These 5 Steps Will DOUBLE Your Income (Insurance Sales) | Ep30

You're not going to come in my environment and not work hard. It's just, it's not— there's no— that you wouldn't fit in here. And that's what I want. What up, y'all? Welcome back to another episode of Insurance Insiders. This is John Wetmore. Gonna roll solo today and cover what I see as the top 5 mistakes that you agency owners out there trying to build are making. A lot of these actually overlap to these sales insurance agents, salespeople as well. A lot of the concepts of building agency and selling individually, a lot of the principles overlap. But this is like a scale roadmap, if you will, that I've been teaching for, I don't know, 10+ years. And I find that if you can understand these 5 principles, concepts, um, you'll see a big change in success. And those that don't have— like, when I didn't have a grasp on these things, I was getting less agents recruited, I was getting less agents started, and I was definitely losing a lot more of the agents that I was getting started. And I realized how expensive that was in terms of just running a business. Certainly there's, uh, you know, some level of like, I have an override and someone quit and I don't have an override. But there also is like the people you miss that you don't even bring on because you're missing pieces. Um, and, and teaching this thing from a duplication standpoint, some people that you bring on aren't as effective, efficient, as profitable as they could be, causing people to leave. And I used to always blame agents. Like, ah, that agent's a dingbat. They didn't do this. They didn't get on trainings. They didn't, you know, they weren't coachable. They didn't study their product. They didn't buy enough leads. They didn't, you know, save money when they got a chargeback and didn't have the money to invest in leads, and they kind of quit, went back to their job, or whatever. The agents said, you know, they don't get enough support from me or someone else on the team, or they didn't like someone— all this stuff. And I would always get so frustrated with agents. And sort of over time, studying a lot of leadership stuff and Read some cool books that have helped with this. Maxwell's— John Maxwell's Five Levels of Leadership was a big help. Um, his, um, trying to think of the name of his other book that I like. Uh, I'll think of it in a minute. The Difference Maker was a really good one to help me understand some of this stuff. And then in reality, a couple— there was another book by Dave Anderson I loved. It's Not Rocket Science was a good one that helped with this stuff, and it really helped me understand the things that I was missing. Like all those things that I just mentioned about an agent that you've all dealt with, I started looking at it from a different perspective and going, how could they be 3 months in? Like, what did I do wrong that they don't realize the importance of knowing their underwriting? Or they don't know how critical it is to get on a training call, or like how normal it is to get told no or have a chargeback. Like, I talked to an agent the other day and he's like, I'm just— I'm struggling, man, to figure out how to get rid of chargebacks. I don't know how to make them stop. I'm like, man— and he doesn't work with me, but I've had that question a million times over the years, and I'm like, how did I go so wrong? That they don't understand that that's part of the game, and you'll never eliminate them fully, minus, you know, a natural one or two of you out there on the planet that say you don't get any, which I don't believe, by the way. So, and the industry average is like 30% fall off. So it's like, how do I— how did I not articulate that? And so for me, I started coming up with like, how can I— how can I take ownership of this stuff? What can I do to— it's like objections to me. You know, when a client says, I go through a full presentation and somehow they still tell me they want to think about it, like I must have missed something. Or, you know, they tell me they're not the decision maker at the end. Somehow I didn't find out they have a fiancé, or, you know, I mean, like they check, they need to check with their parents or whatever it is. They call, I don't do business on the first, you know, time seeing numbers. It's a rule in my house, all those things. It's the same. So I had to adjust my presentation and my thought process to, to, to reduce those things, preferably eliminate them, versus always trying to overcome them. And, uh, you know, I started looking at the same way from the agency side, like, what can I do? All this stuff that I'm frustrated with by agents, what can I do on the front end, on the interview, on the pre-interview, on, you know, maybe the ad they see, on, on the conversations throughout the process of getting them started and contracting? Like How— what can I do on the front end to avoid some of the stuff that's frustrating me on the back end? And so I just started kind of building a process. So, you know, for, for me, this, this scale obviously was the goal, and I started looking at it and like, how can I, how can I make this something that makes sense based on the things I've built? And I just came up with the acronym recently, but it's the stuff I really sat down one day and focused on, like What are the things that I'm, I'm really intentional about teaching this thing and coaching people and the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of managers over the years that I've, I've taught how to build and scale and put— like, what are the things that I've done and worked on? And I've narrowed it down to the 5 that made sense to me. And certainly it's, it's not an all-or-nothing list, but these are the ones I focus on the most that I see a lot of people do wrong, you know. And obviously y'all can see it on the screen, I'm sure my team put it up, but systems is one, communication, accountability, leadership expectations. And these are the big things that I teach, you know, and I think these are the things that people are really messing up or don't have, quite frankly, you know. So I'm going to kind of roll through each one, um, individually. I'll put up some of the, the details as we go. But in terms of systems, I think it's funny how few people— a lot of y'all don't even have a system. And if you do have one, you don't have one consistently, and it may not be duplicatable. Like, I was talking to a guy yesterday, and I relate to him really well because I'm kind of a, like, an automation efficiency Excel um, kind of CRM nerd, if you will. I just like that kind of stuff. So every time I do something, some process, if I do it very repetitively manually, you know, send a bunch of emails that say this, or send a bunch of texts that say this, or when someone applies I do this, or whatever things happen, you know, when, when, when an agent's not, uh, I don't know scheduled their pre-license exam or hasn't got me whatever details we need for contracting, there's something I do in return. And if it's very mundane and repetitive, I tend to figure out a way to automate it with time. And I was talking to this guy the other day, and he has— he's basically brand new to building an agency, and he has a handful of agents that they sell. And, you know, he's, he's made some money in the past, so he's no dummy, smart dude. And he's creating— he's building this entire automation machine before they really have any recruits coming in, and he's trying to automate it in advance. And I'm like, well, how are you going to teach this thing, you know? Because most of the agents or people that want to build on your team, they're not gonna— they're not gonna have the wherewithal like you do to do all these automations. Right? So he has a great system, but it's not very duplicatable. So we had to kind of unpack it, and we, we made some modifications. Again, I do a lot of— I do a lot of automations, but I did this thing manually and interviewing thousands and thousands and thousands of agents and taking in, you know, whatever was needed for contracting, sending all the details. I did very manually for a while and then automated it with time. And I think far too many people want to automate things early, you know, even if something as simple as like, hey, I have— I'm hiring someone to recruit for me, I'm hiring someone else to get agents started, and I'm going to have agent success person, and I'm gonna have all these staff to do everything. Again, all good, you should get there, but it's not very duplicatable, you know. So for me, I was always my recruiter, and I taught people to recruit, and I had one staff, and Amanda took care of everything on the back end. And then I taught other people to be their own recruiter and have one staff. So we had a ton of staff in our, in our agency. I only had one on my payroll though for a majority of the time building this thing because it was significantly more duplicatable than me hiring 9 staff and doing everything for everybody. And then someone else. As it grew, I had to continue to take on obligation. It just wasn't the way I wanted to do it. Didn't feel as duplicatable to me, you know. I see some people work a very special lead type, some magic lead or your favorite lead out there, and then you give your agents something else. It's like, what's— why don't you learn how to sell the other thing so it's also duplicatable, you know? Um, in your system, you may be the only one building, you know what I mean? And you're probably— if you're the only one recruiting, it's going to be— it's going to be tough. It's going to be— it's hard to scale. You can grow. It's gonna be very hard to scale, you know. So I want to put things in place that I wasn't the only one recruiting and the only one building. And there were things in place that I put in place very specifically to make it easy for someone who wanted to recruit, but maybe we handled some of the back end stuff, you know. And, and so it's like, look at, look at what you're doing. Are you the only one building? It's gonna be very hard to get to a next level. Um, do you have a system that helps people get paid? You know, for me, if you get started with me, and I've said this for 10 years, you get started with me and you have a license, my goal internally is to get you paid within a week. And that was before all the technology of today, you know. So I think that's a very easy goal now. I was, I was doing that when I still had to send fax in, paper appli— paper contracting, and hell, paper apps. So it's like, in today's world where electronics are— contracting is electronic, some, some, some companies you can get agent numbers to agents like same day. You can certainly sell a policy and get paid in a day or two. So it's like, what do you— what's your— what's your system in your process to get people paid? If someone's unlicensed, the goal was get them paid within a month. You know, if I get people paid, we tend to grow. You know, if the focus is how do I just get— like, there's, there's some companies, some of y'all work for them, that give you a benefit for just getting people contracted. It's like, what does that do? It's like submit numbers that some of y'all track. It's like, what does that have to do with anything? Why don't you count issue paid numbers? And why don't we count how many agents are getting paid every month? You know, I get— you know how many people I talk to on a regular basis? I'm like, how many agents you have? They're like, 482. I'm like, how many are getting paid? Oh, like 4, 12, 20. You know, it's like we count contracted or hired. It's, it's fake. Get people paid. And then it's insane. I think it's wild how few people track their business or monitor it. Um, you know, again, I had a guy yesterday that's trying to build a team. I'm like, how many people do y'all interview a month? He didn't know. How many people do you hire? He didn't know. How many people get in class? He didn't know. How many people got paid brand new for the first time this month? He didn't know. You know, how many of— think about your situation now. How many agents are getting on the phone for the first time tomorrow or next Monday or whatever, you know what I mean? Like, do you know, do you know how many are in your pipeline, in your funnel, that are hitting each stage? You know, how many did you hire today? How many did you get in class today? How many passed their class today? How many applied for their, uh, to take their exam? How many passed their exam? How many applied for the license today? You know, how many got contracted or submitted contracting paperwork? How many got approved? How many people bought leads today? How many people are making phone calls today? Who made a sale today? Who got something issued today? Who got charged back today? You know, I mean, are you teaching your, your agents to track their business and their commissions? Are you watching them? You know, most people aren't, you know. And the systems thing is something that I have to teach a ton to, um, and again, there's a lot of detail here. I'm just going to give you super high level, and then, you know, certainly along the way, if there's— if you feel like there's something I can help with, you want to connect I do have a process that I, that I help teach this thing, and it's, it's, it's an ongoing system, um, that you got to continue to teach time and time again in order to really scale. Communication, the next thing, man, this is, this is even big on the sales side too. It's like, are you communicating properly with your agents, but are you teaching them to communicate with clients? You know, it's like, you know how to talk to clients, cool. Do you know how to talk to agents to get them motivated to move, to keep them calm under pressure? You know, for me, it's like I always pay attention to minimizing and normalizing problems. And what I mean by that is like when an agent loses their mind because they, I don't know, bought $300 in leads and 6 people told them to fuck off on the phones today. Like, to me, I just make that no big deal. Someone— I was, I was doing a coaching call with a team, a group yesterday, and, uh, one of the guys, I'm like, hey man, what's, what's going on? How's your week? What do you need help with? He's like, man, I just, I got beat up today. I was like, really? Like, and were you in like a dark alleyway? Like, what happened? Your face looks fine. Define beat— what do you mean? He's like, the phone's just beat me up. I was like, dude, define beat up. And he's like, you know, I made, I think it was like 140 phone calls today, and I booked, I don't know, 6 appointments. And so far nobody's answered, or like, that he— on the appointments he booked, when he called to speak to him, you know. And he still had like 4 left he hadn't called. So like 2 he had booked for later that day, and he called them and they didn't pick up. And, uh, I'm like, that's That's what you consider getting beat up? You, you made 2 hours worth of phone call, and this was at— I don't know, what time did we do that call yesterday? I think it was like— I want to say it was like 1 PM. And I'm like, so it's 1 PM, dude, and you didn't make a sale yet, and you consider that getting beat up? Like, settle down, you know? And so for me, I talk to people about when they're— when agents are new It's like, why don't you first day, instead of worrying about making a sale— I know that's the goal, I know you want to get a bunch of people to answer and, you know, book appointments and all that stuff— but at the end of the day, you're gonna have to learn this thing. And why don't you go out and get me, you know, 30, 40 objections so then I can start to work on your skill set? And just making, you know, all the negatives— people again hanging up, say, I didn't, I didn't fill that out, it wasn't me, I already got it taken care of, 900 people call me. You know, I don't, I don't, I'm not interested anymore. All the stuff, you know, chargebacks, appointments that cancel. You sell a policy and they cancel like 5 minutes later. They say they talk to their mom or their sister or their cousin and they shouldn't do all the stuff. Why don't we make that as normal as striking out in baseball when you're 12, like my son Maddox? Like If, if, if I let Maddox think that I can teach him baseball, or his coaches can teach him so well that he'll never strike out or never ground out or never make an error or never drop a ball, you know what I mean? Or never, when he's pitching, just have a crappy day on the, on the mound. That'd be weird. And I think far too many people try to make this thing like it's not gonna— there's not gonna be a struggle, you know? And it's not really a struggle when you expect it. Not that I want them all you know. So there has to be a balance. So for me, it's like I just try to make things no big deal. It's just part of the game, you know. And a lot of them will watch how you react to things. So if you make a big deal out of things when an agent calls and goes, this lead, the phone number was disconnected and I need credit, and you lose your mind that they should get— you know what I mean? It's like, it's no big deal. Um, I've learned using stories and analogies, just like I did relating strikeouts to problems in the business to deliver messages because people understand it, they can grasp it. So, you know, instead of telling someone maybe just very directly like, yo, you should just suck it up, bro, and it's part of the process, and you know what I mean, like some people are built for that. Some people I can just deliver a hard message to, but different personality types can't take that. So some people have to make— give stories and analogies and relate things to their to their previous experiences, you know, or something they're familiar with, or something so generic they understand, like baseball, um, you know. Or a kid trying to learn math in third grade, and, you know, after one day he doesn't understand it fully. Like, you know, that's normal. You have to study and you have to get better at it. You can't just start doing trigonometry because it's your third day in, you know, third grade math. That's not how it works. We got to build up to it. So learning to communicate with a variety of people, um, this was tough for me. It's tough for a lot of people because we tend to communicate to others in a way that we understand or want to be communicated with. I know that certainly for me, you know, I, I can— I don't need the fluff. I'd rather you just tell me. I miss things if you're trying to like beat around the bush. I don't— I'm, I'll miss it. I'm oblivious to some things. By nature. And so for me, I don't, I don't need to be asked. You just, you can just tell me. And but when I would deliver that stuff to people that way, not everybody learns that way. Some people need a little bit more of a, you know, a softer landing. Some people like a pat on the back every day. You know, those, some of y'all are watching, you're those like, the way you teach is like everything's like, that a boy, it's okay, you get them next time, tiger. Like, that's not always the way to teach. Is certainly not the way to teach everybody, you know. And, and so both sides, both all types of personality struggle. And so for me, I've had to study this stuff a lot. Some of the books I mentioned earlier certainly have helped me along the way, understand that. I've, I've studied like DISC profiles. I've studied, you know, um, some of y'all know Nate. He does this color thing that, that helps distinguish personalities. I've studied that, and I just want to understand and learn how to communicate to other people with a that I can— I learned that the things I say in a moment versus what someone hears can be two totally different things. And a really simple example I always give is like, if someone calls me, I don't know, and they've been doing this for a hot minute and they feel like they're struggling with booking appointments, for instance, they might think that they need help with phone script. But you know, the reality is they might not have studied it enough. They might need help They, they might actually need help, um, prioritizing the importance of training. They might actually need to make more phone calls. They might not have enough reps in. There's all— there's a variety of things that it could actually be. Like, again, when the new agent tries to dictate what they need training on, I kind of have a little issue with that because they are the one that's new and struggling. So it's— but agents, every— we all feel like we know what we need. But in a situation where someone has been around for a minute and they need help with something, and I might— when I was newer to this thing, I might go, bro, did you watch the damn video? You know what I mean? Like, there's a training on that. Did you get on it? Hey, there was a training. Yes. I might respond with something that I think they should have done, and what they hear in that moment is John doesn't want to help me. Some people Some people own it and go, yeah dude, you're right, I didn't get on it, my bad. But you know what I mean? But not everybody does that. So I would, I would change it and go like, hey, yeah, I can, I can understand you might need some help with phone script. Maybe you do. Hey, here's, um, I'm gonna send you a video. Have you seen this one? It's wherever it is. Y'all know where you keep your stuff. Um, if not, take a look at this video, watch it. It's 45 minutes long. It goes through all the phone script stuff. And then afterwards, send me 3 things from it you learned and and let me know if you have any questions after. I can certainly help. And the people then— I'm saying the same thing, I'm making them watch something, consume something, train on something, but they then hear like, oh dang, yeah, he actually wants to help me. It's received differently. So it's a really simple, simple, uh, really elementary example, but I want you to get the point. And then I think for me, how well can you communicate why someone should work with you? You know, like, what's your message? Is it, we have the best training and our comp is better than every— all the other guys? You mean like, dude, everyone says that. Who gives a shit? You know, so it's like, what is your message? How do you articulate to people why they should work with you? You know, I, I, I had to figure out why people should work with me, you know, and I'm not going to give the long version of it because it's— it kind of blend it in with my interview style. But in short, you know, I was someone that started out in the business part-time, struggled with it, realized that I was making a lot of mistakes along the way, and I was blaming everybody else. And I learned with really good mentors and people around me how to be coachable and learn the business. And I was taught it, and I know how to sell at a really high level. I've sold, you know, $40,000, $50,000, $60,000 a month on my own pen. And I know how to teach this thing, and I actually want to help people get paid. I don't care at all if you work here or not, but what I'm looking for is people that want to be coachable and do the things they say they're going to do and want to help their family as, as much as I want to help mine. And if you bring that to the table, I will make sure that I help you succeed. I've walked the walk. I've sold a bunch of insurance, and I— again, I didn't come into this thing killing it. I struggled at the beginning, so I know how to take someone that doesn't understand the business, is super analytical like I was. I was an accountant. I had 5 kids. I was 35 years old and broke. I know how to get from that to making and netting $30,000, $40,000, $50,000 a month plus. So I can help you with that. And to be clear, I don't need you. I, I make enough money on my own, man. I sell insurance for a living. I'm fine. So if you're not going to be those coachable and, you know, do the things you say you're going to do and, and be willing to learn this thing, I have no interest in working with you. So my question is, why is it that I should even bring you on. And I got really good at delivering a message to people about why I could help them. And I knew people needed me or someone like me more than I needed them. You know, certainly I wanted agents, but I didn't need them when I started selling at a high level. Um, next thing, accountability. I think not, not holding agents to standards is, is really important. Um, certainly there's some balance of what do people actually want to do Who do they want to be? But most people say they want to be rich and get out of a situation, you know. And so for me, I, I'm very big on tracking numbers and making sure people get on trainings and again are coachable and all these things. And if they don't, I just tell people, listen, if you're not going to follow my instruction, um, and my guidance that I'm giving you, I ain't mad at you. I used to be frustrated, but I'm not mad. But I'm going to tell you with 100% certainty, I'm going to quit you before you quit me if you don't do the things you say you're going to do. And I would just, I would just hold people accountable. So if you said you could work 5 days a week and you worked 1, I just, I just had a no complaining rule, you know what I mean? Um, I like to challenge people, you know, I, I, I ask permission a lot of people when, when they come to me with a problem. And I see the real reason why you're struggling, I go, hey, do you want me to like appease you right now and be nice, or do you want me to shoot it to you straight and tell you what I think the real problem is? And I like to challenge people to think different. I like to challenge people to think bigger. I like to challenge people to take ownership of why they're slacking and not feeling the success they have. I, I love to push people out of their comfort zone and make them see and believe things that they don't currently believe. I enjoy doing that. And so for me, I, I make sure I'm doing that on a regular basis. Otherwise, like, what do really people need me for? And if they don't want me to challenge them, again, I'm asking permission almost always, especially before I have a really good relationship with people. Um, I just let people be, all good. But those people are boring too, they don't need me. Again, there's, there's only so long we're going to communicate. Think, uh, roll-up debt as an agency manager, if that— as an agency manager or builder or owner or whatever you call yourself, if roll-up debt scares you, I just I'm just like, what? Like, I get we don't want it all, but my opinion is if you get roll-up debt, that's because you did a poor job at getting someone started and setting expectations and making sure that they understood the business and teaching it. And, and it's not exclusively— certainly some agents are crooks, and— but even so, in that case, like, everyone I know that's ever called me about help with debt, they miss stuff along the way or ignored it. There's a lot of signs, um, you know, first one being you hire someone and they kill it right out of the gate. That's a, that's a red flag to me. I'm not excited about that guy. Typically I watch, I watch business. Again, roll-up debt scares you because you don't know when or why it's coming. I mean, if you're like, I just got whacked out of nowhere with debt, like, what do you mean you got whacked out of nowhere? They sent 435 emails about it, and you can see your business in every carrier login. You can see chargebacks, you can see who's selling, who's buying leads, who's not. You know, I mean, like, even if they're crooks, they do really dumb things. They write 10 policies this week all with the same address or the same face amount or the same premium. You know, I've had, I've had people write, you know, 10 15-year cash backs in 3 days. I'm like, I didn't sell 10 of those in my entire career. I had one guy wrote like 20 apps in a week and every single app was $100 a month. All the face amounts were different. He just made everyone $100 a month. And then on the back end, we learned he was using the same bank accounts. It was just shady stuff. I mean, they do— even if it is a crook, they, they make— they do really dumb things. Um, and then learning how to delegate tasks, you know, especially as you start growing. Um, learning, learning how to, how to delegate things to staff and have trust in people and stop being a control freak. And certainly holding them accountable, but learning how to how to stop doing administrative stuff that you're doing is, is a big problem. I did that far too long. I didn't even hire staff till I had 40 agents a month selling a policy, like issuing a policy. Um, and that was a mistake on my end. And then when I did have staff, I was very like, I was afraid to give things up. And, you know, looking back now, I look at like, how can we delegate this stuff, give people a job, give people accountability, and, um you know, help take things off my plate so I can do what I'm really good at. And I bet a lot of you out there are afraid to even hire staff, much less delegate things, or you have them and you're afraid to give things up. And you spend— think about how much time you spend doing like dumb stuff that doesn't pay you. So many of you have asked if there's an option for more access, more direct coaching, and so we've created a coaching platform called the Winner's Circle, where you have a couple different options. There is a one-on-one option to where we can work directly with you on a regular basis. And then there's a small group setting, 4 to 6 people, really high achievers looking to get to just a new level in their career. We've had a ton of success in this already. First month, actually, the first guy that joined deposited $7,500, worked with them back and forth one-on-one. The very next month, he deposited over $30,000. So basically a 5x return on his income in 30 days. So if you're looking for something like that, you can click on the link below, get access to an application because I'm not taking everybody. I do want to make sure it's a good fit for both of us. And if we feel like you'd be a good fit, we'll set up a one-on-one call directly with me, um, and kind of go through your struggles, what you need help with, and what I expect of people that are joining the coaching program. Um, so if you feel like it'd be a good fit for you and something you want more of, click the link below and we'll see you on the other side. Welcome to the Winner's Circle. There's a, there's a couple of tools that I use. Put a little QR code up here, um, that there's a few of the tools I use to help hold agents accountable. There's a calendar exercise I do, an activity tracker, and a goal sheet. Some of y'all have the activity tracker. You can just go johnwetmore.com/tracker, and it's an Excel sheet that tracks all kinds of data— activity levels, dials, appointments, presentations. Uh, you can track door knocks, you can track lead spend, you can track deposits, and it does a lot of math and formulas for you to figure out not only, um, the count and quantity of how many things you're doing every day, every week, every month, but it kind of analyzes it and goes, um, how many hours am I putting in based on each activity? And it's, it's a really cool tracking tool. It's something I've used my entire career for myself, and I've started sharing it with agents. It's free. You can download this thing here if you'd like it. Next thing is leadership. Um, you know, are you, are you building a good culture? Are you, are you like, are you a place that people can come to and win and feel comfortable, feel excited? Um, you know, it's like pay attention to the culture you're building. I, in my world, the culture is you're going to work hard and you're going to get, get yourself out of, out of a situation, and we're going to make money selling insurance, and you're going to change your family's current financial status, you know. You're not going to come in my environment and not work hard. It's just— it's not— there's no— that you wouldn't fit in here. And that's what I wanted, you know. And we can do it in a very, um, I don't know, chill fashion. I like to use, you know, you come into my office and I'm literally in gym shoes. I don't— I'm not dressing up in suits and ties. Not that I care if people do, but I like— I like a more relaxed setting. But I like people who want to win. And again, work hard. I think most of us out there early especially are doing a really poor job of recognizing people. You know, we want to beat our chest against the wall for all our numbers, but are we, are we recognizing people along the way, people that are doing a good job? Maybe they don't sell $40 grand a month, but you know, they're part-time and have a job and are single mom and they made an extra $3 grand this month. Maybe recognize them. Are you recognizing your staff? Are you, are you taking the credit for everything? You know, I had to learn how to really go out of my way because it's not natural for me to, to give people a pat on the back and tell them how good a job they're doing. And I had to, I had to work on— that was hard for me to figure out. So I try to pay attention to that regularly. Um, how well or how bad are you promoting resources that people have access to? I know early on I was, um, I was trying to be the answer guy. I wanted to be everything to everybody. And, uh, it's that whole, like, I don't know, give a person a fish or teach a person to fish analogy, you know. And I want, I want to teach people how to fish in this space. I want to teach people how to, how to train, how to gain information. I want to teach people how to underwrite. I don't want to give people just the answers. I want to teach people how to recruit and how to build a team and how to build a system. I like to, I like to promote things that people have access to. I don't need to be the center of attention all the time. There's other people that are really good at this business. Most people out there have some kind of system or company or structure or something that they can go like, here, get info over here. And I know early on I wanted to hoard everybody and kind of keep them in a corner to myself and have all my own stuff. And, you know, I grew a lot more when I learned how to promote events and people and others. And, um, and then just, you know, can you handle the pressure of this thing? I see so many y'all melt under pressure. And quit recruiting because it's hard, or again, chargebacks or roll-ups, or people quit, or whatever it is, all the stuff. It's like, man, I'm 12 years into this thing and we have thousands of agents, um, that sell regularly. We do a ton of volume. I have a great team and staff and dope people around me. And it's— but it's every day there's still pressure. Like, that doesn't go away. So if you got 5, 2 agents, 5 agents, 10 agents, 20 agents, 40 agents, wherever you're at if you think it's hard now and you think if you grow it's just going to get easier because you got more money, I'm telling you, you got another thing coming. Um, so you're going to have to learn how to, how to survive and work and build and be positive under pressure because it honestly gets more, gets worse, if you will, quote unquote. It gets harder. The problems get bigger and the problems get more expensive. So for me, like, I, I'm my natural personality, I want to bang my head against the wall when things don't go the way I want to. But I've learned how to have a little bit of a balance. I have a sign in my office, it's actually in Amanda's office, but in my building if you will, and it's, it says 'Always Something' because I, it's, it was, I used to say it out of a very negative angle if you will, where something would go wrong and I'm like, 'God damn, oh, it's always something, it's always something,' and I was super negative about it. And sometimes in the moment I still kind of am. But now, right next to that sign, we have another one that says 'Do More.' So it says 'Always Something, Do More.' And for us, what that means is like, we look at the always something, the stuff, the pressure as a positive, as an opportunity. Because without problems for me to solve, I can't grow, you know? And I'm thankful for the new problems because it means we're, we're pushing ourselves to new limits. We're trying hard things. We're trying to figure stuff out. You know, a lot of y'all think because me or someone else has a big agency, they've got everything figured out. And I'm like, actually, you have it easier because you can follow a roadmap. Some of us, like, I don't know how to get to the next level yet. There's not quite as many people with the roadmap, so I'm banging my head against the wall every day trying to figure stuff out. And again, for me, problems create opportunity, you know. And a lot of y'all crumble under pressure versus look at it as an opportunity to get to a new level and grow yourself and problem solve and be resourceful and all these things. So pay close attention to it. Last thing, I'll talk about expectations. I think that most all of us, everyone I talk to that's trying to grow, does a really poor job at setting expectations for new agents. And they typically come from an angle of— especially those of y'all that know how to sell— how easy this can be. You know, you just get this many leads or talk to this many people and it's a cakewalk from there, and you make $1,000 a sale. And we, we put all these like highlight reels in front of people and we post on social all these successes. And like, when I'm bringing people on, I'm talking to them about all the struggles that they're going to have, you know, and the hard times and the things they're going to have to fight through. And if, like, on an interview, one of the questions I ask is if, uh, if you invest I don't know, $500, $1,000, whatever the number is, and you get, call it 30 leads, 50 leads, and just for kicks, I don't know, every single one of them you get on the phone this week tells you to fuck off and hangs up on you. How are you going to handle that? And a lot of most people go like, can that happen? Like, wait, what? I'm like, nah, bro, that's gonna happen. My question is, how are you gonna handle it? And I want people to understand that there's— they're going to deal with stuff, you know what I mean? I talk to people about chargebacks early on and what percentage are going to fall off and the mistakes agents make and, you know, making sure you're saving for taxes and, you know, I mean, like all the stuff that y'all avoid. I talk about debt with agents and what happens if they don't pay it and, you know, I mean, I was like— and I do give lights of opportunity that are available to all of us in this business, but I, I really like I, I want them to— I don't want them to be surprised by the feeling along the way, you know. So I want to set really good expectations, not only what the business is going to feel like, but what my relationship is to them, you know. That I'm not going to get them out of bed and hold their hand and skip from one appointment to the next appointment hand in hand with them, you know what I mean. Like, they gotta— they're gonna have to put in the work. I'm here, but I'm here to guide you to information, you know, and, and assist you. But I'm not here to do your job, and I'm not here to be a sounding board every time you want to complain or whine. Like, that's not the relation. So I like to set really clear expectations. I like to ask a lot of questions to create light bulb moments for people. Um, again, the guy that quote unquote got beat up, I just asked him some questions, and for him, he was like, you know, I mean, I want them I want them to understand. I want people to process things. And so one of the things I'll challenge you with is, if you want to get a point across to someone, before you open your mouth, like, just bite— just bite down and bite your tongue. Do like— just do that. And I want you to think of a question that helps the person Discover what you really want to say to them. And if you can learn to do that, it gives people aha moments and helps them take care of— take, take ownership of things. Um, lack of marketing in the business. It's like, why is that an expectation? Someone once said, at least in my world where, uh, insurance— an IMO, Insurance Marketing Organization— he's like, we are a marketing company. You know, FMO, it's marketing. You are— it's like, to get clients, certainly you can buy leads and certainly you can build, but it's like, you need to market yourself. You need to put yourself out there. You need to have branding. You need to have stuff on social. You need to— like, most people don't market their agency well enough, and they don't teach people how to market themselves and their personal branding and things like that. And I bet most of y'all do a really poor job at that. I know I did for, for a long time. And the last thing I would say is, what are the expectations of yourself? You know, do you expect as much out of yourself as you do of others? And I know for me, I struggled with that for a long time. And today I hold myself to really high expectations. And I try to be really careful of what I expect of others. I try to keep it to a minimum. You know, again, be coachable, do the things you say you're going to do. And if you can't do the things you say you will, communicate with me. Outside of that, I don't have a ton. I certainly expect you to not complain a lot, you know what I mean? But I don't, I don't expect agents to know everything right off the rip. Again, if, if the average agent was everything you wanted them to be right off the rip, what would they need you for, you mean? So how well can you manage people that aren't perfect and different personalities and different styles of people and different pro— you mean, like, how, how How versatile can you be in who you are? And for me, I continuously want to expand. I know I mess things up all the time. I'm okay with that, but I do expect that I'm going to get better from it, and I do expect I'm going to learn from it, and I do expect I'm not going to make the same mistake over and over and over again, preferably. Um, so if, um, if I can help in any way If you'd like additional coaching guidance, hit me up. Um, certainly y'all know my social Instagram @johnwetmore. Um, you can email me, it's jw@johnwetmore.com. If I can help, hit me up, let me know. Hopefully this helps and, uh, get you to a point where you can now scale your business as far as you want to go, because this is very duplicatable stuff. I hope that you learned some things and And, uh, please certainly follow, subscribe, comment— preferably positive ones, but I can handle the negative ones too. And, uh, those of you that continue to follow the journey and support everything I'm doing, I appreciate you. See you soon.