This Sales System Made Me $1 MILLION in 9 Months ft. Ronnie Salem | Ep42

I think Zach said it took him almost 4 years to get to a million. It took Wiley 3 years, and then it took me 1 year. So like, if that information is being passed down correctly, that's the way that it should work.

And it took me 6 years. I mean, it's, it's working. What up, y'all? John Wetmore back with another episode of Insurance Insiders Podcast. Have with me Ronnie Salem, uh, killing it in the space, building a massive team, growing crazy fast. I think at a million a month, and correct me if I'm long in like 9 months or something. Not so, um, in the business. Had a chance to meet you recently in person. Obviously I've, I've heard about you and, you know, you work with a lot of the guys I've worked with for a long time. But we connected in— the hell were we, Boca?

Boca?

Yeah, we are in Boca. And, uh, got to chat for a little while, doing big things. And coincidentally, you were lined up to be on here, so I, I was like, shit, I'm excited to have you share because a lot of people overcomplicate this business and it seems like you're keeping it simple and and, and doing big things. So appreciate you getting on, bro.

Yeah, so that's the way to do it, man. I appreciate you having me on, and definitely you're a big name in the industry, so it's a blessing and honor that some of my mentors learned from you and that information just was passed down to me. So it's, uh, truly amazing to be in business with you guys.

Yeah, it's, it's cool to see that this shit's still working and the simple things just keep flowing. And what's cool about the guys that we've both been kind of between us, if you will, uh, they haven't tried to overcomplicate this business either. So they just keep it simple and they're like, well, shit, it worked for him, why wouldn't it work for me? And it worked for me, it's working for that guy, why not work for you too? And, uh, getting to work with Zach and Wiley when they were brand new, especially Zach— I mean, I've been working with Zach for a long time, Um, you know, he certainly poured into Wiley a lot more than I did, but I remember Wiley when he was brand new talking to a bunch. So crazy how far they've grown. Um, and it's cool to see you're helping, helping grow that team now, dude.

Yeah, so those two were a big play in me learning. So if you take Zach Tordowski and combine— and Wiley Hawkins and combine them into one person, you get me. So everything I learned was from them. And Zach said it at Founders Day, he's like, if the information is being passed down correctly you can get guys faster to that level, faster than you did it. So like, yeah, I think Zach said it took him almost 4 years to get to million. It took Wiley 3 years, and then it took me 1 year. So like, if that information is being passed down correctly, that's the way that it should work, you know, man.

It took me, uh, let's see, I started in 2012 technically, and then we hit it in 2018, so 6 years. Zach, 4th, Wiley, 3rd. Yeah, I mean, it's, it's working. And that's the dude who taught me even longer. It took him like, uh, like 8.

So that's the thing, like, when I was 23, I decided to drop out of law school because I always knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur. And mistakenly, instead of signing up for a 9 to 5, I signed up for 24/7 in the restaurant industry for the next 5 years. But when I came into the industry, I was sharing about on my story today, like I didn't know jack about the financial services industry before I came into it, and you honestly don't need to know anything. But the biggest message is that if you get around the right people, you're going to get the right information, and it's going to take you to the next level.

And it's just as simple as that, as long as you implement that information, bro. And that's what you're doing different.

It's just 3 things that I stick by, like, and when I was— I just got back from an Alex Hormozi event with Wiley. We're with him for the past 2 days, and Like, I always see the same 3 things that are in, that are in common in the high-level entrepreneurs. Number 1 is going to be like consistency. If you can outwork everybody and not treat this like a 9-to-5 and show up on the weekends, like, you already have the upper hand on 90% of your competition. And then number 2 is like what it takes to become great like you is you probably set high standards when you were in my position. Like, if you can set those standards and operate towards them on a quarterly, on a yearly basis, you're just going to torch the people in your industry. It's as simple as that, because most people, they just show up to show up without purpose. And then number 3 is just getting the right information from the right people.

Yeah, I love it. So what's, what's been valuable information for you so far that's allowed you to build it? And, and you can talk about the sales side if you want to. Did you— first of all, I don't even— what I love about doing this podcast, dude, is I don't research shit before I go. So this is me trying to figure stuff out. Like, I love just being inquisitive. So did you sell, or do you sell? I don't even know if you do sell, to be honest.

I should be hitting Hall of Fame in week 3 of this month.

Hell yeah. So $400K.

I always wanted to do both. I said I'm gonna hit Hall of Fame and I'm gonna scale to $1 million faster than anyone has seen.

Badass.

Because, you know, like, one, the biggest thing that Zach instilled to me was like setting a standard. He's like, man, you need to sell $40K a month till your team gets $1 million. Before that, you might think you're busy, but you're not. You're just not being intentional with your time. So the biggest thing that I learned this year was just straight up being intentional with my time.

Okay, what are you— what— how does one go from restaurant business to $40K a month personal? And we'll get into building site after, but what's your opinion on that? And obviously you're teaching it, so it's working, but what do you— what do you give there, or what did you implement?

So the biggest reason that I got out of the restaurant industry is because, like I shared before on a podcast before, like in 6 years I hadn't taken 2 consecutive weekends off. Yeah, now every weekend is for my kids. Like today I was traveling, I'm taking my kids out to Chuck E. Cheese at 7 o'clock, something I've never been able to do in like 6 years. So the biggest way to get to that $40K level from a different industry, it's simple. It comes down to do you believe in yourself? And number 2, are you willing to bet on yourself? And if you're able to come in here, it's just like anything else, it may take time. Like some of my guys, it takes 30 days to get to that level. Some of them take 2 or 3 months, but it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when. So it's like, if you put the work and the effort towards it, like, it's just gonna happen, you know?

Yeah. What do you, what do you say, because you've been doing this long enough, dude, and I know you're, you're heavy in recruiting warm market and have a cool circle and that's flowing, but my guess is you're doing some, some type of cold market recruiting or bring people in and they go like, I mean, I believe in myself and I'm working hard, but I can't make any money. Like, what do you— what are they not doing specifically? Because yeah, so I see it too.

Anytime I see an agent struggling, it always comes down to 3 things. Number 1, not enough leads. Number 2, not dialing enough. Or number 3, not enough confidence. It's always 1 or 3 of the things, and the business is so simple that if you're not getting results, then I always do like a pool of numbers. I'm like, okay, Like this month, week 2 just came out for December. We have 20 writers over $20K so far. So I'm like, okay, it's working for those 20. What are these guys doing that it's not working for them? It's simple, they're not working enough. So like, it's, it's, that's it. The business is that simple. You're not getting enough results, you're not working enough.

Yeah, yeah, I agree, dude. I wrote a— I don't know if you got to read it. If you didn't, let me know, I'll send you one. I was gonna say I'll send you one.

If not, I just got one from one of my buddies. Dope.

But that's— that was my thing too. I'm like, I wish someone was like you and was honest and told me that's all it was, I wasn't working hard enough. Because everyone was saying it was the script or the lead company or the city or where— my area or whatever, you know what I mean? It was all this stuff. I didn't have the right clothes. They were saying all these things. And I'm like— and be clear, those things certainly affect it some too, but dude, the work to me was like It's like 95%.

Yeah, yeah.

Um, I dig it, dude. Did you, did you get— did you own the restaurant stuff or were you an employee?

So I had two, yeah, one, uh, pizzeria and one seafood. Like crazy business, man. Like I almost sold— it's like the business owns you, you don't own the business.

Yeah, yeah.

So like it's just crazy to see like the different side of sales coming into this. Like that's why it kills me, like when people are saying like they're not getting results or like, this is hard. Like, you haven't seen hard. Like, I used to clock in from 9 AM, leave the house when my kids just woke up, get home at 11. That is hard work. What we do might be mentally hard, but it's not physically hard. And like, so many people take it for granted, it's crazy, you know?

Yeah. Would you get like the occasional Monday or Tuesday afternoon off?

Monday is always Monday. Somebody called out, like, I would have to go in, you know? It's as simple as that. Like I said, the business owns you, you don't own it. Yeah.

I, I didn't own one, but I worked in a pizza joint for 4 years when I was young. It was same thing, dude. Monday afternoon, bro, that's what I got.

Yeah, you know, always.

Yeah, it was like, oh, I just gotta work. And what do you think about the work smarter, not harder people? They suck and they aren't having success. And there are, there are ways and times to be smart and, you know, have systems, all that jazz. But I'm talking about the people that are broke that are like, I don't want to work hard, I want to work smarter. Give me the magic there.

So you can, but I always believe it's a mix of both, you know. Like right now, when I was recruiting at a high level and like when I was onboarding 15 to 20 riders a month— right now I think we're pacing like 30 a month— but my, my production got killed. Like I had a month where I went from like 60, 50 down to like 25. Now that's when you need to work smarter too and harder. So what did I do? I implemented a dialer. I started spending more on leads. I started giving myself more opportunities and automating the, the system. And that's what it comes down to. There's no such thing as like just working smart here. You need to do both because—

but you were making jack by then.

Yeah, 100%. So like, you need to do both. It's simple as that, you know?

Yeah, I struggle, dude, because I see so many people that want to win in this business, bro, and they say all the right words up front, and then they just— it's— they're full of excuses when it comes down to like the, the action part of it. And it's, it's hard, dude.

And I don't—

as many people as I interview and as many times as I speak, everyone says the same thing that's having success.

Yeah, it's all, it's all the same message. And that's why I wear this on my wrist. It says actions over words. Because like, when I'm training or when I'm like recruiting, I always like to throw out tasks to see if that person is coachable before I can see that they're the right fit. So like, the biggest thing, if anybody's watching this, that's going to take away— the way I recruit is like an NFL scout. I throw tasks in front of them, and that's something else, one of the many things that I learned from Zach, is like, I'll send a couple messages, a couple videos, tell them to join a BOM, and if they do it, I know that person is going to be coachable. So like, all of that little stuff matters, you know?

Yeah, yeah. I heard— I was listening to Mylett this morning on a podcast, and he says to turn off the volume to people and just watch what they do. They'll tell you everything about them. You know, I thought it was a cool way to say what you just said. It's like, just turn off, just don't even listen, just watch it, you know. And for us, it's always been— I like thinking of it like playing fetch in a sense. Yeah, something to do and get back to me. Go do this, get back to me. Go do this, get back to me. And the more they keep coming back— Zach just never went away, dude. That fool called me so many times but always like, all right, I did it, now what? All right, I'm done with that, now what? I always wanted to get better, always want to know what was next.

Yeah, and your mentors love that. Like, if you're like— I remember the first tip I got from Zach. There was these guys at the gym that I wanted to approach at like 5 AM when I go to the gym, and I didn't know how to approach them. Is when I first started recruiting back in February, he's like, do this, this, that. This was like the night before, like 6 AM the next day, I text him, done, they're in the course. Like, when you, when you have speed like that, like, that's how you get your mentors on your side and invested in you. Because, like, the person that can take the information and implement it the right way, like, those are the people that most likely people like you want to work with and get closer to, you know?

Yeah, yeah. How does one go about recruiting 50— onboarding, getting started? Because they're very different, onboarding versus recruiting. 15, 20, 30 people a month. What's the strategy there?

So our system is very automated. As soon as they pass the exam, they start memorizing the script while they're waiting to get contracted. This way, when we bring them in to train, they have a little bit of background on what we're about to teach them, and they start hopping in on Zoom in our training calls.

Yeah, yeah.

In the meanwhile, while they're waiting to get their first dials out. So like, the biggest thing is like the system, right? So like we have trainings 3 times a week and Instead of me training you every day, you bring them in, we have one Zoom, it's a new face and another person winning at a high level, and we put the right people in front of them to where they're going to learn in advance. So it all comes back to them, you know, like if there's a way, if there's a will, there's a way in our group. And I always say like, I think we have 120 active right now, and like probably less, it was 9 that are not with us anymore. And like the biggest thing with them is just like Some of them never started, or some of them just— the work ethic wasn't there, you know. So like, this works if you do it.

Yeah. What's the re— what's the recruiting strategy? Like, finding the people, get them started, great. I'm a big systems guy. If you're using Zach's system, I don't know if you use the same thing or not, but I built that part. Like, I'm a nerd. Yeah, I mean, I'm a complete nerd with that stuff. Yeah. But before someone gets there, it's like, how did you find all the people, dude, to put in your system? What was your strategy there going in?

So like, if you look at the first few guys on my team, like when I got into this business, they were the first people that got to my mind. So like some of them were my cousins, some are friends, some are brother-in-laws, people that I knew that were going to be a good fit. So here's the biggest thing. If you guys are listening, when you're recruiting, you need to recruit with your eyes and your brain, not your heart, because that's how you hurt family when you bring them into the business. So like, I'm looking at people that are hard workers to begin with, not the guy that's a great guy. He just needs an opportunity. Yeah, it's not the magic industry for that guy. So the biggest thing is like look into your warm market, see who's in sale. Like, hey man, like I'm doing this, is that— would you, would you be interested in working the same hours and doubling your income? Because most of those guys in sales are already working from 9 to 7, 9 to 8, working on the weekend. And then other than that, it's like social media. Like I remember when I first started, I used to be afraid of like what people were going to say about me because I'm posting the business or getting judged. And like, if I fast forward now and I look back, like, there's only two people that are gonna talk about you while you're building your business. And the first guy is going to be the guy that's miserable, or— and the second guy is going to be the broke mofos. So like, you can't be afraid to promote your business, you know, because people are going to judge you no matter what.

Yep. I'm looking at your— I'm pulling up your Instagram now.

ZerDark30.

What's that? So what's the ZER?

My guys call it Zero Dark.

Yeah, no way. Why?

I'm always working. I'm always on the clock.

I love it. Zero Dark Thirty. Yep, I got it. That's badass. Yeah, I love it. So you just— you bought into this thing, dude, and again, you're making it seem like it's— which it is. I agree with you. Some people want to overcomplicate the recruiting and onboarding process, but you just believed in this thing and were like, hey, I'm going over here, we're going to make a bunch of money, are you in or out? Yeah, it was literally sounds that is what your approach was.

Yeah. So like when I, when I was in the restaurant industry, I wasn't full-time from the gate. So like I went to my first convention this past February and that's where I met Zach. And Zach told me something that stood out. He's like, I went from 100 to 1 million in the same year.

Yeah.

And I came back and wrote 0 to 1 million 2024 DBAP on my whiteboard in my office. And that was the mission, you know. So like, you don't have to, you don't have to have a background, you don't have to be great to start, like, just, just do it, you know.

Yeah, if you're in sales and you're trying to figure out how to get effing paid and stop getting so many objections, register now for my 2-day workshop here in Atlanta, Georgia, February 27th, 28th. We're gonna have some special guest speakers. There is an exclusive mastermind for VIP ticket holders. For those that just want to attend the event, you can. There's a very low entry to get into it. We'll be going over everything you need for sales, objections, scripts, role-playing, everything you need to build a business, scale a business, staffing, automations, everything I've learned in the last decade plus building what I've built. Of course, we've had a lot of help, so we'll be going over how to scale it, how to structure it, everything you need to get to the next level. Click on the link, register below. We'll see you there. Dude, I love it. It made me laugh because we had a You weren't here yet, but him and I ran a workshop, the DBAB workshop.

I got snubbed from that.

Did you?

From that? Yeah. Why? How mad I was as a new agent. But, uh, my upline, Mahmoud, was like, I can get you in, I can get you in. I was like, no, no, I want to earn it. I'll be there next year.

Yeah, yeah, we need to, we need to do another one. That was, that was fun. And every— no one knew what it meant. Yeah, so we start, we do it, we built the— my team and Zach's team worked together and we made the workbooks and did all the stuff. And everyone was like, what? They just— no one thought of it. I'm like, I have— I'm going to show you in a second. I just told my assistant to come, uh, bring me that thing.

Like, every time someone walks into my office, they're like, hey, what does that mean?

What is that? Yeah, yeah. For those that don't know, yeah, I don't— I— it resonates. What's funny is, so we have some merch that I made literally just for myself because I, I I kept buying other people's merch on Instagram, and I'm like, do you want to make my own? And, and it became things I say to myself, and it's super comfy stuff because I literally bought them for me. And it just happened to be people are like, where can I get one? So they started— we, we now have them where people buy them. And, uh, we made the DBAB shirt, which for those that are confused is Don't Be a Bitch, because that's how I talk to myself when I'm stressing out. And, uh, I don't know if you— do you have one yet?

No, I need one though.

Yeah, I'm gonna get you— I'm gonna send it to you.

I need one. I need one.

Dude, it be— can you send one to Ronnie, please? What size are you?

Uh, medium.

A medium? Yep, medium. Cool, we'll work on it. Um, yeah, and so one day we decided to make this, and dude, it's become our most popular shirt. Everyone wants that one.

I'm like, so true, man. Like, that saying is like— well, as an entrepreneur, it's true because like, yeah, you're going to have those hard days. I had days where like we're breaking points. I remember like when we got to like 250, 300, I was the only one doing all the work and recruiting on my team. And I was like training like 10 people at a time in my office. And I was getting smoked, you know, like my guys didn't like coming to the office, nobody was building. And I remember Zach always used to tell me like when Wetmore was teaching me how to build, he never like really pushed me. It was when I was ready is when I came to him and is when I start going. Yeah, so like, I didn't want to push guys because I know if you do push them, they end up hating you, and it's always about the timing. But like, that was hard. And I remember those days were like breaking points, and I would always go back to that saying, 'Deep up,' because like, you're gonna overcome it. But imagine if I would have quit at 250, like, we wouldn't have hit a million this past month, dude.

Most people do, bro. There's like funny points that people fall off. Obviously it's really early But $250 is a sticking point, dude. That, that range, I've seen significantly more people go to zero than go to a million from $250.

Those two, um, I've noticed just from like my other people in business, like $150 and $250 are the most crucial points because if you don't keep that momentum while the rocket's going up, you go down. And sometimes I've seen people like stay stagnant there for 6 months because once that momentum is gone That's really hard to bring it back.

Yeah, I mean, you're mostly doing it alone at that point. Yeah, is the reality, you know. Now obviously you got some help and, you know, it's like there's no dragging people, but you can— you— and you, you're smart enough to know this, but you can, you can challenge people, you know what I mean? And, and, and you can believe in people more than they believe in themselves and vision cast and all that stuff. Um, what do you, what are you doing now to manage all the chaos and the people and the personalities and get you know what I mean? Like, keep the culture. And how you— how's that going for you? What's the challenges and what are you doing there?

Yeah, so there's plenty of challenges. And the biggest thing I've learned, the bigger that we get, the more situations we deal with. You're gonna have these people that come in here and do this, this, that. Like, people that, you know, like, the bigger you get, the more problems you, you deal with. And I remember, I forgot if it was you or Brent Abernathy that said that you guys may not see us a lot now, but we're always dealing with the same problems, you know. Like, the bigger you get, the problems don't go away. They just— yeah, you get more of them, you know. So the biggest thing with culture is like, we, we do, um, the big office stuff like lock-ins every quarter. That's huge for us. I try to stay super, super involved with my guys. Like, I've got some guys out there. We have a compound in Texas where Zach's at. Get involved with them. And like, we've got a good group in Minnesota. And what we do is like, we do like this quarterly lock-in for our new agents every quarter. And we— all the managers that are growing, we come out there and we train them. Or sometimes they'll come up to my office on a monthly basis, like if it's a big group. And just staying plugged in with the team in general, like, you know, like if there's a Founders Day, for example, like I brought out 15 of my heavy army there, you know, like it's just simple stuff like that. Like if there's something that you can do to bring those leaders closer to the fire, like take them. And that it's Simple as that. You don't got to do something every day, every week. Just continuously, you know, keeping that culture strong in the team, whether it's Slack or on Zoom daily, you know.

Yeah, you're obviously good at promoting stuff too. Yeah, I mean, so I'm guessing you're giving vision and giving people excited— like, how do you get that many people in a— to follow you across the country to a meeting? What advice can you give there?

So I always tell my convention story, right? Like, there was only like 2 people on my team last convention. And like when I went to the convention, like that's where like the fire was lit. When I left that convention, you know, like that's where I met big names like Zach, Grady, came across you. Like the way you get there is by getting to those events and meeting those people, you know. So that's why those events are so important. Like I watch, for example, like one of my biggest takeaways watching like Jamie Cheerio walk off of the Hall of Fame jacket and a Hall of Fame agency jacket. And I was like, I want to do that. Yeah, but you see those people and you see what's possible out there, you know?

Yeah, I love it, dude. Um, I'm intrigued to know how your— because not everybody manages systems well. You mentioned you use the thing, the system we built, Agent Automator. What's— how's that helping you, dude? Like, is it— how do you utilize that? How do you use the system like that? Because for me, it's all I know.

You know what I mean?

And to be honest, I didn't, I didn't build it for, quite frankly, for other people. I built it for me, and it turned into like, shit, people keep asking for it. Um, so I'm super intrigued. Are you, you, are you systems guy normally, or did you just figure out how to use it? Or like, how's it helping you?

Yeah, yeah. So Agent Automator is big for us because I'm going to tell you guys something that are watching this: you're simply not going to get ahead if you think that you can do everything on your own. Yeah, there is no automation in your business. I promise you, without a doubt, you will make— you will not get past $200,000 a month if you think that you have to do everything and there's no automation. Like, for example, now when we're using the recruiting portal, right, we put somebody in, they get an email within a second.

Yeah.

Imagine if I had my assistant— like, we recruit about 40 people into the portal a week. Imagine if I had my assistant emailing 160 people on a monthly basis each time there was another step to take.

You don't know what's funny? You know why that's there?

Why?

I used to run ZipRecruiter ads, and when one would come in, every single time one would come into my Gmail, I would get their email because it comes from ZipRecruiter's email. So I'd get their email, I'd hit reply, I'd put in their email, and I would copy and paste a message that was like, hey Ronnie, thanks for applying, saw your thing on ZipRecruiter, yada yada. Hey, here's a video of Sean, the owner of the company, watch this and let me know if you want to schedule an interview. I did that manually, bro, like the way you said. Who would do that? But that's— I built that because I'm like, this is really dumb, why am I sending all these emails? And then I had— then I heard Amanda and I had Amanda start sending them. And so this, this evolved. They get an email, they get a text. And what I love, dude, and I'm intrigued to see what you like about it best, my favorite part that I implemented was it the system lets everyone who's involved along the way know what's up. So it lets the staff know if they did or didn't respond, or didn't— did or didn't do something. It lets the agent know, it lets me know, you know what I mean? It like lets everyone know what's up. That I loved. And to be clear, Amanda helped me a ton building that, and she managed the whole thing. She puts the whole thing together, she get y'all set, she gets everyone set up, she does all the behind-the-scenes stuff. I was more like the give me a whiteboard and let's map this thing out. She had a lot to do with building that sucker.

Yeah, so Amanda's been great for helping my staff get into it. She trained my admin specifically how to use it. Yeah, and that's the biggest thing. Like, we have a group called the Shock— the Shock Callers in my agency, and it's my assistants and all of my top guys that are recruiting. And she's able to send, like, you know, because if you press a button, it'll tell you who hasn't taken their exam yet, who just got removed from the system. So she could just blast it out on one page And like, it keeps everything organized, you know, because like, think of it this way, like, imagine if you're sending all those emails out manually, you're actually losing money by doing all of those man hours opposed to just getting a system that automatically does it for you.

Yeah, yeah, I loved it, dude. It was, um, when we started Scale Lab, I used to have whiteboards in my office and I'd write all the names of the agents, and then across the top I had like, enrolled in class, finished class, applied for license, received license, sent contracting, received contracting, got leads, you know, sold What— all the stuff. And we would check them all, and every day there were check marks all— and then eventually we were like, shit, we need 2 whiteboards. At one point I had like 7 whiteboards in my office. We were onboarding so many people, and I'm like, I want to tear these whiteboards off the wall and throw them in traffic.

Yeah.

And that was the evolution of building this thing. So to me, it's like a— it's a whiteboard of information that doesn't forget anything. It remembers everything, and it knows again, if they did or didn't sign up to class, or they did or didn't get their license. It, it's the reminders is what helped us explode. Because even if I wanted to, dude, we were bringing in so many people, I couldn't remember everything. I couldn't remember everyone. You forget people, you know. And I was like, this— I, I don't know how to grow. And dude, we blew up when I started implementing that stuff. So I'm fired up it's working as well as it is for you, because I had a vision for this thing that I just— I wasn't sure if other people would utilize it like I did.

Yeah, it's been huge for us, and we need to see like a picture of you back in the day writing on all the whiteboards. That'd be iconic, dude.

Amanda has it. I made her take pictures. Yeah. Oh dude, I don't know if she has a picture of me with it, but we definitely have pictures of the white— we would literally sit in the office right there and we would whiteboard for—

do we—

it took us literally months and months and months to build this thing. Like, this wasn't like a build it in a day thing. And we, we spent 3 days whiteboarding the idea and the step and what happens next. And I mean, it's— yeah, I made her take pictures of that stuff because I'm like, again, we, we want to remember it all. And we'd go back and reference it. As you start building it and implementing, you learn new things, you know what I mean? So it's— we have it, dude. I'll find— I'll see if she can pull it up and I'll text it to you.

It's so crazy to see like the evolution of the growth of the agency as a whole, like Imagine if we were still doing that stuff, like how big of a restraint it would be to recruiting and scaling your agency. Like, it would almost be impossible unless you're super, super organized.

Yep. Yeah, I used to manually text people and be like, hey Ronnie, how's class going? Hey Ronnie, when's your license— when did you pass your exam? And I'm not saying you should. I think the piece some people miss when they use our system or any system is like they use it in a way to not talk to people.

Yeah.

And I'm like, that's not why I built it. Yeah, I built it in a way so I can actually do less administrative stuff to give me the time to talk to more people than I was talking to, because I was spending so much time on follow-up and notes and updating the whiteboard and just dumb stuff. And I'm like, if you use it to communicate more with people, you will blow up. Yeah. If you try to use it to do your job fully you ain't gonna, you ain't gonna grow.

Yeah, and that's huge, just like you said. So like, the biggest thing is making sure when you are talking to people, is talking about the right thing. So like, when I have, when I have my conversation with you and I send you the information to get scheduled for your exam, I'll just tell you straight up, like, hey, when you pass your exam, just shoot me a text. But yeah, that system does all the work, you know. And like, if some two weeks ago, because we have a two-week rule of how how quick you start exam, because if you don't do that, you probably don't end up taking it. Yeah, but if you don't take it within 2 weeks, then at that point, you know, one of my assistants will reach out to you and be like, hey, what's going on, you know?

Yep, 100%. 100%. What, um, what kind of expectations are you setting for people, dude, getting started, like, to work with you? If I'm coming on board with you and I'm like, yeah, man, how— what are you— what are you setting? And why are you trying to avoid certain things? Like, what's kind of like— why are you setting them? What are you setting for expectations?

Yeah, so that's huge when you're training. Like, so many people leave out the little things like the, uh, standards and the expectations. So I, like, before I even go over the script or before I even go into the training, I set those expectations. So I'm like, hey man, like, I'm gonna throw it out there that this is not a 9 to 5, and if you treat it like one, it's gonna pay you like one. They don't pay that good, but if you treat it like a part-time job, it's gonna pay you like one as well. So this is not a hobby that you can just come in here and do whatever you want to do. And I set like a consistent schedule. And the way I word it is like, hey, uh, what— when can we expect for you to be showing up so I can write it down my calendar, make sure I'm not giving any of that time to my family or my kids or anything like that? Like, I'm telling you, you're taking away time from my kids, you know, so don't, don't mess with it.

Yeah.

And then after that, it's like, so I'm gonna need you to be on Zoom those set days, and when you're on Zoom, I need you to have your mic on and unmute it. Unmuted with your camera on. Because if you don't do those things, I'm not gonna go look for you, because my job is to help you, it's not to babysit you. And I always give— I always have like this 90-day rule that I throw out there. I'm like, within 90 days, we will, we will be able to let you know if that you're going to be a good fit for the agency.

Yeah, I love it.

If we can't help you, we don't want to hurt you. And that's how I word it.

Yeah, it's, um, it's always interesting watching the evolution of this thing. And some people are so unwilling to be direct as you are, and not in a mean way, but cut people off and keep moving, you know what I mean? Keep moving, move forward, find new people, whatever, however you want to word it. Um, but the reality is, dude, you're hurting— you're hurting others. Not only are they hurting themselves and their family, and maybe you, and taking time away from your family, they're hurting someone they don't even know because they're taking your time away from that other potential agent that would do the work, you know.

And from there it's just simple, it's like action over words. Like if you have somebody— imagine somebody that's showing up late or not showing up their first week, what do you think after one month is going to look like?

Yeah, I agree.

Yeah, those are trying to— flags, you know.

Yeah, I'm trying to identify that stuff, and a lot of the system was built to try to identify that stuff before they even get started. Hence the two-week thing. Like if you ain't doing two, I might I'm, I'm out. I'm tapping out. I'm finding someone else. Yeah, it means there's so many people.

And that's the thing, like, a lot of times people are stressing like, oh, I had to let go of 10 agents. You're not recruiting enough. That's why you're mad, you know. If you were, then you wouldn't be upset.

100%, you know.

Those people, like, some of them may have a girlfriend or wife or kids. Like, if I let them drag their feet that long, I know it's good. I call it the black hole. It's like a slow bleed out when they're not seeing results and you let it continue to happen. Like you're actually hurting those people. So the way you can help them is tell them to go get a real job. And when they want to take this serious, they can come back and you'll help them out.

Yeah, I love it, dude. What do you struggling with right now? Curious.

So I would say my biggest struggle is like the follow-up procedure and making more personal relationships. Like that's one thing that's on my list to get better on the new year. Like, I want to get more personable with the people that I care about on my team and get closer. Not saying that I'm not, but I know I can do a lot better, you know.

I, I can relate, dude. It's hard. It's hard to do it all, and it's sometimes hard to step down from that, like, I'm building a massive business, and go like, dang, I gotta connect with people too. Like, I struggle with that still to this day, dude.

Um, it is tough for sure, and it's huge, you know, because like And the reason I say that I'm not, but like, you know, when you have 120 agents and you're just starting up, like, my phone is going off non-stop. Like, I got off the flight yesterday, got home at 7:30, it was on calls till 9:30, you know. Yeah, like just pounding out recruiting calls and whatnot. But we do get busy to where sometimes it is difficult and we'd like to talk to some of the people that we want to talk to a little bit more as often, you know.

Yeah, the ones that— it's a lot better to talk to ones that fuel you versus empty your tank.

Yeah, and that's huge. Like, if somebody calls me that I think would empty my tank, like, hey man, I'm getting a call, I'll catch you later.

I did the thing on the tech, hey, I'm on the other line, what's up? Yeah, yeah, like, nah, a red button. My mentor taught me, you see that little red button that pops up? There's a red and a green button, you know, you can hit the red one too. I'm like, good tip.

I appreciate that. Get away from Sean Mike. He's like, anytime I answer a call, he's— I always tell— ask myself, what is this person calling me for?

Yeah.

And like, if they need to have 5 minutes of your time, you give it to them. If not, then like, it's less than 2 minutes.

Yeah, I love it, dude. Dig it, dig it. What is, um, what's, what's in, what's in the future for you guys? I know you're opening a big-ass multiple offices, actually. Yeah. But what do you, what do you what do you have for goals 2025? And what do you— besides what you just mentioned, what are you implementing coming up this year to continue to grow?

Yeah, so the biggest thing for us is, uh, the goal for 2025 is we're gonna go from $1 to $4 million by the end of December. That's a goal for me. And the way I do it, just being consistent and continue growing, you know. Like, honestly, after seeing like what we're able to do in this short time this year, like It's just, can I be consistent? Can I continue doing what we're doing? Can I implement that in my guys? Like, and if you can, you have the upper hand on 90% of the competition. Yeah, because they can't. And most people get complacent here. So like, it's easy to hit those goals if you can continue sitting, being consistent, setting those standards. And then what was the second one you asked?

Um, I don't even remember. Sometimes I ask multiple questions.

Continue growing. That's what it was. So we're gonna just double and triple down on social media. Like, I put a podcast room in the new office. We spent about 20 grand there. Um, I signed with like, uh, editing company that's going to be editing 100 reels a month for my agency. Like, we're just— that's it. The key is social media. That's how we blew up this year. Don't be afraid of what people think about you. Just post and advertise your business, you know, straight up.

You got— you got a running buddy in your group yet? Someone else up and coming killing it? Who do you see?

There's about like 4 of them. So I've got a kid named Tanner Mendelson, absolute menace. He's around— his team's at around 250. He's 3 and a half months into the industry.

Dang.

I'm gonna show those guys what I did.

Yeah.

In half of the time.

Yeah.

Because from now what I know, and there's a bunch of them. Got a guy named Dante, his team's around 200. Adam, a bunch of guys that are just like— if the message, like Like you said, if the message is continuously passed down the right way, it makes it easier for them to get there even faster.

Yeah, I love it. How'd you, um, how'd you get in? Mahmoud hired you, right?

Yeah.

How'd you— did you know him, or how'd that— how'd you get in?

So we grew up in the same town, so I'll share the story with you. I was in the restaurant industry for 6 years, and the— like a month before I came in, I got into this really bad accident. There was one casualty. And after that, I knew like something—

like a car accident, you mean?

It was a hit and run. Somebody hit me going 130 miles an hour. What? And like, I remember this, this going off in my head, and I don't mind to share, like, the last thing I heard in my head before waking up in the hospital was my son. I always used to ask me, what days are we going to see you again? And I didn't want to be like that to my kids for the rest of my life. So something needed to change. And then like I had been watching Mahmoud for like 14 months at that time. So imagine it took me 14 months to come out, but there's that saying, what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger, and I decided to bet on myself again.

I love it, dude. It's crazy that tragedy or something tough can take you to a different place, man.

That's what it takes sometimes to wake you up, you know? Like, I remember when I dropped out of law school, like, my parents weren't happy, but like, I was young and I, I bet on myself and I asked the same thing, you know. Now I'm 31, and I was like, hey man, like, you can bet on yourself again. You got it, you know. So that's what it goes down to, just simple. Believe in yourself and don't be afraid to bet on yourself again.

I love it. So 31 years old, will you make your first— I don't know if you've made— you make— have you ever made a million? Will you make a million? Have you done it in the restaurant business? Will this be your first year? I mean, I'm intrigued. Yeah, you hadn't hit it this year.

So interesting fact, what I used to make a year, 2 years ago, I just made it this month, which is not— it's crazy.

So it's coming next year for sure.

Yeah, it's coming next year. But it's crazy to think like what you can do in such a speed of time in this industry. It's, it's amazing. Like, like I said, I didn't know anything about the industry before coming in, but I just got around the right people and got the right information.

It's so sick, dude. I love it. I love it. What, um, what do you think you could share that will help people that I didn't ask you yet?

Yeah, so my biggest constraint early on is I always thought I wasn't big enough to get staff, and that hurt me for 3 months. In the months of March, April, and May, we were stagnant at 300K. And I was destroying myself, waking up at like 6 AM and sleeping at 12:30, falling asleep on the couch like 6 days a week. Like, there would probably only be one day that I would have energy to not fall— like, my wife has a picture of me falling asleep on my laptop. And the reason that is because I didn't think I was big enough. So like, for anybody that's scaling in any industry, like, you need help and you gotta make sure like you're spending your time in the right ways. So now like probably got 4 people on staff and then 2 recruiters outside of my main staff. And the biggest thing is, is like, it was what Zach told me one time. He was like, calculate all the stuff that you do on a daily basis, and then calculate how many hours you do that, and then calculate how much you make, and then divide that by the hour, and then see how much money you're losing every month. I love that. That's what it comes down to, you know, like I thought I wasn't big enough or whatever it was in my head, but like I was costing myself money by doing that stuff myself. Yeah.

What's crazy is like there's a lot of people that will watch, dude, and they're dying to get out of the situation they're in. Like dying. They hate where they're at. They've been there for years. They're stuck. I mean, I'm like, you know, just go for it because worst case you just go back to that crap you're in now, you know what I mean?

So many people, they're just missing like the right vehicle. Like that was the storyline for me and my family.

Like, same.

I was a hard worker. I was just missing the right vehicle and the right guidance, you know? So like, when I remember dropping out of law school, like, I had a saying, like, if I was going to stay in there to make $60,000, $80,000 a year, like graduating, like, I'm already screwed. So like, the worst thing I could do is like, if whatever I was going to do didn't work out, I'll just go back to that, you know? Like, you don't lose anything by taking that risk. The only risk is that if you don't actually do anything about it.

Yeah, I love it, dude. Where do you— where do you live? I don't remember.

I'm in Philadelphia, PA, hence the hoodie. Yep.

I wasn't sure if you were there or just a fan. I love it. Well, let me know, dude, if there's anything I can do to help. Um, I love seeing what you're doing, and obviously you got great, great mentors. And I'm, I'm, I'm like Sean, dude. I just stay out of the way if, if, if you don't need— y'all are killing it, you know what I mean? But if I can add any value to your world or we can help you in any way, Definitely let me know for sure. And, uh, look forward to seeing what the hell you're going to do this coming year and all your crew.

Yeah, man, appreciate you having me on. So like you said, like, you always stay out of the way, but like, you paved the way for us, like, with the systems and all that stuff. So you think you're out of the way, but you paved the way for us. So I appreciate you having me on and appreciate you and everything you've been able to do and help us grow our agency as well.

My man. Shoot me a, um, shoot me a message offline with your address. I'm gonna get my crew to— oh, they might already have it. Did they already ask you?

I think so.

Stuff. Yeah, yeah, I'm not surprised. I start thinking and then I'm like, you know what, they think for me. So I love it. Yeah, it's great, dude. All right, my dude, let me know if I can help you in any way. Appreciate you getting on. Thanks for sharing, and, uh, go kill it, bro.

Appreciate you. We'll catch you at convention, my dude.

All right, guys, thanks for watching that video. Hope you enjoyed it, got a lot of value out of it. If you are looking For any more info on the onboarding and recruiting system that he mentioned, um, that we've helped them with, you can go to getagentautomator.com. There'll be a link below. If you need anything specifically, you can always email JW@johnwetmore.com and we will help you out. Look forward to it. Later.