This Insurance Sales Training Will Make You $100,000 (Double Your Income) ft. Sales Experts | Ep35

What's up, y'all? John Wetmore. Welcome back to another episode of the Insurance Insiders Podcast. Today we decided to do something really cool. Um, we've done over 30 episodes so far, learned some really cool stuff about some dope people in the industry. And, um, one of the most viewed episodes typically is based around sales stuff. A lot of y'all looking for scripting and sales techniques and questions to ask and closings and all this stuff. So we decided we're going to take a few of the most popular episodes, that are very heavily sales-based, mash them up all together and put them into one cool episode for those of y'all that haven't seen them all. This would be like the highlight reel of some of the best episodes and best players we've had on the podcast. So hope you enjoy it and, uh, look forward to seeing you on the next.

So what's—

let's get into some of the stuff then that you actually— like, your version of mine is just getting people to move. Same concept, we're on the same page there. So I would love to hear how you This may be some of the things you started implementing, whether on the phone— is it all— do you all telesales?

Yeah.

Have you ever been in home or never?

Never face-to-face, but for one of my IMOs, we did like the Zoom thing. So I would, I would get them in Zoom.

OK, cool.

So it's kind of halfway to face-to-face.

Is it mostly one-call-close stuff, I'm assuming?

Not the Zoom thing.

Oh, currently?

Currently, yeah, one-call-close kind of thing.

Yeah.

OK. Well, let's get in. Let's give me some of the stuff that helped you move people, wherever you want to start.

Yeah, um, you know, it's initially for me, um, what I do is I lay down the groundwork first, and I need to get them to agree that they are looking for the thing that they raised their hand for.

So right when you call them?

Yeah, right when I call, I get them to verify their zip code, um, and then immediately, are we looking for coverage for you, or was this for a loved one? It's like my—

that's it.

You call, hey John, this— give it, give it to him. Like, what would you say?

Yeah, hey John, this is Ashley. I was just giving you a call back here on recorded line with the final expense price quote you requested on Facebook. Your zip code is 12345, is that right?

Yep.

Okay, are you looking for yourself or was this for a loved one?

Okay, what do you— what's the most common objection you get there? Like, huh, who is this? I'm assuming—

well, I mean, no, I don't, I don't get a lot of those objections anymore because I've honed in on my marketing and my—

the wording's dope too. I like the way you worded it about the life insurance.

I mean, I want to be assertive. You want to go in— I don't like small talk. I don't like, you know, the whole— I know a lot of people out there, they do the whole confusion thing. They're like, hey, uh, John, John, is that—

what, that's minor?

Legit?

Yeah, so that is minor. I don't care.

I don't like that either.

I don't think it projects well, especially in telesales. It's not I don't advise— I hear a lot of agents do it too. I've been in a lot of Zoom rooms, I've heard a lot of calls, and agents like to play the dumbfoundedness. These seniors have been around a long time.

If you're in the final expense field, uh, they don't want to waste the way you did. I just did date of birth instead of zip code. It was the same, and that was my first pause, was date of birth is this right? Yeah, you're like, yeah, all right, so cool. Then if it's me or spouse, I tell you, what if I go, it's just for me?

Okay, that's great. Are you looking just to cover the final expenses or we're trying to leave some extra I love you money?

Um, probably kind of depends on pricing.

Yeah, sure, that's not a problem. Now here's what I do with pricing. I always take that as an objection, beginning, middle, or end. So I always confront it up front and I let them know, hey John, that's not a problem. Just so you know, most of all the families I help, they're on a fixed income. They're either receiving Social Security or disability. The goal is to always make sure something is comfortable and affordable. Now, do you currently have anything in place to help cover the final expenses or not yet? And I'm into the next question.

Yeah. Okay. Love it.

So it goes far. If you're in final expense, any time they bring up anything related to money, doesn't sound like an objection. That is an objection. You need to squash it.

Yeah, 100%. Yeah, you cover it, but move on with another question.

Yes. You don't linger in that stuff too long. You remember you got the doctor coat on.

So you don't go, does that make sense? Does that work for you?

No, no, no. Yeah, does your doctor ask you when, when, you know, they like tap on your knee and they're like, does that make sense why I'm doing this for you right now? It's like, no, no, no, no, no. Be the person of authority.

Okay, cool. So now I'm in, we move on to the next. You get me there?

Um, yeah. And then so, you know, do you have anything in place currently or not yet?

Say no for this example.

Okay, yeah, that's not—

or whichever one you think is— the people watching are gonna complain is the hardest one if I give the wrong one. They'll be like, that's an easy one. Give them like— you pick the hardest way to go.

Um, I, I mean, I don't know. I guess you can say that you do have some coverage in place.

Perfect.

All right, go for it.

So that's great. Are you looking to add to what you got, or are you trying to find something more affordable? And I'm trying to figure out exactly why I'm on the call with them. So my entire first 30 seconds of the goal of the call is I need to know exactly why we're talking So I know exactly how to help you, because if you're on the call and if you're not answering these questions, I can tell right away if you're a tire kicker. I know if you're a buyer, um, and then I'm also asserting my authority by asking these questions very blatantly. Now, I don't do what a lot of people do out there. I don't go digging. If you already have something in place, John, that's great. You want to add to find something more affordable, you tell me what you're doing, and then I'm going into the next thing to let you know how I'm going to help you. I don't know you yet. You don't trust me yet. I'm not trying to be like, well, who's your carrier? How much coverage do you got? People get defensive. They think that you're some salesmen and you're going to try to steer them wrong if they give away their information. So it's like Jeremy Lee says, right? We're lowering the sales resistance the whole time. I just genuinely want to know because here's the thing. Me personally, if you tell me, well, I just want something more affordable, hey, that's not a problem. I work with over 26 different carriers. The way I'm going to help you, we're going to see who you're eligible for. We're going to then see who's giving you the best rate, but I can get answers on the phone. Would that be helpful? They give me a yes, that is a permission to pitch. And if they want something more affordable, I'm skipping everything. I don't even go into pain or discovery because this is a numbers game now. And I either got the thing that you want or I don't, right?

That's my jam right there. Yeah, I love it. I love it. And you didn't even talk about what they have yet.

You deal with it later?

No.

Yeah, I will bring that up. So, right, because from right there you're going to pivot into underwriting, right? You got to figure out which carrier to go.

Most people are going to go, like you said, what's— how much are you paying? Who's it with?

How long have you had it? Right off the rip.

They get so defensive, they'll lose them.

Smart.

Okay, didn't mean to interrupt you. Go ahead.

No, that's okay. Um, I think I kind of finished the thought on that one. I mean, just the quote, if that's kind of the journey.

You're going right into it. All right, now you start asking medical questions to understand.

Yeah, if I'm trying to replace it, I ask the medical questions. Right after I ask medical questions, I always text a copy of my digital card. I let them know, with the way of the world, it's important you know who you're talking to before, you know, I start giving you too much stuff here. And then I just re-highlight— they have my license number, photo of my face, um, and it's the way you say that, that's important. I've also heard agents try to be like You have a pen and paper so you can, you know, kind of take down my information. If you seem uncertain about sharing your own personal information, no one's going to trust you.

Yeah.

So it's again, it's the tonality. Listen to yourself on the calls. Make sure you don't sound like a creeper, someone that can't be trusted. But so, you know, I'll share that information and then if they want a quote by then with my tonality and the way I walk people through, I will ask the question at that time. Okay. With the coverage you have in place, I know we're trying to get something more affordable. How long have you had it? And then I'll start asking questions about it. And then sometimes, honestly, I can't beat it. And I'm straight up with people. I mean, it's— and by the time I get there, what, we're 3 minutes in, I've not wasted anyone's time. And I'm like, hey, I can't help you out here. I cut bait and then I'm on the next.

I love it.

And other times I can quote better. And then other times, if they don't have a policy in place or they want to add to it, then after I give all that information, then I'm moving into kind of the pain and the discovery a little bit after I share my card. Yeah.

Were you always in and out like that, or did— were you early on? Like, I hear agents all the time, they're like, I'm 45 minutes on the phone before I even get pricing or get to that state, you know what I mean?

That used to be me in the beginning. Oh yeah, I've had those long scripts, those long scripts, and it is so painful, especially when you get hit with the objections at the end and then you're just like, oh, the time. So right now, even if I need to get someone through all of the pain, all the discovery, I mean, I am— I literally, it's like you walk into my doctor's office and I'm boom, boom, boom, boom. I know exactly where you need to go. I know exactly how I'm going to help you. I know exactly like the solution you need. So I'm very much guiding in the entire conversation. I maintain control the whole time. So I find myself sometimes I can get from the pick up the phone. Hi John, how are you doing? You have no coverage. Here's your pain. Here's your numbers. Through an entire application in like 30 minutes.

Yeah, agreed.

It shouldn't— if you're still talking and wining and dining for 45 minutes, like, there's a problem. It's not— it doesn't take that long to make that kind of decision.

What do you think, from your perspective, you would— what was, what was all— what was causing all the time before? What were you— would you get rid of? Would you eliminate? You know what I mean? Like, what were you dragging your feet on before?

Looking back on it, I was, I was doing the whole got to get to know them, got to build rapport, you know, got to hear their story. You should share your story. And people now know. I tell you what, you can call up any one of my clients and they have no idea like anything about me. They don't know that I have kids. They don't know that my, you know, so-and-so has cancer. A lot of people are like, oh yeah, my family member, my mom, my this, my dad. Oh, I understand. I used to. My people don't know that about me because it's not important. Like, they're calling and I'm here to fill a need for them. So I just, I omitted a lot of the small talk. And now it's funny because when I run into family members on the call, the ones that start the small talk and they go off into left field, I know that I have to snap them back real quick because those people, they're not buyers, they're tire kickers.

Yeah.

And I can recognize that now, you know.

But how do you do it?

How do you bring someone back to life when they're going off about their 5 grandkids that they took to Disney last year and they, you know, bought some bubble gum and whatever?

That's a good question. So, um, again, I am— I'm very particular about my script. My script's always open next to me. I always know where I'm at, and I never move on to the next section until I've completed the section I'm in, because there's a meaning behind each section. So wherever they're getting sidetracked off of, I'm I will interject and kind of roll in and kind of finish their sentence with them. Like, okay, yeah, the grandkids throwing ball. My gosh, that's crazy. But hey, real quick question. Was your date of birth 12/20 or was that 12/25? I missed that. I'm so sorry. They give me an answer and you have to be so quick with the next question. Like you need to be comfortable in your script because when people throw you and they try to get you off track, you have to like be very, very stern with them. There's been a couple of times, I'd say a couple times, two times in particular that I can think of where I literally had to do the, I'm talking and I hang up the phone to make it seem like I got disconnected. And that, that was so hard for me to do because I'm not built like that. And that internally, I felt so bad when I got off the call when I first— and it was funny because I was, uh, I was chatting with my, uh, coach at the time. I was like, oh my gosh, I can't I cannot get this person, like, I could not move them over, and I knew I just needed to cut bait. And then they had texted me back and they said, well, just start talking and hang up on yourself. And I'm like, I was like, okay, I mean, I'll try that.

Boop.

Oops, sorry, Mary, we got disconnected. So anyway, your date of birth is—

yes, exactly, get them back on track. That's like, if you're really, really— that's a tactic. You really need help.

True, it's the inside secrets right there. Yeah, I love it, I love it. Cool. All right, so you get all— you get all the way down there. I think from there people's real struggle is like closing a deal, getting social, getting banking, you know what I mean? You hear all that crap a lot. Um, so let's figure out how the hell you do that.

Yeah, Sonny, I actually just had an agent day before yesterday message me about that. He was asking me about banking and how I word it. Like, how— what's your track? How do you get banking, Ashley?

I love—

I already know where you're going, and I love it.

Uh, you know, there, there is no track. It's all coming from the front end. It's the trust and the, uh, you know, the, the journey that I take people through. There's never a question when I'm in an app. I don't get— they know that they're gonna buy the thing. Like, there's nothing gray about the situation. So, you know, when, when I'm in an app, I don't have— I don't say anything for banking. I literally am in the app and I'm like, okay, are you setting this up, you know, through your checking, your savings account? How are we going to do this today? You know, like, it's not—

you mean just like the question asks?

I just— here's the application, we're going through the application. Um, one word track that I will share though that I use, um, even if I have really good you know, solid rapport, I find that this is very necessary, is the social. So I do have a script— well, not even a script, but it's just the word track that I say. So I'll let them know what I do whenever I'm in an application with whichever carrier. I'll ask everything else on that page but the social. I get them in like a mode of like giving me information, their address, where were they born, you know, that kind of thing. And then I let them know, okay, John, so The way this carrier is going to give us a decision today on whether you're approved or declined is they're going to do what they call a prescription check. So what they're doing is they're looking back 2 years, hospitalizations, diagnoses, any medications that you might be taking. Uh, really they're just trying to make sure that you're not currently like tied up in a hospital bed or taking chemo radiation therapy. So for your prescription check, what's your social? And then they give me their social. So I find that when you explain to them upfront why you're asking for the social, it— and again, it probably helps me a lot because there's this path that I've brought them down, right? They know I'm the person of authority, they know what I'm talking about, and they know that I have the solution for them. So when I continue on with the doctor's code, okay, so what we're gonna do is a prescription check. We're looking back 2 years. This is how we're going to get an answer. So for that prescription check, what is your social? Like, that is how I approach it. I don't skip a beat. I don't make it awkward. Very matter of the fact. And it actually wasn't until recently I was talking to one of the directors of sales at one of these other IMOs too. It's not even like— I didn't realize that just the address and the name alone, they can find the prescription check. I genuinely thought the social had to be used for the script check, and they don't. But I haven't changed my WordTrack because it works.

Yeah, 100%. 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 wanna 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. 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. I don't know, I can't name a person in 12 years that out the gate ran as many appointments as you did consistently. I don't have your— and I don't know a close second, to be honest. Like, out the gate and stuck with it. I've had people do it and then bail, you know what I mean? But I don't know that you ever stopped. I think you still do outwork most people.

Yeah. And, and, uh, you know, the, the nice thing is if you do all of that stuff early and like you give it up and you put it in and you keep the appointment count high— the dude, the biggest problem that people have is they develop a skill set and they change their schedule like they're freaking Zuckerberg all of a sudden in the bank. They're like, oh dude, nope, just had a $23K month in gross sales, so 'You know, basically I've figured this out,' you know, and then their whole thing changes. That dude, if I will give my credit for anything early, like I did have a lot of appointments, not that they went great, but once I learned the insurance sale, the only separator was I never fixed or I never changed my calendar, dude. I had 38 to 44 appointments for 2 and a half years. I didn't change it and I never missed, ever. Never in 2 and a half years missed 38 to 44. And that's like, think about how good your skills go up your first 6 to 12 months, and now you're in month 12 like, dude, I— how can I possibly get better? And then you find, because of the volume, one small adjustment that takes you from 93 to 104, and then 107, and then 127. You know, like, that was the changes, was just the skill set. I got better at finding money and all that stuff, um, but the schedule was locked, dude. That was very helpful.

Let's, let's let it— I want to hear it.

So early, early schedule, in-home stuff. It's Monday, Thursday is dial day. So, um, I was a pretty large fan of trying to abuse the weekends to get some supplemental production in. In the beginning, it was non-negotiable. Like, I door knocked 12 hours every Sunday for my first 3 months because I'm like, obviously, you know, I don't have anything and all my cards are getting turned off. So like, I'm door knocking to try to like get enough wiggle room not to pay rent, to buy some more leads the next week and give it another rip. Um, so that, like, I was never worried about— I was going to figure it out eventually. At least that's what I conned myself into believing, which, you know, thankfully worked out long term. But dude, Monday was, you know, dial as hard as you can. It's always like, how fast can I book 22 appointments? You know, because if I've got 11 lined up, well dude, let's talk about that adjustment first. Because I was having appointment days where I would stack 14 appointments in a day where I'm like double and stacking all these hours. And like, and then you're like, hey dude, you, you sat with 6 last week out of 52. Like, maybe we cut some of the BS appointments out and like, let's try to figure out schedule-wise like who's going to be around that you got a shot of seeing. So I went down to having 11 appointments a day, which I think is like 8 to 8:30, every hour and 15 minutes you can book 11. So I was running 8 AM was my first one, 8:30 was my last one historically, like consistently. And then if I could sneak like a 6:30 or 7 in, I would always pitch like a, like a 6 to 6:30 AM appointment, especially on travel trips. Cause I'm like, dude, I'm already out here. What am I going to do anyway? I mean, I might as well see if someone will let me in the door at 6 AM. And Albuquerque was kind of like the only place that would consistently let me— I never— I always, almost always had a 6 AM appointment in Albuquerque when I was running out there. Don't have no idea why that is, it just worked out that way. So that was my— I would dial, you know, sometimes it would take me, you know, early, it would take until like 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 at night to get my schedule stacked. And then once I had like a blend of leads for like, hey, we're doing some final expense and some mortgage protection paper, like those are so easy to book. Like, I would— when I was flying to Montana on my travel trips, dude, I would have 29 appointments before 11:30 in the morning, and direct mail leads booked, ready to roll, before I took my flight out. So I drive to DIA because I couldn't afford the flight out of Springs. I would get there at 6 o'clock, get all my stuff set up in a tiny corner in the airport, and I would just hard dial until 11:30. I would always book my flights between 1 and 3 PM because because like that was my, you know, 1 to 3, 1 to 4, where I was like, hey, it's quieter dial time. So if my schedule's not full, I can land, you know, get to my parents' house because that's where I'm from, and then finish my schedule. Um, but that was non-stop, 11 appointments, you know, 4 days a week. That's my 44. And then, you know, if I'm traveling, I'm going to swing Sunday appointments, of course, or I would use Sunday as a dial day for Monday and Tuesday, and then I would fly back Wednesday. And get ready to fly to my next location, you know, same day or the next day.

How often did you sell at home versus travel? Um, early, the first couple years.

First year, um, I was— I only was going to Montana for travel trips my first year. So everything I was doing was I was ordering like Facebook leads in different areas of Colorado. Like, I didn't do— this is hilarious— I didn't know I could order leads where I lived. So my first 2 months, I'm driving to Fort— that's like 3 hours to drive, and I'm ordering leads 3 hours from my house for Facebook leads. I'm booking, I'm driving all the way up there, not selling anything. So I get back, you know, last appointment's at 8, no-show obviously, get home at 11, and then I'm back up to, you know, Fort Collins, Greeley, you know, super northern Colorado. So then they're like, well, you— why don't you order them where you live? And I'm like, it's been sick information. Like 2 months ago, if you guys were wondering, um, found out I could order local. So I started doing like a split of going to Denver and then going like way north and then running some home and then running southern Colorado. So tons and tons of drive time. Um, I was home a lot my first year as far as like being home every night except for like my Montana travel trip. Um, that's— yeah, year, year 2 to 3 is where we like went into this crazy direct mail hunt where we found out like, hey, these— I like to book these, these are nice. And I will just spend, you know, $25,000 a month on leads and I'll fly all over the country and spend another $20,000 traveling and, you know, I'll sell $120,000 and life's gonna be sick. It's gonna be great. And that's kind of what we did for a few years after that. Um, but yeah, first year was like lots of final expense Facebook stuff with like a little splash of mortgage towards like the very end of the year.

Yeah, I love how casually, for those that were like, wait, what? Or have to rewind, let's spend $45,000 a month to make $120,000. Life is good.

That's a good exchange.

Hell yeah, it is. Yeah, you're kidding me.

You want to talk about performance pressure, bro? You fly out somewhere and you're, you're $5,000 in when you show up. So like, you've got to sell 5 to go neutral. And that was pretty much like, that was it, you know? You always were gonna have to— your first 5 was like, okay, trip's paid for, profit.

Yeah. What made you go as hard as you did? And see, like, what were you thinking the whole time?

Um, I would say it was a, it was a couple of different things, dude. So Initially, it was like, you know, Zach was like the guy I was running with at the time, you know. So you wanna— and dude, how lucky is that, by the way? Like, I just unintentionally happen to work with this guy who's like so insanely messed up in his brain like me, where he's like, well dude, why don't we just not take any days off for like 3 years and then we'll have big companies, that'd be sick. And I was like, oh, that sounds good, um, I'm super down. And then, you know, since he had already— he was like, uh, maybe what, a year and a half like in front of when I started. Yeah. So, you know, I mean, when I— when we linked, he was doing like 100, and he had hit VP, and then they were doing like 110, 120 a month, um, as a group, like when we first connected.

And he was probably doing 40 of it plus, right? 40, 50 of it. Yeah, I was doing 40 to 50 of it. So we had like 4 guys, you're saying? Yeah, yeah.

So like, let's just say there's 5 of us total.

Yep.

Um, and you know, kind of one of those like— thankfully I was so moldable. But dude, I've, I've had 70-hour-a-week jobs since I was 12 years old. Like, I got my first full-time job at 12 working on somebody else's farm, picking up heavy shit and moving it around all day. It's like, it sucked, and they paid us no money. So I'm like, all right, so I've been working 70 hours a week since I was 12. That was, you know, X amount of years ago. You're telling me that if we just do a really good job at this they're gonna pay us like this kind of money. I was like, I don't understand what the complaint's about, I'm totally down. So initially it was financially is why I came and worked so hard, because I was like, I'm gonna make money. And I'm, I'm by far like the least intelligent in my friend group. Like, they're all medical field dudes, like dental practice, doctors. Like, all these guys are super smart that were my college roommates.

Got it.

And then I'm like, I'm kind of here to do sports, and if I graduate That's pretty awesome. Um, yeah, which, you know, so I found this and I was like, dude, this is what they get. All that smack talking about like how I'm the dumb one. Like, dude, I'm about to make so much money and I am going to absolutely bring it up every chance I get to see them. You know, it's kind of like give this big F you to outside people. So money was a big motivator early. Um, wanting to be a good partner to Zach and like plug in and learn and move with him, uh, was another big motivator. And then I, you know, I made Lindsay, my now wife, um, a promise when I got into this thing. And I was like, I don't really know if any of the information I'm getting is accurate because I, I knew nothing about the industry, nothing about the company. I was like, if these people that I'm talking to and met are actually selling at this scale, like, I don't know if you remember talking to Zach in 2019 versus talking to him now. Lot different person.

Oh yeah.

So I'm like, this is the guy that everybody's talking about, the company, like this young hungry killer. And it was like Zach, who was awkward to be around. And I was like, if this is the dude, we are going to be having a crazy life ahead of us if I can figure this stuff out, you know. And so that was my pitch to her. It was like, if, if he is doing it— and I met this, I met two other Hall of Fame producers including you at that first meeting I went to two weeks in flew out to South, South Carolina, maybe wherever the meeting was.

You were at that one? Yeah, that's— I have memories of that one with Sean and Zach meeting out there.

Oh yeah, yeah, Athena and Josh were there, like, you know, flew out and met with all those guys.

I didn't realize that was your first one. Got it.

First one ever, dude. 14 days in, flew out there. Um, okay, so I got out there. Yeah, and I met these people that were clipping 2, 3, 400. Um, I met you and you're like Yep, accounting background, got a big business, Hall of Fame producer. I'm like, dude, it's just like a bunch of nerds. Like, this is just like a bunch of weird smart people that, like, I've always felt like I had relatively good social skills because I've all just, like, I've always been that kind of a personality, like wanting to make friends, be loud, talk to people, and, you know, make the funny stuff, you know, here and there or whatever. So I was like, I just, like, I had so much belief that I was going to be able to figure it out. Um, so promising, um, knowing the kind of money that you can do in the space, like if you can figure it out how to execute financially at a high level, like the, the money can be so obnoxious. And we are 1/10,000th of the way into like what an insurance career can be, where we're at today. Like we are scratching what this thing can do. So, uh, those were some big, big factors.

I think it's funny that people just look at the initial work and they're like, even if you— because, you know, you get some people are like, for the money, I wouldn't even work that hard, you know what I mean? My family and I, blah, I'm tired, all the stuff. But I think they missed the foundation you set up, you know what I mean? And the example you provided, because you're— your top year was at $960, $960 G's on your own pen.

Just $940 technically was the first, was my biggest. Individual year.

How much have you sold on your own pen total? Do you know, like, how much? Do you have any idea?

Oh dude, I've got to be like, uh, 3.5, 4.5 million. I think between 3.5 and 4 million total sales since 2019.

Personal pen?

Yeah.

That'll change your life a little bit.

I was making $43 grand a year in corporate rental car stuff before, so, you know, again, 70-hour-a-week gig, dude.

Yeah, crazy.

What's the team? What's—

so you talked about where you're at today, being a small piece. Where you at today?

Um, so this will be our third year that we have a group doing over $10 million a year. Um, our, our biggest year, $17.5 million as a, as a little company. Um, for what we've done, uh, so far. And I feel like, one, I think this is my favorite part, is, dude, think about how many people have quit that were like significantly better and bigger than I was early. Like all of them. And I'm just like, losers. No, no offense.

Like, dude, thanks for quitting.

Dude, all you literally have to do— like, you've gone through it, I've gone through it. Like, dude, there's these like Mount Everest peaks where you're like, it could not possibly get any better for me right now. And then you just get freight trained and ran over, and then it drags you for hundreds of miles. Then you're like, okay, well, the good news is if I just figure out like, hey, the industry is changing, here's some adjustments I need to make. Um, I'm gonna, you know, if you ever want to check on what you're doing in your business, John's a great guy to call if you guys are wondering, because he'll basically punch you in the face with like stats, and then you're like, damn, I'm really not doing anything on this part of the business. It makes sense why we're not growing. So, which we've had that conversation a handful of times. Um, but that's, that's what makes me so excited to be here is, dude, we're still— I'm 5 years into insurance. I'm 5 years into a career.

It's insane, you know, isn't it?

Like, most people do 20 to 30. Now imagine what this thing can be in 20 years if you just— yeah, have some— like, work it consistently like a job, dude.

Yeah, I know people, and I've met people. You see, I speak at a lot of events and shit, dude. I meet a lot of people that have been in the business 20-plus years, and they still have to sell every week to pay their bills. Like, and they ain't living like High Level, you know what I mean? It's like just getting by kind of stuff. And I'm like, nah, you, you went at this the wrong way, you know. Or be satisfied with it and don't bitch, you know. I mean, I ain't mad if you don't want to do— just don't complain about it, you know. I remember though, 2019 was a big year for us, dude. We blew up that year. A lot of y'all, a lot of y'all really figured this thing out that year. Um, certainly I had to, I had to make a lot of changes, and— but we, we tripled in volume that year. With a lot of y'all breaking out all at the same time. And it was a, that was a big year for us as a total group.

I felt like you— there was a 2-year stretch where like, that was like, everybody was just dialed for like 2 years.

Yeah, it was nice.

And that was a big— the needle was moving massively. That was fun.

It was never— it was funny on my end. It was like, because we had a pretty good— I was I had been printing money for like 2 and a half years, 3 years prior to that. But everyone I thought that was going to be there and build it big in, say, '17, '18, who really popped in in '19, '20, '21, it wasn't anyone I thought it was going to be. It was all, yo, like, y'all didn't— y'all weren't even here yet, you know what I mean? And I had managers, if you will, trying to say they were going to do stuff, and the ones I thought were gonna pop Dude, it was like, it was all these new people that came up from continued hiring and recruiting and others and referrals and warm market hires and stuff like that. And it was like, whoa, I didn't see that coming.

And dude, was that hard? Like, was that a hard thing for you to figure out? Is the, like, you just wait, guys. Like, dude, you have no idea what I'm about to do here.

Yeah, it was, um, it was wild, dude, because I had so much. And you, I know you've understand this piece. Like, I had— I saw so much potential in people, you know what I mean? And I was trying to get so many more people to buy in and have the belief that you did, but I was doing it— I didn't know it at the time, but I was trying to stretch the wrong people because they verbally said they wanted maybe some of the financial stuff I was able to have. And others, you know, I mean, it's not like I— hell, I learned this from so many people, same as you. I'm a student of the game, um, you know, and sort of made it my own. But you know what was hard was like pulling away from those people because they weren't changing and evolving or really listening, and, and, and putting my time, energy, and attention into others, and kind of the fallout of some relationships in that sense, you know what I mean? Because it was like, oh, John's not always there every day anymore, you know what I mean? I had to like distance because people aren't changing. And I had to learn how to articulate, like, dude, if you're not coachable, like, I'm not trying to be an asshole, but I'm trying to build something. What do we talk for? And I probably did a poor job of expressing that in a lot of ways, you know what I mean? But that was hard, that transition from like kind of the old crew to the new crew. That was, that was tough, dude. Um, and I probably handled it wrong in a lot of ways, but, you know, live and learn in a sense. I don't, I don't fully regret it because I learned a lot about people though. That was the hardest for me, was people I had friendships with and relationships with that just, they hit their ceiling, you know what I mean? Their vision wasn't any further. Um, so that was, that was tough, dude. That was, that was a tough couple years in that sense.

So I think the, you know, your— my belief now in others is built on effort instead of verbiage, which, amen. You know, to your point though, one of the, the hardest part is you, you see like all this potential. Like, dude, I— and it's because like we're like, dude, if, if we're figuring out how to do this on any scale, like all you have to do is do these exact things for such a tiny window of time, you know. And the— when I was at the height of my travel schedule, like 2021, actually halfway through 2020, all the way through 2021, that, that 18-month window, I was gone every weekend, dude, from home. I was home Wednesdays for 18 months. I was gone, you know. So I'd see Lindsay once a week, and then, you know, if I had a home run weekend, which was rare, then we would have date night on Friday. But it was pretty much like, hey, I'm going to be home, you know, either late Tuesday or Wednesday, so that's one of those days we need to figure out our stuff. Those are some of my best memories because it was so difficult, and you were so vested in like, I'll do anything to make this thing work. Like, I built a lot of really cool memories traveling all over the country just to sell to Amish people in Pennsylvania. Like, that's a staple memory I get to have forever. I would never have gone out there before, and now I've seen all these crazy places and met all these people. So I think the pursuit of— look, people are just on the hunt for this massive result, and I didn't probably do as good a job of it as I could have at the time. I was like, dude, this is so crazy fun that I get to just buy plane tickets, fly over the country, come home with $20 grand a weekend. Like, dude, this is actually really fun stuff, you know. You don't have much personal time then, but— and dude, that is like some of the peak enjoyment that I've had since I've been here was when it was just hard and fast every day, non-stop, relentless business sales, business sales recruiting. I mean, it was so much fun.

So when you were, when you were $10K a month, that was— you mentioned that like 6 months in, 4 months in, whatever date you said— that was straight door knock time, right, man?

So I'll really just go out there. So I like, at that time I was buying direct mail leads. Yeah, be in current order. The cool thing about that time, you know, direct mail leads will be on a recurring order. I think right now the industry is more, you know, digital, like Facebook lead transfer stuff like that, but at that time, man, like, the direct mail lead order was going to come out of your account. You had to buy the leads every single week no matter what. So like, you were forced to buy leads, or if you stopped it, it would put you in a bad spot because then you wouldn't have the lead flow coming in consistently.

So that concept ain't changed, bro. That concept's still the same. What I wanted to do, just because not a lot of people have experience in it. I, I grew up in the business door knocking, bro. I did. I was trying to book appointments, but I was scared of the phone. I wasn't that good at it. And so I door knocked a lot, dude. I sold a ton of insurance knocking on doors. So I'd love to hear just a quick little quote unquote— we're going to use magic words— like the script you, you know what I mean? But just how do people make 10G if they want to bang on doors? Because for sure, dude, I send people still to this day. We just put out a video yesterday. Yeah, it won't be yesterday by the time this comes out. Yeah, real time, me and you talking, it went out yesterday. And a girl came to, uh, our, our, my event here. I do these like sales events here in my office. And, uh, she was struggling with money, dude. And I was like, hey, go out, knock on doors in my office complex.

Yeah.

And see, and I'm telling you, you'll get some. She made a sale there. And then I taught her to do it, how to do it. But I want to hear yours, so I'm not going to say mine.

Yeah, for sure.

Um, and dude, she was trying to deal with— she had a financial issue she had to pay off like ASAP. Yeah, made like $3,500, dude, the next day. That's simple, man, on a cold door knock, bro. Won't even leads, man. Yeah, so I would love to hear your approach. What up, y'all? Officially releasing my book. You can go on and order it now at johnwetmore.com or click the link below. That's where I go over the 6 basic principles I implemented to go from a struggling agent for my first couple years to issuing nearly half a million bucks a month. And go through stories and examples and exercises that you can do to implement for yourself. Appreciate it. Again, JohnWetmore.com, get yours.

Later. So I actually got my, my actual binder here, man. I got it here somewhere. Look at that, I came prepared, man. Um, so I knocked the house, so I'll say, hey, Mr., Miss Shirley. Hey, Miss Shirley. They'll say, hey, my name is Michael. I'm with Senior Benefits here in Ohio. Then I show the lead. So you requested information about final expense coverage. I was just told to stop by to see what you qualify for. Where can we sit? Once I say, where can we sit? I wipe my feet off and I'll lean into the house. So I show my— I'm actually meaning business here. Now, a lot of times I think for face-to-face agents, Um, a lot of the times, I'll say 80% of the time, as a face-to-face agent, when you get inside the house, you're gonna probably close on it. It's really at the door you need to overcome the silly objections. Kind of over the phone, same thing. So at the door, the objection you'll probably get is, I don't have time, or I already have insurance. And I always tell agents, like, I train agents to use the same rebuttal for both of those. And constantly It's like, like this. So they say they don't have time. Hey, I completely understand. You agree with them. Quick question for you. They say yes, and I hand the lead over to them and I say, is this your information right here? They always will say yes because usually it's their information. I say awesome. And I say, as you can see here, Miss Client, my name is Michael. And I show them my state license. My name is Michael. I'm actually a licensed agent here in Ohio. We actually got your information on our desk this morning, and I was just told to stop by for about 2 or 3 minutes to see what you qualify for. You want to sit inside? You want to sit outside? Now, obviously, I'm going to allow for the client— it's a lot more tonality, a lot more pacing, but you get the gist that I'm confirming that's their information. Now we agree, yeah, you filled this form out, and then I'm showing, hey, I'm actually a licensed agent. So I'm actually a figure of authority. And now I'm saying that someone told me to come out here, so it's not my fault. I just told them.

Yes, sir.

I'm saying, hey, 2 or 3 minutes, Miss Betty. I know you're probably watching The Price is Right on TV right now. 2 or 3 minutes. And I'm saying I'm seeing what you qualify for. People love getting qualified for things.

True.

So I use Boko's rebuttals, the same objection of I don't have time. I already have insurance because I feel like you have this, and I think both of them, you know how it is, this is a smoke screen, honestly.

Yeah, 100%. Yeah. And hey, and every agent watching this gives them to salespeople too.

Exactly, exactly, exactly. So then, um, I hop into my— I get inside the house, I go my discovery, our presentation, and client worksheet. And my discovery, man, I go with this real quick, like just I'm just fact-finding, you know, I'm just fact-finding. So my first question was going to be, were you requesting information for you or for you and someone else? Just trying to figure out, I need to have both husband and wife there to make a decision. My first question, if it's just one person there, awesome. My next question would be, were you requesting information because you have nothing in place right now? They have insurance. I'll go over some questions to ask them about their current policy. They don't have insurance, I would say, what's been stopping you? And have you got any quotes yet so far? And I go from there. After I go through that part of they have insurance or no insurance, I'll then go into ask them, have they experienced a funeral lately? Just trying to figure out, you know, hit on some pain. So has anyone passed away close to them? And I usually— clients will always try to give you, yeah, my neighbor passed away, or my friend from high school. I want mom, dad. I want someone you would literally cry about right now. So I want that person. Let's talk about that person who passed away. And do they have insurance, or do they have no insurance? And were you involved in it? And the last question I'm going to ask is, if they have no insurance, hey, if you were to pass last night, you still had no coverage, who would take care of your loved ones? Is it John? Got John. Do they have enough funds to come out of pocket for that? They do? They do not? Usually, you know, our clients, they will say they do not. And then, okay, so I'm assuming that's the reason why you want to get this policy here today, because you don't want to leave John with any kind of burden of debt. And they usually say, yeah, that's the reason why. And then, you know, go into presentation, quoting, and done deal.

Easy.

Was that good? Was that just—

yeah, no, that was perfect, dude. It's giving me flashbacks of the stuff I used to do in the house, you know what I mean?

It's what's—

what I love about this business is you don't have to invent anything. We just learned the shit from someone else who was before us, you know?

You don't, you don't.

It's good.

It's what— it's, it's the intentionality of it all. You know what I mean? It's like so many people rush through it, or they get an objection and they freak out, or they start to reason it, or they just go, okay, and they turn around, walk away. That probably happens more often than not. Yeah, you know, but you literally just pushed it aside and asked the same question again, a little bit slower and a little bit more intentional with it.

That's it, man. That's it.

How many, how many doors were you knocking when it was like getting good for you financially?

Relative—

you already said you were barely putting in the work at first when you're in the gym. So yeah, again, I know skill set gets better, it gets easier, you know what I mean? You can make a bunch of money on less. But at that kind of middle phase where you were like, oh, there's something, something starting to connect here, starting to work a little bit.

Yeah, yeah. Um, man, first of all, I was making a lot of money in the beginning. I was spending a lot of money because I was like, I never really had money before. I was spending a lot of it just fruitless, stupid stuff. But, um, I want to say when I was in my prime time years of selling, I'll say, you know, on a 15 minimum, 15, 15 on average, I would say. Because there's some days, you already know, John, you may knock on 10 doors, you get inside of all 5, 5 out of 10, everything's a long day for you that day. But I would say 15 on the day was like, man, it's not popping today, I would say 20, you know what I mean? But I feel like as a face-to-face agent, like I said, I was just door knocking. I was, I was only trained just to door knock. Yeah, I wasn't trying to find—

to like, a bunch of companies do that, dude, set appointments, stuff like—

yeah, still. Yeah, but I know for you, like, you got— I heard your story, you know, you got into a part where like you were actually like, okay, I'm trying to scale this. And you're like booking appointments, kind of pretty much picking—

I mean, ideally I didn't want to door knock forever, bro. Yeah, but I was willing to do it to pay my bills, you know what I mean? But I'm like, I mean, I want to run this route. Me and the same thing with the girl I was telling you about last week, what I add to that now is when I have agents that need to— door knocking's still an option. I don't care if it's a digital lead, you can still bang on a door, right? You know, certainly when you're working out of state, it changes it up a little bit. But, you know, for me, what I add to people who are— who, who need the money, you mean, if you're making money, it's working, don't change nothing. But if you're like, I ain't got no money, dude, if you have any kind of lead, why would you not knock on the neighbor's doors and be like, yo, I'm working with your neighbor Mike, just want to see if you need some insurance. That works, dude. And so I took her and I'm like, knock on at least 4 neighbor doors because then you can go from 15 or 20 in a day to 30, 40, 50 in a day because the drive between each knock isn't as much. It's more efficient, you know what I mean? And dude, this— the stats are out there, everyone's heard them, at how few people have enough insurance and the gobs of people that have none, you know what I mean? So like, chances are, dude, every other door you knock on, they don't got any coverage. So it's, you know what I'm saying? It's like, so for me, it's an— if you're in a position where you don't have the money You got money to invest, like, different game plan. Yeah.

And I think, I think I always tell— yes, we have a few face-to-face agents now. Yeah, a lot of our agents are doing telesales, but a few face-to-face agents down our agency. And I told them, like, the name of the game is the numbers. Like, you want to have as many leads as possible in one county, so therefore the odds are in your favor. Like, so you can have like a a bunch of digital leads or direct mail leads, whatever it is, even they're older, John, as long as they're on one time, you just drive 5 minutes, 8 minutes, 10 minutes there, like the odds are always gonna work in your favor. And I feel like if you're working from 10 to like sunset, which would be like 9 o'clock sometimes, I mean, it's almost inevitable for you not to walk into at least one or two sales just waiting to happen for you. Like, I remember one, Jalen used to do, um, we call it T-Knocks, where you do knock the house next to the lead.

Next and across.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's actually his biggest sale he's ever had to this day was off a T-Knock. He actually wrote an annuity in his first year as an agent off a house next to the lead for like almost like 9— 8 to 9 grand in income off TNOB, like 9—

heard that term before.

I like that.

Makes sense.

Yeah, yeah, I get it. Yeah, I never heard of it though. I just like get, get the neighbors around, you know what I mean? But I like it. I like it. Y'all named it.

But it was cool, like how he just like, he like, activity, like you said, activity always wins, man. So like the fact that he just went above and beyond house next to it, it's amazing.

And that's, dude, I like, I like the telesales world. What frustrates me is when people are in telesales and they don't have enough leads and then they just sit around. And I'm like, you know, you can get off your butt and go knock on their door. Yeah, you, you know what I mean? Like, there's options, dude.

Yeah.

And I just— again, if, if you, if you're making a bunch of money, who cares? Just, yeah, do you. Yeah, you know what I mean? But there's so many agents that are broke that are also unwilling to get out there because they're like, I do telesales.

Yeah.

I'm like, well, technically you don't when you're sitting down watching TV. That's not telesales. Television.

If you were to do it all over again, know what you know now, Would you do telesales or would you do face-to-face?

I loved face-to-face, dude.

Me too, man.

Um, I don't— I don't— I ain't mad at people that do telesales, but it's so different. It's so non-personable. It's just a— they can hang up on you or click to get off the Zoom so much easier. It's harder to navigate, you know what I mean? Like the, the rapport part of it and build a real— it's just different. Not that it don't work because it works. We have people printing money with it, literally, you know. Um, so I— but again, I liked the way I, I did it. And dude, face-to-face sales is never gonna go away. No, you know what I'm saying? Like, I'm— and I'm one of the least compliance-type people in the world, but yo, one change, dude, telesales or virtual sales can change in a second. Oh yeah, you know what I mean? And we used to say the same thing with direct mail. Hey, they, they changed one thing with mailing or the post office or where it can change. So I just, I think having the ability to communicate with people in person, that's a skill set, bro, that will never go unused. Yeah, I mean, it's so valuable.

I, I agree with you, man. I always tell people, and I say it in a joking way, I feel like even as face-to-face, you gotta drive to houses and stuff like that, but yes, set appointments, I feel like you could outwork a telesales agent sales-wise.

Like 100%.

And I think also the retention.

Yes.

The psychology, it obviously will be more stickier, obviously, you know what I mean?

So you close, but you got to book less appointments.

I've—

dude, we have a ton of telesales. 100% of telesales people that are successful are like, I have to book way more appointments, I have to buy more leads, I get told no way more, and more, more policies fall off the books. Now, can they net more money sometimes? Sure, because they can stack 20 appointments in a day. I can't do 20 in-person appointments in a day. No, I physically can't do it. No, but I can do 8 to 12 stacked, get 3, 4, 5 no-shows, see 6, 7, 8 people in a day and print, you know what I mean? I'm like, so I like both, and if you're killing it in one, keep doing it. But I'm like Dude, it's weird to me that the people that do telesales, a lot of them are like afraid to go see people.

That's what it is.

I'm like, you can still go see people even though you do telesales. It's out of state, cool. I used to fly to Utah, bro. I sold in Cincinnati. I sold a bunch of insurance in Cincinnati. Delta flies there.

Yeah, yeah.

Which is weird, they live in Kentucky.

I found that weird.

I'm like, really weird.

Yeah. But yeah, I sold a gang of insurance, man, in them little tiny homes they got in Cincinnati. I never seen houses so little.

Yeah, it was a great area, man. That's funny, like that. Good point, like you said, you literally travel, man. That's crazy. I forgot about these.

Yeah, dude, I did Utah for a while and then I did Ohio and I would sell out there leads and I'd call from Atlanta, book appointments, and ones I couldn't, and I'd then I'd fly there, dude. I was dialing in the airport. On my flight over, and I would spend 5 or 6 days there and I'd kill it, and then I'd fly home. And while I was out there, I would also recruit. So we built a massive team in Ohio that's still around to this day because of that. Millions and millions and millions and millions and millions of dollars a year in premium. They're probably— that group in Ohio is probably doing, bro, I bet, I bet a million and a half, $2 million a month. Some— they do a lot of volume a month. I mean, that just came from that. Now, other guys built a lot of it, but I got, I got the ball rolling, you know what I mean? I found a couple players and then a dude took it over. And but, ah man, I learned so much from, from in, in home, as they old school calls it, kneecap to kneecap, kitchen table sales, bro, or garage or wherever.

I, I always tell folks, sometimes for face-to-face sales, you cannot sell unless your feet is underneath the table. You know, I think a lot of agents try to sell the door and stuff like that. Like, that's not happening. You gotta get inside the house and go from there.

Yeah, let's turn off sales mode and get in the— get in the kitchen.

Exactly.

Things happen in the kitchen, dude.

Exactly.

For sure. What can you share with— you said you follow a script. What can you share with phone script that you think would be beneficial to people? Getting them on the phone.

I mean, the idea is absolutely— so I think the idea is right when you get them on the phone, you gotta like immediately kind of sound confused. Like, you don't want to sound too salesy because we don't want to sound like every other person calling them, right? Because these people are getting called by Medicare agents. I fucking can't stand the Medicare agents, especially in AEP. You guys are killing my market, damn it. But I mean, they're doing their thing, that's fine. But I mean, the idea is its tonality is key. And we use a line right after our intro. Now, were you looking for anything specific or just wanted to go over options? Now, immediately when I tell them that, if they start saying, oh, well, you know, Max, I was, you know, I'm just kind of worried about, you know, if I pass away, I don't have enough coverage. If they start opening up to you, boom, that's a— to me, that's a huge buying signal because that means that they're already telling me their pain. If I could get them to emote their pain within the first minute, oh man, I'm taking a nap. Absolutely. But we do it like this. Ring, ring.

Hello?

Hey, John?

Yeah.

Hey, John, this is just, um, Maxwell. Uh, it looks, you know, you may have already gotten like a phone call or even a text about this, but for some reason, John, it just doesn't look like things got updated here. But it looks like you recently responded to a request on Facebook about possibly looking at the new state-regulated life insurance programs, and it says that Mary was your beneficiary. Was that corrected, sir?

I don't— you what? I don't think that was me, dude.

Yeah, yeah, that's here. That's exactly why I'm calling here, John, just to make sure that no one here calls us from our office here. Is your email wetmorejohn@gmail.com? Yep. And were you born on June 11th, 1986? Is that correct?

Yep.

Okay, were you looking for anything specific or just wanted to go over options?

Nah, just kind of tooling around, looking for pricing. I don't really know.

Yeah, cool. I mean, it doesn't hurt to at least know your options, does it?

Probably not.

Yeah, of course. And that's exactly why I'm calling here. And do you know how much coverage you look for? Boom. So the idea is, guys, the first, the first fucking thing they say, I'm not gonna take seriously. The first, like, part of the call, if they say I'm not interested, I didn't fill it out, yeah, I already took care, I'm not taking any of that seriously. Yeah, my mentor Nate and Gus Villagran, you know both of them. I mean, debatably some of the— shout out to Gus and Nate— some of the best salespeople I've ever met in my life, if not the best. Yeah. What they say is this: how do you know when people are lying, or leads, or prospects lying to you?

When they're talking.

When their lips are moving, right? So I mean, take that, take that to an extent, but I mean, anything they throw at me in the beginning, that first, that first 30 seconds, I'm not taking seriously. You didn't fill it out. The funny thing is, is that you did. I'm not going to make them feel stupid about it, but I'm just going to get them to start saying yes. I'm going to immediately ask a question, taking control of the conversation. Yeah, I'm not gonna say, oh yes, you did. Ask a question, troll conversation, back in the script, get them to start saying yes, micro agreements, micro agreements, and just, and just keep moving them through that script, baby. That's all we got to do. But immediately get control of the conversation. That's, that's, if that's so important.

I find it funny, dude, how many agents believe the person speaking just straight up. They're like, they said they weren't interested, they just said they didn't do it, they said, you know what I mean? And I'm like, they believe it with everything, and they're like, I need a lead credit.

You know, that's good. You need a lead credit. Really?

Like, that's it? That's all it takes to get you off the phone?

Oh, the challenge is, man, it's like, just don't take it as what they say seriously.

Yeah, yeah. And just smooth through it. Doesn't— it doesn't knock you off your feet, you know? And if it does, it means you probably haven't practiced this very much, because it wasn't that deep what you just did.

No, it's not. It's not intentional.

Just ask a question. Yeah, so how do you get— how do you transition to the business side? You— I, I say, yes, I'm interested, whatever, yeah, maybe it's worth checking my options, blah blah. How do you go to like, yo, let's do an app? How are you getting there?

All right, so John, it looks like the company here is recommending 3 options for you. Um, you know, do you have that pen and paper handy there, good sir?

Yeah, so you're doing that right off the rip? I'm saying you get— you get me to say yes, I'm interested in options, you're going right there?

Oh, fuck no, no, I'm, I'm doing like full underwriting. So the one thing, like a full inventory Oh, absolutely, right? So I think there's nothing worse than you get the app, you get the banking, and then you get a decline. It's like it's loading, say if it's like Aetna or something, and it's loading, it's red circle, it's like, ah, shit, because then you gotta backpedal and try to resell them on a different premium. So I'm all about let's do a thorough job underwriting. And when you're underwriting, John, you sound professional. Oh yeah, I had a heart attack, uh, you know, 2 years ago. Okay, did they prescribe you CouplerGrill? Did they prescribe you Warfarin? Have you prescribed Nitro? Like when I get through my underwriting, so because I know all the medications and I know the questions to ask, they have like— I sound professional. I'm not talking how I talk now, obviously, but they could tell that I know my shit, right? And I do know my shit. I'm not trying to brag, that's what I'm trying to do here. But if you actually are thorough and you understand the carriers and the medications because you've been doing it, you've been actually working, man, they're gonna have zero doubt about who you are after you're done your underwriting section, right? So thorough underwriting. And when you're underwriting, that's when you're building rapport, right? Because they're like, holy shit, this guy knows what he's talking about. So the idea is, is underwriting, and then I'm going to tell them, you know, okay, yeah, our system is going to load, and then I'll start building some pain. You know, I'll say, okay, you know, but first a little bit of discovery. Now, John, have you been looking around for a while, or did you just start?

I've looked a couple times.

Yeah, okay. And how long you been looking for?

I don't know, last Few months.

Few months? Oh, you're probably sick of us, aren't you, John? Fake laugh. Yeah, yeah, no, I get it. We're a little annoying, but let me ask you this, John, if I may. Why couldn't you find coverage the past 2 months? Maybe it was too expensive, or, you know, maybe you didn't like who you were speaking to. What kind of happened there?

Yeah, I mean, probably the pricing for the amount of coverage didn't make a ton of sense.

Yeah, did they give you one of those stupid waiting periods, John?

One of them did, yeah.

Yeah, I'm sorry to hear that. Yeah, unfortunately we see that I see that quite a bit here. What were they charging you? Something like, you know, like $200 or, you know, $150 a month for $10,000, something crazy like that?

Yeah, something like that.

Right, boom, okay. This is the best person to speak to. Why? Because they know the shtick, they already know what the insurance is, and they've already, their anchor, their price anchor is up here. I already know what they qualify for because I did a good job underwriting. If I could identify they've spoken to someone, they've been quoted, and they're getting this high of a price, and I could offer them same-day coverage, and there's a good chance, there's a very, I'm very confident that they're going to get approved, man, that's going to be a fucking laydown because everyone else is coming up here with a waiting period. I'm coming down here with level coverage. Oh man, that's like, that's a laydown. But the idea is, as we identify what's their experience, have they ever owned life insurance in the past, right? So have you ever owned private life insurance in the past, John?

Uh, yeah.

Okay, gotcha. And, uh, do you still have that coverage?

No, it was a while ago when I was working.

Oh, okay, gotcha. So it was like through, like, it was like a group life plan through your employer?

I think so, yeah.

Gotcha. Yeah, they don't let you keep that rate, do they? I wish they would. Now the challenge is with this, so this person's never owned private life insurance. This is going to be a little different, so we're going to have to kind of price condition them a bit, right? Because they don't know what they don't know, and that's okay. They're going to have these false hopes being like, oh, I could get $100,000 whole life for $50. It's like, yeah, maybe if you were, uh, maybe if you were 6 with Mutual of Omaha simplified issue, but, um, not when you're— not when you're 72, John, and you just had a heart attack 2 years ago. It's not gonna happen, my friend. But it's all about— it's really important to know what their experience is with, um, you know, private life insurance. Now, if someone's looking for a better rate and they just went through the whole spiel like 2 months ago, I mean, you could, you could kind of accelerate.

Different game.

It's a different game, right? Because they know it. But if someone's brand spanking new to the insurance world, you know, you got to kind of massage them a bit more, build a little bit of pain, set realistic expectations, um, and then progress the script there. But That's— I think it's really important that agents need to not be quoters. I mean, if someone gets on the phone and says, oh Max, you know, just give me the quote, you know, John, I'd love to give you the quote, but it's still loading. And if they're pushing back again, John, I need you to be a little more patient with me because I need to do my job properly, or else I could end this call right now. And you can keep having the same conversation like you have for the past 2 months, right? I'm gonna stand my ground, dude. I'm not gonna let this fucking person push me around. And if they're still gonna be a dick about it, I'm just gonna hang up on them. I have hundreds of other people that I could call, but you—

your pricing is the leverage you have. I've always said, as soon as you give pricing, it's a wrap. If you don't have a strong sale by the time— you should— it should be sold before you give pricing.

Absolutely. It's like— and you're gonna, you're gonna feel the tone of the call change when John or Sally or whoever the fuck realizes, oh shit, if I don't get this coverage, my daughter Brittany is fucked. Like she doesn't have 15 G's to come out of pocket. So it should be blatantly obvious. So I mean, right when you— right when you— you can't— you have to build. So, you know, intro, underwriting, we're building rapport throughout that. We're going to do a little discovery about their experience. We're going to build some pain. Then we're going to present price. Then we're going to transfer it into the app, right? And I'm— and I'm dragging them kicking and screaming if I have to. But you shouldn't have to do that. But that's my mentality, right? It shouldn't be awkward. There shouldn't be any pressure throughout the call. It's just a simple qualification process, John. You don't have to pay for anything now. We're going to mail it out to you. You're going to look at it, you know what I mean? It's very, very calm, very professional. But prior to that, you know, I'm not presenting price to like— to life— till I could feel on the call that they're like, oh shit, I need this. And that's the good thing about final expense, bro, is that like people know that they need it. Yeah, you know.

Before I get to the next part of the question, just out of shit curiosity, give me a ballpark number. How many presentations do you think you've done in the last couple years, roughly?

Shit, homie. Rough idea.

How many do you do a week? What's your goal?

I try to do—

2 sales a day. So 2 sales a day. How many presentations to make 2 sales?

My closing ratio this month has been 85%, so that's a little higher, but 3 or 4 max. Yeah, so I try to do 5, and we're working on how to get that higher.

Okay.

But I think if you're doing outbound digital, the idea is you want to do 5 hours of talk time a day, 5 presentations a day. If you're brand new and you don't have good lead flow, I want you at least 300 dials a day, and doing 300 dials a day ain't that hard.

Yeah. How many days a week are you selling?

I have no fucking life, John. I have no wife, I have no girlfriend. That's just weights. So I'm doing— I'm working at least 6.5 days.

Okay, so you're doing 30, 30+ presentations a week, easy.

Sure. Yeah, I, I try, I try to—

1,500 a year. You've done this a few thousand times, easy, correct?

Yeah, I've done—

meaning some of the people watching, if this is your first day, first week, first month, like, it's gonna take him— his reps got him here, you know what I'm saying? I think, well, uh, it's like a weird balance, man, because I think if you've been in the business 3, 4, 5, 6 months and you don't know meds and underwriting like he does I think you aren't trying at all to be good at your career.

Correct, correct.

You have to give people— like, if you're brand new getting started, I also believe you can't know all this shit your first week.

Absolutely not, absolutely. I know, and I strongly agree. But I mean, it— you know, everyone's shit when they start. I was shit, you were probably shit. I mean, and that's okay. Like, you're gonna be shit. We gotta be mindful of that. But you don't have to be shit for long. Like, I, I see these people that come in And it's like, it's a month in and they still don't know their script. I'll be like, okay, give me your intro. And I could tell that they're like looking. I'm like, what the fuck have you been doing for the past month? Okay. When I went from a 2, like a 2-sit close to a 1-sit close, I knew that script top to bottom within 2 days. Want to know why? Because you gotta be obsessive about this shit, right? I would, it doesn't take that long. Just record yourself doing the script top to bottom, include injections, overcome the set objections. When you're recording it, top to bottom, read it, and that's all you listen to. When I was starting out, do you think I listened to music in the gym, John? I would either listen to the podcasts— shout out to John Wetmore— or I was listening to Nate Offord or Gus Villagran doing a presentation right here, over, over, over. I would sleep with it on my laptop and it'd be blasting, and I'd be listening to when I slept. So when I got on the phones, I had the confidence and I knew exactly what to say. If you don't know what to say and you can't focus on how to say it, You're fucked. Someone's gonna say, I need to think about it. You're gonna be like, uh, uh, uh, click. You're gonna sound like a loser and you're gonna sound desperate. No, no, no, no, you got to know this stuff from top to bottom. And you know, once you get a little more experience, it's gonna get a lot easier, but it does not take that long. Like, I got up and running, like, doing like, you know, you know, an app a day, $20,000 a month in about a month, right? And that was right when I got licensed, but that was because I attacked this shit with intensity because I was like, I don't have any fucking money, like, I gotta make this work, man. I started off, I started off, I had like $3K in my bank account. I'm like, oh shit, I gotta get this going, right? And, and, and that's okay. Let's not, let's not put ourselves in that situation. Or maybe you might be in a worse situation, but I mean, you can make a lot of money in this industry if you're focused and you're disciplined and you're consistent. So just record. It's not that hard. Just take one of these fucking things, record your script, put it in your ear, and that's all you listen to day in, day out, day in, day out. Yeah, and then you'll be fine.

Hey, get some feedback from someone who knows what the hell they're doing.

Absolutely, absolutely.

I mean, that's some good people in your corner.

Absolutely.

They're not hard to find.

There's good people everywhere at every company, at every— you know what I mean? Everyone has— there's always someone making money. It's just, are you doing the work that earns you the right to get someone's time that's killing it? You know what I mean? Are you putting in the work, dude? They'll help you.

Agreed.

If you're not, they probably won't.

No, I mean, I just— agents are like, oh, can you send me a recording of your call? I was like, no. I'm like, why? It's like, man, because like you didn't even work last week. It's like, why should I dedicate my time for my production to help someone that's not even about the business? Like, if you're about the business and you're new and you're struggling, like, I will kill for you, bro or gal. But like, man, you gotta earn, you gotta get in there and like, you know, fuck up a couple times and show effort and then ask someone for their help. But if you're just scrolling on Instagram, doing, you know, 10 dials maybe every hour, oh, I'm gonna take a break, I'm gonna go to the— I'm gonna go shopping. Like, no, man, like, you gotta take this shit seriously or else no one's gonna take you seriously and you're gonna be someone that— you're gonna be part of the 95% that doesn't make it past their first year. And that's okay, not everyone's meant for this industry, John, but like, If you're about it and you're actually practicing and you're consistent, you'll be fine.

Agreed. All right, back to the sales side. You do all that stuff. How do you close them down? Let's get to the end of it. How do you get paid? Yeah, how do you get paid, bro? All right, John, you got me interested. You're about to show pricing. Maybe you showed it. You pick where you're at. All right, lock it down.

It's really, really important presenting price I'm like at SWAT. Hopefully I don't get sued for this. Nate, don't sue me if you see this.

Um, copyright, careful.

So the main idea is, guys, is when we're presenting price, we have to create the dynamic that they're not making a forever decision, because technically they're not. But anytime someone feels like they're making a decision and, oh God, Maxwell's going to force me to pick a price, I need to think about it, they're going to start freaking out in their head, right? So we need to create the dynamic on the call that, all right, John, take a deep fucking breath. We're just gonna pick a number, we're gonna apply for it, and then when, you know, if you do get approved, we're gonna mail you to Pulse, you're gonna look it over, then you're gonna authorize it to start. So I need to create that dynamic in their mind that, hey, this is just a simple application process. I could choose one of these numbers, I could go up and down if need be, okay? No big deal. If you fail to create that dynamic, you're gonna get hit with I need to think about it. So the I need to think about it is the main thing we need to avoid. The idea is All the conversation prior, we're taking objections off the table. We're building credibility because they're saying, holy shit, this guy knows his shit. So, all right, John, now it looks like the company here is recommending 3 different options for you. They're recommending $20,000, $15,000, and $10,000. Now, John, we could go up, down, left, right to make this work for you, sir. This is just what they recommended. Now, prior to this, I'm going to get them to establish budget. Now, if someone says their budget's $100, like, you know, $75, my bottom price is not going to be $200. I mean, use your brain, right? So what I'm going to do is my bottom price is going to be right around $70 to $75. So John, did you write that down, sir? $20,000, $15,000, $10,000?

Sure, I can.

Okay, so $20,000 at the top there, John. What that's going to do for you is that's going to leave your daughter, you know, first of all, plenty of money to take care of the burial. Like I said, we need to be around $15,000. That's going to leave her an extra $5,000, you know, to make sure that, you know, say if she wants to pay for any, you know, a family dinner or maybe she wants to go shopping. I mean, I don't know, hand your daughter $5,000, which is going to do with it, hopefully good, right? Now the $15,000, what that's going to do, John, full transparency, I don't want us to go much lower than this because, you know, 10, 20 years down the road, that might not be enough. All right, but that's going to ensure that if you pass away in 20 years, we're going to have enough coverage. If you pass away anytime sooner, there's going to be a little bit extra. Does that make sense?

Yep.

Now $10,000, John, you know, something is better than nothing. You did say that, right? Yeah, $10,000. What that's going to do for you, it's full transparency, it's not going to pay for the entire burial. But in this job, a lot of times, John, I deliver death benefits to family members and they're heartbroken. I said, hey, you know, dad couldn't afford to cover the entire burial, but he wanted you to have this. And I hand them a check for $10,000 and they only have to come out of pocket $2,000. They're still heartbroken, John, but you should see their face. They light up and they're very thankful. Does that make sense? So again, something is better than nothing, but you don't want to be the guy that leaves their family with a $15,000 bill with no coverage, do you?

No, not at all.

Great. You see how— do you see that image I just put in your mind?

Yep, right?

Like the tone just shifted there, right?

And again, lock down a sale before you gave me pricing, right?

Absolutely, absolutely. All right, so you got that 20, 15, 10 down.

Yep.

Now, John, I know I've been doing this long enough, John, to know that when someone says they want to think about it This typically means it's too expensive. So John, hey, if this is too expensive, you just let me know. I mean, seriously, no hard feelings. We could try to find another solution. And if not, John, we could just part ways as friends. Is that fair enough?

Yes.

I mean, some people are so rude, John. They just hang up on me right after I tell them the price. You wouldn't do that, would you?

I will not hang up on you.

Not John Wetmore, right? All right. Now, John, the top option here, this looks like it's like a little out of your price range, like a little out of your budget, but the company did want me to share it with you. Um, the $20,000 there, that would be $115 a month. And then the middle there, we'd be at $98. And then right at the bottom there, we'd be at $70. So you got that down? $115, $98, $70. You got that written down? Yep. Now, John, before you even really look at those numbers there, John, let me kind of explain how the process works, because it's actually changed quite a bit recently. So John, even if you put a gun to my head, which I hope you wouldn't, but, and you said, Maxwell, give me the $20,000 right now. I'd say, John, I'd love to, but I can't. John, unlike your group life policy that you had with your employer, you can't just buy private life insurance. You have to first medically qualify for it. Okay, so there's no transaction of money today. You're not paying for anything. All we could do today, John, is simply pick a number that'd be comfortable for your budget, and then 3 things could happen. Okay, number 1, company declines us. Not a big deal, John. We have access to all the good carriers. We just have to go back and pick a different company. Price will change by literally $2, and that's not an exaggeration. Does that make sense?

Yep.

Or number 2, they might counteroffer. Now, a counteroffer simply means they give us a different rate. We either accept their offer or we change carriers. Not a big deal. We just got to go back to the drawing board, right? That's not a big deal, is it? Nope. Right. Or 3, they approve you. Now, upon approval, what's great, John, within 3 business days you'll be receiving a thank you card from me, and then in about 10 to 15 business days you're actually receiving a policy in the mail from the company. Now get this, in the state of Texas, we actually have up to 30 days to make any minor adjustments. What do I mean by this, John? Say if you landed up at the $115 and you're looking over your policy and you say, dang, I actually can't afford this, I need to go down to $70 a month or $50 a month, whatever. We could always go down in coverage, right? And they'll refund you the difference that the policy started, okay? Or if you want to go up, we don't have to go through underwriting again, right? So John, you're gonna have plenty of time to talk about it, think about it, pray about it. I mean, don't fight about it, obviously, but it's not really a one-and-done thing. Does that make sense?

Yes.

So go on, John, go ahead and circle the number there that would give you the peace of mind you were looking for, but also fit within your budget.

I'm choosing the 98.

Okay. And so let me ask you this, John, say if your fridge went out, say if you had a tough month, because believe me, they're coming, right? Would the 98 still be doable?

Should be.

Should be. John, can I make a suggestion? Sure. So when you said should be, you know, I'd personally leave a little— I would lose sleep if this was, you know, taking any food off the table. Why don't we start a little bit lower and then we'll see how that fits in your budget and then we could always add coverage in the future. Is that fair enough, good sir?

Okay. Yeah.

Great. So what I want you to do, John, is I want you to cross out the $115,000, cross out the $98,000 and circle the $70,000 just so there's no confusion. Okay.

Got it.

Great, John. And do you have a middle initial? Boom, right into the app.

Yeah.

No dead space. This is all about transitions. The great Peter Fournier always says this, this job is all of this. The presentation is all about transitions. So when I'm filling this out, when we're talking, like, I'm multitasking and I'm actually filling out the app. Like, I have all his email, his phone number, and I'm filling out the app there. And then it's right when he picks a number, we confirm that number, that it fits in his budget, because Final Expense budget is everything, right? These people are on very fixed incomes. We got to make sure it's affordable. So that shit's going to fall off, you're going to get a chargeback. Let's avoid that, right? It's better to go a little bit lower and making sure that shit sticks, right? I get them to circle it, I get them to cross out those numbers, because when people cross shit out You know, it does something to their brain and you see something online, oh, it's a sale, it's not a sale. I mean, but yeah, I'm gonna get into cross-sell and I'm transitioning right into that app very clean and I'm immediately getting into question answering mode.

Yeah.

What's your address? What's your email? Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. I wanna get that yes train going, right?

I love it.

Absolutely.

Cool. Let's get into some sales stuff, dude. You mentioned the Frank thing. If you wanna dive it, certainly I understand it, but if you wanna add any value there to people to give them them some insight. Because I, you know, what's funny is like, I am certainly— my personality was what is wired more for leads, especially I'll say my personality when I got into the business. If I were getting into it today, I'd work it certainly differently. Um, and I think where I was weak was your method, the initial. I wasn't strong. I wasn't taught that. I wasn't— I didn't have a desire to do that. I was even bad at referrals, dude. Like, I didn't have referral partners, I didn't have clients giving me referrals. I mean, I was a lead junkie and did well with it, to be honest. Yeah. Um, but I, I certainly would, um, and certainly advise today that we tweak some things and, you know, do it better today. So of course I would love to get into some ways you generate business because, as you know, you're building an agency. Most agents come into this thing broke, can't afford to buy leads, can't afford marketing, can't afford a lot of the The broke and broken. Yeah, amen. Which, hey, is not a bad thing.

Nope.

For those— like, it's— don't use it as a disadvantage, as we've talked about already a little bit before. But, you know, I, I think certainly a harder one to overcome, especially if you haven't done it and can't teach it, is, all right, I'm broken, I'm broken, but I'm willing, but I ain't got no money, right? You know, so I would love some.

So we, we use— I've got it around here somewhere. I think I left it in the other room or else I'd grab it. But, um, we use a stool, you know, to kind of show the, uh, the overall picture of what your business should look like. Uh, the three-legged stool, right?

Oh yeah.

And so we have one leg of your stool, which I think, I think leads, like what you're talking about, is the most important part. Because so many people are so scared of calling leads. They have so much, so much of their, their identity is like tied up in what that person on the other end of the phone thinks of them. And dude, they could give two shits about you, just like you probably give two shits about them, until they say, yes, you can help me, right? And so, um, this phone weighs like 300 pounds as soon as you try to tell someone I need somebody to call leads, you know what I mean? And so, um, I think leads is like the most important part. And I don't know about you, but like for me, I'm like a huge, like, you need to— if I spend all day calling leads, like, yeah, you can leave voicemails and stuff like that, but I want to get somebody on the phone too. So I'm like super big on, you know, I'm sure your people are licensed in multiple states and not just the home state too, right? And so give a bigger footprint. And so like why start calling at 7 in the morning and can call until noon and, you know, not have to worry about, you know, calling people in the middle of their day is like, well, if I start at 7:00 AM, I'm going to be calling East Coast people at 8:00 AM, right? And I could call those. And then by 8:00 AM, well, now I'm calling Central Time people at 8:00 AM and I'm calling West Coast people at 9:00 AM. It's still the morning. Right? Once I get to like 11, 12, well, it's still only like 10 o'clock in Nevada, you know? And so I've got— I'm working the morning, right? And I can get my 300 dials in. 300 a day keeps the bagel away, you know? And so like, that's kind of how— and I've seen you post about, you know, hey, if you're not making at least 300 calls as a telesalesperson, you have no right to be complaining, right? And so I'm with that too. And so that's the first leg of your stool, right? Is, is your leads. These are leads that, you know, you go out and purchase or your company provides to you, right? Which, wouldn't that be very nice for your company to provide you leads? Um, and so I'm sure you provide some great leads for your people too, and they probably don't, uh, appreciate them as much as they should. If you get free leads, you should appreciate it. All right.

Yeah, I, um, I have funny thoughts on that, dude. Dude, I, um, and we'll get back to it, but since you're on it, it's like typically free leads aren't free, right?

Most places cost somebody something, correct?

They might be free to you, they ain't free to me. Does it make sense? Now some places make up for it in comp. They give you lower comp and someone's like, I have free leads. I'm like, now you got 60 points in comp of leads, or 25%, or 50%, whatever it is, you know. So I think be careful there, but You know what I've learned, dude, is like, I'm not a big like welfare system believer, even though I grew up on it and it helped my family get out of the hood. Like, I just— man, it, um, it— you know what my favorite thing to do is? To see a person that's going out there and doing their best, and they're working with whatever budget they got, and they're trying their hardest to get to them, and they're calling them a bunch, and they're following up a bunch, and they're knocking on doors if they need— they're doing everything it takes. They just need a, like, a lift. Yeah, you know what I mean? Like, they would, they would make 1,000 dials if they had the leads. Sure, you know what I'm saying? They would run 40 appointments a week if they had the leads, but they can only run 10 because of their butt, you know what I mean? I'm like, I like taking that guy and going, here you go, slapping so many leads on them that they can do it right away, make the money, and then I teach them to reinvest it. So I don't have to do the leads long-term free.

I get—

I'll give it to them a ton in one week. And then the cool thing is, if they don't perform, I give them to Bob and he don't perform, but I can just give them to you, right? You know what I'm saying? So I find out quick if they want to put in the work.

No, I dig that.

And then teach them to be self-sufficient, because I want to teach people to be independent agents at the end of the day. I don't— I— although I'm willing to help people, I don't want 1,000 people relying on me to provide, to feed them, 100%, you know. So, uh, yeah, so I think we think a lot similar on there.

Yeah, absolutely. But you were asking about the other legs of the stools. Yeah, of course, um, you need to be down on those. And then of course in the afternoon, later on too, you start again at 4 o'clock, and, and then you got all afternoon till 9, 10 o'clock. It's the same type deal, right? So you could do 6 700 hours. I personally chose to stop. If I could go back and do it again— this is for the first-year agents out there— if I could go back and do it again, my first year all over again, I would have worked until 8, 9 o'clock, 10 o'clock every single night without fail, because I would have put my family in so much of a better position today. Um, but I didn't. I chose to go home at 7 o'clock because I got there at 7 in the morning, and I've got receipts, bro. Um, nobody was outworking me. I've got old Snapchat stories of every single day whenever I showed up and the parking lot was empty, and every day whenever I left, the parking lot was empty. Nobody was outworking me. And so like, I guess I was already setting the standard. If somebody would have maybe challenged me on it, maybe they would have pushed me to, to get the 8, 9, 10 o'clock. But in reality, sometimes nobody's going to be there to push you. You got to push yourself.

And so, 100%, let's go. I'd have done it.

Yeah, 100%.

Hawaii, bro.

Somebody would have or should have, dude. And like, it sucks because, you know, it was like, there was not a lot of people who outperformed me in that business. And they did, they were, they were already in the business a year, but there was no other rookies that were even willing to step up. Cause like, man, they knew they were gonna get run over, which sucks. It's like, you gotta have some sort of dog inside of you, um, to make it here too. But so you have your, your leads, your leads leg. Okay, well, if you just got one leg of a stool, you're balancing, bro. Like, you're gonna fall over at some point, and you can run out of leads, or you go cold, or you're lapsing, you know, whatever. Um, we call that hunting, okay? You're going out and you're hunting. That's what you're doing whenever you're calling leads. And then you have your other two legs, which are more like farming type activities, where I'm gonna go plant seeds and I'm trying to grow crops that I can harvest later on. Okay. I'm going to start building my social media brand. I'm going to start informing. I'm going to teach people something online that they don't know about, you know, in your case, life insurance, or in my case, the difference between an HMO or a PPO, or why you don't need one of those shitty share plans or why you don't need to go on Obamacare or, you know, short-term plans, all this other stuff that you can educate people on that they don't know about. And teach them why they should do business with you because you know something that they don't know, right? If all you say all day long on your social media is, call me if you're looking for health insurance—

why?

For what?

We know the same shit, you know what I mean? Like, that's it.

Teach them. I unfollowed— I've unfollowed the people that go, life insurance is important, call me if you need some.

Exactly.

All right, I can't follow this person's social.

Give me a story. Give me an example, right? Get, get their emotions involved with it, right? And so like, I like to do like the 80/20 rule. 80% not about insurance, 20% about insurance, or every 3 to 5 posts that I don't post about insurance, 1 post about insurance. And then, you know, we kind of rock with that. So, so then you have like your social media/personal branding. I'm not big on spamming the groups. Or anything like that. I think that stuff's kind of corny and all you get is the low-hanging fruit. Typically you're just going to get a whole bunch of people that don't qualify. I want to, I want to get legitimate qualified customers that are my customers, not the low-hanging fruit. Any, any Joe Blow can go out there and get the low-hanging fruit. A broken clock's right twice a day. You can go out there and just spam a whole bunch of groups and you're going to get the people that are like, please help me. That's not really who I'm personally looking I want to build a brand where people are calling me. Exactly. I'm, bro, I'm in here for the long game. You know, do I want to make short, quick money? Do I want to feed my family right now?

Yeah.

But I want my stuff to be paying me and people calling me in 10 years because of work I did, uh, 10 years before, you know, the brand I built 10 years before. So you have that and then you have your referrals, of course, where you go out and maybe in my case, you partner up with a life insurance guy who doesn't do health insurance. Insurance. Well, somebody asks you about health insurance, John Wetmore, and you got X amount of people, and I'm partnered up with 100 other people like you that don't do health insurance. You know, you send them to me. You want your customers taken care of, I'm assuming, just like I want my customers taken care of whenever they ask about life insurance. So hey bro, let's work something out. I'll send them to you whenever they're asking me about life insurance. You're going to take care of them? Yeah. And then I'll send them, or I'll take care of them whenever they ask about health. Because you want them taken care of. We'll, we'll work together. And you know, hey man, like you're sending me stuff, I'm going to send you stuff. Let's go to the top together. I think too many people go like, oh, I don't want to work with XYZ because whatever reason you make up in your head, you know? Um, it's just a bunch of BS and, and you will get farther in life. You know this, you'll get further in life with working together with other people than you will be trying to go out and lone wolf that shit.

100%. So just cold outreach to different potential referral partners and building relationships. I know you do events, so I'm sure you meet people there.

Yeah, of course. Yeah, cold. I mean, whenever you have nobody, sure, cold outreach. Luckily, I mean, hopefully you run across somebody that's in a very similar starting point as you are in the business and you can kind of grow together. And then now you've got a dude that y'all can, you know, y'all can really go in and conquer the world together rather than just trying to do it on your own, because that's just no fun to do it by yourself.

Yeah, for anyone—

the only reason it's lonely at the top is if you didn't take nobody with you, right?

Same, bro. That's true. And it's true. I was gonna say, for those overthinking this, like Google, you'll find plenty of people to call. Oh my gosh, don't make it.

How about Sales Navigator on, uh, on LinkedIn? Like Google. There's a whole bunch of different ways.

Sales Navigator is bomb, dude. I, I used that when I was early on. I used to wear this thing out. Yeah, there's—

and then if you, if you're too lazy to do it yourself, like, there's automation for that kind of stuff if you're willing to spend a little money on it.

Yeah.

All right, guys, hope you enjoyed that episode. I know I always get a ton out of listening and learning from new people, so appreciate you guys getting on and all the following and all that jazz. If you want to, um, follow more of the things we do outside of the podcast, I do a ton of events and trainings and sales stuff. If you go to johnwetmore.com/events, you'll always get access to the most up-to-date events we have planned. Certainly keep in touch with that page because I do a lot of last-minute stuff that I get invited to as well. Team calls, trainings, events that I'm speaking at. Also, as of the recording of this. And one of the biggest things we have coming up is in February there's a live training event in my office. It's going to be a 2-day event. There's a couple different tiers in which you can access. Pretty regular entry-level ticket where we're going over sales stuff, coaching, building, team building, role-playing, hot seat stuff, everything we've done to build the agency we've built. There's a VIP option that gets you a private mastermind at my house where we're going to spend some time with more of the elite people, get some one-on-one time with high-level people making multiple 7 figures in the industry, many of them. So if you'd like to register, again, there'll be a link here, but johnwetmore.com/events will get you right to it as well. And I look forward to seeing you guys there.