This Phone Script Will Make You RICH in Telesales ft. Edward Pritchett | Ep12

people who go on to be successful, they're still not doing all those areas right. They're just not doing it as wrong.

I've never heard it worded that way, bro. What's up, y'all? John Wetmore back with another episode of the Insurance Insiders Podcast. Got a buddy of mine, Edward Pritchett, on. If you don't know, a great— not only a great dude, uh, but a managing partner, Symmetry Financial. Done some big things in the insurance business. That's a cool background, very unique. Went to a school I couldn't even apply to. Very smart dude, very articulate. I've heard you speak a lot. I follow your stuff on social, and, um, you know, I look up to a lot of things you're doing in the business and helping people, and in multiple arenas even, you know. So I appreciate you getting on, dude, and happy to have you here.

Yeah, well, man, you know, the, the feeling is mutual on that. Definitely have been following you for a while. I've heard you speak on many different occasions. And, you know, one of the reasons why, like, when you reached out, say, hey, let's get together, do a little collaboration here. I was like, of course, because it's people like you that are helping our industry do what it's supposed to do. And at the end of the day, that's helping our clients. And, you know, that's become more and more like— I've been in the industry now for 15 years. Every day, every week, fortunately and unfortunately, something happens that reminds me, like, that's what we're in this business for. That's, that's why we're here, is to make sure that clients are served as best as they possibly can be. And it's stuff that you're doing, helping on the training side, on how to build a business, all the different aspects of this business. The more we can get that out to people, the better it's going to be for them, and the, the better it's going to be ultimately for the class because we have better agents out there serving in a better way.

Yeah, I hear your messaging a lot, and you, you talk about that obviously very frequently. And, um, I think it's cool, bigger picture, because as you know, the industry is funny, you know what I mean? And like, not everybody's in it for like big picture, let's help people with— not only clients. I'm a big fan of like, dude, I love helping. I, I'm, I'm grateful for what we do for clients, but what drives me is helping the agent help honestly their families and their kids and get to see people live differently through the helping of clients, of course. But I just love our industry, dude. And there's so many good people in it. And I just, I don't know, man, I don't play in the BS part of it. I like to look at it.

It's easy to get caught up. Like, we know people like drama, right? All you gotta do is turn on the news. Like, people love to watch drama and to kind of like, kind of be involved and not. But it's so much more effective to actually get stuff done By finding those ways that you can say, okay, look, that's going on, that's out there. I'm not on a mission to try to change that about the industry. I hope over time, by more and more of us just kind of refusing to participate in that, there's going to be a good sector that doesn't go down that route, and we can really focus on helping our clients and helping our agents just have a better life. Like, that's what we can do with what we sell. But it's just being cognizant of that. And when you feel yourself getting sucked into that, you know, I always ask myself, it's like, is what I'm getting ready to do, is it best for the clients that I serve? Is it best for the agents that I serve? And then lastly, is it best for my business? Because my business isn't going to do well if I put it ahead of my agents or my clients, you know?

So that's true. It's funny you just said get stuff done. I don't know if you see that. I, I see it, except I don't say the stuff. We live by it, dude.

I try to keep it, you know, PG, you know, whatever, you know.

It saves my guys some editing. If you're looking to transform your insurance sales game in just 12 weeks, this course I put together is for you. Go over 20 different topics, everything from sales to goal setting to lead plans and everything I've done in the last decade plus, having multiple six-figure sales success. I've helped hundreds and hundreds of agents get to multiple six figures all over the country, mentoring and speaking at all kinds of events. So available now, find the link in the description, use the code LAUNCH for a discount code. So speaking of your business, dude, give a little rundown. Um, you know, obviously it's funny, the, the longer I do this, the more I realize we're in a little bit of a bubble, and a lot of people don't know who either one of us are, which is, you know what I mean, which is cool. And so it means we got more work to do. Um, but for me, I, you know, I think I do a lot of the work I do to inspire other people to achieve things they, they maybe don't every day think they can achieve, you know. And I know you didn't come into this thing killing it. I saw what you made your first year in the business, and very similar, dude, I didn't, I didn't start out as a killer. So give them a little background and perspective. And if, you know, I don't, I don't know what y'all are doing today. I know y'all sell a ton of insurance. Last I heard, it was over $50 million a year. I don't know how many agents. I'm assuming thousands a year sell a policy. But if you want to give any insight into where you're at and a little bit of background how you got there, it'd be dope.

Okay. Yeah. Well, you know, started off, I was an engineer. I was not an insurance agent. I know very few insurance agents today that were like, oh yeah, I went to college for being an actuary and like getting it. Correct. I don't know if you're one. Please hit me up. I'd just like to have a conversation to with that unicorn of a person, because I don't know anyone who got into insurance that way. Um, but started off, wanted to be engineer. Um, you know, was— got out of college right before the Great Recession. It hit the engineering industry, just kind of went down with everything else, of course. And I was just left trying to figure out, like, how can I make an income right now? You know, this is 2007, 2008. I needed to make an income. Somebody, you know, referred me to, hey, this insurance guy, he's looking for people who know about business. I think he'd be a great fit. So I got started with this captive organization, worked with them for 2 years. And as you said, like, those first couple of years, I didn't clear $30,000. And like, I may have grossed $30,000 with them between what I spent on leads that were also sold to 15 other people. And, you know, this is 2000— like, y'all think it's bad now, like 2009, 2010. It was the Wild West when it comes— like, you just, you didn't know what to think about, uh, these leads that I'm getting from this source or that source or whatever. Um, so I got started there, then, you know, got into the independent side in 2010, and that's where I've been since, um, building the Pritchett Agency, uh, working with Symmetry Financial Group on that. And, you know, it, it's, it's been one of those things where, like, just getting started, to, to be able to have that solid, stable lead, to be able to go out and do sales consistently for myself and, you know, on my own personal pen. My first year on the independent side wasn't, again, groundbreaking. I cleared $73,000. Not bad, a lot better than what I was used to, uh, from the captive organization. Uh, but again, not killer standards, I don't think, uh, based on what some things that we see today. Um, but what I learned was just that this is a way that an agent can come in, and as long as they have consistent resource for how to get in touch with clients. They have a system to help them train and develop themselves, and then they have the fortitude to just stick with it and do the work. Yeah. Um, and was able to use that, uh, over the next— now going on 14 years— to go from me, myself personally, in that first year, uh, with a handful of agents that I was able to kind of convince to work with me, uh, in the beginning You know, we did like $250,000, $275,000 in total premium issued. And then just year after year, it was just like it was able to step up. You know, in the first year we were able to double going into the year. So from year 1 to year 2, double that up. Year 3, you know, we're pushing to kind of almost hit $1 million in that third year. And then the acceleration once we hit this little whether you want to call it a tipping point or a critical period point, but it started to happen so much faster. And then, you know, it was a $3 million a year, a $5 million a year, $13 million a year by the time we were 5 years in. And it's just, it's just rolled since then because it's putting people in a place where they're able to improve their lifestyle by really helping those clients. Going back to the fundamental that we started off talking about with this.. And now we're sitting, you know, 13, almost 14 years into this. In a typical year, we have around— or let's just talk about last year. Last year we had over 1,300 agents write at least a piece of business. And from that, we got just over $50 million in place business and annuities out the door, which what that means is that's clients being helped in a great way, and now our agents are starting to receive a lot of commission, right? Because I don't think— some people don't realize, like, when you really break down a large organization, uh, and the commission— if, if you just call it $50 million, uh, and you're on a, a 120, 130 contract, right? Like, what does that mean? That means that's $65 million of commission that's coming back to those agents. And if you have 1,000 agents or 1,500 agents writing that business, kind of average that out. Like, obviously results depend on what you actually went out and did, right? Um, but like, even if you just look at the average, like, are you adding value to those agents? Are they able to do something different with their life and the lifestyle that their family is going to be able to experience from that— for that point moving forward? Um, and so that's the, the focus right now. Really is to how can I continue to do that work to get more agents in a place where they can just be consistently successful so that we can continue to grow and expand on that. You know, we've had our hiccups over the years. You know, there were hiccups with mailing, you know, back in like '16 and '17, 2016, 2017. And of course, you know, 2020, you know, COVID hits and we're like, okay, how do we adjust to this? And like we have, we've adjusted, we've grown, and that's where now we're able to continue to move things forward for the agency overall and for the agents because they have that consistent sort of like resources to get in touch with clients, a system to train them and keep them going. And then they're bringing the fortitude and the willingness to say, you know what, I know this is a small business. This isn't like a job. I have to go to work. I'm going to bring that with me. Every single day, and there's gonna be some weeks where, you know, we're up here, there's gonna be some weeks where I'm down here, but I'm gonna work to try to get the as much balance to that as I possibly can. And that's what I continue just to talk about, to try to teach and work with our organization. And, and that's why I put stuff out. I mean, I say our organization, but like, I put stuff out on social media because it's for anybody. Like, you don't have to be in my organization to, to learn the same stuff that I'm talking to them about. Um, that's why I put that out there.

Yeah, that makes sense, dude. It's, uh, it's neat having similar journey in, in, in a lot of ways, especially, you know, I mean, I didn't start out selling a ton. I eventually did, um, but it took me a minute to figure out. I overcomplicated stuff. I don't know what your problem was. I don't know, were you like super analytical? I mean, engineer. I know in school every— all my teachers told me I should be an engineer, accounting. But I overanalyzed the industry, like really bad early on, I overcomplicated it.

I wouldn't say I definitely think the engineering background helped me in the beginning. I do tend to overthink things. But I, I'm very good, just like building out a process and having that flowchart. I was a chemical engineer. So it's like, here's the flowchart. And then what one thing can I change and see what changes that result? Right. And I'm just meticulous in that way. Like, I don't— it doesn't have to be overly complicated. Like, I build it out, it is what it is, and we're going to do the same system, but we're only changing one thing at a time. And as we change that one thing, we'll give it 2, 3 weeks, see what the output is. Did it change in a positive way or negative way? If it was positive, okay, let's do more of that and then find the next thing that we need to modify. If it was negative, okay, let's go back to what we were doing before and find another point. To change in the process, right? And it's just doing that in a systematic way. I've figured out my process, and then now it's, okay, how do we take that? And here you go, this is what you can get started with. As you get started with it, we see what those first results are, and then for each agent, we can go in and say, okay, within this process, let's change this and see if we can get better output. Let's change that. Let's see if we can get better throughput, right? And it's just thinking through the sales of life insurance like that. That I feel like for me personally, it's what allowed me to, to sell, even though like I, I don't consider myself an extrovert. I don't consider myself a, you know, the— I'm not the, the guy that goes and talks up everybody at a party or a gathering, right? Like I'm not that sales guy. Like I know you and I both know plenty of those guys, right? I'm not— I'm just not that person. But what— where I can win is like I can make a consistent way for me to be in touch with clients on a regular basis and to make sure those clients feel served and are served in the best possible way. And that has led to that— the outcomes that I see for myself personally, and then was able to pass on and continue to see, uh, with agents as they develop this for themselves as well.

Yeah, so use that analytical side in a positive way. A lot of people use it to stop, you know what I mean? But it's like, it was gonna be one of the other Yeah, it took me a while to get there because I do— I'm similar now where I'm like, all right, let's put something in place, watch it. Where I think a lot of people are like, let me put everything in place before I do anything. You know, I had a new guy trying to get started last week and he just— he wanted to build out every step of the entire process before he picked up the phone. And I'm like, dude, that's hard. It's hard to— it's hard to do.

Well, the other thing is like, why not? That's where system matters, right? Because don't build out like what— don't you build out everything in the process. Take a process that already exists, learn it, and then once you start seeing results, now you can start modifying that process. Like, I'm sorry, there's nothing new that needs to be created for selling life insurance. There just isn't. There is not a new system. There's not something that's going to be better than anything that already— like, it already exists. Take it and then work on it to make sure that it fits you and how you can get results with it.

Yeah. Did— so did you— it sounds like you knew right away you wanted to build in this thing because you had— you said you had some people on board pretty early. Would that— would you see early vision-wise?

I mean, when I started with Symmetry, it was such a tiny— it was a tiny company.

Yeah.

I mean, I think that the, the year before, the entire company had done $300,000 the year before I The vision that I got, one of our founders, Casey Watkins, just kind of sat down with me when I first met him and just explained like, this is what we see. This is where we see this thing can go. And that's, I think, the hallmark of a great leader is someone who can cast a vision that you can just latch on to and believe in. And I saw it. I felt it. I believed in it from what he was telling me in that moment. Um, and so it was one of those things where I went out and did the personal production initially because I just— I joined and I was broke, so I just— I need to make some money. So I just— I need to just go out and personally produce at the beginning. But then, you know, even when I was first getting started there, I was talking back with some of the agents that I worked with at the previous captive organization and just saying, hey guys, I'm I know y'all might still like what you're doing over there, but you may want to take a look at what's happening over here. You know, it's up to you. You know, you just, you let me know. Um, and slowly but surely they started looking, they started seeing my results, they came and joined a little training or a boot camp, and they're like, huh, can we, can we, uh, yeah, come on, you know. Um, and that's really what started, you know, it's just talking to more market people who I already knew in the insurance world that they were looking for something. They needed something. Um, and then from there I started to look at, okay, so what does this building and recruiting thing actually look like? Um, and we started to expand it out from there.

Yeah. And it's, uh, it's, it's cool to see what you've built it to now. Um, what do you, what do you think, how did you get through, like, because I know when we— same story, like, when we got started, and obviously our companies know each other really well, this you know what I mean? They've been connected in multiple ways over the years. And I can remember early on, man, our— we were a disaster. There was— I mean, it was, you know what I mean? I wish people could see then. Yeah. How do you, um, how do you— I think that, dude, people think eventually like the hard times go away, you know what I mean? Like, so how do you, how do you stay in the right mindset of like, how did you get through the hard times? How do you— what do you latch on to? Or what, you know what I mean? Or even if you want to talk about some of them specifically, that you, that you made it through. Um, again, in, in, in all in to encourage other people, for me.

Yeah. Well, here's the thing that I would say: hard times don't go away, they just change. I, I, I, I don't know, like, what— whether you have no money or a lot of money, right? Like, we, we just name a couple billionaires, right, and ask, are they going through some stuff right now? You know, there's some pretty high-profile ones that we could say, yeah, they're going through some stuff right now. So, like, it doesn't matter the finances you have, it doesn't matter the relationships you have. Like, you know, there's sometimes— like, you can be in the best possible marriage ever, and guess what? There's gonna be sometimes that things are great, sometimes there's gonna be some tough challenges, right? There's gonna be some health issues that rise up that you had just no clue about. You've been eating right, you've been doing well, you've been doing all the right things, but like, it was just there. Like, you didn't pick it, it just happened. So it's not that hard times aren't— are going to go away at any point in time. What the challenge is, is how do you raise your level so that you can handle the next hard challenge in a better way? Yeah, right. Because I've definitely gone into, like, in this industry, uh, let's take leads for example. You know, uh, everybody always thought, you know, leads are a big thing on everybody's mind. And there have been times when leads have just been flowing right? Mortgages were— mortgage rates were 2%, um, 3%. And I mean, like, there was so much data. And like, I mean, we were sending it out, and like, instead of 1% returns, we were getting 3% returns.

I remember the gold rush.

Let's go! Let's sell some insurance, you know? Yeah. Um, and then, and then something changed.

Yep.

Right? I didn't change the economy. I didn't take interest rates up to 7% on a new mortgage, right? But it happened, and we had to shift. Uh, the lead flow that we were so excited about wasn't there, and we had to figure out, okay, what's the way that we can still get in front of clients that are still looking to buy insurance, right? Like, I tell people this stat all the time. I mean, 2020 was the first time just in the life and annuity space over $1 trillion of premium flowed from clients to insurance carriers. Life insurance. We're not talking about P&C, we're not talking about health insurance. That was repeated in 2021, it was repeated in 2022, and more than likely when all the numbers are finalized from last year, we'll see that it happened again in 2023. So what this means is people are still buying insurance products from somebody from somewhere, right? And just because maybe the lead resource I was used to using isn't producing in the way it was, that just means I gotta find out where can I meet my client, where are they right now? Because they're still out there, there's a lot of them. And those are where we have to work on our personal fortitude, that development of self, right? Like, what am I doing for personal self-development? What am I reading right now? What am I doing to improve my skill level in business in general? Right? Because you as an agent, if you're an independent agent, you're running a business. So if you didn't get an MBA, or even if you did, you probably still need to do this. But if you didn't— don't know and understand how to actually run a business, you have to educate yourself on that. Because your business is only going to grow to the level that you can maintain it and continue to shepherd growth, right? And if you don't know what a profit and loss statement is, or what a balance sheet is, or You know, you don't know how to set aside money to invest in future leads or future development or staff or what— all these things that you do need to be able to grow a large business, then you're going to be like— there is no— I don't believe there's a lid in what we do other than the one that you set for yourself, but what you're willing to actually learn, develop, grow with. Because the more you learn and develop and grow, you're going to be able to get that lid to be able to push up higher and higher and higher. So like, if one struggle, like you said, like one hard time, a lead situation, how do you, how do you deal with that? And what we did was we just, it was time for some R&D. Luckily there was funds set aside to say, okay, what can we do with social media? What can we do with the digital ad space? What can we do with something that's not traditional, like what we're using, you know, mortgage protection? What can we do something that's not traditional, like in the advanced market space? And to be able to have those funds set aside, ready to deploy, and to have actually already started beta testing. And I don't know, it was like before beta testing, but like really early testing stuff out so that we had something ready to go when, because we're not going to believe that a famine will never come, right? Like, if you want to live like the time of plenty is always going to be there, you know, what is that, the grasshopper and the ant story? Right. You know, it's like the grasshoppers, everything's always going to be good. But the ants know, eventually stuff's going to die off and we're going to have to use the storage to keep us going. And that's part of that learning and developing your knowledge of business so that you can start, keep winning in good times or bad times, or you can absorb a little bit of a loss in those times where guess what, it's down. So we've got to kind of eat into the store. House just a little bit so that we're around to keep coming back whenever times do get better. Because here's the thing, the good times always do come back, right? Hard times always come, and there's always gonna be hard times, but the good times always come back as long as you're continuing to move forward. The good times always stay whenever you decide to stop.

That's true. Have you ever heard that— I'm gonna try to Google it— you said the hard— have you ever heard that saying? You might, you might know it well off top of your head, that hard times create strong people. Do you know what I'm talking about?

Yeah, what is it? Um, hard times create strong people, strong people create easy times, easy times create weak people who then go on to create the next hard time.

I knew you would know it because it's just true.

I mean, the truth speaks, and if you can either acknowledge it and, and learn from it and go with it, or pretend like, oh well, that's just some saying people say. Okay, go ahead and keep living your life. I'm gonna go ahead and be one of the strong people that create easy times. But even if I create that, I'm gonna fit— I'm gonna have a way that, you know, my progeny, the legacy that I'm building for, is gonna still know how to— okay, when the hard times come, this is how dad or granddad taught us to prepare, plan for it, right? I mean, I know we all kind of reference, especially in the advanced market, where we reference the Rockefellers a lot, right? And that's what John D. Rockefeller did, because good times, bad times, otherwise, that Rockefeller dynasty is just— it's still— there's plenty of other dynasties that you don't know about. You, you don't— at least you don't know about anybody today, right? Like, we hear about what they did back in the day, but we don't know about what's their family doing today. The Rockefeller family is still doing a lot of stuff.

They are, dude, right?

I got to set that up.

It's funny, I'm building a house right now, and the guy who's building it one of the guys he uses to do some custom work, he's a descendant of their family, and the work he does is just because he loves the work. They don't— and hey, and they're married. He's married to someone from the Callaway family. The same thing, they both work, they both do stuff, they both have businesses, but they don't necessarily need to, you know what I mean? But they want to continue that, which is— I know you talk about that a lot, continuing the legacy and building this thing to outlast you, and you know, um, what's your thoughts on kind of how to do that? What's your intentionality? And I would like to hear— I know you got 4 kids, right? 4?

Is it 4 kids?

How do you— because obviously they get to live good, you know what I mean? Like, your kids ain't hungry. But how do you, how do you talk to them to make sure they don't go through that cycle in the wrong way? Because you, you read a lot of stuff and you, you understand that second generation, third generation A lot of times they go like, whoops, and they mess it up.

Yeah.

So would love to hear your thoughts on the whole building a legacy and how you're going about it, even with your kids. If there's— I assume there's some intentionality there.

Yeah, there's intentionality. I will say this as a caveat, I know I don't, I don't know it all on this one and exactly how it's supposed to work.

Um, I agree with that, bro.

I'm not a parent, you know. I don't know if the experiment, like Every— unfortunately, every— any person who's a new parent, you're starting an experiment with a person's life because, I mean, you, you can read all the books that you want, uh, but the way you do it, what you say at any given time, you know, it all adds up. Um, so my oldest is 8, my daughter just turned 7, and then I have 2 4-year-olds that are getting ready to turn 5 in just a handful of days.

Yeah, um, makes sense. A lot younger. Mine, I started so young, mine are so spread out. And I mean, my oldest is almost 30, dude.

Oh wow.

Yeah, I was a teenager when I had my first one, so. But it makes sense. Sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off.

No, no, no, but it was— and it's all— it's an ongoing experiment, right? Uh, because I, I'm even, even today seeing how, um, you know my dad continues to, to work on his relationship with parenting with me, right? Like, we're— it's a father-son relationship. It's not like a direct parent relationship. Uh, he actually works in insurance with me. Um, cool. So yeah, so it's a different way that I'm kind of seeing it from a couple different sides. But, you know, for me, when it comes to my kids, you know, obviously they do, um, they, they live well, they, they have all the things that they need. They don't have everything that want, right? I love it. It's always going to be that conversation about, well, you know, what does that actually mean? What does that look like? My son got a new little mini Vespa, basically. He's getting ready to turn 9, but we're not going to be here in Puerto Rico for his 9th birthday, so he got his present a little bit earlier. My daughter, who just turned 7 and actually had her birthday down here, she sees the Vespa and she, of course, she wants one of those now too. Right? And I had to tell her, you know, she came up to me very politely and with respect, said, hey Dad, you know, can I get one of those as well? I'm like, no, you're not gonna get one of those right now. And here's the reason why. Number one, your brother's 9, this is his present. You just turned 7, you got your present, which cost-wise was about the same cost as what the Vespa was. Um, and you're— you need to wait and develop until that's the appropriate and right get for you. But just because you see something that someone else has doesn't— you can desire it, but you don't have to have it at that moment. And there were some tears on her part, right? She cried a little bit. And she's still working. Like, I also teach my kids to be good salespeople. No doesn't mean no. It means no. Like, I'm teaching them both sides of it. So like, she certainly has re-asked, and I've had the conversation. And what I— the biggest thing that I've had to learn for myself is to learn that patience and that it's okay for them to ask me for something multiple times. It's okay for me to have to— I mean, how many times does it take us to learn a lesson, right? So for me to get, I already told you about that, won't you? No, it's like, okay, thanks for asking again. I appreciate it. I see what you're trying to do here, but here's the reason why that's not going to happen right now. And here's what you might be able to do so that it might be able to happen in the future. And then on top of that, so that they can kind of learn and understand that, like, they don't just get things at the drop of a hat. It's also being able to have those moments to be able to give back. You know, we, we have a foundation that I started just over 7 years ago. I did that in honor of my mother who passed away back in 2005. We support an orphanage in Uganda. We support an orphanage here in Puerto Rico, and we have a scholarship fund for nursing education that we administer in the Asheville, North Carolina area. And the kids are involved with, you know, if it's something as simple as, you know, licking the thank you letters or thank you notes to donors, or, you know, we did this big push to send a whole bunch of shoes down to Uganda a few years back. And like, the kids were helping us sort shoes by the shoe size. And help load it up and package it all up. Those things where they have to be physically involved and understand, hey, let me show you where this is going. Let me show you what this is doing. Let me share this video with you about when those shoes arrived. Here's how excited these kids were. This is where these kids live. There's 300 of them in this one orphanage. Their mom and dads aren't with them anymore for various reasons, and we're helping them out. We're giving of what we have. In excess so that they can live a better life and hopefully be able to do more with their life because they're getting a better education and they can get a step up as well. So just being able to show them that, not just in, hey, you know, Mom and Dad write a check over here, check over there, but like, this is what the family's purpose is, this is what we're involved with, and this is why. Like, being able to tie that back to, to my mother, um, and, and what's— what— why she what, what, what she lived for, you know, when she was here. Um, these are things that keep legacy— like, it has to— there has to be a purpose behind legacy. It's not just, oh, I just want to have a legacy, I just want to do good. Like, like, what's, what's the purpose? Like, what's the why? Um, and for me, it's certainly been— and this is something that I get challenged on quite often, you know— I still have that, you know, I want to make my mother proud, right? Like, I don't— I know very few men who, who don't want to do that in one way or the other. Some express it a little bit differently than others, but you know, um, but like, that's one of those things that is always that, that lodestone that pulls me back whenever I feel like I've gone off the rails this way or that way, is that what, what am I really trying to do? Like, what, what can I prove for myself to, to live up to this thing that I keep saying and telling myself that I want to live for? Um, and so those are the things I think That's kind of a long way of talking about how to, you know, raise your children in a way where they don't want for anything, but they learn to want to be the best version of themselves with the things that they're going to be able to go out and do and create, to the opportunities, the extra opportunities that they now have because of, you know, who they were born to. Um, and that's, that's what I hope for all of them is that they do the best with that, uh, is to, to make the most of their life with all the, the extras that you have. Um, and that's a, I think, a great place, or a place that everybody or anyone would want their kids, uh, to be in.

Yeah, that's dope. I, I have definitely learned that they watch and they listen to us. Like, not necessarily because I said, hey, do this, but like, they hear what you're saying in off-conversations and talking to agents and talking with the foundation, all the business stuff you do. Like, they're listening. I mean, Maddox— Maddox is now 12. He's my youngest. And the stuff that comes out of his mouth that in a sales aspect he kind of uses against me, you know what I mean? Because he hears me telling people to not give up and don't take no and all the things you said. Yeah, now Matt— and I'm like, man, but I have learned, man, they, they listen. They listen in ways you would have never thought. Because I've struggled with how to do this thing right too. I mean, I'm definitely first generation, any kind of money whatsoever. And bro, I've messed it up in a lot of ways, and I just try to continue to get better, you know.

Yeah, well, that's what— that's, that's why we have to learn how to live it the whole time, you know. Like, if, if, if you're trying to teach them one thing but then when you're out there doing it, you're doing it differently, like, they're hearing the different times too. And now, now you have a confused mind, right? Like, whenever they're not seeing consistency, you're breeding confusion. And when a confused mind then goes out to do it on their own, I mean, watch out. Like, you just have a train wreck getting ready to happen. So, and it's a struggle. It's not like— I certainly know I have not been perfect. We all have those moments. We all have those weak moments. That one last agent just said that one last thing they should have said to us. But we do what we can when we can.

Yeah, I've done my share fare of apologies to the children. I'm like, whoo, sorry. I know, I know I speak about being intentional with your words, and I just was unintentional there. My bad. Yeah, you know, it's, it's crazy, man. It's a, it's an everyday fight in everything— business, life, family. You know, to your point, it ain't going away. Yeah, it's just we do our best to continue to get better at it. And yeah, I think, um, being okay in some aspects with making mistakes along the way is, is an important piece of it that a lot of, a lot of people don't want to do that part, you know.

Well, they're going to either way, so how they choose to approach mistakes is going to determine the success level that they're going to have, you know. If you're thinking I'm just trying to avoid mistakes, living to avoid mistakes is not— that's not living, that's sheltering, you know. And nothing is created when you're in sheltered in place. You have to actually be out there working in an environment, being a creator in order to get new growth. And I have to be okay with mistakes if I'm going to live in that place. Like, yeah, if you're sheltered in place, you don't have to worry about mistakes and you can just sit there and just hope nothing eats you. But it's like, if I go out, I can build, I can create that new system, that new world, that new business, that new whatever.. But I have to be okay with knowing that I don't know exactly how to do it yet. So there's gonna be mistakes made. And I'm going to develop a process so I can learn when I make a mistake, and it changes the outcome or changes the results. Where can I go back in to adjust things so I don't make the same mistake? Hopefully, at least not 3 times. I mean, you might make it twice. 3 times.

Let's avoid the trifecta. I agree. What's, what's the name of the foundation? Do you want to give it out or give back help people, because I want to share it if we can.

Yeah, um, yeah, it's the Camila Foundation, and, um, I, I'm pretty sure I can make sure we send over, uh, information to you guys about that. But just Camila Foundation, C-A-M-I-L-A Foundation, and just Google it.

It's online and things like that.

Yeah, yeah, we're— yeah, online. Well, like I said, I'll make sure that we get you guys the information on that as well.

Cool. I love it. I love it. Give, um, give some insight, man, into, um You know, we get a lot of certainly new agents that are all over Google and YouTube and finding videos between you and me and Cody and all the others. Give some insight, man, for new agents. Maybe like what you see, whether you want to go the commonalities in the ones that fail or the ones that succeed, you know what I mean? Just give some advice, man. You've trained a lot of agents and a lot of people. It's easy entry into this business. There's a ton of upside. You know, I mean, you've seen the turnover in the space, and I don't think that's— and confused— anyone's confused about that. Um, but I see like you see, man. There's so many people having success in this industry over the course of hundreds of years, and it'll continue because the path is there. Um, so I would love to hear your insight into maybe your thoughts, how you speak to agents about it, anything in that realm. I'd love to hear your thoughts on it.

I mean, let's start off with, um, the largest group. You know, why do so many people fail? I mean, you mentioned Cody and the 8% concept, and when you look at the numbers, I mean, I think they, they prove out fairly true that 92% of people who start as life insurance agents don't end up being in the industry. You know, whether you want to say that's 9 months, a year, whatever the number is, right? And I think when you look at the larger macro data on people starting their own small business, right? I mean, you can Google this with the Labor Department, you know, whomever, but like the majority of small businesses as well, they don't make it, right? Why is that? And, you know, I think it goes back to those, the 3 things I was talking about earlier. Number 1 is you have to have resources. Right. People get started in this industry or start their own small business and they just don't— they're not capitalized or they're not willing to capitalize, like one of the two, right? They're not willing to put in what's necessary in order to see a result and what's necessary. I don't know many small businesses that when they do get started, they think, okay, I'm going to get all these— buy all this inventory, put it in the store, open up the store. And I expect to be profitable next month. Yeah, they, they like, if you start a small business like that, you're just foolish, right? Because that just does not happen. But even for us on the insurance side, like, when we bring people on board, they, they have to understand, like, look, you have to make an investment, right? Like, it was when I started with the captive agency I worked with, the investment was my list of 100. Yeah, that was, but that, that was an investment, right? Like, are you willing to write down 100 people? Are you willing to actually make that call? Book appointments and go out and sell life insurance to your family and friends. That's an investment. And if you don't have the money, that's the way to do it. Yep. We, we, we laugh about it now because we're just so used to leads. We're like, oh, leads, leads, leads, leads, leads. But like, a list of 100 works.

There's billion-dollar companies that still do that today.

To this day. Yeah, to this day, right? So it's like, am I willing to get the resources that I need to make this work? And somebody to talk to about getting a life insurance policy, that's your number one resource. This won't work if you don't have that. So if you're not willing to make a list of 100, if you're not willing to buy leads, if you're not willing to find a way to buy leads, don't start. Yeah, I, I mean, I, I like— but people are starting and they're not one— they're not willing to commit to do any of those. It's like, what, what are you trying to do here? You think it's just gonna like fall down from the sky on you or something like that? So that's number one. Number two is that, that systematic approach, right? Out of every IMO, every captive organization in this industry has a system, and guess what? Someone is killing it with that system. Yeah. Are you engaging and following a system and doing it consistently enough so that you can get those same results?, right? And I see people get started, and I've had people who came, came from other organizations, or they, you know, were in another type of insurance sales. Well, we didn't do it that this way over there. Okay, that's not what we're talking about. Like, you're here. Are you here to get the results that we get based off what we see consistently works? And if you can't believe it, you don't have faith in it, you don't just trust it, again, it's not gonna like These are things, these are fundamental principles. Like, if I don't believe it's going to work, I'm right. If I do believe it's going to work, I'm right. You know, I don't know how many people have said some variation of that adage, but it's just the truth. Yeah. And if I don't have a system and I don't work a system, I might as well again not get started. And the last one is just bringing that energy, and this is something that is all on the individual. You have to bring the desire, that burning desire as Napoleon Hill talks about. You have to bring, uh, you bring the motivation. Like, I need to get motivated. You don't need to get motivated. You need to bring motivation. And then your leaders, your mentors, they're going to help to ramp that up. They're going to help to elevate that. Those are the agents that I get to see the most happen with, is the ones come to me energized and ready to go, right? Because then when we're talking we leave that conversation, we're really ready to go. But the ones who come in there, it's like, I'm trying. It's just so hard. And it's just like, there's all these things that just keep happening. Guess what? That's everybody. That's everybody, Bubba. Everybody has stuff that's happening in their life. I don't know anybody who doesn't. So do I want to come from that vantage point or I'm going to just find the way? And I get it. It is challenging to find a way. When life is stressful and tough, right? But it's still just a choice. It's still a choice. I tell my daughter all the time, she's my most emotional one. I'm like, look, emotions happen. Like, that emotions are just a trigger that happens in your brain due to an external stimulus. Like, something's gonna make you angry, happy, sad, disappointed, frustrated. Like, that happens. How you decide to feel about it Yeah, that's what you get to determine every single day. This doesn't mean I'm like— I'm not wanting to tell her like, I'm not talking about swallowing your feelings or swallowing your emotions. I'm not trying to talk about holding it in, but you get to determine how you feel about what that emotion is triggering you, right? Like, if it's making you sad, why is it making you sad? And is the feeling going to be, you know what, I'm gonna overcome this thing that's making me sad because I'm gonna push through it, right? I understand why I'm sad and it did make me sad, but I'm going to feel like an overcomer because I'm not going to stay sad. Right. And it's the same thing for us or for an agent that's getting started. When we're talking about bringing the energy, bringing motivation to this, your life is going to be happening all around you. You have to determine how you show up to work and how you're going to feel to work this thing. Right. The emotions are going to be what they're going to be. We can't We're human beings. We're going to have emotions. We can't change those, but we certainly can determine how we're going to feel about what that emotion is going to do for us in that particular moment. So, like, for agents that don't get started, they fail on either one or all three of those areas, right? That's where they're missing some point in all of those. And people who go on to be successful, that 8% of people, they're still not doing all those areas right. They're just not doing it as wrong. That is the crazy thing. I've never heard it worded that way, bro. I know nobody who's doing all of those areas 100%. Let's be honest. You're good.

That was great. I love it, dude. Man, that one made me laugh. I'm gonna steal that one, dude. I love it.

But really, like, I don't know anyone, even at the highest levels of this—

agreed—

who are 100 on all those areas. But they just, they do it right more often than they do it wrong. And the people who fail are just doing it wrong a lot more often than they're doing it right. And you can just flip that, just like, again, that gives you that, that's where grace— thank God for grace. That's where grace comes in, because I don't have to be perfect. I just have to do it right more often than I do it wrong.

So it's really doing the same exact thing, just doing it either more or less often depending on which thing it is.

Yeah.

Dude, that was the simplest explanation of the other side I've ever heard.

There you go. Hopefully this is gonna help somebody.

I love it.

Figure it out for themselves. Like, oh, okay, I can do that.

That's it.

I can do that. I can, I can be 51% good and 49% not good. 100%.

I think Vegas makes a lot of money on odds like that.

I think they do. I think they do.

Crazy. What's, um, give some advice on, um, I want to hear your thoughts on like building and structuring an agency properly, profitable. I hear you talk about base shop a lot, which excites me because most people probably don't even know what that is, much less do they have one, you know. I would love to hear your thoughts on building, dude. This is, this is, this is the piece of the industry I love. Um, so however you want to attack it, just, just do you. Obviously, you know, I'm guessing you have quite a few leaders. I actually don't know right off the top of my head who your guys are. I'm sure I know them, but in my head I actually don't. But I would love to hear some thoughts on just building and structuring, again, most importantly, a profitable company in, in this space.

Yeah, I mean, when you're looking to build an agency, you definitely want to make sure that you're being a leader from the front and developing leaders, right? Like, that's— that, that has to be a part of— like, I got to figure out a way to be able to lead my team by showing them the things that— like I said, the process. Like, what's the process that they're going to use? It doesn't have to be your process. You can have gotten the process from somebody else, But you have to have a process that you're working with and then you can start to, you know it well enough that you can start to teach it, right? That you can start to help hold people accountable to them doing that process as well. And from there, it's really seeing, because we know there's a certain percentage that are going to actually do that, right? We were discussing like if it's 8%, then it's 8%. I wish I could just change the percentages, We've been working for 15 years to try to change those percentages. They kind of are what they are. So I'm looking for who are those people that step up and get into that top 8%. And once I identify and find someone who does that, if you can sell and you want to build, you can build because it's two sides of the same coin. The same things— and this, this is what we talk about, we teach— the same things that I'm doing, the activity that's necessary on the sales side is the activity that's necessary on the building side, right? You know, so let's just transpose what I'm doing here. Like, you're, you're at $20,000, $25,000, $30,000 a month producer, all right? So keep doing that, don't stop, keep doing that. Yeah. And now we need to find some time. So this means, guess what, if I'm going to build, I may have to come up with some extra time in my day or borrow some time for something else to to start working on building because the personal production still has to be there, especially when you're starting to build. Because when you're starting to build, as you know, like, you don't start making money next week when you start building an agency. People act like they do. It's like, I'm gonna start building and totally stop producing. And like, you know what happened? My income fell off for the last 3 months because you weren't producing, man. You don't got nobody yet. Um, but I can transpose that over here, and then it's just, you know, it's, it's what's the activity. Who am I finding and what am I talking about and teaching about whenever I'm bringing them over to be a part of my team? Because as long as I'm doing those things, I'm going to start identifying and finding individuals who bring the one thing that I can't bring for them, and that's that energy or motivation. And when I start finding those, then the team starts to grow and develop. And now a leader truly becomes— or a potential leader truly can become a leader because they start having their own people. And then it's just a duplication process. Right. And it's just to continue to have a culture where like that's edified, that's talked about, that the systems for that are understood by everyone involved. You know, where if someone raises their hand and says, hey, you know, I want to be a leader, I want to have a team. I don't— I've stopped whenever I bring new people in. I've stopped saying, okay, we're bringing you in. To produce and we want to start building a team with you right away. I, I don't do it anymore. I say, one, come in here, show me you can produce. If you can do that, then we can talk about building. And there's a lot of— I know a lot of people that, well, you know, we, uh, a recruit isn't a recruit until they have a recruit. Okay, yeah, yeah, um, like, fine, I might, you know, that could work for some folks. Uh, but again, that, that keeps driving our us to that 92/8 percentage thing. So, you know, I'm like, what if, you know, I'm working with people say, hey, look, on your own personal pin, you can pay your bills, and let's get you to that in 2 or 3 months. And then when you do that, now let's talk about how you can use some of your time, maybe time that you're starting to get back, to start developing a business and start to build that the same way that you learn how to do the personal production. People start away too many things too quickly. I, I've done that, I made that mistake, and I continue to make that mistake where you just take on too many things at one time. And we all know how that goes. Either you're just overly stressed and you kind of barely make it out alive, or you just failed miserably because you, you're juggling all those balls and then there's something that happens and everything drops. Right? So it's like, if I can get you where you're, you're, you're to that point, personal production, you're going out there and you're being consistent, and then you transition into, okay, now let's take what we learned on that side and do that on the building side. Because the building side takes the same thing. You need resources, you need a system, and you need to bring the energy and the motivation to actually make it work. It's the same stuff. Yeah, right? Like, it doesn't change. And, and that's the conversation that I, I have with anybody who's wanting to build. Um, at this point in time, I haven't always been like that. I'll be right, you know, my building, uh, mindset has changed over the years. Uh, but it's, it's why I still, uh, work to cultivate a base shop, you know, people who are direct to me, who I typically most weeks, uh, you know, Monday through Thursday, I want to huddle up with them every single morning. I'm talking to many people on a weekly basis, or at least you know, every other week. But that's— those are the things that enable me to identify those leaders and then help them get to that next level as we work together.

It's funny, it's like if they can do the 3 things over here, the concept and the principle of it, now they just— they, they have that confidence. You've helped them breed that confidence in some kind of way. It's like, oh, same thing, just maybe a few different steps, maybe learning people different, learning how to communicate different. Certainly there's obviously some some funny aspects to it, but at its core it is the same. And if you've achieved it in one, why not in the other? Yeah, it's, um, it's been a— it's been a fun ride learning, learning how similar they are. Yeah, you know, the parallels. Um, you know, one of— what's your thoughts? I'm gonna just throw a word out for you. I just want to hear your thoughts on it. I was listening to something this morning. I'll tell you about it after, but expectations comes to mind. You know, when I think a lot about building or agents or getting people started or just the business. Which— do you have any thoughts on the word itself, or do you use it in any way? Or I'm just curious, this is just genuinely curious.

Expectations. Um, I think it's a powerful word. I think it's a very powerful word, especially for, you know, we were just talking about building. Whenever I hire someone their expectations have to be set correctly. Otherwise, I'm going to run into a lot of trouble a weekend, two weeks in, a month in, six months in, right? Like, expectations have to be clear. The clearer I can make it— like, and they're never gonna be 100% clear, but the clearer I can make expectations, the better the outcome is going to be. It's typically when expectations are at odds with each other that we have problems. I thought it was going to be this way. Well, you said it was going to be. No, I didn't say that. The battle starts. It's such a powerful thing we have to, and it goes back to one of the things you mentioned earlier, intentionality. If we're living in an intentional way and we're having intentional conversations, we are trying to be clear on the expectations of, hey, here's what you can expect from me. Here's what I'm going to do. Here's what I need you to do. Right. If you're ever unclear on that, let's pause, let's have a conversation, let's talk so that we can move forward in this thing as clearly as we possibly can be. So, yeah, powerful word, one that we need to be more cognizant of and just aware and intentional about. Like, what are the expectations that your people have of you, or that you have of your people, or that your clients have of you, that your spouse has of you or that you have of her, right? Like, the clearer people are about expectations, the more, the more things are gonna be able to just run smoothly and get greater momentum, uh, whenever you have clear expectations.

It's, it's funny, I, um, I've always said that, and the way you did it is you set your expectations in the relationship, you know what I mean? Here's the things I expect, you know what I mean? Like, you did it that way. It's a funny thing of having expectations of others without having that conversation and providing clarity, you know. And I've always said, like, expectations can cause a lot of frustration, you know. I mean, if it, if it's not discussed the right way. Do you, hey, do you know Inky Johnson? You follow him? No. You know, um, uh, oh Lord, Eric Thomas?

Yeah.

All right, so he rolls in his circle, but Inky Johnson was like a hot, like a D1, I think Clemson I want to say Clemson or Tennessee, I can't remember. D1 football player, like NFL for sure. And he got injured on like one of the final plays of his college career, arm paralyzed. And he's a, he's a pretty big motivational speaker. He has a really cool podcast called Serendipity Now. Crazy enough, I followed him for a little while because I followed Eric Thomas for years, but crazy enough, our kids go to the same school together. So I've had opportunity to just meet him briefly a couple times, and, um, I was listening to some of his stuff this week, and I wrote down— I had, before I got on the call with you, just, I, I just opened a new notebook today and started writing some stuff down, and he worded it in a way that I just loved. Like how I said I love the way you laid out the thing earlier in a simple way, um, he said expectations— this is what Inky said, and I just love the wording of it— he said it's premeditated way to create disappointment was his view on it. If you have them of other people without providing clarity. Yeah, you know what I mean? Was kind of the context to it. I was like, a premeditated way? I was like, dang. You know, meaning if I have expectations of you without us having a conversation. Yeah, you know what I mean?

It's like, huh, you're setting yourself up for— yeah, no, that's good.

In his eyes on purpose, you know. I was like, that's a deep way to look at it. And I've been— I just been listening to his thought process on some stuff. It's really, it's really cool. I think you might like him.

Check—

if you like Eric Thomas, you'll like his style.

I'll definitely have to check him out.

Yeah, they run in similar, similar circles for sure. Um, cool. Well, it's been fun, dude. Anything, anything you want to end with or add or anything we missed that you wanted to, to get out there, please I'd love to hear some final thoughts if you got any, or again, anything you want to share.

No, I mean, I think the last thing I would share is just, um, just given it's been an interesting last couple of weeks for me, um, just, uh, personal health-wise, uh, family, um, and, and what's going on with my family, uh, businesses, things that are going right, things that are not going the way I want them to go. And it's been that reminder to me that we as insurance agents, we as agency builders, have to be more mindful and more aware of what we're setting up and make sure that we're prepared for any and all situations. And that takes time. It takes time to set clear expectations of what does that look like so that your family, your business partners, know and understand what that's going to be. It takes being intentional. Like, we're life insurance agents. And, you know, how often do we as agents review our life insurance policies? Yeah, right. You know, I was doing a review earlier this month, realized, you know what, I'm probably about $2 million underfunded with my life insurance. And so I was like, let's go get $2 million more of life insurance to make sure that things are in the right place. Should something happen. Um, and, you know, it's, it's like these are things that we as agents, we talk to our clients about, but then we just kind of rush through life and just go, go, go, go, go. But we're not setting it up the way we would advise them. So taking that time as you're building your, your business, your agency, um, it, you know, it can be, it can be a small thing. It's not a lot that you have to do whenever you're just first getting started. But have a little something in place. But especially for those of you who are agency builders who have large organizations, make sure that you're set up so that your organization continues if you want to continue. Because here's one thing that I know I've had conversations recently with my wife about. It's like, if I wasn't here, not stepping in to start doing huddle up calls and events, and she's not doing that, right? So what does the organization look like How does it continue to go on if I wasn't here to be a part of that? And most people, oh, don't talk like— yes, we talk like that. We're insurance agents, right? Like, that's what we're supposed to do with our clients every single day. So if I haven't done it with myself, am I being genuine about what I'm out there doing, right? So to have that conversation and make sure that in this great business that truly can be a passive income generator for your family for a long time if you build it right. Like, make sure that you're setting it up so that it can do that and not just setting it up so that it's, you know, Edward Pritchett's ego trip, you know? Like, that's, that's what I had to kind of look at. It was like, how am I setting up my organization? Is it about Edward Pritchett or the Pritchett Agency and what, uh, we're doing? And would it continue to go on? Like, I want to make myself, you know, unnecessary. Yeah, right. Um, and that's gonna be my, my big push, my big goal over the next year to 18 months is how can I make Edward Pritchett as unnecessary as possible? I want to be like, get the old man out of the way, let him go take another nap. Like, that's where I want to be at the end of 2025, right? That's awesome. So just, it's a new way for me because I've always just been very hard-charging, very like, do this, do everything, make it huge. And now I'm more of the mindset of, that's not— I'm not here I'm not here for me. I'm here to remove me from this equation. Um, and that's my— that's my personally, for me, my next 12 to 18 months is like, how do I remove me from the equation?

I love it, dude. It's a good message. Been fun chatting. If I can ever do anything to help, man, please let me know. Appreciate you getting on and sharing, brother. It's been a blast.

Thank you, my dude. Later.