This Insurance Objection Training Made Me $500,000 ft. Madison Montgomery | Ep81

My favorite question to ask people is, in a perfect world, while you're shopping for life insurance, if we were able to find something for you, what would that look like? How much coverage would that look like? What's the premium? A lot of people do have a number in mind. If they throw a number out, I'm like, well, let me see if that's something that we can get for you, just to keep the phone call going a little bit further. And then that's when I'm going into that needs analysis. Okay, I'm plugging this up. I want to make sure we're looking at the right program for you. But before I do that, let me ask you this.

Are you a smoker? I got some questions. Yeah. Welcome back. John Wetmore here with a another episode of the Insurance Insiders Podcast. Have Madison Montgomery, um, referred over from Christina, I believe is who connected us. She, uh, we had her on not too long ago and killed it. And apparently you are just another one in the gang of people crushing it here. So yeah, come on.

Yeah, yeah. Well, thanks for having me on, John. This is a like full circle moment because I started 2 and a half years ago and YouTube University was my best friend when I started, and I watched your YouTube videos when I was a brand new agent. So it related, full circle moment.

It's crazy. I hear it often. It's wild. It's— I— they weren't created for that. They were just— they were create— honestly, a lot of the videos initially were created out of me not wanting to repeat myself to all the agents I was hiring. So I started creating these training videos, and then it turned into chaos. That's good. I'm glad I could help in an indirect way.

Yeah, that's good.

Very good. Um, so you said 2 and a half years ago?

Okay. Yeah.

All right. What were you doing before insurance?

I— so I moved to Phoenix, Arizona about 6 years ago, um, right after college. I started working with a company called Milwaukee Tool, like the power tool company. Yeah, so I did sales with them for about 2, 2 and a half years. Um, loved it. Probably one of the funnest, funnest jobs I'll ever do in my life. Um, it taught me a lot, but just not making the kind of money for how I was working. Um, and so my roommate at the time started selling insurance with FFL, and I watched her and I was like, this girl's working half amount of time as I am, making 3 times more than I am. What is she doing? And so I started selling insurance part-time for about 4 months and then made the jump to full-time at the beginning of 2023.

Heck, what you said, roommate, was it in school still or after school? I didn't catch that.

Right after school.

Right after, got it. Yeah, crazy. I thought, I think now when you mentioned it, I'm like, I think I've seen a video of you saying that before. Wow.

Yeah. Yeah, she's still here. No, she actually left. Um, she left surprising— well, you know, maybe surprisingly, maybe not, but maybe not, maybe not. But she left the, the month that I decided to go full-time. I called her and said, hey, I'm going full-time. She said, hey, I'm actually leaving the industry. I said, okay, great, well, I'm gonna figure this out then. So yeah, I had to figure it out a little bit. But like we were talking about, Arizona has a really huge presence with FFL down here, so there was a lot of support.

Yeah, you're stacked with talent out there. It's crazy. It's one of my favorite places to go and just see people killing it. Yeah, a lot of good folks. Who you direct to out there? Because I don't actually know.

Nicolette McGannon.

And then who's—

how's it going?

Okay, cool. And then Nina and Hayden, all them. Yeah, cool. I've known Nina and Hayden for a long time. Jay I've met, but we don't go way back, of course. Yeah. Um, but I've heard Dope things. Y'all are killing it.

Good group. Yeah, Nina and Hayden, I mean, they're awesome. They're beasts. I love learning from Nina. She's really, really awesome.

Yeah, they're the best. It's been neat watching them grow to the size they have. Yeah. So how— you're killing it now. Was it day one easy? Was it tough? How did the beginning go?

To be honest with you, coming from sales, it was completely a completely different industry in sales. But working with construction workers, superintendents, it was a super casual sale. So it was actually translated really well into life insurance because it wasn't like I was coming from super professional corporate tech sales, something like that. So I was able to transition pretty easily into selling life insurance. So came in selling at a, you know, $20,000, $30,000 a month my first month starting off. But I didn't want to recruit coming in. I saw this as like a sales opportunity. That's what I'd always done. So Um, it was quick with sales, I, I'll say that, but slow with recruiting. I didn't, I didn't bring in my first agent to work with me until I'd been doing this for about 8, 9 months. So it took me a while to get there.

Got it. Were you not ready to, or you were trying, it wasn't working?

Um, I wasn't trying at all, to be honest with you. Yeah, that's cool.

Yeah, I tried at the beginning, but it didn't work. Yeah, you know, so I should have just maybe not tried, you know, been as, as beneficial. Crazy. What were you selling at the beginning? What types of clients or leads or whatever?

Um, only like Final Expense Bronze, Silvers. When I started, that was really all we had, and it was kind of like, uh, you had to fight for them too. I remember we had to get on at like 5 AM, um, Pacific time and fight for the Bronze and Silvers in the counties that we wanted. And then I remember when Ethos Leads came out, that really changed everything for me because I was able to talk to a little bit like higher premium clients. And so it was a good mix of final expense and younger people writing more term IUL policies. So, but starting off, just all aged final expense, doing 600, 700 dials a day. Grindin'. Yeah, you gotta grind it out. That's the grind. I tell everyone on my team, like, you know, sometimes you have agents come in and they buy like some of those fresh packs of leads and they're like, I'm not getting anything. I've done 50 dial sticks. I'm like, get on those phones, you got to do at least 500. You don't know what you're talking about right now. And so it's a different time for sure.

Yeah, it's always interesting watching people try to figure out the lead flow game, you know. It's like, even if they come in with a few bucks, I mean, you can spend all the money you want, right? If you don't do it right and they trickle— it's a tough game to figure out. Um, what, what was the balance for you to figure out, like, flow and when to order? Did you, did you— because I know a shitload of people, that's the biggest struggle.

Yeah, yeah. For me, I, I really just did what I was told. Um, I worked out of, um, Grady Poulsen's office when I first started, and so I went in there and there was a lot of people who'd been doing this for years, and they just told me, you want to buy, you know, leads on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, this is how many you're gonna buy, you're gonna find 2 or 3 time zones and that's what you're going to do and you're going to work your time zones and call them in these hours. And so I did exactly what I was told, but obviously you got to find what works for you too. So I, to this day, I swear by age leads.

Do you really? Yeah.

Yeah. For a new agent starting off, I think age leads is going to— it's going to force you to have a strong work ethic and you're going to put a lot of sweat equity into your business. Because if you come in and you start off doing 50 dials a day, we all know that sometimes leads ebb and flow. And so if you have a week where you need to up the dials and work a little bit harder and you're, you're not used to doing any more than 75 dials in a day, it's going to be really hard to go to that point if you've never been there and, you know, work a 15-hour day doing 500 dials. So I still swear by aged leads. I think that's, you know, going to build a really strong foundation in terms of like your sales skill. Um, But back then, I think it was just doing what I was told, following the framework. I said, if you guys have gotten this far doing what you're doing, then I'm gonna do exactly what you're telling me to do.

I love it. So how many leads did you want on a Monday, Wednesday, Friday? How many were you aiming for? Was it a quantity typically?

Yeah, yeah, I was aiming for the cheapest leads I could get. So I was looking for, um, quantity over quality, to be honest with you. I was like, surely if I, if I spend $300 on bronze leads and I've got 300 people to call surely I can present and sell one of them.

Like, so that's the goal.

I love it. That was the mentality of it. And something that we still say on my team is if you like make a sale a day, you'll hit $20K. So I was focused on a sale a day. That's all I was focused on. And if I got a sale in the morning, then double it up in the afternoon. But that was— it was quality or quantity over quality in the beginning, for sure.

How do you, um, explain to new agents. Just the mindset makes sense. It's easy. Spend $300, sell one, you probably triple your money, double your money, maybe even more, whatever it is. Yeah, but like, how many times you got to be told no? How do you, how do you set that expectation with people, you know what I mean? 700 phone calls a lot for a person making $50,000. Meaning they get 6 people on the phone and they don't book any appointments or book one. How many were you trying— were you— before I finalize it, were you doing one-call close or booking appointments during this?

One-call close.

Cool. So did you have a— to sell one as the goal, how many did you have to present to, and how many did you have to get on the phone to make those number of presentations typically early? And then maybe what it's like today.

Yeah, I, I have a numbers brain. I went to college for accounting, finance.

So me too.

This is good. There you go. So you understand math brain. And so that's That's been something that helped me a lot in the beginning. And I think coming from a sales, sales background helped me a lot with— I knew you're gonna have to hear no. So for me personally, I knew I'm gonna have to hear no, but I also knew I'm gonna have to learn my close ratio. So on average, how many nos am I getting? How many presentations am I doing before I submit an application? And so that's something I teach all of my agents to do. But the first 30 to 60 days, you don't really know that yet. So that's really— I tell everybody, You know, it's a race to 100 presentations, but that first 30 to 90 days, you can either take 90 days to do those 100 presentations or you can take 30. It's up to you. But the quicker that you get those done, the more nos that you hear, the faster we're going to know your close ratio and the faster you're going to know going forward, maybe how many leads you need to buy, how many nos you need to hear, how many presentations you need to do. So just in terms of mindset for new agents, that helps agents a lot. Coming in because they understand I'm going to need to hear no 5 times. I'm going to need to present 5 times and get bodied on these applications until I finally close one. And then from that point, after 90 days to 6 months, you want to close that close ratio. So maybe that close ratio was 6 for a new agent in their first 3 months. Now you want it to go down to 4. And then after, you know, Some of my more seasoned agents that have been with me for a year and a half, 2 years now, their close ratio is probably 1 out of 2.

Um, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So that's what you, you want to focus on, finishing that.

So 5, 6, 7 of them to close 1. How many, how many are you seeing that new agents, or how many should they get on to actually be able to make like 7, 6, call it 6 to 8 valid presentations? How many are they gonna have to pick up and speak to, you think? Or what was it like for you? You know, what are you telling your agents?

Yeah, yeah. For me, it was probably 4 presentations, um, 1 out of the 4 I'm gonna get a close. And that was on age, final expense. I think your sales process has a lot to do with that, um, and being efficient and direct is going to help you determine if someone's a qualified buyer or not, um, before you get into the application. You get hit with someone saying, well, I don't even know if I actually want this. Um, and so a lot of that efficiency is in the first half of your call to close and making sure that they are someone who, one, you can actually help them in the situation that they're in, and two, that it's something that they're going to keep and maintain. Um, because some people might just buy because they like you in the moment, but with life insurance, it's not like you drive the car off the lot. They can cancel it in 2 months, you know.

Yeah, yeah.

So, um, it's a little bit different of a process for sure.

Okay, what's— so what's important about— let's— I would love to hear the, the process, whether you want to go final expense or ethos. If they're different, you can talk about both, whatever. But like, you get someone on the phone, now what? How do we, how do we keep them on, and how do we get, how do we get where we want to go?

Yeah, I'll do, I'll do final expense. That's typically what I'm training my agents on. Um, so for final expense, that first initial 2-3 minutes, they need to know that you're calling about life insurance. Like, no bait or switch, no nothing like that. We're, we're not We're not that. We're calling about the form they filled out on their life insurance. Most people, as you know, dialing aged leads, they don't remember, they don't know what you're talking about, or they've had their phone blown up for the last 2 months straight. So they're just trying to get you off the phone. So it's really about breaking down those barriers. And that's a big reason why we have agent style aged leads, because you're going to be able to get really, really good at those intro objections so that you're strong throughout the entirety of the call. I think a lot of people who start off on fresh leads, you're paying for a presentation, but if you don't know how to close yet, then you're going to pay for those presentations and not close anything. So starting that foundation off with intro objections, that's going to make you really strong and sharp throughout the rest of the call. Um, we have a pretty deep and in-depth, like, needs analysis. So we want to make sure that we're always asking health questions first, asking previous insurance history before we're even talking about products. Sometimes we get on the phone with people, even with like a bronze Final Expense lead who they're like, I know exactly what I want. I want a $500,000 term. I'm 65. I had a heart attack 2 years ago, but I'm really healthy other than that. We don't talk about products until after we've gone through a needs analysis. And then from there we really determine, can I put this person in a position that's actually going to help them? And can I educate them to help them understand why maybe what they initially wanted isn't really what's going to be the best fit for them? Um, so a lot of that needs analysis is one, asking questions on our end, but two, educating the client and digging deeper as to like why we're looking at what we're looking at for them. Um, overall then we obviously present, and then right from that presentation, the second that someone hears the, the client say gold, silver, or bronze, we're straight into that application. Um, I always tell my agents that The question of death is, do you want to do the application now or later? Which you hear so, so often from Haley. Yes. Yeah. I think because people, especially people who come from any form of like customer service, they want the person to feel like they're in control because they have this mentality like the customer's always right. But I teach everybody on my team, you are the professional. And so you want to have the client have perceived client control where they think they're in control, but you're leading them into the application. Uh, so, and then from there you do the application and submit it, and then you apply it.

Weave through the social and banking objections and all the things. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I love it. Let's— can we talk details about stuff? I have so much, so it's like where to start. Let's go to the beginning. For those of you follow— that have followed me for a while, you know I've, I've helped build this agency up to over $200 million 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 and we'll see if I'd be interested in working with you. DM me, hit me up, whatever you like. So you mentioned that you're, you're focusing with new agents on working on like the initial, call it few seconds, 30 seconds or whatever, those beginning barriers. What advice, what tips, what are you looking out for? What do you have to— you mean what are the must-dos right there to make it that you're being direct?

Um, is so important. We Between Nicolette and I, we work very closely. We always have since I started. And so something that we are huge on with our new agents is psychology behind the sale, psychology behind why people are going to ask a question at the beginning of the call versus if they ask that same question in the application. It's— it means something entirely different. So in those first 5 minutes, you want to be as direct, efficient, and straight to the point as possible. Um, but you also— it really is a game of who can ask more questions in those first couple of minutes. You never want to leave that dead silence. Um, meanwhile, in the presentation, there's a lot of power in silence. When you ask them, you know, which option are you going to go with, you want to be silent. But in the beginning, you really, really, really want to get to that needs analysis as quickly as possible, no matter how you get there. The most important goal is that they know you're calling about life insurance. And a lot of those intro objections really are smoke screens because they did fill something out. I mean, I I tell people all the time, we're not dialing the leads where, you know, they're filling something out for a gift card anymore. It's different. They, you know, they, they see life insurance or they see final expense or funeral benefits. They see something about money being paid to their beneficiary when they pass away. So it's really just about finding the reason why they're wanting to get you off the phone. Have they gotten 10 calls in the last 30 minutes? Have they already been presented to and they didn't like the numbers? Have they not been presented to at all because they haven't given anyone the opportunity. So a golden phrase that we like say on pretty much every single call to try to get us ourselves into the needs analysis, if we are talking to someone who's giving us a lot of intro objections, is ultimately, John, my job is just to get those options out to you. Whatever you do is completely up to you. And that is really breaking down those walls. Like, we're not talking about an application, we're not talking about you buying anything. I don't want to know if you can afford it or not yet. Let's talk about what you can actually get and if I can actually help you. And so really just getting into that needs analysis and into that presentation however you can. Yeah.

So all those— I'm not interested, it wasn't me, I already got it— that's, that's basically how you get through all those little quirky—

if someone's not interested, you know, it's about when you get that not interested too.

And I tell everyone, yeah, like right off the rip, if it's right off the rip.

If so, I'm really direct and sometimes I'm a little bit of a smart ass, if you know what I mean.

I'm going to love it then, because I am too. I want to hear it.

Yeah, you've got to have a little bit of like spark that's going to make you be a little bit different on the phone. And so I tell everyone, as long as you're not disrespectful, as long as you're professional, it's okay to be that way. And so if I get on the phone with someone and before I even get a word in, they're like, I'm not interested. I'm like, not interested in what? And You know, a little bit of that sass goes a long way. People aren't used to getting a random call and having someone ask them, you know, what are you talking about? Yeah, that keeps people on the phone a little bit longer than if, you know, someone says not interested and you're like, oh wait, wait, I'm an insurance— like that's a little bit more of like, wait, let me tell you why you should work with me. Not wait, why are we talking right now? We're talking because you filled this out. I'm doing my job. I'm calling you.

And so, yeah, they're like, whoa, shit, I wasn't expecting that, what do I do?

Yeah, they're like, wait, wait. And a lot, like, even something as simple as they hang up on you, you call them back, you know. Um, a lot of people don't do those little things that are actually going to get you a little bit further into a phone call with somebody because they're not, you know, they— especially these people who do fill out multiple things online, you know, a lot of the people that we do talk to, they're autofilling now in the digital age that we're in, autofill your information. And so you want to make sure that you're forcing them to understand that you do stick out amongst the rest. Um, and so you've got to throw a little bit of your own personality in there while also being really direct and efficient. Because you, when it comes to dialing these aged leads, and I tell my agents this, you want to push as much as you can in that intro because you're brand new. You You can't tell, like, yeah, who a qualified buyer is from the next until you've hit those 100 presentations. But now at this point, you know, you got to pick and choose your battles. If I'm talking to someone who's like cycling through intro objections for the first 4 minutes, I might say, you know what, if we are able to find something in a perfect world— my, my favorite question to ask people is, in a perfect world, while you're shopping for life insurance, if we were able to find something for you, what would that look like? How much coverage would that look like? What's the premium? And then if a lot of people do have a number in mind, you know, they're shoppers, they're looking around. If they throw a number out, I'm like, well, let me see if that's something that we can get for you just to like keep the phone call going a little bit further. And then that's when I'm going into that needs analysis. Okay, I'm plugging this up. I want to make sure we're looking at the right program for you. But before I do that, let me ask you this.

Are you a small business owner? I got some questions.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's going right now. And so it's, it's really just about getting into that needs analysis as quickly as possible.

Yeah. Mm-hmm. In the, in your, to use your words, in the ideal world, um, that goes a little smoother at the beginning. Are you explaining like, hey, here's what's about to happen with this whole needs analysis and why? And do, what do you, what do you guys do there?

We do, and we have a script. It's really just like the bare bones of the call. Um, and so ideally we like our agents to have their own refined script. By, I love it, usually 3, 3 to 4 months in. Um, but that initial script is really the framework and the bare bones. So in that script, we do have a little paragraph that's explaining, like, my job's a little different than a typical sales rep that would be calling you. I'm going to run through a couple of quick questions. It's a needs analysis. Sounds complicated, it's really not. It's just going to point you and I in the right direction to make sure that we're putting you in the best position with all the companies that we work with up here. Um, so in a perfect phone call, you know, if someone's giving you the patience and the time to say that, that's what we say. But You know, sometimes you do have to skip over that and just jump right into those needs.

Hell yeah. Sometimes slow is bad.

Yeah, exactly. You gotta like mirror people and pick up the pace sometimes.

Yeah, yeah, it's good. How long do you think it took you to start figuring that vibe out where you can kind of read it? Because same, I don't— it's like some of this shit you can't teach new agents. It's like, just don't worry about it today, we'll fix it later.

No, I—

and I don't think the 100 presentations, I guess, is your timeline?

I, I think it just took experiencing situations. I was like, I never want to do this again. You know, when, when you talk to someone for 2 and a half hours because they think they like you so much, and then you get hit with the, you're such a great salesperson, but I'm not. If I hear you're such a great salesperson, I'm like, get me off this phone call immediately, because I know they're not gonna buy from me. Yeah. And so I tell agents, it's really, you know, every single agent needs to experience something like that. Because if you experience it, you're never going to want to like get into that position again where you're on the phone for 2 hours or you missed a crucial part in the application and then you get a social objection because you missed a crucial part of explaining why you're asking for that. So a lot of that, that's another reason why age leads are so crucial, because it hurts a lot less to get hung up on, on a $1 lead than a $35 lead.

It's true. It is too. It'll, it'll smack the shit out of you. A guy who mentored me was always like, he always told us, new leads don't make you good. It'll be an expensive education, bro.

Yes. Yes, they will. Yes, they will. That's for sure.

Yeah. That's funny. What are some things you're looking for now that we're at this kind of phase that lets you proceed? Obviously you're trying to not get to pricing without some sort of validation that that not only do they want insurance, but that you can actually get them insurance, right? So you're trying to kind of qualify medically, but also them stop fighting you. Yeah. What's the balance and what's the, what's the strategy there to get enough info to proceed? And what are you looking for, um, to make sure you're flowing?

We do a pretty in-depth financial analysis too. Oh yeah, it really depends on the type of lead as well. I, I tell my agents, if you're talking to someone who's a Final Expense lead, if they're collecting like disability through the state, you want to break down their budget. But also you want to make sure realistically, even if you break down their budget and say they have an additional $300 to spend at the end of the month, if there's someone who is a little bit older, a little bit more unhealthy, think about, you know, because we really emphasize persistency, think about even as much as you want to help them, is this something that actually if they get a extra power bill, car bill. Is this something that they're going to maintain if something like that happens? But when we were going through that financial analysis, I tell everybody on my team, we are not financial planners, we are not accountants. It's not our job to tell anybody that we speak to what they can and can't afford. Because to this day, I have clients who are still on the books. They've been on the books for 2 years plus who make $2,000 a month and they're paying $350 a month and they're still on the books.. I have clients who make over 10 grand a month who, God forbid, they pay over $100 a month. So, you know, it's not our place to tell people what they can afford and what they need or, or what they're going to pay. It's our job to tell them what they need in terms of the coverage. And that's why I think it's so important to start with final expense, even though you don't want to stay with final expense necessarily too long. Um, it's important to start there because that's really the bare bones of life insurance. Most people in this country are getting life insurance just to cover the burial, the cremation, you know, make sure that their family is taken care of for those initial costs. And so you're going to be able to, like, work with a little bit smaller budgets and work your way up to larger budgets. I think that's another thing that I see a lot of. I'm not big on complainers. That's something with my team. If you talk to anybody on my team, I, I don't tolerate complaining. And so if I have agents who are used to seeing some of these larger premiums right off the bat, you know, we all have an agent, you know, every other month who comes in, their first sale is $3,000 AP. That's, that's a really great feeling. But then if you go through a streak where you're closing, you know, $30 a month, $50 a month, you're like, wait, what's going on? Where are these bigger premiums? And so I, I like when I see agents close a lot more of policies with smaller— yes, because you're learning a lot more through those. You're learning to work with people's budgets and actually be in your client's corner rather than just like get what they want. It's like, let me be in your corner and let us actually figure out if this is something that's maintainable, comfortable for you. And that's going to make you comfortable when you do work your way up to these larger premiums as well, because that's something that can be nerve-wracking for agents too, to talk to somebody who makes $10,000, $15,000 a month, you know?

Yeah, I remember when early I used to freak out and I'd show pride, be like, ooh, $180 a month, that scared me. I ain't showing that shit.

Oh yeah, oh yeah, yeah.

I remember, funny too, you mentioned the first big paycheck, always nice. That first big chargeback, that one, that one. Yeah, buddy. So I like— we were always big on app count too. I mean, Sean's always taught us app counts way more important.

Yeah, it is. And, and I remember when I think my breakthrough moment, I remember because I was selling pretty consistently, but my first 2 months full-time, I went to my first lock-in and it was with, um, a couple of, you know, big leaders, Jay Maska, Caitlin Blackburn. And I remember watching Caitlin Blackburn specifically sell, and I was like, this woman gets on every single call and closes every single one. What is she doing? And so I just followed suit of her. And, um, I remember the next day I just like, you know what, I'm gonna spend more money I've ever spent on these like final expense leads. I'm gonna dial through all of them. And I remember I closed— I think I did 5 apps that day, not a single premium over $60 a month, but every single one stayed on the books. And so I was like, I tell agents, it feels a lot better If you do have a policy that falls off, you know, at this point, I think there's so many resources and systems in place to keep your persistency high. But it feels a lot better to have a policy— I have a client call you and say, hey, this can't go through on the first, and it's a $40 a month premium— than if it's a $250 a month premium. Or on the flip side, if it's already gone through and they call you and tell you that, um, so obviously things happen, you can't control it. If If someone's going to lapse, it's going to happen. But doing more apps is always the way to go. And you can definitely do 20, 30K off of Bronze and Silvers. I did it for 6 months when I started. So I think it can still be done.

It always has been done and always will be done. It'll never stop. And people, unfortunately, there will always be a gang that will always complain too. As much as we tell them, here's the path, here's what you say, here's how often you say it. Here's the 4,000 people it's worked for.

Yes.

Yeah, find a way to make it not work.

Yeah, something I do for agents when they start to complain, um, because I, I personally, I don't buy leads for agents. Um, I have them come in and invest in themselves. Um, but when I have an agent come in and invest in leads and they're complaining, I tell them, okay, here's what we're going to do tomorrow. I'm going to send you some of my leads that I've been running this week. You're going to send me the ones that you've been running. And pretty much every single time that they send me their leads, I close one. I tell them, you're going to sit here on Zoom, you're going to listen to me through the whole entire thing, and you're going to watch me close this. And then after this, you're never going to complain to me again about your leads because you can sell them and you can close them. Um, and so that usually, I mean, all of my agents who have been with me for years have experienced that. A day or two with me, and they will never complain to me ever again.

I have always told agents to send me their leads, to do that as well. I've never thought of to send mine to them so they can see that they're not magic and they get the same outcome because it's there. I never— I've never thought of that, actually.

Yeah, I said it to them because I'm like, you know what, these are $35 because they think they're magic. Yeah, yeah. And so usually they'll, they'll get into them and then, you know, sometimes you have an agent who will close on it. I'm like, okay, great, like, you closed, take that money, invest in more leads and don't complain again. And then on the flip side, usually they're brand new, so they don't, and they don't know what they're doing at that point with something that's like a $35 IUL or mortgage protection lead. And so then, you know, they learn their lesson one way or another.

I love it. This is good. I'm stealing that one. A little, little cherry on top. What up, y'all? So YouTube memberships, we have one now. Right next to the subscribe button, there's a neon white join button. You can't miss it. Subscribe, whatever it says, click the link, get in there. I do a ton of coaching, teaching people how to dial, corrections, working on their presentations, working on their mindset. I will coach on theory, but I like coaching and real-world stuff. And if you join the membership section, you're going to see live coaching where I'm not only helping people, but every once in a while I get in there and dial myself. There's some cool videos coming out, tons of content. All the training videos will be directly on my YouTube channel that's available to members only. Super easy to find. In order to access them, you have to join our exclusive training videos tier. Do More does not get access to the training videos. So join now if you're interested. Click below. See you in there. Crazy. So what, you, 2 and a half years, that puts you, what are we, 25? Would you start in '23? Yeah, I— '24 was your first full year?

20— yeah, '24 was my first full year.

Yeah. Would you sell— would you issue last year?

I think 225. Um, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, good to see it.

Yeah. Where you— what are you at? What are you gonna hit this year? Where are you at so far?

One— I think I'm at 120. 120. The last 3 quarters of the year, or the last 3 months of the year, always like a push quarter for my team.

I saw that. Yeah, like a little 12-week something or other. I think I saw.

Yeah, we, we always write down— I have it written down right here, but I always write down on the first day of September, I write down my August or not my August, my convention goals for the following year. So we're already building momentum for where we want to be by convention 2026. So I think this is a prime, like, momentum building time.

Okay, do you have a number you're shooting for by then?

$500,000 agency and personal. I, I think selling is so important and I love to sell, so I would like to continue to maintain 20, 30 a month.

Yeah, that's good. Where's the team at today?

325, 350. So I think we'll get there.

Oh yeah, how many, how many agents selling to get that?

I've got the Oh, that's 32.

Hell yeah. So like $10K an agent. Yeah, that's good. Yeah, that's good shit. I love it. I love it. What are you running in today's world? Are you still on that final expense ethos thing? Are you doing what you've mentioned, mortgage protection, IUL? Are you going a little bit higher end now?

Yeah, so I, I am a chronic overspender on leads at this point, um, because I follow them down to my agents. So at this point I do self-gen mortgage, um, and In a week where I'm not training a new agent, that's usually what I'm running. But I do self-gen mortgage and then I'll supplement with aged veteran leads and I still do aged final expense if I do have a new agent. I think it's so important for new agents, especially at the level that I'm at. I still work with a lot of agents directly and so I think it's so important for them to listen to you dial the same leads that you're telling them to dial. One, to show them that like I am going to get told no a million times. I am going to have people hang up on me. I'm going to get the same objections you are. Um, and so I, I still do bronze, silvers. In fact, I was dialing bronze and silvers with one of my new agents before this call. So I still do a little mix of everything.

I like it. I, I did it. I, I called. I haven't had— I haven't sold full-time since like 2016. I stopped selling full-time, but I was on, uh, I was teaching my— I have a— my son is 17. He can get his license in like 2 months, so I've been teaching him how to dial.

Okay.

And, uh, I was listening to him dial couple few weeks ago, a month ago, and someone gave him an objection he couldn't handle. So I grabbed the phone and I just took over, like instinctively just took over. Yeah, I started calling some old leads and booking them, and it's like, I love doing it and always have, in the way that it's, it's actually more fun when agents watch you because I'll cut up when they're giving me objections and fuck with them.

And yeah, yeah, yeah, it keeps you sharp. It keeps you sharp when you're running those bronze and silvers. It really does.

And it's so unscripted, typically for me anyway. I don't— it fucking goes everywhere.

Yes, at this point now. And I— that's why I tell my agents, you gotta have fun with it. Like, in the beginning, you're thinking about so much. You're like, you're thinking 10 steps ahead. You don't need to be thinking about what application you're going to do when someone just picked up the phone. So it's like, have a little bit of fun with it in the moment. Yeah, be in the moment with, with who you're talking to.

That's true. I love it. Tell me more about mortgage leads. I have a lot of people on this shit. It's been a long time since I've heard people talk about mortgage leads regular. It's not the majority anymore. No. What do you— when you say self-gen, is that like Facebook ads, or is that what that meant?

Yeah, yeah.

So you run them yourself?

I don't run them. I, I have someone who runs them for me, um, but I have my own landing page that has like my headshot. I have a couple of videos that are attached to it where they hop into the landing page and explain what— like, they're listening to me. I recorded it.

So, oh yeah, got it. So the ad is you?

Yes. And so they're listening to me explain to them, here's what mortgage protection is. If you still think that this is the right kind of policy for you and this is something that we need to talk about, then like book on my calendar. Once they book on my calendar— and obviously you have people who still click yes, they don't book, so those are cold closes— but then, um, once they book on my calendar, then it pops up another short little video where I explain to them, this is what our appointment's going look like? I'm going to run through a couple of questions. This is why I'm asking you health questions. This is why I'll ask you about your financials. And then from there, we'll figure out which type of mortgage protection program is best for you. So I'm already trying— I think the best way to get through objections is prevent them. And so by doing that, I'm already explaining to them, if you're someone who has had like a major health diagnosis, you've had a heart attack, cancer, we're probably going to look at something called equity protection, which is pretty affordable for someone in comparison to a standard mortgage protection policy. So I'm always tailoring what I'm presenting to them in their favor, if that makes sense. But eliminating those objections before we even get on the phone.

Yeah, that's my favorite sale. If you saw my old videos, you know that I love that sucker. Give me someone 70 with a big-ass mortgage.

I'm in.

Yeah, yeah. My favorite. Absolutely. Which is funny at the beginning. I hated that. I wouldn't even call those leads when I was new. If they were 65, 60, 70 years old with a mortgage, I'd put it on the bottom and skip it. And eventually—

I was the opposite, which is like, I loved talking to people who are a little bit older, selling them equity protection, but I would skip the, like, a 25-year-old with a $300,000 mortgage. I'm like, I don't want to call you because I'm 23. I don't know, you know. And so I was the complete opposite. So I really enjoy selling equity protection. I think if you tailor it the right way and make people understand the value, then it's a, it's a great sale.

It became my favorite lead. I just, we were too stupid at the beginning to know how to sell it. We had to figure it out, like the angle. I remember years ago we were like, dude, you're too sick for that. I can't get that. That was our angle. It was a really bad angle. Yeah, we had that. We had to finagle and create, which you'll see today.

It's trial and error for sure. It's trial and error.

Crazy. So you get a fair amount of mortgage leads then, seems like. If that's— they're not hard to get in today's world.

No, no, no.

What's it, what's it run you roughly?

I know it varies, but over time, if you throw it all in a bucket, roughly all together, on an average month, I'm probably spending anywhere from $3,000 to $4,000 on my mortgage leads. Um, so total lead spend, I'm spending anywhere from $6,000 to $7,000, um, like supplementing. But I do funnel a lot of my newer agents too.

So it works out. Train overrides. Yeah, you get your— yeah, hell yeah.

That's—

it's a fun game to play.

Yes.

Yeah. What does, um, how many leads will that get you on the mortgage side? Call it 1,000 a week or whatever.

Yeah, it'll get me about— I would say, you know, with, with self-gen, it ebbs and flows.

Yeah, for sure.

That's how the algorithm is, how, how Facebook and Meta is pushing it out. Some weeks I talk to people who fill out every single mortgage protection ad they see, and so those aren't super locked-in buyers, but then other weeks it feels like every single person I'm talking to is an application close. So on the weeks where it's a little bit more dialing, less appointments, I'm getting anywhere from probably 150 to 200 mortgage leads. On the weeks where I'm getting a lot more appointments, those— the cost—

shit, you get that many?

Yeah.

So you're not paying much per lead at all?

No, I think the sweet spot when you, when you're doing self-gen is anywhere between $12 to $21. That's killer. Yeah, but I think a lot of agents hear self-gen and they're like, oh, I've got to go do that immediately. It's like, it's a lot of investing up front. Yeah, it's exciting.

Talk about it. Right.

Yeah. What—

yeah, I would love to hear it. If someone wants to do it, what do you— what do you recommend to spend? Because I love conversations like this.

Yeah, I, I think once you have something mastered, whether it's, you know, veteran leads Final expense. You always want to have something that you can fall back to and continue to make your money to fund your business while you're implementing something new like that.

Let's pretend I want to do it. I know my shit and you're like, hey, I just want to skip all the bullshit. I want a bunch of those leads. What does Wetmore get to do?

I would tell you what you need to be doing is selling at least $20K IP first. You need to understand your sales process and then from there you need to understand that you're probably going to have to put in anywhere from $3,000 to $5,000 to really get consistent lead flow long term. And when you're doing self-gen, if you are working with a vendor or on your own where you can mess with the ad or you can adjust the daily spend, that's the last thing you want to do. You want to keep it exactly the same for at least 3 to 4 weeks because that is how— yeah, you want to keep it consistent. And I see a lot of people mess with it too much because they've dial the leads they're getting for 3 days and they're like, these aren't, you know, these aren't amounting to anything. You want to keep it exactly the same because something as small as like changing your ad spend on an ad from like $35 to $45 can change how it's hitting the algorithm. Crazy. So you want to keep it the same.

I figure like Facebook's pretty smart. They probably got it figured out. It just takes them a minute. I've heard it just takes a minute to figure out the audience and all that jazz.

It does. Yeah. Yeah, it does.

Crazy. So pretty simple. And then I assume they just charge you a percent or some monthly management fee or whatever, and you pay the ad spend. Yeah, yeah, most people are doing— I, again, I don't hear a lot of mortgage people today. It's mostly IUL, vets, truckers, some nurses. I hear that a lot.

I, I love—

I love mortgage. Oh, you still— do you sell a lot of cashback stuff?

A little bit for younger people. Yeah, I, I do. I have a cashback ad So for people who are a little bit younger, I do a lot of cashback still. I explain to them the difference between an IUL and a cashback, but some people aren't interested in IUL and that's okay. I'm really big on, you know, provide the value where you can, explain to them their options. But if you're talking to someone who's young, healthy, they've got the money to spend, get them what they want. Because if you try to talk to like talk someone into, for example, an IUL, which is a great product. I recommend it to everybody. And sometimes I stack my mortgage protection sales with an IUL. But when it comes to like getting people what they want, I've talked to so many people, like mortgage protection leads who call me and they say, I talked to this person, they sold me this thing called an IUL, I do not want it. That's not what I want. And I'm like, okay, well, let's talk about that. So I think it's really important if someone's young, healthy, they've got the money to spend, you, you make sure they know what's available to them because you don't want to just completely limit their viewpoint on what they can get and not educate your client. But if you're presenting an IUL or a cashback option, they say the cashback is really what I need because I only need something for 20 years, I like the fact that I can't like plug into the money, I don't really need like something like an IUL, doesn't sit right with me, that's okay, that's what we'll get for you. So it's about—

can Can you give me the version how you explain it to them, the difference?

Yeah, yeah, 100%. So when I'm getting through that needs analysis and I'm going through the initial presentation, I tell them, so John, I'm going to be pulling up a couple of different options, but I want to explain the different types of mortgage protection programs that are out there. And I'll tell you what, we work with mortgage protection-specific policies, we also work with traditional life insurance policies. So I'm going to throw a couple of different options out here at you. We'll figure out which one's going to be putting you in the best spot for ultimately your long-term and your short-term goals. So what you filled this out for was a cash-back mortgage protection term policy. That's something that we definitely can look at for you. But on the flip side, if you're looking for something who— that is going to be a little bit more flexible, you're not going to have to worry about it. Again, it's pretty much permanent as long as you fund it correctly. And it's something that even after the mortgage is gone, you're not going to have it just cancel on you. You're not going to get the money back, but you you have the money in there that you can pull out at any time, is that something that would make sense for us to look into as well? It's more of a traditional life insurance policy, but if it's something that we can qualify you for, is it something that would make sense to look at instead of a typical mortgage protection plan? Some people say no, let's stick with that. I'll be like, okay, that's called an indexed universal life. I'll send you some information on it. If it's something that you end up wanting to look into, we can always stack it with your mortgage protection. Um, but some people are like, yeah, let's look into that. And some people, especially younger people, have seen IUL videos, they've seen it on Instagram, so they're interested in looking into it. Um, so I've definitely, with mortgage protection leads, I've either stacked a lot or I've had like an IUL flip where it turns into like a whole Zoom meeting, they're funding it, $500, $1,000 a month, then, you know, we get them set up in a different way.

So what's your favorite IUL product to sell?

I don't know if I'm going to be a fan favorite for this one. I still, I still love NLG. I think that I love NLG. I think, and I mean, I think it's just maybe because I'm a creature of habit. That's what I learned on. But I really like NLG has a couple of little things that I think set it apart with, with my clients specifically. I've just had a great experience with their customer service, their sales desk. Clients call NLG and they get answers immediately. And so I've had a great experience with them.

So I would say I hear all kinds of good things about it. I know a lot of people that write the snot out of it. Why do you think? I want to know why. Why? Who would think it's not a fan favorite? I want to know.

I have, I've got a lot of people in my office that they love a couple of the new companies that we're starting to work with, which is great. I think they're all great. It's all about finding what you're comfortable with. And, you know, I think confidence goes a long way on the phone. And so if I'm telling a client, you know, I have my own IUL with NLG, I've worked with them for years, I love the company, then they're going to trust you and, and believe you.

Sean's always told us the only wrong coverage is no coverage. Exactly. Yeah, it's like they got some— there's pros and cons to every plan. It is what it is, you know. So it is, it's figuring Hey, they're covered. Life is good and they're happy.

Keep it.

Yeah, that's good shit. I love it. I love it. Cool. Um, all right, anything that you should— you think that you would love to share that you normally share that you think is important that I just didn't fucking ask you because I don't know anyone?

I, I think we covered a lot about the sales stuff. That's really— I mean, I really focus on sales. I focus on the sales process. And like I said, it, it took me a long time to, um, to recruit and start training agents myself. But I always tell everybody, I think it's important to be an employee to yourself before you're a business owner, before you're an agency owner, before you're any of those things in the life insurance space. You've got to be an employee to you. And so a lot of foundation is having, one, a strict schedule, but two, you know, having that sales like knowledge. You can't come in and, and not sell a policy and expect to teach 100 other people how to sell insurance. You've got to sell insurance to be able to teach other people how to do it. So for me personally, I think it's a mix of being blessed with great agents coming on my team, but I think also a lot of that sales foundation has helped me teach a lot of agents to sell at a high level. And, you know, just completely blessed. I've got 2 agents that are hitting Hall of Fame this year, so it makes me really proud. Who's hitting it? Um, Eli Barber and Adam Abelman.

Okay, hell yeah, congrats! I love it, it's good stuff. It's always fun when you start getting others to get to that level.

It's like, oh yeah, yeah. I, I tell people when I go on like opportunity calls, recruiting calls, I'm like, I've got agents on my team that have made a lot more money than I do in a month just from selling. You know, there's nothing more like, um, there's nothing that makes you feel just more right in the opportunity that you chose and seeing that when someone comes in and trusts you with this opportunity and really makes it work for themselves.

Yeah, it's, it's neat to see how it plays out long term. I've been doing a long time now. We've seen some cool stories play out. It's like, holy smokes, I played a little piece in it, but they— we have so many good people that take it and run with it.

Oh yeah, oh yeah, 100%.

I love it. Well, I appreciate your time and Appreciate you getting on and sharing and taking some time out of your day. If I can help you with anything along your way in your journey, let me know, please. And say what's up to your crew out there.

I will. Thank you, John. I appreciate it.

You're very welcome. Good to have you on. Appreciate your time. 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. If you're, if you're watching on YouTube, 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.