This Sales Training Made Me $250,000 as an Insurance Agent ft. Dana Nesen | Ep44

You know, I've always had any agent that's negative about their results record themselves. I'm like, hey, just record a few calls, send them to me. And I'm all about live coaching too, but especially when it's whatever and they just like, hey, I finally need help. I like to get them to record it. And even if they don't know what they're doing, I found when they listen to it, they discover they ain't quite saying what they thought they were saying. What's up, y'all? John Wetmore back with another episode of the Insurance Insiders Podcast. Have Dana Neeson with me today who is someone I'm learning about in the last few months, doing a lot of cool things. One of the few people I follow on social. I'm not much of a follower, and, but I like your stuff. Like, you put out some, like, there's some value to it. Thank you.

It's definitely changed over the last week and a half, but I'm gonna get back to my roots here in a little bit.

For those that don't know, they're like, what? It's been interesting. But you've been doing this for a minute, I think 4 years, if if I figured out the timing right.

You're right, 4 years, uh, October of, uh, '24. So just into my 5th year now. Okay, still an infant.

Yeah, I get it. Which most people don't look at you that way, just those of us have been around 12 years kind of. But the new people are like, they look at you different than even you just looked at yourself.

You know, I think part of it has to do with the fact that once you've mastered the art of sales It really doesn't matter how long you have been in XYZ industry, you either know how to communicate and sell and grow and scale or you don't, or you have to learn it. And the longer it takes you to get there, the longer it'll take for people to know who you are. So, you know, came in with, it's been selling over the phone since 2004. So this was just the next—

Yeah, got it.

This was just the next widget.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. What'd you sell over the phone before?

I started in merchant services. Okay, uh, selling, yeah, credit card processing all over the phone. It's always been over the phone, even in 2004. Never in the field.

You've never gone out and banged on business doors to sell those?

Would never. I'd rather sell my soul. Sorry.

I love it. Good for you. Yeah, so you were doing it before it was cool.

I was not in insurance, but I get it. Yeah, so I did that.

People act like telesales was like invented like 2 years ago, whatever.

Definitely was not. So I started my career in that, in merchant services, really learned the work ethic and what it takes to master just the muscle memory of telesales in that industry. Because that's a— for people trying to go from field to phone, sitting for extended periods of time and doing a monotonous routine over and over and over again is actually just a skill by itself. So I really learned and mastered that there. And then I got married, had kids, took some time off, and then got back into it. And I sold leads to real estate agents and brokers at a big company that everybody's heard of. Everybody has the app. And I was there for almost 7 years. And so I've only really had 3 careers. I'm not a job hopper. There's only certain reasons why I would have an exit strategy. And, um, so I'm here for the long run unless it blows up.

So if you were selling leads before, now you're on this end of it. And I know you're building a team, and in the insurance world, people love to complain about leads or look for the magic lead. You got both— you're on both sides of this deal.

Yeah. Now, I, I wasn't the one—

I know it wasn't important. Yeah, yeah.

But, you know, when you're selling leads and marketing as the agent, when we would sell the leads and we would get the calls from the brokers and the agents saying these leads are bad and I can't get anyone on the phone, that's really where I learned how to teach people and coach people how to run a telesales business.

Makes sense.

Because if I didn't, if I couldn't get them to be successful, they would cancel or they wouldn't renew. And that's how I made my money. And so that's where I really, really understood how to teach someone how to do it instead of just doing it myself.

Yeah, which is a totally different game.

Yeah.

So what do you, what do you teach in 8? My, I think my point is on that, you probably have a skill set that a lot of people building agencies struggle with, and that, and that's like getting the agent to see the lead differently for what it is and the right approach to it. And you know what I mean? Like, I'm guessing you see it this— I'd be curious what you teach people now that you're, you know, I'm sure you deal with it on a daily basis.

Oh yeah, absolutely. I've even posted videos about it before on my YouTube channel that, um, you know, and, and to be, to be honest, there is a difference between a, a good lead and a bad lead. There really is a difference, um, depending on how it was generated, if it was, you know, co-reg, or if it was a survey lead, or if someone truly had the intent right, and went to a landing page. Like, they started their Google search on 'I want final expense insurance' versus being on social media and then being interrupted with an ad, which is to win like coupons or tickets or coins or whatever, Walmart gift cards.

I've seen it all.

So I would say over 90% of the digital leads today for life insurance are an interruption of your original intent. To go on the internet, you see an ad, the ad looks interesting, you may click on it, there could be some sort of auto-population of your information, the lead intent gets better as the lead continues to click additional questions.

Sure.

But as soon as they're done with that, within seconds they've forgotten and they are continuing their, their, uh, their original intent on the internet. And that's why speed to lead is everything. And if you don't have speed to lead within your systems, which is one of the things I used to preach with my real estate clients, that the life cycle of a digital lead is very small and you got to get them right away.

Define it a little more.

30 seconds. 30 seconds.

How many of y'all watching contact your lead within 30 seconds? How much— what do you think it goes down?

I've heard stats You know, yeah, there are stats that after 5 minutes it's like 300% decrease in overall contact rate. Maybe that's changed, but the, the quicker you can get— like, I want to get to the point where they say, man, I literally just hit submit. Yeah, you know, if you're going to, to want to buy less leads and maximize that conversion, you have to have systems in place that help you with that speed to lead. Now, if somebody's buying aged leads—

and I don't even know if that's a thing anymore, I haven't figured it out yet either.

I'm still trying to figure out a lot of stuff right now. So let's just pretend someone—

I might get my attorney on here because I got him— I, I called him Friday and I'm like, dude, what do I got to know with this? And yeah, so we're figuring it out.

Compliance attorney that we would lean on when, um, you know 2 weeks ago. And so at that point, I would have dug deeper into that a little bit more. But let's pretend, because I know still a lot of agents are buying aged leads, and, um, you don't have that speed to lead anymore. So the stats are really 80% of your activity is going to come right away. And after they become aged for a certain amount of time, there's going to be a group of people that still haven't bought, still haven't made a decision, never answered their phone. There's a lot of value in contacting people after their phone stopped bringing off the hook. And that's just a different approach. But I think that the way to really reduce burnout, not have to make $500 a day, is to really set yourself up for success to contact people the moment they acquired, and you'll have better conversations overall. You'll still get objections.

Sure.

But I think that's the best way to run it.

Yeah, I agree. It's like And I'm, I'm a big proponent of having people do a lot of activity, especially when they're broke and struggling and don't have— you know what I mean? They have no other choice. Yeah, but it's funny when I— you know, it's funny though, and I'd be curious, you probably get them on YouTube, like the remarks you get when you post stuff on social. It's very intriguing to me to see what comes out of them in, in the long run. Yeah, YouTube is— YouTube is a funny one for me. Um, but when I post a lot about doing a lot of activity most people respond like, why don't you work smarter, not harder? And I'm always like, you know, this ain't a forever plan. Like, that advice doesn't mean I want you to do that for the next 42 years, right? Like, you might have to do it this week, this month, this year.

But I always want to know, like, what that— what that means to them. What does work smarter, not harder actually mean? Because in, in my— in, in my definition of what I just described 30 seconds ago, you're still working 8, 10 hours a day.

Correct.

So what does that actually mean to you? Is that 4 to 6 hours? Is that what you mean, work smarter, not harder? Because if you want to be very successful in any business, yeah, you still have to outwork people.

Agreed.

You can still work smart.

Yeah, I always— it, it's one of my most frustrating terms I hear is that work smarter, not harder, because I'm always like, why can't you do both? Like, do you think I'm still making phone calls the way I talk about making phone calls to get out of the hole? That's That'd be weird. Like, I've certainly— you know what I mean? Like, even what you just did, certainly you improve the process as you go. I'm sure there's systems or automations or things, you know what I mean? Like, things that help get better with time. Yes. You know, so for me, I had someone argue with me that they made $300 grand last year and only worked like 12 hours a week. And I was like, cool, high five. Have you ever done the math on what it would have been if you worked 40?

What did they say?

It was like stutter to stock, you know what I mean? Like, I'm cool, just imagine what you could have done.

Yeah, absolutely. Was that, was that in this industry? Oh yeah, yeah.

And first year in, um, the person that said it? Yeah, I think, I think a couple years in. Okay, yeah, a couple years.

I mean, I don't know how you start in the business if you're doing it without a strong mentor or systems to not start with, with not the most ideal situation. I, when I started, it was, um, 6-month to 2-year-old direct mail leads that had never been contacted on my cell phone, which I never recommend for telesales. And I still made it happen because I would not stop until I was able to figure it out. And those figuring it out steps are, are part of the process.

Yeah, I figure my thought process became— and it wasn't when I was new, but if I have to go through that stage, how about I just get through it quick? Yeah, I mean, and I see so many agents drag that stage out. They just like, it's going such slow motion, you know.

Do you find that when they do drag it out to that some degree, that increases the, the rate of I don't know if failure is the right word, but I call it quitting. The rate of non-success.

Quitting. They quit. They quit on themselves. That's the truth that most people won't say. They don't fail. 90— and I love Cody, and every time he says it, 92% fail, I'm like, no, 92% quit, bro.

Quit.

Change it. They quit. They gave up on themselves. Yeah, you know, um, and people like you or I or others, I'm like, I didn't do anything magic except study and make a lot of mistakes and learn from them and keep going when it got hard. By the way, you're still doing.

Yes, I am.

I do. Before we get in that, I want you— you said something a second ago. Oh, let me think about it. And I didn't want to interrupt you. Oh, the cell phone thing. So you're like, you advise not using your cell phone in telesales today. I want to hear more. Why? Like, why?

What should be efficient?

Talk to me. I want to hear more. Because all I know too is dialing. And I'm not confused. There's systems now. But all I ever did was dial on my cell phone too and had plenty of success.

And this is partly, I knew it wasn't efficient going into it because I had come from a Fortune 500 company that had systems to manage your, your telesales and your leads and your follow-ups. And if you're just trying to do it off of a Google Sheet and your cell phone and trying to figure out when's the last time you called that person, how often do you need to call them, what was the result of that, where are your notes, it's, it's just way too difficult. Like, to be able to go into a system and it tells you or automatically dials for you as far as this is who you need to call, this is how often you have to call it, these are the notes that you left, here are your calendar appointments. To manage all of that on, on your cell phone, it's, it's just, it's too hard. You're going to go slower. And so what you just said, I want to just do things a lot quicker. Well, that's, that's like putting yourself in fast forward.

Sure. Do you have anything that like everyday people can use that's easy that you recommend?

I think most people could be very successful just using, um, the Wave Dialer and GoHighLevel. That's like the most common, easiest thing that anybody can do immediately.

Sure. What do you say though about the flip side of that is the guy that wants to set up the perfect CRM before he makes like phone calls ever for weeks on end. He's setting up the CRM and thinks that's the magic. Is afraid to invest, you know what I mean? Doesn't have the right call. Kate, like, how do you reconcile? I always struggle reconciling the two of those.

I think that's a similar thought process to someone who wants to have the entire script and the objections memorized before they make phone calls. I think that's a similar thought process, that where you get that, um, paralysis by analysis and thinking you have to have everything perfect. The only thing that you have to have perfect is your activity, and it doesn't matter what that vehicle is. Yeah, ideally I want to build something that's easier for agents so that they don't have to, but if you don't have any other choice, you just got to start making calls. And if that has to be on your cell phone, and if you have to use a Google Sheet to manage your leads or your contacts, then that's what you have to do. Until you are able to figure out what comes next. Yeah, 100%.

Yeah, I get it. And I, you know, sometimes I get stuck with people that are like, I just— I'm no good on the computer, and technology makes their head want to explode. And I'm like, dude, grab a crayon and a napkin and just tally marks, bro. If you have 400 tally marks at the end of the day, you're probably doing a lot. If you have 16, you're not. Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's like learning how to balance it.

Um, yeah, that activity, having the conversations, understanding how to talk to people that those are the fundamentals that will allow you to just continue to improve as you get those systems.

Yeah, just a kick in the ass, you know. I love John Wetmore for that. So yeah, great, great event. If you're a struggling insurance agent, or quite frankly an agency manager struggling to grow, and you're looking for some help, let me help you. My name is John Wetmore. I've built an agency of over 6,000 agents across the country. We'll issue over $200 million in paid premium this year, and I have an event coming up in my office, Metro Atlanta, February 27th and 28th. I'll be spending 2 days teaching you everything I've learned in the last decade and helped thousands of agents build their agency and their business. Click on the link below, register. We'll see you there. One of the things I swear— I'm almost— I'm like going for it because I'm almost positive I saw this on yours. Is the talk time thing yours?

I mean, talk time is a huge—

yeah, I thought I saw that on yours because I'm a big numbers, like 60-second phone call, 60 an hour, 10 to 600, like I do it that way. But when I— and I get people to look at it by minutes, yeah, the way you word it, I saw that on your social and I'm like, dude, I wish I'd like— I wish I worded it that way many times.

So yeah, when I help people set goals, and because I had systems in place that would allow me to have complete visibility to their activity, I could see what we would do is I would look at maybe a 2-month or a 3-month period, or even if they were brand new, I could look at maybe 3 weeks of activity and we could say, okay, right now, based on the amount of talk time you have and the amount of sales you've done, it's going to take you 6 hours of talk time to do 1 sale.

Yeah.

Or it'll take you 2 hours of talk time to do 1 sale because the numbers don't lie. And you can build out a whole business model based on what you've— what you're doing. So I'll have people say, well, I want to sell 3 or 4 deals a day, right? That's, that's pretty common. Uh, or I want to at least sell 2 deals a day, or I want to sell one, whatever it is. Perfect. Let's go see what you're currently doing. So I'll pull it up and I'll have people that it'll take them 5 hours of talk time to get one sale. So I'll ask them, so John If you want to do 3 deals a day, how many hours of talk time do you have to do per day to get 3 sales? Yeah, you know, so are your goals realistic, or maybe do we need to take a look at your calls and your sales process? Because if— unless we can shrink your talk time to sales ratio, you will not get there.

Yeah, yeah, I love the, the phrasing. I always would go like, one call on average takes a minute because most don't pick up. So if we go— I did 200 dials, I'm like, all right, 60, 120, 180. You had like 3 and a half hours talking to people. But I like the talk time things. I've always tried to get people to understand, like, if there were a timer going— and you're literally doing that, you're literally using that. I worked in a call center before and they tracked ours, you know. And I just, I like the shift, the way people look at it.

If you're not tracking your actual conversation time Typically for an 8-hour day, if you're working a full 8-hour day, and this is also to track your, you know, if you're really being productive in the time that you're working, because a lot of people, especially in telesales, they'll make a few calls and then they'll take a break, right? And then they'll come back, they'll make some more calls, they'll have a bad conversation, and then they spend 30 minutes overanalyzing what they did, or, and then they'll make another few calls and then they'll go have lunch. And then because I had direct visibility to this, we'd call that wrap-up time, which is the time between calls when they're overanalyzing or going to do whatever, God knows what. I mean, you could have someone who's working 8 hours and 4 of those hours is spent doing nothing. And so it's, and a lot of people would be like, wow, I didn't realize that it added up to so much. So people think I'm working 10 hours a day, I'm not doing anything. Well, unless you really take a peek behind the curtain and see what they're actually doing. It's the ones that would have their day structured that I'm not leaving my desk from this time to this time. Like they treat it like a job. I'm gonna take lunch at this time. I'm gonna come back and do this time. You could have an 8-hour day and have 6 hours of talk time if you're doing it correctly. And then with 6 hours of talk time, if you're a good rep, you could have 1 sale for every 2 hours of talk time. That's how you get 3 sales a day.

Yeah, I love it. I've always asked when people go like, I dialed all day and didn't have any, I got beat up, whatever. I'm like, I started asking if they actually dialed all day or did they just take all day to dial? And it became two very different things for me. You know what I mean? I took 8 hours to make 62 calls. It's same language.

Same thing, 'cause they just keep getting up. That is, those are the people that let their day control them where they're just, well, I'm just gonna see who picks up today and whatever happens happens as opposed to you controlling your day. And deciding these are the metrics I have to hit if I want to see success. And so that's really how I ran the team, was making sure they understood you have complete control of your day and your activity. You can't let your day just happen to you.

Love it. What advice can you give if they're like, all right, I'm in, I'm doing the activity, I'm getting people to pick up, but I just can't convert them, I just can't, you You know what I mean? They all tell me no, they all— and/or I've seen people struggle hard, good in the field, can't figure out telesales. So whichever angle you want to take, just how do we get them good at this?

They're both two totally different topics. But A, you know, the first one, there's only, there's only so many mistakes you can make before you continue. See, continuing to make the same mistake is actually sometimes reinforcing that mistake. And it's harder to figure out what to do next or try something different every time because then you don't know what works. So you either need to invest in a coach, in my opinion, you need to either, you have to either invest in a coach that can help you identify where you're going wrong by listening to your calls with you, or you need to contract with someone like me who has that hands-on approach where I could listen to your calls with you and say, did you hear that? Did you see, did you hear that hesitation? Did you, why did you deliver it in that way? Because sometimes you always can't recognize things without having an expert do it with you, which is why everybody needs a coach.

Yeah.

So from field to telesales, I really think that the key to expedite that learning process is to find a way to have someone coach you and help you get better right away.

Makes a huge difference. Um, you know, I've always had any agent that's negative about their results record themselves. I'm like, hey, just record a few calls, send them to me. And I'm all about live coaching too, but especially when it's— they've been here a year, 6 months, whatever, and they're just like, hey, I finally need help. I like to get them to record it. And even if they don't know what they're doing, I found when they listen to it, they discover they ain't quite saying what they thought they were saying.

Yes, and that's what I mean by listening to their calls, getting their recorded calls.

Yep. And then, then me going through it with them, uh, that's— I mean, that's That's what it's— I— funny, I see a lot of people try to build an agency and they skip that part.

Oh, it's so critical.

Just read the script, just watch this video, just—

and I'm like, ah, but you, you can give 100 agents the same script and they'll all deliver it differently.

Agreed. I've always said I could watch you make 100 phone calls in a row and not one time will it be exactly the same. If you played it over each other, it'd be same concept, same structure. But like, you're gonna, you're gonna, you're gonna sway a little just based on the personality you're dealing with.

So I'm gonna, I'm gonna challenge you on that just a little bit because I had an agent who worked on my team a couple of years ago who, and who decided to shift into a different industry altogether, but he was really tech savvy. And one of the things that he did, and I wonder if I could find it because I bet I still have it, he, um, took 3 of my sales calls Yep. And he layered them in some software on top of each other.

Yeah.

And it was almost identical.

Yeah, it should be.

Like, it's crazy how you just turn it on and it's just like, let's just pull the string and I'm just gonna spit out the same thing. Because in general, it is rinse and repeat once you've mastered it.

Sure. Yeah, yeah. You learn to know your approach and have your questions, your intentional questions that work better than others. Over time, you go like, Oh, if I word it this way, I get a little different reaction than if I word it that way. You learn those intricacies. Can you give a couple examples of things that, like, you've learned to say or ask on the phone to keep people on longer, which is most people's struggle at the beginning?

So we're talking like objections in the first 30 seconds?

Yeah, sure. Yeah, I think the initial approach to— here's what I hear a lot is like people can't figure out how to do the, especially the mad what do you call it, like, uh, I don't know, the one-call close that they can't figure out how to master, you know what I mean? Just getting someone on the phone and figuring out how to do business on the phone. I see so many agents struggle with it.

Okay, well, take a step back for a second.

Sure.

Because this is, this is also a mindset game where, where, where your intentions are is how it's going to be delivered. And when I'm on the phone with someone, my intention is to try to help them understand. And if I can help them understand and make them feel safe, right, create that environment where they feel safe, then the next step is to help them change their situation, right, to get them from where they currently are to where they want to be. And this is a lot of stuff that I learned through taking NEPQ. And because all sales is, is change. And the number one thing that human beings hate to do is change. And so if your expectation for your call is to get a sale, then you're missing the whole point of the sales process. The expectation when I get on the call is to help someone feel good about changing their situation. And it's the sales approach where I say a lot of— and this is very different. Like, I think that my approach is sometimes different than other people's. I'll tell people, no matter what you decide today, I just want to make sure that you understand it so that whenever you're ready to make a decision, you have all the information to do so. So that's what I call dropping the rope, because if I do the opposite that most people do, which is trying to make sure that they're the decision maker and, you know, is there any reason why you wouldn't want to do this today? To me, even though there's value to some of that, to me, that just increases that sales resistance. You have to have more of those conversations and it turns into more of a numbers game. Makes sense. If you go into it with no matter what you do, I'm here to help. People tend to lean into that more. You have better quality conversations. People trust you because at the end of the day, we're going to be asking people to hand over the things that the seniors are telling us to never give. Don't ever give your social, don't ever give your bank account. And so if I need to ask for that information at the end, I need to create a place where they feel comfortable giving that to me. And it's not about qualifying, it's about making the decision to change their situation and protect their family. And so I have a very different approach than, than, um, I think some people do.

It's less of the assumptive going for it, and it's more of like you're going to educate them. And you get— you put their work in.

The assumptive approach either, right? It's just, it's just different.

Okay. What I've learned about this game is like a lot of things work You know, it's the ones that do it consistently and intentionally over a long period of time that tend to be the ones that stick around and make, make a good living from it.

And here's really where I had an aha moment, um, at the end of last year, where it kind of, where it kind of changed, like, good approach, bad approach, like one way versus the other way is the right way or the wrong way. The common theme behind everybody who's successful, regardless of their approach, is that they have Good communication skills. Yeah. And if you can just be a good communicator, a good listener, you have empathy, and you are knowledgeable about what you're doing. You just have to find something, a sales process that speaks to you that makes sense. But too many people do all their communication like this. And then they get on the phone with someone and they don't even know how to talk.

Yeah.

Right? And underneath all of that is that's the problem. That I'm finding is what we're really dealing with is just a fundamental lack of communication skills.

Just basic-ass communication.

Really, right? I mean, if you really think about it, it's, it's not about like the MQ approach or the assumptive approach. Like, we just got to get these people, you know, out of their own way and complete a sentence without stuttering.

It's funny. So what do you think about field sales to telesales? Because I've always seen— I've, I've noticed a lot of people over the years— I've had my license 14 years— I've seen a lot of people not be able to complete a sentence, make a lot of money in the field. Okay. And then they go to telesales and it's like, go back to the field, bro.

So in fairness, right, I've never knocked—

I've seen it the other way too.

So yeah, I've never knocked a door, no, nor do I really ever want to, although I think that would be a fun, uh, content, uh, video if I ever wanted to. I think you should do it in the field. Thought about it.

I'll come record it.

Yeah, for sure. I would for sure find a way to record it. Um, but the thing about telesales is it's harder. Yeah, it's hard, and it's harder because the only thing we have is our voice. We don't, we don't have presenting ourselves. We don't have some beautiful marketing materials. We're not wearing a badge. Like, we can text things over and we can send someone to a website, but it's, it's more difficult unless, you know, you decide you want to do virtual sales over maybe some sort of Zoom platform. But if you're selling final expense, not mortgage protection or annuities or IULs, the final expense market, which is where I'm going to continue to initially transition anyways, That's really hard. A lot of them don't even have an email address.

True, that's true. So aside from the initial thing you mentioned, like the approach, the mindset going towards the leads, what do you see as the most common mistakes that you can fix for agents once they approach it the right way and they're on the phone? It's like, how do— what advice can you give people on the things they probably need to change to make more sales? And you just said after they've mastered the activity, meaning, yeah, let's assume they got a decent amount of activity, right? And now they understand the approach you mentioned a few minutes ago, right? All right, I gotta go into this thing differently. They're like, oh, I like that style better, I'm gonna approach it that way. It's like, all right, now what?

Yeah, so at that point is, is where it starts to get fun, because once you've mastered the activity and you're having conversations— because that's the hardest part is just getting in the activity and having the conversations. And once you've mastered that, then it's just about figuring out where you're going wrong. And I don't know how to fix it on your own if you're not going to have someone help you do it. That is why I invested myself into a coaching system. So I'm a believer in coaching. You have a coaching program. Sure. And people are investing with you because You've already made the mistakes, you've already figured it out, you already have the keys to the kingdom. And so in order to be more productive and sell more, I think you just need to be coached.

Yeah. What are some common ones that you see over and over again just working with as many agents as you have? Some commonalities that they do wrong, you think?

They, they quote too quickly.

Okay, let's talk about that. This is one of my favorite topics.

Is it?

I gave out 8 quotes today and didn't sell anything.

The faster, the faster money comes out of your mouth, the higher the chances you'll get an objection because you've created no emotional attachment. You've created no sense of urgency again to want to make that change. So the money, the decision already has to be made to make a change before you give a quote. The quote and the money itself is not what's going to make the decision except for the laydowns. And the laydowns we're already going to buy anyways. And so the mistake becomes, well, I gave a quote and I got a sale. And so, right? And so then they want to duplicate and rinse and repeat that. And so what I see is after I get somebody trained and up and running, they do really well at first. Because they're following the process. And then what happens is they take a dip and they call that a sales slump. I don't believe in sales slumps. Sales slumps are created because you stop doing what worked in the first place by taking shortcuts. And those shortcuts may have led to some sales, and then you're reinforcing bad habits, which you take into your future calls. And then what happens is these presentations are taking too long. I don't want to have to— I want to sell more in less time.

Yeah.

And so they cut things out and they, they ask health questions too soon. They give quotes right away and they get all these— they have just a graveyard of follow-ups. Why, why does that happen? You listen to the calls and they're taking shortcuts. And so quoting too soon and not going through the sales process is the number one thing that I see why they are, you know, stop selling or aren't selling enough.

Yeah, I agree. It's, it's, it's an interesting thing to get people to recognize where the sale was made. Like, actually, you know what I mean? It's intriguing. It's wild to teach people to recognize that and how to, you know, I mean, it's, it can be tough.

You can feel it too. Once you've really mastered it, you know, okay, this is definitely someone that's—

it's—

and at that point, it doesn't even become Um, if it just becomes how much.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah, where I figured it out and I'm like, I got it to where I felt like 80% of the time I was certain, and the other 20 I'm like, it's kind of a coin flip, let's see what happens.

Definitely. And it's still fun. The coin flip ones are like, I have no idea if this person is going to buy, but I'm gonna— yeah, that's all I got.

Yeah, let's go for it, see what happens.

Yeah. But it got to a point where I told— where I told Jeremy Miner, I was like, this is like taking candy from a baby. It's almost embarrassing how easy it becomes once you understand human behavior.

Sure. Yeah. How long you been studying his stuff?

Uh, 2 and a half years. And I actually— and I don't know if this is true or not, but I was on the phone with, um, Jeff Root, um, the other day, you know, from Digital BGA.

Yeah.

And he's like, I don't know if you realize this, Dana, but you may have introduced NEPQ to the insurance world because I would be on calls with my guys and they would say, but, but Dana said, and he'd be like, who the heck is this Dana person? And, you know, more and more people started enrolling into the courses and adapting that into their sales. And, um, you know, if that's true, that's awesome.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I saw his stuff for a while. I didn't really know who he was, to be honest. I just tend to follow people like him in a sense, and I'm sure I was targeted. Yeah. And then I was like, any— what on earth does that mean? You know, I had no idea. A year, a few years back.

Yeah.

You know, certainly he does a lot of insurance training, and then I don't, I don't remember hearing anyone else specifically use it the way I've seen you either. I don't— I can't recall anyone prior to that.

Um, I'm definitely a super fan.

Yeah, and I don't know, was he ever in insurance? He wasn't ever in— was— I don't know his background.

No, no, he's never sold insurance. Um, so I've been invited to a couple of, a couple of those 3 or 4 day free sales webinars that he does.

Yeah, yeah, I saw him training on one recently.

Yeah. Um, you know, just to reinforce it for him, you know, his program, even though I invested in it, it, it changed everything for me. I wish I would have known it in my other Sales jobs.

Yeah, nice.

Yeah, get— I get no commission off anybody who buys it, by the way. So if Gary wants to send me a little link for that, I'm happy to take it.

Yeah, you need, you need to hook that up. Oh boy, that's funny. So one of the videos I was watching of yours a little earlier, um, was like the, the year in review.

Oh, okay.

Like, remember that one? And put like— you put each month.

Yes.

January, this is like February, this happened. And I'm like, I need to update. You need to— it's in what I always tell people. Like, one of the things I remember, like, someone quit because they didn't like you. I saw that on there. Um, I saw you struggling. Like, there were some— there were some struggles. Well, there were some certainly high points. The Rolex club you made, which I thought was cool. I don't really know what it was, but there weren't many other people on stage getting Rolex, so I was like, that's dope, you know. So it was— it was like People struggle with the ups and downs, and I try to explain they never go away.

No, they just get worse. They just get worse and they become more frequent. And it's about, uh, really accepting that they're going to happen. And is that going to be a make or break for you? And there were definitely times where I would be sitting in the corner of my office in a ball. I can't do it anymore. I don't think I can do it anymore. Having those thoughts, um, over and over again, and, you know, at the verge of tears, um, and you, you somehow make your way through it, and in 48 hours everything's great again.

It happens. It's funny, sometimes it leads to things— many times, almost always, it leads to something you didn't see coming. Yeah, you know what I mean? So it's like And I watched you most recently, like, go from, like, a tough frustrated to, like, you know, how can I make this positive? Like, really quick.

Very quick.

You did— you didn't hang on to that down very long.

It was about 24, maybe 36 hours max.

Yeah.

Which is kind of my life cycle for how I cope with negative situations, things that feel like they could break you, because you can't control it. So if you— if you're not going to be able to control the situation, the only thing you can control is your reaction to it. And that's what I've really learned to master is that I allow myself to feel whatever shitty thing it is that I have to feel, process it and decide, okay, what am I going to do now? How am I going to change my situation or how am I going to fix this or make it better? And you just got to move forward. You have no other choice but to move forward.

Yeah. It's, it is that simple. It's wild watching how many people can't make it that simple.

And I think also that that's why there's— if you've ever studied, and I, I want to study this more, what makes the top 1% the top 1%. Yeah, I have to imagine your reaction to adversity has to be one of those things that go into what makes a top 1% a top 1%.

Yeah, I agree. I think it's high up there. I, I'd say looking back at my career of that, I was really bad at that early. It's one of the things I share a lot is I was super emotional and I would let things drag out and keep me down for, for a long time. And, uh, now it's gotten so far to the other end, almost like fine like joy in the weirdest way in hard things because I know something dope's coming. I don't even know how to explain that to most people because they think I'm nuts, but I'm like, I feel like you can kind of see that, you know? And I go like, cool. Again, I, I do get frustrated most days of the week still, but I'm like, something good is going to come from this. I'm convinced of it every time we have a rough patch. And I even tell my team, I'm like, you know, something good's coming from— they'll be annoyed. I'm like, I want to kill him too, but something good's coming.

Yes. Yeah, you almost have to think that way to survive. It's like a survival skill.

Yeah, it's true. I think I saw something on yours that said something about connecting the dots, if I remember right, because I, I— it's like I got the luxury of looking backwards.

That wasn't my own, that was a Jeff Bezos quote, um, that I had written down at the, um, end of, of 2024. So let me find it.

Yeah, I'm curious because it's like when people go through stuff, you get the luxury of looking back on a career and then you can connect the dots easily. But like, you don't know where this— the current dot is taking you.

You don't. You can— yeah, you can only look back.

Um, but yeah, if you can find it, it was somewhere on your Instagram that I saw it.

It was in— it was in that post. So it was, um— oh, it was Steve Jobs.

Oh, okay.

So it said, you can't connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.

Amen. I couldn't have said it like that.

Yeah, and those are the people we need to learn from.

Yeah, it's true. You know, it's, um, I think it's important for a lot of people to put themselves around others That's— you certainly do that. That can help with the way you look at things and think about things. And these conversations are normal when you're in the right crowd, you know. Yeah.

And too many people don't, don't give themselves a seat at the table to have those conversations, to do the networking and be around the right crowd. I think too many people just hibernate and hide and gatekeep and not put themselves out there so that when they have to make a shift, it's like, where do you go? Who do you talk to? You haven't used your platform or your voice to know who to reach out to. And I think that's the biggest gift that I gave myself is putting myself out there and connecting with people in the space so that in catastrophic situations, Oh my God, I had so many people I could reach out to to help me figure out what the next steps are.

Yeah, you got a hell of a lot going on right now. How close are you to letting the world know? Probably be out before this podcast is out.

I was just gonna ask you, well, when is this gonna air?

I don't know the answer because I'm not in charge of it, but no sooner than next Monday. But I think I— there's another one before you, I think. Granted, I'm kind of— I kind of run the place, so I can make it whatever you want.

Yeah, that's fine. So here's the timeline. Today is January 20th, the point of this conversation. On the evening of January 7th, which was, um, 2 weeks ago tomorrow, the evening of January 7th, I found out that I had to dismantle my team the next day. Yeah, tomorrow you're done.

Yeah.

So Wednesday the 8th I had to tell the team. Thursday the 9th, my video posted on YouTube about it. And basically from Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, the 10th, 11th, and 12th, I had booked 20 appointments for myself for the following week of who to talk to. So all of last week, I was back to back to back to back to back to back That's cool. Figuring out who, who I wanted to align with next, what I wanted to do, who is that going to look like. And I am on the final stages of my new partnership, and if all goes well, I will be flying out to visit said partnership Thursday.

Oh, so before this is out. Yeah, cool.

Yeah, this Thursday I'll be flying.

Um, it feels like you ever seen, like, you ever seen in like the NBA where they're like, or the college, they're like, which hat they're gonna wear?

Yes.

It feels like for you, you should, you should do something like that.

Well, I'm doing a, I'm doing a launch party, right? So, and that was at the advice of my friend David Dillard.

Um, oh cool. Uh, that guy, I see him on— oh, is he a workout dude? Ain't he?

I feel like a lot of guys in this industry are workout dudes, but no, he's a motivational speaker.

Yeah, I've seen him. I'm trying to think where— how I can place him.

So he— and he's, he's been in the insurance industry for, uh, a decade, 10 years.

Um, you know what, we're supposed to connect. We were— he was supposed to be on the podcast recently. I do— I think he's local to me-ish.

Uh, he's incredible.

I've heard he's cool. Incredible.

Yeah, I had him on my channel, and then I, I had him be a guest speaker on one of my Monday sales meetings, and then I reciprocated and I did a training for some agents that he coaches. But anyway, He gave me the idea to launch an exclusive virtual launch party. And so I'm finishing that landing page and funnel today and tomorrow. I'll be having people start registering for it this week. And the plan is to have the launch party next Monday, a week from today. So that will be the first time I will announce it, and it'll be private before it goes public. And then on top of that, the first 25 agents and agencies that partner with me will get an exclusive, like, founders agreement, um, with me. So I'm creating some momentum, I'm creating some exclusivity, um, creating some buzz, and really capitalizing on everything that's happening right now. Um, because you have to or people are going to forget about you.

100%. So it's fair to say social media has been pretty relevant and important in your, in your world.

Yeah, and I'm still not capitalizing it as much as I should. I've literally only been doing this on Instagram stories, and I know that half of my audience is on YouTube and they're not even on Instagram.

Oh no way. Got it.

Yeah, I have to get, I have to get it out there too.

Yeah, it's learning this, learning this marketing Social media thing's interesting to see where it can take you and things. Yeah, opportunity. It's been wild. I'm just figuring it out. I just do a lot of content and kind of happens over time.

But believe it or not, I've never ever ever created a funnel myself.

Oh, I can relate, dude. I didn't have a website till this time, until last year.

I just bought my domain for my new company name that I, that I'm calling Empower Life Group. I don't even know how, where, where to— I just created my very first email address yesterday and posted, I was like, do I use Google Workspace or Microsoft 365? Like, I know nothing.

I don't even know what either one of those are, and I barely understand the difference between a funnel and a web page. It's awesome.

It is awful. Like, so I'm not— like, as an agent who wants to try to— you can go figure it out by yourself, or you can leverage relationships to help fast-track you. So I am using anybody who's offering to help me. Yes. Yes. How soon? Yes. Right. So I have meetings today to help me figure that out. Like, otherwise it's going to take me 2 years. I'll have my first funnel. See you then.

You're just asking, which is what most people won't do. What's that? Closed mouths don't get fed. Isn't that the saying?

How much do I have to pay you? What do I have to do so that I don't have to figure this out by myself? And I think the agents need to feel the same way.

That's hella good advice right there in anything.

Yes, it's true.

I love it. Well, this has been fun. What do you want to end with that either I haven't asked you or just something you'd like to share with the world that you find important?

The world that I find important?

Yeah, just whatever you want people to know. If, if you haven't been like, damn, I wish he asked about this, and you want to get it out, get it out, you have a platform. But if, if not, just curious.

So if I were to— I guess right now kind of where my brain is, if I were to picture what the next 1 year, 2 years, 3 years, 5 years, and beyond is going to look like for my new agency. I want— I'm hoping to develop an atmosphere that I had with a free lead model where it's not free leads. So I'm going to be focusing on a broker model right now. I'm not— so that's a clue, is I won't be doing the free lead model anymore. However, I know the importance of what agents still need in order to be held accountable and be successful. So how I'm going to be building this, and I would love your opinion on this because you have more experience than I do, is I want to recruit as little direct agents to me as possible because I already have some leaders that want to come on board. I want to focus on just building their teams solely as, as as big as I can get them. So anybody that comes to me, I don't really want to put them directly to me. I want to put them under downlines. And then I want to be at the top being the voice for training, coaching, systems, support, the same way that I built my free lead team on. So that's sort of like my 10,000-foot vision.

And what are your thoughts on not putting Oh, I could get into this for— we could do 10 hours on this.

Okay, um, so give me, give me a little bit.

I'll give the short version. Yeah, because it's important. I think there's— I think you're going to learn there's a fine balance of both. I can tell you the mistakes I've made trying it. Um, the people that I said are my leaders, I've learned— I was taught by a mentor of mine that leadership is taken, not given.

Okay.

And I was trying to give it to certain people, and I created a welfare system that I was giving away so many agents that the next people didn't know how to recruit. And so when their people wanted help, they look at this person, and then they look at me, and they're like, what about that guy? There was only so much I could do alone, right? You know, so I had to find the right balance of, of if you were doing it on your own and then I can add like fuel to your fire, I found working with that person to be way more of a home run than the person who goes, yeah, I want— I'm in, I'll take them, and they aren't doing any of that on their own. Yeah, you know what I'm saying? So I was like, I had to find a little balance in that. And then I always wanted to make sure too, as I built it, I had the right structure. Um, many, many that you're in, and I don't obviously know exactly what you're choosing, but many, based on volume, comp goes up and your spread gets diminished. Typically, maybe there's a bonus behind the scenes, maybe there's not, irrelevant. I wanted to make sure that outside of any big groups I helped build, I also had big volume over here to keep profitability.

To direct you still? Yeah, because I didn't want to build like non-builders.

Yes, to, to a point. There was a stage where I stopped doing that too. But early, it's like that provided the cash flow so I didn't have to look at the group the same way, and I could help encourage them to grow. Because quite frankly, in this space, you help someone grow, there is a period of time where you are less profitable if you look at it laser-focused in that group.

Yes.

And I didn't want that to be a concern. I didn't want that to be like, I can't help them because it'll— there's a weird balance, you know. So if I kept building outside of that It protected me from having to think about that because cash— I had plenty of cash flow, so that, that concern never arose. Also didn't want any one big— one group to be too big of my group, right? Because quite frankly, if they bailed, I didn't want to get hurt.

Of course.

So I wanted to run my own business to where if you, you're in my group and you're my biggest group and you quit, I'm, I'm good still. Maybe it's a little— maybe it's a little hiccup, but I don't shut down, right?

Yeah.

And some of my ego— I wanted to be— I wanted I wanted— I didn't want someone else to be like, yo, I'm— Wetmore's this size because of me, because I said that about people, you know what I mean? And I'm like, I don't want— I don't want to— I don't want to get stuck there. So I just— I competed against my managers in a weird way for, okay, for, for a certain period of time. Yeah, you know, now I'm— I don't— it's different today, you know what I mean? But when we were doing $300,000, $400,000, $500,000, $600,000, $700,000, a million a month, yeah, I was still building me too, just in case, because I didn't Yeah, and I'd watched it in the industry. I've seen it. I've seen people leave and things happen and people go on to new—

inevitable, right? Yeah, it will happen. It's just a matter of who and when, and, and again, how will you react?

Yeah, correct. Yeah, so you're, you're on the right track. There's, there's going to be a middle ground that's going to be an interesting way to navigate. And I've always—

did you ever make it like, okay, it's not only about the production to hit certain levels, but it's also about your independence. So the less—

yes, 100%—

and the resources that I provide in addition to the production earned you 100%— earned you—

because I want— I wanted to create like the concept of like, um, what's the word I want to use, like franchises in a sense. Sure. Where certainly I have the training, we have steps, we have a system, but at the end of the day, you run your joint. And if I could create lots of those where I just gave opportunity, taught them my system, certainly they learn from other people, but if I could kind of copy and paste over and over again, right? I found that to be more successful. And there's a type of person I was looking for. Yeah, that most people say they want it, and then you start watching the actions and the everyday actions are like, you know, oh, the agent I gave them called them on a Friday night during their first sale and this dude didn't want to pick up the phone until Monday. 'Ah, yeah, I don't know if I— like, how much do I want to build that guy?' Right? You know what I mean?

Yeah, you'll get those little whispers.

Correct. So I wanted to make sure that people were being taken care of also, you know. And it was— so it was a weird little— it's a little balance, you know.

I'm excited.

Yeah, right?

Because the faster I learn them, the faster I'll, I'll grow.

And I'm sure we'll talk plenty over it. Yeah, there's— I love teaching the side. It's You know, it's, it's way deeper than just like, here's a, here's how you do it, because it ebbs and flows. And there's, as it gets bigger and bigger, different strat. And I've learned, I'm like, oh man, I can look backwards and go, oh, I messed that part up. Yeah.

And that's purposely why I, I, I have aligned myself with people who have made 30 years of mistakes.

Yeah.

And can now just pour into me, um, so I can focus on what I do best while learning everything I need to learn along the way. I had no— so one clue is I had no desire at this chapter. So if I have 3 chapters of this insurance journey, chapter 1 is where I started for my first 4 years. I learned an incredible amount of stuff in those first 4 years, but that doesn't mean that I'm ready to go direct to carrier or take a silent partner and build something by myself. I think the people that do that, either they have something I don't as far as like, you know, their risk-taking ability, or different—

it's a different game.

I don't have that, um, different game. I, I, uh, I want to learn. Like, I have just a tremendous thirst for knowledge, and I am willing to pay for that knowledge by way of a higher spread between me and the people above me And even though a lot of people around me are calling me naive, I've already proven success based on an investment to learn a skill. And that's the direction that I've always leaned into.

I love it. People are always gonna talk. Do you? Yeah. And like, you know how much noise I get? I'm like, I'm trying to help people win.

At the end of the day, it's my journey. It's nobody else's, and, um, you do you.

I love it, I love it. Well, it's been fun. I'm sure we'll chat soon. Wish you the best on your journey, and thanks for sharing. Appreciate your time, and thanks for having me. We'll put links of all your stuff in here as well, um, so you're not hard to find on social though. So appreciate you, girl.

Hope you have a good day.

Hey, thanks for watching the latest episode. I appreciate you. If you will do me a favor, certainly like this video channel, subscribe to it. And if you wouldn't mind, whatever podcast network you listen to these on, if you wouldn't mind going and leaving a review, that will help me, uh, greatly get the word out to more and more people. Appreciate you.