became a partner. And you've played a cool game watching you develop over the years. So I appreciate it, man. And always, always happy when I leave you and usually laughing to a point where my face is hurting. So I appreciate that over the years.

Thanks. Well, I'm happy to help.

Yeah, man. I would love for you to just give, give, give them some insight, dude, on what it takes to win. Certainly share your story. I'm just going to let you kind of have at it, bro, and hang tight and I'll ask questions if I need.

All right. Well, well, it's definitely an honor to be here, John. Um, anytime you invite me to come on something, I'll always be there. Um, really excited to have a newer group, the Bake Shop group, uh, people that may or may not know the FFL story. Um, I can tell you this much, if, if there was ever a book written about FFL, John would have his own chapter and, uh, that chapter would be called The Agent Whisperer because all of us played roles throughout the entire time. But I mean, I remember distinctly, um, John telling the story about how he went Hall of Fame as a producer, and this changed my business. So for those of you who are producing at a high level, trying to build a team, trying to lead from the front, doing all the stuff, showing up every day. This is something— this one thing is like the bedrock of what I built everything else on, like this one single philosophy. So John said the year that he went Hall of Fame, his goal was to write $250K because he had tracked his numbers and he figured out that 25% of the time he closed and his average premium was $1,000. So if he ran 1,000 appointments over the course of the year, he would write $250K, which was roughly 20 appointments a week. This is back when we used to do it in person. Now, the reason why I say that is because it correlates a lot to what we're doing now, and I'll show you how, but that was his whole thing. He was like, hey, I'm gonna run 1,000 appointments for the year. 25% of the time I'm gonna close. My average premium is $1,000. So by September of that year, he'd already issued over $400,000. And everybody was like, John, how did you do that? Like, I thought that was not, that was not the numbers that you led with. Like, like I thought it was supposed to be another way. And he said, It all sounds good, but you can't account for momentum and getting better. That's the secret to understanding how this business works. Everybody wants to quantify this, but the truth is you can't account for momentum and getting better. So I applaud you all for being here on a Labor Day. You know, I didn't know what fake holidays were until I got around Shawn Mike and FFL. And then I was like, oh, those are all fake holidays. Like all the stuff I got to take off. School for, you know, those are just fake holidays. And the only reason why they let my parents off is because I was home. You know, those aren't real holidays when you own a business. Christmas is a real holiday. Easter.

Bro, these guys have no idea, dude.

They have no idea. It's like 4 AM on the West Coast. My phone rings on 4th of July. Like, that's Sean. Like, people used to put their phones in their beds next to him just in case he called. You know, just to be like, I'm at the office right now. That's where I'm at. You caught me. I was just, I was doing an email, you know, like it's hilarious, but that's, but that drilled down through the organization and that work ethic. That is one of the things that duplicated throughout FFL that's made it different. You know, I got on the Bayshop Builders call earlier this morning and I heard that, that Andrew guy, and he's talking about $100,000 a month. Income. And this is somebody who hasn't been here forever. I mean, people are doing $100,000 a month incomes now, like how we used to talk about $20,000 a month. But this guy asked a question on the Base Shop Builders call and he was like, you know, he goes, how much time are you putting in? He goes, 40 to 50 hours. He goes, okay, well, you're not working enough. That's the problem. Like you're pretty much just part-time. Like, why aren't you taking this serious? You don't have any money. Why are you taking Saturdays off? That's 90% of the time. That's the answer. There's either one or two things. It's either you're not doing enough or you're doing something wrong. And 9.5 times out of 10, you're just not doing enough. And the truth is you'll never really discover what you're doing wrong until you start doing enough. So, so 100% of the time, that's actually what the answer is. Well, people don't, people don't like that because that's uncomfortable. And one of the things we learned with telesales, because in the field we used to be able to hide a little, like you can hide, like, like there were some areas that were better, you know, people did have, okay, we didn't say it back then, but you know, there was a difference between like San Bernardino County where I live and like Alameda County by San Francisco. Like there was a difference. You can get higher premium there. You know, whatever, higher income, all this. But on telesales, there's nothing to hide behind. It's either you're doing the time, you're doing the presentations, you're making the phone calls, or you're not. It's not special leads. It's like all the excuses that agents have, they like, they haven't changed. It's all the same stuff. It's like, well, so-and-so's killing it because of the leads. No, no, that's not true. The best thing ever happened to me. So, so my story, I started in 2014. I was at another company. I started at that company the day before Andrew Taylor quit. So, so I met Andrew Taylor the night before he left that company, and he gave me his phone number and said, hey, if— because back then we did paper applications— he said, if you ever need Mutual of Omaha paper applications— we lived in the same city— he said, call me, I got a whole bunch of them. I'm like, well, that might be helpful. So I took his phone number down. And for 8 months I kept working at that other place and I was getting all my training from FFL from the internet because the people at the other place, like they hadn't, they hadn't been in the field for like years. They're trying to tell me, like, I remember calling my mentor at the other place with like a question and she's like, well, shit, I don't actually know. It's just like, it's a numbers game. Just go to the next one. It's like, well, I'm going to go listen to FFL training, see what they say. Sure enough, Jack, you had an answer for that mess. Like I learned. Learn from Jack how I should have handled that specific problem. But, but that's what happened for months. I was just listening to the FFL trainings. And then one day I called up Andrew and I talked my way in. And, uh, it was the, it was the best thing that ever happened. But that first 45 days or that first 90 days in FFL, I made $45,000. That was more money than I ever made doing anything like ever. Like, and what was crazy was and failed most of the time. Most of the time they didn't show up or I didn't sell it. And sometimes I really didn't sell it. Like, not only did I not sell it, but nobody else would've sold it either. Like, I was this close to begging a lot of the times for getting them to do it. Well, what ended up happening was I was just doing a lot of activity. I had a ton of appointments. I was doing it 7 days a week. So by the end of the 90 days, I had a few policies that were really big that went through. I wrote an annuity. I don't even know how I wrote it. I actually, I just called Andrew, put him on speakerphone. That's literally what happened. And he sold it for me. So I got some commission for that. Um, and I was like, this is unbelievable because I failed most of the time and it still worked. And that was without being any, any, having any kind of skill. That was just me running into the wall hard, you know, like we just kept running into the wall harder and eventually it broke and I I caught my break and things start to go okay. Well, that next 12 months, my mom had had cancer, and so her cancer came back. So that next 12 months, for the whole year, I only issued like $70 grand for the whole year. So this was 2015. And so now this part isn't funny. There's some humor to it, but my mom ended up passing away. So for me, like that whole year, like I just, like I dialed every other week for a day, maybe run an appointment or two, but I was just basically going to mama, going with my mom to chemo and radiation treatments. That's all I was doing. And Andrew Taylor was no different with me that year when I only did 70 than he was with me when I did 45 in 90 days. And that was the biggest thing. And then he invited me to Christmas party. Which was also cool. But that was the thing that endeared me to FFL, because he didn't need me. That's the best thing he ever did. Like, he sold 500 a year himself. Maybe it wasn't 500 then, but it was 400, you know, that year. Number 4.

Hey, he, he and I were only one of 5 that year that sold over 400.

Yes, that's a fact. So, so yeah, he sold— he was Hall of Fame that year. But that's the best thing he ever did because he didn't need me. And that's the best lesson I ever got from Andrew. He's like, the best thing he ever did is not need me because the biggest override you make in this business is off yourself. And he never forgot that. And it creates the right relationship when you're trying to build a team. Like all this lead from the front stuff, it's not just a ploy to get more volume, like, out of y'all. That's not what we're doing. It really does work because it creates the right environment for your agents to have the right attitude to survive long enough for it to work. But if you need your agents and you're just surviving off overrides, they see that, they get super demoralized over it, and then they eventually quit. Like, one of the things that set us apart early on, I remember I talked to this guy in this other 3-letter IMO, and, uh, I told him, I said, you know, the average agent, look, look at what these guys are doing. These guys are writing 40, 50,000 a month. Like, this is crazy. Like, you know, this person was a schoolteacher. This person failed insurance for years. Now they're doing this, this. I'm telling all these stories. And the guy goes, yeah, he goes, you guys are really heavy on that selling stuff. You know, you guys are, you guys are great at selling. He goes, us? He goes, over here, we're builders. We're about culture and we build. And I go, you're right. You guys are We, we actually are not that good at building. You guys are way better because you keep having to rebuild over and over again. Like what we do. And it was so true though. Like that's what set us apart. And the other thing that gives you freedom in building a team, the other thing that'll cause you to walk away from agents you should walk away from and not hire the ones you shouldn't hire, the ones that waste all your time, that you drag, beg, plead with to actually do something, is you're not making money on your own pin. If you're making money on your own pin and you genuinely don't have a lot of time to waste, you won't waste time with people. If you tell 'em to go do this thing and they don't do the thing, like you're not up at night. Oh, I wonder why Bob, like he said he really loved his family and he wanted to get his wife out of his job and he wanted to retire as well. You don't think that. Like, thank God Bob didn't call me back. I got calls to make. I have leads. I have to sell my own leads. I gotta make sales. I gotta be on Zoom tomorrow. So what this business is really about is making money with people, not off people. That means you can't drag a bunch of people. You can run with 1,000, but you cannot carry 2 on your back. And that's what everybody wants to do. Like, they want to have these numbers, like, like, John John, this right here, I got one. You know, like, like you went out and caught him, you know, like in a net, terrible way. They give out this check, this checklist of like, Like, I got me one. This is the one you want. You want the one that if you aren't calling them, they're calling you. You need a right-hand man in the business. That's another thing I learned from John early on. He said, hey, the first thing you need in the business is a right-hand man. Like, like, how do you know what that one is? Well, that's the one that's running with you. How do you know they're running with you? You don't have to call to wake them up. You know, you don't have to be like, hey, were you on the call? Like, they're texting you during the call, bro, this call is fire, unbelievable. I'm gonna That's invigorating. Where this business sucks is when you're isolated by yourself, sitting at home watching television. That's what's really hard. Like, I've been doing a lot of lock-ins lately. Like, I've done like 18 this year.

You've been killing it.

So it's like every 2 weeks. And I did that so I could get out of my house because I, I don't know any other way to do this. Like, I have to get out of my house, so So I'm like, I'm gonna go out here and get around agents, see what they're doing in the field, see how they're selling. So I did this lock-in in Boston, got home super late to like LAX, which was like a 5-hour drive home, even though it's really an hour and 10 minutes. It was like a 5-hour drive home. And then I gotta be in Vegas the next day. So I had to wake up at like 3, you know, that's an exaggeration, wake up at 4 just to get to Vegas. And so I remember I walk into Vegas and one of the guys comes up to me and he goes, bro. Are you tired? I was like, no, no, I'm not tired at all. Like, this is way more fun to do it like this. Like, I get tired when I'm sitting around thinking about how bad it is, talking about how the leads suck, sucking my thumb, wondering why so-and-so's getting ahead. Like, that's all. Looking at my AmeriCo chargeback as soon as I wake up. Like, that's one thing I learned not to do early on. I was like, I don't want to wake up and check my email every day. You know, because sometimes it would be negative, especially in the beginning. It was like, oh crap, that one canceled. Because that's going to happen. The other thing I learned early on, especially for you guys that are new, everybody goes through the same stuff. Like, there's nothing new. Like, like, you sell good, then you figure it all out and get smart, then you can't sell your way out of a paper bag. You oversell the crap out of people, then a bunch of them cancel. You can't keep business on the books. You, you, you finally get ahead. You get $10,000 in your bank account. You go on a 2-week international vacation and you come back and you owe $10,000 to a carrier. That happens. You recruit an agent, they never show up. You get demoralized and sad. Then you recruit one that starts killing it. Then he quits. Then all his debt rolls to you. You say, Trey, don't tell him all that stuff. Look, it's all normal. Like I just told you all the stuff that could possibly go go bad. But here's the thing, like, your clients, they're not having Zoom calls on Labor Day trying to come up with ways to give you a harder time. You can eventually learn how to overcome all of this stuff. They don't take that long. Like, if you think of anything that you've gotten good at in the past, like, how many of y'all in the chat— I like doing this, put a 1 in the chat— so put a 1 in, in the chat If there was something you used to be really bad at in life that you eventually got good at, just so I could see who puts this in there. Yes. Lots of ones indeed. Okay. What did that require of you? Two things. It required time and repetition. That's it. It's no different than this. You get repetition is the mother of all skill and activity is the mother of all learning. What that means is You get good by doing and you get better by doing it again. And the thing with telesales, you guys have to realize this because you're starting at the best time possible in the history of SFL. And it's funny because after you've been here for a long time, you end up being like, like the parent that was like, hey, you know, we used to walk uphill in the snow both ways to get to school. It's, but it really is. Like when I look back on it, it really is. It's always hard. It's hard now. It was hard then. I don't want to make it sound too easy. It's work. There's things you got to overcome. Every generation has its own obstacles, I suppose. But, but the thing that I realized, it's like over the course of doing this, there's never been a better time to do it than right now.

For those of you that have followed me for a while, you know, I've, I've helped build this agency up to over $200 million in paid annual premium per year. We have over 5,000 agents a year that sell and I am rebuilding. We're building a new base shop, helping people build big agencies, get to multi-seven figures in income, or producers that want to, that want to just sell and get to a multi-six-figure sales career. Hit me up. I'm hiring direct. I'm looking to train and mentor winners that want to work their ass off and build something dope. Click on the link below or you can go to JohnWetmore.com/join and put in your application. We'll see if I'd be interested in working with you. DM me. Hit me up, whatever you like.

Like people can get, I was, I was in Marco, Marco's office and, uh, no, I was in Jose's office in LA about a month ago. This guy next to me is closing a sale and it is like a masterpiece. Like it is like Zach Tragowski himself closed. I mean, like it was just, it was unbelievable. I'm sitting there going, I can't take notes fast enough. Like I should have recorded this. I could put it in a video and just play this for people. This is the best sale I've ever seen. And I looked over at the dude. His name was— his name was actually Giovanni too. How about that? That's crazy. I looked over at him and I'm like, how long have you been doing this? And he goes, 10 days. And I go, well, that's not normal. But it is normal because what he did was he just comes to the office every day for 12 hours. That was his 10th day of 12 hours. He didn't sit and talk to nobody. He didn't take no lunch breaks. They didn't bring water to him and he sat there and dialed. So after 10 days of doing that straight, he was pretty good at it because he'd had a ton of presentations. Like we used to talk about getting through your first 100 presentations fast. That was awesome back in the day because you, we did it in the in-home, right? So the whole, our whole training was like Robert, we'd be like, hey, you just need to set the appointment. You don't need to know nothing when you get there. Just call us and we'll help you. That was the training. And so every bit of our sales— if they only knew, uh, shit— every bit of our sales ability was trying to just influence people to take that step of faith. And so they would show up and they'd call from the house and, you know, they'd close it. If they didn't close it, we'd close it. Something would happen. And then when it was over, we'd be like, okay, well, this, this, and this, go to the next one. And that was a winning system. Like, that, that worked. Now fast forward to today with telesales, we have that same system, but you don't have to wait an hour between houses. It's just a phone call away. And there's people around you that are there to support you, whether it be on your Zoom dials, whether it be in a local office, whether it be at a lock-in or wherever you are, that can really help you understand these things much, much quicker so that the learning curve is way shorter. Than it used to be if you'll just engage and get around the fire. And the thing that I try to get people to understand, like, if there's a methodology, if y'all are trying to really build something, there's sort of a methodical roadmap to what this looks like for bringing somebody into the fold. Like, each correct step will lead to the next step. And so with this, when you look at it, your goal is really to take people from Um, high-tech, low-impact to, um, high-impact, high-touch. So that's, that's two ends of the spectrum. High-tech, low-impact. High-impact, high-touch. And so what's high-tech, low-impact? A YouTube video for training. Like, listen to so-and-so dial, listen to the phone script, read the phone script, get it off the website, download the PDF. Like, that's high-tech. The next step would be, but it's also low impact cuz it's just like you doing it, you're listening to it, whatever. The next step is you get on your Zoom dials, you get on the Zoom dials, you see people, you get on there more often, you see 'em every single day. Some people unmute, some people don't unmute, you make friends, you can text them, you can ask 'em questions. That's less high tech. Well, it's, it's high tech, but it's, uh, more high impact cuz you're more engaged. Then the next step is Let's get in a breakout room on the Zoom dials, right? So we have a breakout room. What my team does is every day we take new agents from 9 to 11. We take the new, new ones. We put them in that little room, make everybody unmute at once, and then we coach the crap out of them, right? That's better than just the regular Zoom live dials because it's more high touch. Then the next step is get people to a lock-in. We get them to a lock-in. They're able to unmute. Nobody can mute out. Like you're sitting on top of each other. I intentionally get small houses. Like if you look on Instagram, it's like everybody has, you see these other lock-ins, like what are these people doing? Like everybody has a Lamborghini. It's a luxury vacation. They're all wearing tuxedos and prom dresses and they're doing pushups in the yard. Who's— meet people where they are, next to them and show them how to do it. So that's what we do. Please, please get a Long Island in the kitchen, wrap everybody about round that bad boy. I get some pizza, I bring some Hall of Fame producers and they sit there next to them and say, this is what you do. You should say this instead of saying that, say this, don't pause here. That's how they're getting off the phone. And so what that does is it like really drives home the basic simple principles that they need to know. Plus they build really good relationships with people. So here we have something that's more. High impact, high touch. Then the most high impact, high touch thing, look at people like Easton, that office in Denver, or wherever Easton is now. But people come in every day, they dial at the office, they do training every morning, they hang out together, they all know each other, they're all rooting for each other, everybody rings the gong. That's way more high touch, high impact. And then what's the most high touch, high impact training you can get on? The most high touch impact training is going to the national conference or going to Ignite. On October 2nd, um, I was talking to a guy on my team. They're doing about $300 a month. And said, how many of your people are going tonight to Ignite? He goes, well, a few of them are, but I'm not going. Appreciate it. You should just quit now. Like, like, what are you doing? You can't not go. Like, they're only gonna do what you're gonna do. It doesn't matter what you say. Like, they're only gonna do what you're gonna do. And if you think that you can skip the steps of leveraging the events, what'll end up happening is you'll get stuck because people will be too dependent on you. What, what John is a master of doing, what we all learned from John, was how to leverage the system so that people were system dependent, not people dependent, which freed up John to continue selling and continue recruiting at a high level. These events, they're the most high-touch, high-impact thing that you can do. Now this particular agent has like $100 grand in the bank and he goes, well, I talked to a few of them and they don't have the money to go. They're new. Well, well, well, you, you have the money. Like, like, why don't you take your money to pay for 'em to go? Now I'm not trying to tell y'all how to spend your money, but I was never— Sean told me early on, he said, look, the people that have a lot of success in this, they have 3 things in common. He goes, the first thing is Um, they're hard workers. The second thing is they have a strong desire to help people. And then the third thing is they're not afraid to invest money. And the not afraid to invest money part, that's what gets people hung up. Cause they're like, oh, I'll spend $2,000 a week on my leads. But when Mary's just getting started in the business, she wrote $3,000 her first week and she paid all her bills and she needs a $200 plane ticket to get to Palm Beach. Like I paid him $200 plane ticket because I realized that that event would do more for Mary than what I could do for Mary. Right? Hopefully that makes sense. Yeah. The other thing, okay, this is the last thing. You probably wanna ask some questions, but I'm, I'm, I'm feeling this. I should do all these Labor Day ones.

Rolling.

The other thing is ego. Ego is the death of your business. In many scenarios, like when you first get started, the thing that makes you not want to unmute on Zoom is your ego. Because you're afraid of what people are going to think, whatever it is, right? The thing that causes you to, uh, not talk about the business to other people is like ego. The thing that causes you to believe that you can't do it is like you have a poor self-image, you have a low ego. Then people start killing it, and then they forget that they didn't do it all by themselves. That they got a lot of help and then they think they're the best thing to ever happen to insurance. And then their ego is the thing that blows them out of the business because they think it was all them. Like, the one thing I learned early on was like, I can't do this by myself. Yeah. Like, I need help. It's not just gonna be— if I, if you're gonna build a big team, it's not gonna be just because of you. It's let's go do it. Not you go do it. It's We can do it, not I can do it, if that makes sense. So those are just a few of the things I was thinking, John. I got way off track, but probably some good soundbites in there.

I love it, bro. It's, um, it's funny. I always want to share so much of the journey because again, we get to look back on it, even though you make jokes about things. I find them hilarious. They're like, what the fuck are these two idiots talking about? You know? Um, but like it was our version of the hard shit they're having to go through, right? And I remember, I remember a stage, dude, where like you were pretty inconsistent with team side of things for sure. I mean, that went on for quite frankly, you could probably, you get the time frame, but I feel like it was a long time where that inconsistency went on. What, what changed, dude? Because when it, when it changed, it It changed quick. Um, you were never the $80K producer every month long term, but you sure as shit started getting people paid and figuring this thing out at a high level. What was the trigger there?

Well, in the beginning, um, here's what I think. Like, it's all a belief issue. That really is what the problem is. Like, People have a— like, if you really believed that you could take $2,000 and turn it into $10,000, you'd find the $2,000. It's, it's America. Like, you, you got— you can ChatGPT where to get a credit card to give you $2,000 with a 335 credit score. Like, y'all can do it. Like, it exists somewhere, you know? Like, if I, if I had tickets to the Braves and you're a Braves fan, and I'm like, I got season tickets, it's $2 grand, and you were the brokest per dude, you would find the money to do it. So it's always been a belief issue. So for me, um, the first 2 years, so I told you all part of it. So the, the first full year, $70K, that's all I did. When my mom passed away, Andrew gave me a job in the office and really he did that for me. He didn't do that for him. I don't even know if he knew what I was going to do. I didn't know what I was going to do. I showed up one day, he's like, what can you do? I'm like, well, I did some MLM stuff, so I could probably recruit. Okay. He's like, sweet.

I remember that. I was like, he's working for Andrew now? Like, what the fuck happened? Because we're, you know, all here in Atlanta trying to figure shit out. You're all in Cali trying to figure shit out.

So he gets me, he gets me in the office and his whole deal was like, he's like, He goes, I'm gonna take you to the top. He goes, first thing first, you're not gonna have to talk to anybody on your team because, because none of them are gonna make it. They're just dragging you down. And I was like, okay. So for 40, 50 hours a week, I just like recruited for Andrew. And then on the weekends I sold. And that structure, because full-time I couldn't figure it out because I had too much dang time. When I got really busy. When I only had Saturday and Sunday to sell, all of a sudden I was selling. So that first year part-time, I deposited like $118 grand, which was amazing to me. Part-time on the weekends, plus what I was getting paid by Andrew, which was basically minimum wage, but whatever, it was cool. And then, uh, the next year, uh, $180,000 part-time on the weekends got deposited. Now, in that first 3 months working with Andrew, who had been in the business for 7 years, And Andrew's team was only doing $170 grand a month. That first 3 months, he went from $170 grand to $350 with me recruiting. So that was 2016.

Yeah, that was '16.

Yeah. Yes. Yeah, that's exactly what it was. So he doubled within that 3-month period. Now what we learned in that process was like he was the dad, I was the mom. So, so I didn't just recruit him, like I stuck to the people while he was selling. And then at night when he wasn't selling, or in the early morning when he wasn't selling, he stuck to them. And then if he was selling at night, I stuck to them. So like, like we were the mom and the dad, like that's how we did it. That, which was, I could do a whole nother call on what that looked like. Now at the end of the second year, he was doing about $800 grand a month. Um, and he takes me to like this rice bowl place and he goes, hey, Like, this isn't fair. You need to go do this for you. And I'm like, okay, so you're firing me? He goes, yes. I go, are you still paying for lunch? He's like, yeah. And I go, can I still keep the office? And he goes, yeah, you can keep the office. So I had the office in, in the office, you know, and I could just come in and do my thing, but I was doing it for me now. So within 60 days I hit VP cuz I had all the habits down. Like I, I had the metrics. I knew how many people to talk to a day. I knew how many people to put in a class. I. I had a whole formula and I was good at getting people to start because I learned how to not overcomplicate it and allow people to suffer a little. Like, that's a huge thing when you're building is go ahead and let it be difficult. Like, that's okay. When you try to solve everybody's problem before they have it, like, they're weak and they won't actually do it. And you get people to last longer than they actually should, and then they just quit later. Like, if I'm gonna offend them, I just learned to offend them early. That way they don't waste a lot of my time. But then when I'm just like super standoffish, like, do this thing, and then I don't say anything else, and then they go do the thing, I'm like, oh, they really did it, you know? And then they come back and like, they sold something. I'm like, okay, yeah, that's good. Like, like, get on Zoom, like, learn the script. And then all of a sudden they learn the script and they're like, oh, this one showed up and learned the script. They want to do it. So, so I had all those, that skill set down. So then what happened was my first year full-time. Back, I made like $350,000. And then the next year I made $650,000 and the next year I made $1 million and then like $1.6 million and then whatever it was the next year. And then I, you know, the integrity thing happened. Yeah. Now what's crazy about that is if you combine my first 4 years of income, there's people that do that by themselves and they fulfill their first year. So it wasn't like I was killing it. Now, the thing I had going in my favor is I didn't know what a P&L statement was. I thought it was car insurance. That was P&C. Nobody even told me what a profit and loss statement was. I just knew that I had more money. Like, I was resourceful. Like, I was good at, like, robbing Peter to pay Paul. So, like, I was getting daily deposits. So I just had more money to rob Peter to pay Paul with. Like, I never really— like, I need deposits. Like, make a sale on Wednesday, I get a deposit on Friday. Clicker bills Friday, that's great. I gotta pay my first staff.

Like, this must have been a blast, bro.

Dude, it really was. But that was a huge thing. It's like, it was a huge thing was I learned that you grow the business by focusing on the top line, not the bottom line. Yeah, too many people try to get like, sure, Jeff Bezos or whatever. That's the Amazon guy, right? Jeff Bezos. Like, they, like, they think they have like a a degree in economics or something. Like, y'all just slow down. Let's just— I was really good at getting it really chaotic and getting it to move and then not letting it slow down. Like, in my mind, if you really wanna do this big, in my mind, it's create like a lot of stuff happening that overwhelms you where things are falling through the cracks left and right, and then just stay there for like 6 months. But most people, they get a little bit off kilter and they can't take the fact that they can't keep their thumb on it and they slow down to try to catch it all. And I knew if I wanted to grow, it had to get away from me having my thumb on it. Like the thing I wanted was too much happening all the time and things falling through the cracks and not being able to keep up. Like you would go into Andrew's office when I was working there and I'd have like 7 cups of coffee all over the office. Like at the end of the day, like I think Andrew hired an employee just to go get my empty coffee cups. And half drinking coffee cups. Like, I was just like a mad scientist, you know. I was, I was hanging up on people, calling the next person, they were calling me. I just got it to really move fast, and I was comfortable allowing it to be like that.

If you're in the insurance space and trying to build an agency, or you're trying to like break records in sales, just hit new levels, new heights, click the link below to apply to my consulting and coaching program that I have out there. I'm helping tons of people get to new levels, get to new income heights, help them build their teams, put systems in place, staffing stuff, recruiting processes, automations. I'm just teaching people how to get to a point where they're selling on their own pen 30, 40, 50 grand a month. And if they're building a team, teaching how to have an effective structure to your insurance agency for the most profitability you can. There is an application process. I'm only looking to work with like high-end people who really want to make big things happen. Couple recent clients that we've had in the, in the coaching program. One dude as an individual went from selling like $8,000 a month, barely getting by, about to quit the industry, found the book, hit me up direct, started the coaching program, went to $35,000 his first month, has issued like $150,000 in the last 90 days and has changed the trajectory of his career. Working with another agency builder, very first month went from doing like $800,000 a month to almost $1.1 million. We added like 10 or 15% production in 30 days and continue to work on things there. So if you're interested, click the link, apply, and if you're a fit, I'll reach out. How did, how did Andrew coach you when you were going through that phase and you didn't feel like it was moving or growing fast enough, or if you didn't know if it was going right? Because I always remember I had Kilomet.

I was—

we were the same. Dandrew with you, how Kilmet was with me, and they were both very different than who we are. Um, but I'd be curious how, how you were getting coached at that, that weird phase, because Giovanni's right there. He keeps texting me like, dude, how do I grow? I'm like, I'm telling you, it's— I'm trying to project for him, you know what I mean? He's doing a lot of the right things. He's selling a lot. He's bringing in a decent amount of people, probably not enough interviews that needs to be done, but there's this like blindness of like I don't see it coming the way we see it now coming. Um, so how was that?

The first thing I learned was it never happens fast enough for anybody. I mean, back then Kilimitt was by far the biggest thing. If you'd have sat him down, he'd be like, man, this is slow.

100%.

This is not fast. It never feels fast. It only feels fast when you look back and go, oh wow, it's only been so many years. How'd that happen? Um, And the other, the biggest thing Andrew did is he didn't allow me to complain. You know, like I call him and I'd be like, this, this, and this. He's like, bro, that sucks. All right, I'll see you later.

I wish they knew Andrew's personality, bro.

That's what he would do. Like for 2 years, 3 years, I didn't think he even liked me. Yeah. You know, for those that, okay, this is going too far back in the history books. But when John and those guys, when they left the old company, like the old company sued them, like there's this whole thing that happened. And, uh, and I came from the other place too. Like I met Andrew the day before he left and I talked my way into it. So I'd been in the company like 2 years and this whole lawsuit thing was going on and we had a training at the office. I'm like doing the training, you know, I was writing $20 grand a month so I could, I was allowed to train, talk about mortgage payment protection. So I'm doing the thing, I'm drawing it out, and then we have a break. I wore a jacket to the office, like, not like a suit jacket, but like a coat, and a chair. And I went to the restroom, and I think Andrew thought I was going to be in the restroom longer than I was, because when I came out of the restroom, he had my disc kit. He was shaking it out, like searching it. I'm like Are you searching my jacket for a wire? He thought, "Jiggers, he trusts me enough to think I wasn't wearing a wire," which is freaking hilarious.

Well, there was a lot happening back then. I'm not surprised.

There really was. Somebody might have been wearing a wire, but I wasn't. I wasn't the guy. But that was the thing. There was a lot of beauty to what he did because he didn't allow me to get like way up here and ruminate on how bad things were. Yeah. You know, and that's, that's like a beautiful skill because it's really easy to like lump a bunch of stuff together, like they're connected and then convince yourself that it's all rigged against you. Like I thought early on that everybody had the worst persistency. Um, you know, I thought early on that, you know, because I had terrible chargebacks in the beginning because I oversold, I oversold the heck out of people. You know, they made $2,000 a month. I tell them $450 a month, you know, cash back with AmeriCo. Like, that's a great deal. No, it's not. They only make $2 grand a month. They're gonna cancel. A bunch of them, like 17 in a row or something, cancel. And that's the only carrier we have. So it was a problem. And, um, I remember thinking, that's what's happening with all these schools. They're just lying. They ain't making no money. Like, that's— but then when Andrew hired me to work in his office, I got to see his commission statements and I was like, Oh, wow. They're really doing pretty good. And then I'd be in the office and then Paul would get calls. He was another agent we worked with. And every call he got was somebody wanting to cancel. I was like, they're totally lying to me. Like they, they make it, they're making all this up. All these people want to cancel. And Paul would like get them back on his calendar, go see them, whatever he did. And then that year at the conference, he got an award for like 93% persistency with Americo. Oh wow, I guess, I guess they really aren't lying, you know. It was a process. Like, I thought everybody was making it all up for the longest time. And so, uh, you know, that was, that was part of the process, I guess.

It's craziness, dude. Um, I love it. You know, open up for some questions, bro.

I love that.

Giovanni, why don't you go?

Yeah, what's up, man? Uh, I want cartoons, bro. All right, who's got that going?

Oh, I was gonna ask you, underwear watching Bugs Bunny? No, that's why he's not— um, you, uh, brought up like building team and people buying a team culture. How do you get new agents who want to build to kind of like understand they can't bring everybody on and everyone, like anybody they want and kind of like, how do you get them to buy into culture and to sell a culture too? If that makes sense.

Yeah, that makes sense. Um, the first thing is you got to get really clear about what the culture is. Uh, people just throw that around so much. And I think the antithesis of the way we are. Is the culture isn't just about having a bunch of buddies that hang out and like go on vacation. That all looks good for the internet, but there's a lot of broke people faking it in the industry. You know, we, we learned early on, and it's probably a different number when you're doing telesales, but we used to say the Mendoza line was $15,000. Like, if you're issuing less than $15,000, you're not making any money. And we beat that into people. And we learned that the best thing we could do for people is if they're not making any money is to get them to quit because they got to go make money for their family. Like, that was a foundational principle of FFL. And that was our culture. So the culture came about like, we want to make sure our friends are winning too. So when we do stuff, like, they have money to do it. I think that's— I think that was part of your question. And building that culture into people. What was the rest of it, Giovanni? I'm sorry.

I, I was asking like, how do you get them when they're hiring or trying to recruit to like sell the same culture that we all have? And that's hiring anybody.

Yeah. So, so the best thing you can do is believe in everybody, but not count on anybody. So the best way to help your new recruits is to go get somebody else to follow it. So. Rather than waiting for the ones that are like not buying into the culture, go recruit somebody directly that is buying into the culture. Hello, it's the office next door. You're looking for Swift? It's the next one. It's the one covered with the green sign. So the best thing you can do for your team is to not need them. So go recruit somebody else and sell them on the culture. Because if you have Bob, Cindy, and Mary, and they've been here a year, and they're not selling the culture, they're not engaged, they're not showing up to everything, they don't believe it the way you believe it. If you go recruit Sam and he locks in with you, and then all of a sudden Sam starts doing $40,000 a month, and Sam starts showing up to everything, and Sam gets a bunch of people to come to Ignite, and Sam's posting on social media every day, and Sam's recruiting like crazy, then all of a sudden Bob, Mary, and Joe will follow suit. So that's the best thing to do most of the time. Um, you just don't have enough pieces on the chessboard. And if you're doing less than $150,000, that is what it is. You're trying to play chess, you don't have everybody on the board yet. The hardest part of this business is getting to the $150,000 because you're basically doing it by yourself. And so trying to identify these leaders who probably really aren't the leaders— hopefully they're not.

Hey, hey, Trey, they're on here too.

Yes, they're on here too.

This is a tough battle because like, dude, he's got some people that produce.

Right.

He's like, why aren't I growing? Because none of y'all fucking hire anybody. That's why.

Yes. That's it.

And when they do, they aren't the proper people for the culture we're looking for, is what he's trying to get to. It's just like, Steve knows Joe, let's hire him. And there's, there's not this guard of like, yo, who we are and who we need to protect, you know. So it's a kind of combination for him. It's a lack of— and people know what to do. They know how to sell. You know what I mean? But it's— there's not this full charge, like recruiting mission that y'all had going through that phase, right?

Well, and, and I think the other thing is like spreading good news. Like your agents that are on here, Giovanni, like their number one goal and their number one job when they talk to other agents is to tell them how great you are. And then your job is tell, tell those agents how great they are. It's, it's the whole mom-dad approach to And if you do that long enough, uh, people will start to catch on and you just gotta give it time. It's the consistent activity over the course of like a year of doing that, that all of a sudden everybody goes, well, hey, yeah, they're telling the truth. This is working. And when you think it's not working, that's when it's working. Some of my biggest teams came from people that like watched me do it for a year, quit for a year, came back and then did it. Yeah. So the foundation you're looking for is probably really there. It's just you got to give it more time. And the good news is, if you're selling a lot, you have the time. It's hard because you, you look on Instagram and it looks like everybody's just doing $40 million a month or something. And that's not really true. You know, it's cool to explain that, bro.

It is hard to explain that.

It is. But it's all the comparison thing. You know what I mean? Like, I think that's, that's one of the things that I did is I said— Andrew sat me down and he said, look, he goes, if you make it, it'll be because of you. And if you fail, it'll be because of you. If you make it, I'm not going to take the credit. And if you fail, I'm not going to take the blame. And so I knew that for me to get better, like, it was all Like it was 100% responsibility all on me. And then what I would do is I would look to the left and right and think that other people were crushing me in the business. But if you just stay around, I can't tell you what it's gonna be like 5 years from now. There's gonna be a lot of people you think were killing it, really weren't killing it. Yeah. There, I don't know who those people are. I'm not calling anybody out. There's gonna be people that aren't here yet that'll probably be at this point. But the one thing that I can guarantee is like nobody can consistently do this for years and not get really, really good at it and get massive momentum and cause it to grow. If you're just persistent and consistent with the activities and the basic stuff, and you get a bunch of people doing that with you, it has to work. Like it's a, it's a probability. It's not a possibility.

Um, Trey, will you give them, will you give them some context into, because one of the things I remember you always talking about. It was just a different way of delivering how many people you're talking to daily or weekly, whatever. But even your concept of— it was as simple as taking people from not knowing about FFL to knowing about FFL. And we were like trying to do all these complicated steps to recruiting and this stuff, and you were like, no, just— they don't know about it, now they know about it, period. And yeah, you were talking to a lot of people a week.

Yes. And you know And the thing came down to 2 a day, and then somebody's like, 2 a day, that's not enough. That's just to get you to start. Yeah, like, if I'm gonna train for the Everest thing, like, I gotta walk to my mailbox. 100%. Like, I gotta start. They were trying to go from like not doing it to like a million a month in 30 days. Like, I should just go outside, see what the sunlight feels like. I mean, that's That was the whole concept of 2 a day. Like, don't let your minimums be your maximums. And the goal to get you to start is not the goal that's necessarily going to get you to the finish line. But if you take something so simple as taking 2 people a day from not knowing to knowing, and what that means is I would get them in front of some sort of third-party tool. So I would use a video that explained the business, business overview video. I'd send that to them and I got really good at promoting it so that people would watch the video. So my Whole thing was like, those 2 a day were like 2 conversations. It wasn't like I texted 2 people or, well, maybe that counts, but people within my direct influence of saying, yes, I'll take a look at that because of this. Like I knew enough about them. I knew why they were looking like 2 people were agreeing to look at information. So if I did that 5 days a week, that's 10 a week. And I do that 50 weeks out of the year. That's 500 people over the course of the year. That from my direct influence and promotion are taking a look at FFL. What are the odds over the course of that year that 50 of those people don't raise their hand and go, "My comp, they got leads. I don't have to sell my friends and family, investor renewals. I can build a team." You know, all that stuff, all the great stuff about FFL. They got training, they have the systems, they have all these track record of success, social proof, all the stuff. What are the odds over the course of that year that 50 of those people don't raise their hand and go, yeah, I'll try it? And then what are the odds over the course of the year that out of those 50, you can't find 5 to go sell 20? That was my whole business plan. It's over the course of a year, I will find 5 people to go sell 20. And if I only made 10%, that would be $10,000 a month that I would make. And that doesn't really— I mean, 75% advance, whatever.

You don't have to match there, basically. Yeah.

Yes. So that was my whole deal. Like, that's 5 people writing 20, 2 a day, from not knowing to knowing over the course of the year. Now that's passive info. So the question I would ask people is, how much money would you need to have in the bank to make $10,000 a month passively? And at 10% interest, you would need $1.2 million a year. $1.2 million after taxes to make $10,000 a month.

Yeah.

I don't know if you can get 10. If you got 5, you need $2.5 million a year after taxes to make $10,000 a month. What do you think is easier? Saving $2.5 million after taxes or finding 5 people to help 20 families? What if it took you 2 years? Are you failing? No. You, the other plan is the other plan. Like that's way way harder. And then what I realized is if I did that consistently in the second year, those 5 would find their 5, and now we'd have 30 people writing 20, which is actually almost exactly what happened. Um, that's $600,000 a month, and now 10% of that would be 60 grand. What if you got 20%? What other plan do you have to make $60,000 to $120,000 in year 2? What if you're really bad at it and it took you to year 6? What if you had to start and stop a few times? Like, that's the way I was always looking at it because I didn't have another plan to do it. But I knew if I was just consistent and persistent, I would find people that were better at it than I was. And that is what happened. I did find people that did. I mean, what happens if you find a Giovanni? He writes 40. That takes care of like 2 of them, you know? Now they need 3 more. So, and, and then, so that was the whole thing. That's how I looked at it. I still think that's a philosophy that all of y'all should have because the biggest problem in this business is people don't zoom out. Like you lose perspective because you think this time here and now, like if you just zoomed out a little bit, you would realize you're doing pretty good. And if you keep doing those things consistently and persistently, it's bound to work out.

Um, so I've never heard you do it that way with the dollar, with the million dollars interest thing. That's, that's, that reminds me of how Andrew used to do it with the recruiting. On the houses, the flipping houses. Yeah, yeah, that was slick, dude. I like that a lot.

That was good. Um, let's see who I want.

I'm gonna get, um, hey, Zepina, you on, dude? You've been selling a little bit and you'd go— he's— yeah, I, I see him. I don't know if he's on. I'm gonna let him ask a question if he's on here. Zach, and there's your shot, dude. On mute if you can.

Yeah, I'm on here. Can you guys hear me?

Yeah. So, okay, Zach sold a landscaping business couple months ago to do this full time, um, try and figure it out. I'll let him word how he wants to. Struggling trying to figure the thing out, um, and text me this morning, he's like, fuck it, I'm moving to South America to start over and just figure life out and build something cool. Um, so just trying to figure the space out. So whatever you want to ask Zach, ask. I just want to give him a little short version of—

yeah, yeah, definitely. I think, I think the biggest thing that I'm struggling with right now, which I, I'm talking about a little bit, but, um, I'm starting to produce a little bit of numbers, but is the recruiting side like I'm not confident in myself to bring other people into the business yet. I feel like, I feel like I'm not at the level where people like have enough respect for me to bring them onto my team.

Yeah.

So like, I don't know, like what level or I know John always says like he started recruiting right away. I don't know why I'm like having a mental block with that.

Well, you're in the best position possible. People think that you're better at recruiting when you write $50 grand a month. You're actually not. It's actually harder to recruit. And it's hard to explain that because if you're making $50 grand a month and you're showing your deposits and somebody sees it, most people go, oh, well, you got in early. You're better at selling than me. Of course you'd be good. You're a great salesman. You were in the right place at the right time. It's too late for me. That must be a scam. Like they, they come at you with all this stuff, but when you're just starting out and you're not that good, that's actually an advantage because nobody's going to rely on you to teach them. They'll rely on John, which is what you want because John works for you. So that's what I, that, that was my whole, you asked the right person this question because this is how I did it. Like, this is actually how I did it. I just leveraged Andrew. Like I never answered him. I was like, I don't know, we should see what Andrew says, you know. Like, the way I recruit people is I would call people and I would complain. Like, I got Steven E. I called him up and I complained. I'm like, dude, I started this insurance thing, I don't know what I'm doing, I probably shouldn't have done it. They want you to buy leads, like, they cost money. I think I spent, spent like $1,000 on these leads. I worked on them all week. I drove around, everybody no-showed me. Saturday I made 3 sales, I made $3,000 on Saturday, but I don't know how it's going to work long term. And he was like, wait a second, what'd you say? So that's an advantage. Like when, when y'all think you're killing it, like the best story you got is the story of like, I'm really not doing that good. But in 30 minutes I made $1,400 and Mary would walk in. I'm still trying to figure it out though. Why are you calling me? I'm calling you because I think you'd be better at it than me. We need somebody that knows what they're doing around here. I mean, I'm being a little bit tongue in cheek, but not really because I understood like my best place to do it is when I didn't know everything. Because when they ask you something, say, I don't know. All I know is. Giovanni made $25,000 last month and he don't seem like he's that much better than me. Like, ask me another question. I don't know. All I know is John started this in 2009. I don't know when he started, John, probably around then.

It was pretty close.

You know, and he's made a gazillion dollars at this thing and everybody he trains seems to do really good. We should ask him. In fact, I really think you'd relate to his story. Let me see if I can get you on the phone. Yeah, that was all I ever did was I just, I tried to get myself out of the way as much as possible. Like if I was going to recruit people, that's what I would do. I would call somebody up and I would say, listen, Bob, like my warm market, call my warm market, my best friend, Mike, I've been meaning to talk to you about this thing, but I don't want you to judge it based on my results because I'm not killing it yet. I only made $6,000 my first month. Doesn't that sound pitiful? But to him, that don't sound pitiful. We live in like this vortex of like $175,000 a month. That's— they can't believe that. It's just fucking culture. They don't believe that. But when you're like, yeah, I'm really struggling. First month I only made $8,500. That sounds like y'all ain't even making it in FFL circles. But to them, they're like, wait, you did what now? $8,500? And say, listen, I was really nervous about calling you because I didn't want you to judge me, but I've been selling insurance. They need some more people. You're the best salesman I know. If I got you some information, would you look at it? Can't make any promises, but the guy I'm working with, he's really good at training people. If you like what you see, I'll introduce you to him. And that was— that's how— that's my whole conversation. Like, I try to get myself out of the way. I tried to get him to make a decision not based on me, but based on it. Um, that's how you should do it. Does that make sense?

Yeah, yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

And just think about ways for that. So like the way I would approach people, I got a couple different ways. The first thing is every single person I'm about to call, there's an emotion that I'm thinking about when I go to call them. I'm excited to talk to them, I'm scared to call them, I'm afraid of what they're going to think, I don't want to bother them, whatever it is. Whatever the emotion is, I just tell them what it was. And I'll say, hey John, I was really excited about talking to you. That's how I start, however I felt. And then I think about the 2 things I like the most about FFL. So the 2 things I like most about FFL is the fact that I can invest in marketing and leads so I don't have to sell to my friends and family. And, um, there's residual income, or I can develop passive income from of building an agency. So the next thing I would say is, John, I just started this business in insurance. I'm super excited about it because they have incredible marketing systems and they give you the ability to build a passive income by building an agency. I don't know if you'd be interested in it or not, but I'd like to send some information. If you like it, great. If not, I won't ever bother you about it again. If it's great, great. If not, maybe you can point me in the right direction. If I send you something, you look at it. That's it. That's all I did. I don't say nothing about FFL. I don't try to explain it. Any question they ask, I go, great, it's a video. It'll explain it. I just did that. How long does it take to have two 2-minute conversations? It, it doesn't. If you're long-winded, it takes 10 minutes. It don't take that long. But I try to get myself out of the way so that they would make their decision based on it, not based on me. And then I would show up and consistently do the work. So then people never questioned whether or not I worked. I was always consistent. I sold every week. I didn't have to be the number one person on the board. Probably would have helped if I was, but the one thing they knew is I was working and I was consistent, and I did have a better attitude than them because they couldn't complain to me, right? You know, so that's how I approach it.

Awesome. I really appreciate it.

You're welcome. Love it, dude.

It's good shit. Um, I'll let you wrap with that, dude. I appreciate your time as always, Trey, and Fuckin' lead them from the front. It's cool seeing you, seeing you run around the country, bro, doing your thing. Uh, it's got me excited. We're, we're doing one in, uh, we have one coming up in like 10, 11 days in Nashville. I'm like, all right, we gotta— I gotta get on that train a little bit. So we're, we're gonna start knocking some out. I appreciate everything you're doing, dude, and thanks for pouring into the team. We, uh, we appreciate it a ton, man.

I'll talk to you all soon, man.

See you, dude. All right, guys, y'all have a killer day. If I can help with anything, let me know. Hey guys, if you've enjoyed the podcast or any of the previous episodes, if you're on Spotify or any of the other Apple podcast platforms, would love if you'd go in and leave a review for us. Um, if you're, if you're watching on YouTube, comment, like, subscribe, share, do all the things. We'd greatly appreciate it. Helps get the word out to everybody. Appreciate you, and we'll see you on the next one.