This Telesales Phone Script Made Me $30,000 PER MONTH ft. Austin Marsh | Ep70

Our person-to-person average is like $30,000 to $35,000 a month. We're so close to scratching the surface of a million.

Hold on. So 30-some people doing a million bucks a month. You should be screaming that. You know how many fucking people are out there speaking on stages and have big followings that their average writer does fucking $3,800 a month?

Yeah.

$4,200 a month. It's disgusting. All right, guys, welcome back. Another episode of the Insurance Insiders Podcast. I have Austin Marsh today, another young killer in the space. It's getting all too common, dude, and I'm getting old at the same time. So it's a, it's a fun combination to see a bunch of y'all killing it. Um, another door-to-door background. And, uh, you've been— how long you been playing in this space?

So I started selling books door-to-door when I was 18, which was summer of 2017.

Okay.

Yeah.

Got it.

Yeah. So I was a freshman in college. I was actually playing college soccer at the time, so I, I was up in northern Ohio at the University of Findlay, small D2 school. Long story short there, I just was really looking to focus on school and focus on career. You realize after a year of playing D2 soccer, you might not become a professional soccer player.

So good realization. Yeah.

And, and anyway, I was going to come back home. I'm from Kentucky, so I grew up. All my buddies from college or from high school really want to go to the University of Kentucky. I always wanted to go to the University of Kentucky, but that was what everybody else was doing. So I did something a little bit different, went to go play soccer in Ohio, but ultimately wanted to get back to Kentucky and focus on studying there and doing different things. God played a huge part in this. I was really a part of like a strong Christian community in Kentucky, and going and playing college soccer kind of removed me from that. And I was like, oh God, dude, I, I need community again. Um, and I, I understand why people, uh, long to be with other people, like-minded people, when they're trying to do something like this. So anyway, I, I came back to Kentucky, and one of my friends who was gone all summer that previous summer We were like, man, where the heck did you go? And she had come home and she was like, yeah, I got to go to North Carolina and I made like $20,000 and my sales manager is going to be in town sometime this spring. Like, you definitely come and get to hear about it. Da da da da da. So I was again playing soccer at the time. It was something that was off in the distant future that I didn't really pay much attention to until it was spring where everybody is looking for things to do in the summer as a college kid. So I'm like, man, what am I going to do this summer? You know, I was a lifeguard in high school every single summer up to college. So I figured that I'd probably just go home and lifeguard again. And but she reapproached me and said, hey, I know we talked, you know, however many weeks ago about the job I got to do last summer. My sales manager is going to be in town these dates. Like, what do you think about meeting up with her? And I was like, yeah, like, you know, like I'm not opposed to that. So I met, we met at a Panera Bread, just she, me and her sales manager. And she had walked me through what the summer program looked like door to door, 80 hours a week, straight commission, 7:59 to 9:31 PM every day. And, and from in Austin, you know, the This was everything that 18-year-old Austin needed at that time and wanted.

Did you? Because that's unique.

Yeah.

Yeah.

When I was growing up, I always knew I wanted to do something great with my life and I always knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur. So when I was in 7th grade, I even did a book report on entrepreneurship. So stars kind of aligned when I heard about selling books and learning how to sell.

Yeah, craziness. I got my 17-year-old dude Braden, he just left this morning or last night, yesterday afternoon, for a flight to Germany where he's going on like an entrepreneurial— sometimes it's something with the school, some kind of entrepreneur-based trip in Germany that they're doing. I think they just named it that as an excuse for me to pay for him to go to Germany.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But he's around some good Christian wannabe entrepreneur kids for the week, so I'm fired up. But he's, he's, you know, he's, he's, he can get licensed at 18 in like 6 months.

That. That's cool.

Yeah, so I have them working the phones now. I'm trying to get them to skip like the steps a lot of y'all made. Yeah, you know what I mean? Like, I didn't think— dude, I wasn't thinking like this at your age now, much less at middle school, high school, you know what I mean? I had little inklings of like, oh, one day maybe something cool will happen, but I didn't do anything about it, which is neat to see. You like, you actually went and did something about it.

Yeah, man. So I like, I mean, I, I grew up in a very low-income family. Like, my mom had me when she was 18. She had my older sister when she was 15 or 16.

No shit. So yeah, my kind of background. I know that world, dude.

And so yeah, and I imagine the way that your son is growing up is like, dude, you don't even understand where I'm from, you know? So Cliff, Yeah. So, and my mom's parents are both— her dad's from Europe, mom's from South America. That's also a crazy story how they met. But just like making it out the mud, man, like grandparent to a grandparent, apartment, apartment. And so I just always like, yeah, I always knew I want to do something great with my life. I want to get the heck out of here. I want to do something cool. I want to—

man.

You know, so I just really like, I just dug deep. Like, I, I, the only thing I knew growing up, I think, was if I want to be successful, I know I have to do good in school. Like, that's the only thing you're really told as a kid. Yeah, it's like, if you want to be successful, do good in school. And then I got into sports, and I was like, okay, well, if I can do good at school and sports, like, I can maybe make something of myself one day, and I'm not going to be trapped here. So That was pretty much the, the trajectory. You know, I had, I had a pretty strong why, like I had a lot of emotional purposes of why, you know, I wanted to be successful and work really hard. So again, yeah, when I heard about learning how to sell books and, and learning how to lead yourself and how to motivate yourself and work through apathy and work through rejection and just what all that entails with the character development and the skills. I was like, dude, I'm ready. Let me do that.

Did you know that going in that that was the process of this summer thing? Like all those things you just said? So looking back, you were like, oh shit, these are all the things I learned.

Yeah. I mean, it's the summer selling books door to door is only something that you can go and experience for yourself. It's you can try to explain it, describe it, but you don't know until you do it. And going into just like an informational meeting about it, I didn't know anything about the program. I just knew that one of my good friends was really jacked up about it that I trusted and was like, hey, you should definitely come and hear about this. And then I found out that her dad sold books when he was in college, like way back in the day. And then, and she comes from a big family and like 5 or 6 of her siblings did the program. So I'm like, man, this is, this is like crazy, man. You guys are breeding book people.

Yeah, I think, I think I've interviewed like 3 or 4 people now that have the same book selling background. I've never heard of this shit. I'm 48, dude. I've never heard of this till I met y'all, like, last year. Yeah, I was like, wait, y'all, that many people buy books? I still don't even know what the hell the books are y'all are selling, and I've had 3 people explain it to me and I still don't. I'm like, yeah, encyclopedias, like, I remember those.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely.

But it clearly works.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's an entrepreneurial program. And, you know, if you do well your first summer, then they'll want you to, you know, come back and be able to recruit and train your own team. And I thought, man, if I can learn how to lead myself and then come back, get some of my buddies to do this, maybe lead a few people, and then come back and eventually kind of work my way up into becoming an organizational leader where you get to lead 15, 20, 30, 40 people into the summer and help manage and lead them. I knew that was going to give me the blueprint to be able to build my own business or my own company one day.

So they sell books the rest of the year, or is it just a summer company?

It's a summer. So it's, it's, it's totally promoted and it is like a college type of internship. Now, you don't have to be in college to be able to do it, but we— there's full-time recruiters all across the country on college campuses. So if you go to like career fairs or internship fairs, you'll see Southwestern Advantage at a lot of those, like hiring, recruiting, you know, getting people's information. And so that's what I did. So I sold books every single summer through college. That's how I paid my way through school, because after I transferred, soccer was no longer paying for school. So I had to figure out a different way, which was selling books. And then through, through the, my college years, I would come back and then I would, I would recruit. I would be on— we'd call it like an in-school recruiting schedule. But dude, it was me just at UK's campus meeting people in class, joining organizations and stuff, and bringing them the informational meetings. Me learning how to run those meetings on my own, and then, and then interviewing people and selecting people and then training people. And then the summer is like the peak experience, you know, because leading up into the summer, I'm just like training my kids on what that all entails. And then Yeah. And then I— so when I graduated from UK, at that point I had like a pretty decent business, like even taking an entry-level job out of college, I would have taken a decent pay cut. And so I just wanted to continue to grow that and nurture that for a couple of years after I graduated. So I did that. I graduated and then became like a full-time recruiter. And then— but I would also sell. So in the summer, I'm also selling full-time.

Um, what does that look like, the sales? Like, what kind of money you make— we bring home during the summers? Like, the progression of it.

So, like, in, in average, like, an average first summer, like, a student's probably making like $10,000, like, their first summer. Yeah. Okay.

Um, not in what, 8 weeks or something?

Yeah, like, well, about 12 weeks.

It's like a week.

Yeah, sometimes longer. We just go based on school schedule, so if we can get a 14-week summer in, we will find one. Um, But like some of my best summers were closer to like $80,000. Uh, crazy. Yeah, it's crazy. And you hear that when you're 18 and you're like, dude, I made $1,000 last summer. Or yeah, maybe.

Yeah, yeah.

So yeah, dang, dude.

So it's funny, as I hear this, you're saying all the things that we say to start people in insurance, except we weren't smart enough to make it a college program summer. Yeah, I mean, it's just marketing. Yeah, no difference. It's what you just said is what we do.

Yeah.

So I bet it's been a cool, relatively easy transition into this space. Obviously differences, but yeah, from a core, we do the same thing.

Totally. Absolutely. So whenever I was done and I was, you know, because it was kind of like summer camp, like every summer, you know, this is how I explain it. It's like if you're going to some like summer camp every summer, you're kind of like a camper, and then you become senior camper, and then you become like camp counselor, and then you become like regional camp counselor. And that's— and so this is what I did from 18 to 25, and I've never been like a free agent, you know, like on the market, like what else is out there. So when I did get to that point, you know, at that point I, I was like, man, well, I know what— I have some non-negotiables, things that are just important to me, you know, things that I, I definitely love about the company I just came from, things I'm going to be looking for in my next opportunity. And so I, dude, I had from probably September of '22 through the new year, January '23, I'd spent time. I probably interviewed and job showed at like 10 different companies. And man, I just, from coming from building something and being a part of something so much bigger than yourself. I just couldn't be another salesperson at another company. Yeah, I just couldn't do it. I just couldn't be another clog in the wheel. And so when I heard about the opportunity to help build like a company, I was like, it was fireworks, you know? Yeah, like I had, um, you know, Southwestern had reached out to me later, you know, that, yeah, early 2023, and was basically like, hey, we heard you're thinking about leaving and we'd love to keep you around. What do you think about coming down to Nashville to hear about an opportunity to help build a company? And so—

So for those that don't know, the same company you worked with selling books decided to get into insurance.

Yes, so yeah, exactly. So Southwestern is a family of companies. So Southwestern Advantage is the bookselling company. And all of the other companies that are under the umbrella now were all started by previous book people. So Southwestern Real Estate, we have Southwestern Consulting, we have Southwestern Coaching. I didn't know that. We have Career Services, which is all headhunting, like helping people find jobs and place them into different companies. And I mean, dude, there's 20 other companies, but they wanted to get into the life insurance space. It was just a part of their vision of tapping in. And, uh, yeah, we're just looking for the right person to do it.

Caught me in the yawn. That's sick, dude. So interesting. When did the— when did the insurance take over for you? How long you been doing specifically this?

Yeah, so I started— I got licensed April of 2023, and my first week selling was in May.

Okay, so you're right at 2 years.

Exactly. Yeah.

What's that 2 years look like? How is it different than selling books?

Dude, I tell you what, man, like my life's changed, like in all the ways that you can freaking imagine.

Let's hear. I don't know much. Hey, for those that don't know, to be clear, I do these podcasts. I don't know shit about what I'm getting. I'm just here asking questions, trying to figure it out. I like it this way. And so, you know, my favorite part is like, oh, I'm learning with the people watching.

Yeah, definitely. So Um, it's, I want to say February of '23, and that's when I make the decision to do this. Um, it's God timing, John. Like, my lease ends at the end of February up in Kentucky, and I, I told my— like, that was like my deadline. I'm like, look, I need to find a job by the end of February because I don't want to re-sign my lease here in Kentucky. And my, like, we wanted to make this happen in March. It got pushed out a little bit more because of all the licensing and that, et cetera. And then also just moving down to Nashville. But I got started in May. So I came down, I didn't know where to start. I mean, I just like, you know, am pioneering this, trailblazing this for our company. But if there's anything I do know, It's like if you want to be successful at anything, like you just got to meet other people that are doing what you're doing. And you got to put yourself out there, shake some hands, reach out, be vulnerable, you know, do that whole ordeal. So when I got to Nashville, I just made it a pretty big priority to start networking with different people. So just through different business groups around Nashville, through Facebook groups. I also was talking to Eric Schmidt. He gave me like list of 50 different live dials that I could hop on. And, uh, and so I would hop on those and listen and take notes. And, and, uh, and originally, because I come from a door-to-door in-person background, I mean, this is such a natural transition, you know. Even, even the thought of like, okay, I'm gonna book appointments and people know I'm coming to their house, like, dude, I'm gonna blow this thing out of the water. Like, that's crazy, you know, that concept. So I got here and, you know, I had reached out to some people. I had actually flew out and job shadowed a guy. So I got a better idea of just the optics of like what it actually looks like to phone for appointments and then to go and run them in the field. And then through the live dials, I got to meet some awesome people, actually. You know, you're our good buddies, Freddie and Maddie and those guys. So I, uh, I, Schmidty gives me this long list of live dials and I hop on one. I think at that time it was called like East Coast Dials. And, uh, I hop on and, and, you know, I'm also like timid because I'm just the new guy. And, uh, and Freddie's on there just by himself. And I'm like, uh, you know, hey dude, like, you know, my name's Austin. I'm, I'm new here. And he's like, yeah, he's like, bro, listen, you know, ask questions, whatever you need, man. I'm here. I'm here. You know, so You know, on Mondays I'd hop on the live dials. We'd be dialing together. You know, there might be like a couple other people that hopped on, but like, you know, I'm committed. And Freddie was like, you know, a year or two into this business already. So he's committed and he's on every Monday, every Thursday. So I just got to know him. You know, it's like, it's kind of like those guys that game with other guys they've never met. Yeah. You know, and there's like, dude, I've never met this dude, but like we're boys. So we just became buddies through that. And then like around probably my week 2 or 3 of starting, that's when I met Matty. So Matty hopped on that Zoom and Matty had just started. So him and I, we, we say we basically start at the exact same time.

And I remember him being brand new in my, in my office. Yeah, trying to figure it out.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. He was down there in Atlanta. Yeah, with you and trying to figure it out in the office. And dude, funny story, you'll appreciate this. So I was on there with Freddy and Maddie had hopped on, but his camera was off. And, uh, and, and he— and I never even met him just yet, but, um, it was just me and Freddy. So we just— I just saw this guy that— or this— I thought it was a girl, but it was like just this, uh, this screen on there without the camera. And I was like, uh, I go, yo, Maddie, go turn that camera on, girl, we want to say what's up. Dude, and I kid you not, he turns the camera on and he's got it all up in his face and his beard's all in the camera and I'm like, oh, I can only imagine.

He's such a trip too, dude.

And it, it's the funniest like origin story of, I think, of anyone I've ever met because, because I thought it was a girl that was sitting on there. And so we do, we, we laugh and we talk about that to this day.

But I'm gonna use that story when I, when I make fun of him for acting like a girl when he was new. Because he was here not dialing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was like, bro, why are you here? Yeah, I'm like, let's go.

Yeah, gotta pick it up. So I, um, so I asked Freddie just after like maybe a few weeks or a month of just getting to know him a little bit more, like, hey dude, like, what do you think about me flying to Boston and, and chatting with you? Because he's killing it, man. Like, he's top producer month in and month out. And, and, you know, Freddie's like, yeah dude, come, like, whatever you need, man. Like, crash on the couch, like, you know, we'll have a good time. Just, yeah. So I went up to Boston and shadowed him. We did dials together, set appointments, and then we went to run them. And I mean, dude, I mean, it just totally, like, I tweaked so many things I was doing in the field after watching him do the job.

For sure.

And so I came back and I was just like on fire, dude. Like I was having like 50.

You were selling at this point though.

Selling. Yeah. Yeah. I was selling.

Because I want to be clear, like. I love that you did all that. The— and the only reason I want to be clear is some people are watching. You can't call Freddy and go shadow him if you ain't done shit yet.

Exactly.

You mean like you were, you were putting in work?

I was, I was making money. Like, I— my, uh, my second week doing this in person, this was before any— this was before I shadowed Freddy. I— my second week in person, um, I got to help like 15 different people get life insurance in the field. My, like, I think I wrote up like $13K or $14K that week. And then my third week, I got to help over 20 different people in the field and I wrote over $20K my third week in the field. And I seriously, dude, like, I don't have context. I don't know what's good and what's not good. But I was just like, dude, this is so much easier than what I used to do. And you should have seen how conservative I was when I was making the money and seeing the deposits. I was putting that crap away. Away so fast because I didn't know what to expect. I was like, this is a fluke, dude. Like, you can make money this fast? Like, I, I was like, this is almost too good to be true. And, and so I was just conservatively putting money away, putting money away, but it wasn't— it wasn't too good to be true. It's like, this is legit.

Keeps going.

It just keeps going. Yeah.

What up, y'all? So YouTube memberships, we have one now right next to the subscribe button. There's a neon white join button. You can't miss it. Subscribe, whatever it says, click the link, get in there. I do a ton of coaching, teaching people how to dial, corrections, working on their presentations, working on their mindset. I will coach on theory, but I like coaching real world stuff. And if you join the membership section, you're going to see live coaching where I'm not only helping people, but every once in a while I get in there and dial myself. There's some cool videos coming out, tons of content. All the training videos will be directly on my YouTube channel. That's available to members only. Super easy to find. So join now if you're interested. Click below. See you in there. What, um, looking back on it, dude, you've seen enough. Always, it's always interesting when, you know, people just don't know what they don't know.

Yeah, right.

And you spent— so people go, 3 weeks in, you made that? Yeah, did you miss the part where dude was working on his stuff for 7 years? Yeah, you know what I mean? Like, he was developing himself along the way. So when you sit on your couch for 7 years and then try to do this, it's very difficult. Yeah, but when, when you look back now on the things that you did right, you know, all things being as equal as they can for someone coming in new, where do you think they go wrong when they come in in week 3? Dude, we have people coming in and you see it, they'll make $500 and 72 people pick up and they don't even book an appointment and they're like, this don't work. And I'm like, ah, how do you, how do you, how do you try to articulate that, especially to someone your age?

Right. Totally. Um, so I would say it's for a rookie in the sales game, like somebody that's just getting into sales, they, their learning curve is just longer than the vet. It just is. When I, when I got into this, my learning curve wasn't working through rejection.

It wasn't correct.

Yeah. So how to jump out of bed and, and like go to the gym and you know what I mean? Like that's not my learning curve. Like that foundation has totally been built. My learning curve was product knowledge. That was it. Um, where somebody that's a rookie, I mean, their, their, their first, I tell every rookie that we get, Um, and we don't, and granted, and we can talk about this more, but we don't really hire, like it's a prerequisite that you've been in sales to work with us. So I know a lot of other people build their agency, you know, just with whoever can breathe. Exactly. Um, but their learning curve is just going to be longer and they just have to understand that. And so the first 3 months of this job, we call it the habit building phase. So anyone that comes in and we all You know, the sacrifice to work with us is you got to move to Nashville and we help you do that. And it's— you're not like totally isolated on your own. Like, you know, we help you do that.

But you don't hire anyone remote right now?

No.

Good for you.

Yeah. So we're all in person in this office and we're just basically going to copy and paste just in different locations. Yeah.

How many guys you got there selling now? I know you got a crew.

32. Yeah.

Good for you.

And we're busting out the seams. Oh yeah. This is our third—

I brought a squad to my event.

This is a— yeah, yeah, yeah. I was super happy those guys got to go, and I would have been there, I was just out of the country. But I was— I remember, next time for sure. Um, but yeah, like, we, we just did our third office move and we have 5 more seats available. So we're like playing Tetris in this office at this point, seeing where we can put new people before we have to like maybe not jump ship but just add another office.

How do you vet them? Like, what's that process? And, and once you do vet them, what do you do when you're wrong? Yeah. Like, how's that go?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. Well, before we interview and bring somebody in, because we bring people in for the interview process. Okay. You know, this isn't the throw crap up against the wall and see what sticks type of process. This is vetting people from day one. So I'll do a prescreen call with anybody I might be interested in or is interested in this. To, to basically figure out if this guy's worth bringing in person to an interview. I love it. That's it. So I get on the call, ask plenty of questions, get to know them a little bit more. And I can tell at this point, you know, in my career, yeah, if this guy's worth flying out to interview with us or if he's not. So we just had 7 dudes last week fly in from out of state to interview with us, and this week we have 3. So it's just like every single week we just have more people, more people, more people.

So pay for them to fly in.

Yeah.

If they're fit. Okay.

Yeah. Yeah.

You'll put them up in a place and all that jazz.

Exactly. We got a hotel right across the street. They just walk right on over. It's awesome, dude. It's a really good system we have, but we have it so dialed in and all the leaders know to bring their A-game and to make sure that everybody's playing a part in that person being—

Yeah.

You got it.

I know that game.

It's an operation, man. So we're doing great. And, but yeah, we will do, I'll do a screen call with them first, see if it's worth bringing them out. And if it is, and, and they see, and they like what they see, and we like what we see, then we'll talk logistics and steps moving forward.

Okay. What are the expectations that you're setting for people?

Yeah.

If you'll feel like you're a fit and they feel like they're going to be a fit. And what I want to preface too is like, just the concept of what you're doing forces people to sell themselves to you and bring their A-game versus, what do you got for me?

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, what makes you different? All that, all the stuff where they're trying to interview you, essentially. I know a lot of agents and managers try to fall into that, like, oh wait, shit, I'm being interviewed here.

Yeah, it's a combination of a lot of things.

Yeah.

Um, we're working a pretty warm market.

Yep.

For prospecting right now. So when people walk into the office, they'll know like 3 or 4 people in there that are so accomplished in their previous sales job.

Yeah.

So I mean, we have previous top producers and sales managers from different industries that are here working with us. So the standard— I mean, when people come and do this, like, they're just elevated. Because of the people that we have. So we have the what, it's just bringing in the right who. And so the precedent's already set. I mean, it's, you know, we book, like, I send them out like a full 2-day itinerary of what their time here is going to look like. We make dinner reservations, we make lunch reservations. They're going to be shadowing maybe 2 or 3 different people during that time. They're going to be meeting with me. They're going to be meeting with our finance guy to go through all the finances. But, you know, essentially we are, we are interviewing you.

Yeah.

Like, that's the dynamic here.

You should be. Yeah.

Yeah, that's totally the dynamic. Like, if I'm putting money into bringing you here, yeah, I'm interviewing you. And so that's, that's the, that's the power dynamic. You know, we're obviously interested in you because you're here, we brought you. But yeah, it's important to dig and investigate and ask those questions that are important.

Are you guys doing anything different as from as far as like structure of the business? Are they coming in straight 1099, buying their own leads, normal shit?

Normal stuff.

Yeah.

So yeah, normal stuff. So that's also, um, something that's important is when they're here. And even I'll do this before I even bring them out here, is just do somewhat of a financial audit, kind of see where they're at.

Yep. You know, what are you looking for before you put them on a plane? Give us some pointers. Like, what are— what are you hunting? You're obviously hunting for the right word, and people always say the right words. Yeah, I mean, so you got to weed through the shit somehow. So what are, what are some key things you're looking for? For sure.

So it's important that the person I'm talking to has a lot of context for what we're doing. And when you want to grow a company to be 100 people or 1,000 people, if you're going to do 100 people, you need your first 30, 40 people to be like the strongest and most committed people. So it's like Most of the people we talk to, they understand that they have to move to Nashville and that that's kind of the deal here. But I make sure I affirm and reiterate that to them, that at this point, I don't take it— there's not a day I take for granted that I walk out there and we have people that have uprooted their lives from all over the country to come and build this with us. Yeah. And we haven't even opened the floodgates. Floodgates aren't even open.

It's 30 people. We haven't done shit yet.

We haven't even opened it. I mean, I'll tell people like, you know, people, time flies by fast and, you know, people remember 2 years ago it was just me by myself. Yeah. And they're like, wow, you got 30+ people? You know what I mean? Now you got agencies that do hundreds and hundreds of people within a 2-year period. You know, that's just not what we're doing. It's just not how we want to grow and build this. I mean, our person-to-person average is like $30,000 to $35,000 a month.

I was going to ask that. Sick. What kind of volume you spitting out now? Your group then?

Yeah.

What are y'all doing?

Like, like in total?

However, whether you, your leg or the whole thing, I don't care how you say it.

Yeah, we typically go by—

go by whatever you want, dude.

We're like, we're so close to scratching the surface of a million.

Are you really?

Yeah. We're getting many people, dude. Issue.

How many issue?

Probably 30, 31 or 32. Dude.

Yeah.

And we just had— dude, get this.

One of them should be screaming. Can I tell you something?

Yeah.

You should be screaming that on social.

Yeah.

The screaming it, dude. You know how many fucking people are out there speaking on stages and have big followings that their average writer does fucking $3,800 a month?

Yeah.

$4,200 a month. It's disgusting, dude.

We're getting there. We're getting there. And these guys are pumped for it. And it's having people buy into what you're doing.

30 people. Hold on. So 30-some people doing $1 million a month?

Close, dude.

I got, I got a guy that I talked to recently. He had— they're— they would— they were at $800 grand a month. I almost want to go upstairs and pull his numbers. I think they had 300 fucking writers.

You can do it that way, John. I just— it just— what do you want your life to look like? What do you want the quality of your life to look like, man? Like, I want to spend my time with people that are committed that people that want to do this thing, people that are on it in the same vision, they got your back. Like, we, we're bringing people in, like, and I'm not, I'm not selling somebody something that's fake. It's like, dude, like, clearly we make decisions together, you know? Like, there's definitely a chain of command, you know? Like, there's a head of this puppy and, and we have leaders and, and, but you can quickly get to that point. But there's, there's no, there's really no decisions that are being made behind closed doors without getting inputs. You know, we send out surveys all the time because we want to get feedback from people. We want to hear about how things can be better. What are we doing good? Where can we make tweaks? You know, we do a, we do a big quarterly review meeting every quarter. We have one here coming up in July. So it's like, we're in the details, man. Like, we're not building a team. We're not building an agency. Like, we're building a company. You know, and it's kind of rough around the edges right now. You know, it's not like, hey, come and, you know, join our 50-year-old, you know, company. We got cash bonus incentive at the end of the day. We have all that stuff, which is awesome. And we, we eat our cake and eat that cake too. But like, we, we never overpromise and underdeliver. It's like, dude, it's going to be worse before it gets better. Yeah, we might be stuck in an office where it's really loud and chattery and you might not be able to hear yourself think sometimes. But bro, like, this office is going to be your office one day, and you're going to take everything you've learned from this office, you're going to be able to do it back home to where you want to live one day.

So the goal is to teach them to build and duplicate this system you have in Nashville, in—

you got it—

Ohio, wherever the hell.

Copy and paste it. It's to duplicate what we're doing. It's like even throughout the process, like even to be able to document everything we're doing from the sales side, from the interviewing side, from the training, from the content. It's like Being able to almost make like a, a, uh, like a playbook.

Yep.

Here, you know, there's, there's one, a hypothetical one that we talk about, or figurative one that we can talk about, but like a physical one that I'm like, sure, you're starting an office, here you go, here it is.

But franchise concept, you got it.

And people being able to actually experience that, live in it, and, and learn it while they're here, and then be able to go and do that on their own. We're just in phase one. Right now.

That's so sick. I remember when these conversations first started happening because I found out like y'all in my group, some I was like, I know those guys. Yeah, you know what I mean? And I remember I had to link it back to conversations. I remember the first time the crew went to Nashville to meet with y'all about this. Like, I remember vaguely him telling me like, yo, I'm going up here for this group. And I'm like, I'm going to meet Dick. You know how often I hear that? I'm gonna meet this group and they're gonna kill it, you know? So I just— it never clicked until like I don't know, it had to be a year or two later. I don't remember which one of y'all came up to me and was like, hey, that group Nashville Southwest. And I was like, it— the connection just happened.

I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, no shit, those kids made it.

Because I didn't really hear— I wasn't part of that meeting. And, you know, um, but it's wild. So what are some of the expectations you're setting for people coming in as far as like a day-to-day, a timing, uh, work hours, activity counts? Like, what are you giving them from there? Like, yo, here's how you make Totally.

So we have different metrics and targets that set our precedent and that help people be successful. This is, this is a big part of the habit building phase for people when they come in. So a couple of just non-negotiables is like when you get started, like you're working from at least 9 to 6 every day. Like that's the job. Like your job is to work from 9 to 6 in the office, physically in the office. And then it's also to get at least 6 presentations in. Like, I would throw out 6 to 8 presentations a day.

Okay, but only clarifying, because someone told me yesterday she did a lot of them in the last 2 weeks. She had 6.

So 6 presentations a day? Yeah, I'm just—

yeah, we're just clarifying for the people watching.

In the way— in the way that we, uh, would define a presentation is you go through— you go through the presentation, and if you drop the quotes, that's a presentation. Yeah, like, as long as you're having— as long as you are in a buying situation, sure, a closing conversation, that's, that's a presentation. So 6 of those a day, like, that's your job. Like, I even told— we had a Monday morning meeting this morning down in one of our training labs, and I told him, I said, look, I know a lot of new guys are coming in. We got a lot of new guys right now, and we got some guys that are firing off on all cylinders. Like, we got 2 guys that are hitting over $80K, $40K, $50K, $60K months. And these guys are coming in like, holy smokes. And I'm trying to redirect our focus of, look, those things are awesome and we celebrate all those things, but our job is to get 6 to 8 presentations a day. That's it. And we give it all to God and we give it all to, you know, we're putting our best foot forward and that's it. That's your job. You know, and these are, this is a controllable metric, John. Like if you're at 5 presentations and it's 5:30, whatever, and you're trying to get your 6, call your grandma, call your cousin. You know, we don't work that type of lead, but this is a controllable thing, man. Go downstairs and talk to the front desk lady.

Like, get your 6, get it in, get your 6 presentations in.

When I, when I sold books, and this is how I'm wired, is because when I sold books, we had to get in 30 demos every single day. So we'd work. My first door knock would be 7:59 AM. My last door knock, whether it was warm, cold, appointment, whatever, was 9:31 PM. Every single day, all summer long, no breaks except Sundays, but we do trainings all days on Sundays. And so we'd have to get in 30 demos every single day, 180 demos a week. So if there was a day where it was like, I'm driving home and it's like 9:45 at night and I have 29 demos, I'm going to the gas station, I'm whipping out a book and I'm demoing the gas station lady because Dude, if you do it once, you'll do it twice. And if you do it twice, you'll make it a habit.

That's like whole concept. I got a book someone sent me. I've heard of it a lot, but someone sent it to me. I saw it on my office desk yesterday.

Walk—

I, my, my gym in my house is attached. I have to walk through my office to get to the gym.

Yeah.

And you ever have something like that's been there and you just don't know how it got— so I walk by and there's a book on my desk and I'm like, how the hell'd that get there? I forgot someone sent it to me. And there's that one, like, I forget the exact title, but it's like How to make your, make your bed in the morning is the concept. Like the first thing someone, someone super famous wrote it or came up with.

Probably. And I mean, honestly, these are just like the small little nuggets and tokens of wisdom that I've picked up throughout the years.

And it's the same concept though, but it's like, it's true, man.

Like if you do it once, you'll do it twice. And if you do it twice, you'll make it a habit. And it's, it's like, well, I'll just never do it once.

So what are you telling people it takes to get 6 presentations, 6 day-to-day, as far as activity before that, right? Which is going to be lead flow and phone calls.

Yeah.

So what's the expectation on quantity there?

Yeah.

And again, I'll give you context. Someone literally DM'd me and I have like a Discord community, right? So if anybody wants JohnWetmore.com/discord, you come in, you can watch what we do. I, I do a lot of the same concepts clearly. Mine is much more remote just because the, the size of it.

Yeah.

So I have a lot of people in our agency, outside of our agency, following inside Discord, and I let 'em get a sneak peek behind, like there's different, uh, Discord, like channels. You're probably familiar with it. I just learned, I'm 48. I just learned about Discord like a month ago. Yeah. Mm. And, uh, so some have different privacy. You can chat in this one, not in this one. And so we let 'em see our actual Base Shop agency chat just so they can watch what we're doing behind the scenes.

Yeah.

But I don't let 'em, chat if they're not part of us, just so they don't mess up my guys, you know what I mean? I don't want to take your time away.

Totally.

In the main chat where everyone can talk, someone put in— and I— great dude, I love him. He, uh, he's been slacking the last couple years, admittedly. This is his words, not mine. And, uh, wants to be part of something. And I'm like, cool, join the group, watch people dial. We, we start dials at 7 AM in my group. 7 AM start time if you're, if you're serious. If you're not, I don't care. You're just not as serious as the guys who start at 7. So this dude comes in, he starts dialing with our team, and he posts this morning, have made 67 dials, I think I need a new phone script. And I was like, bro, that's like saying you need a new workout plan when you're fat. Like, that's not—

he said that loud to the group in the chat? Yeah.

So I responded, and so I'd be curious what your, your expect— and I'm really good at setting expectations. And he posted that still, you know what I mean?

And it's not a lot of—

he's not trying to be a mean guy or rude, or he just one of those things. They just think that's the magic.

Yeah, you know.

And so I'd be curious what you do as far as setting— granted, you do need to learn a script, you should know your shit. Day one, like, I'm not convinced it matters much if you don't have those foundational things. So I'd be curious, what are you telling people it takes to get to a point where you're doing 6 or 8 a day, every day, no matter what presentation? How do you get there? Hey guys, just created something really cool, and if you want to be part of it, join the Discord group I just created. The link is going to be in here. It's It's a dope environment. You can chat with others that are kind of in the community. You can see beyond the curtain of our agency, have access to all kinds of stuff that we got going on, events, and my staff is in there. We have agents in there selling, me helping agents and sharing information. We're gonna, as we build this thing out, share everything out there with all of you guys. So again, follow the Discord if you want to be part of everything we got going on. Join it now. We'll see you in there. Hope to help you more.

Yeah, good question. And, and John Wetmore, we're getting people started, it, it, the numbers are, can be a little skewed because we are helping with like giving older leads. And when you give older leads, you should be.

I am too. Yep.

They're just not better than new leads. I mean, it's just, you know, it's not rocket science. So it's harder to get 6 presentations in when you're working, whether it's a freaking 2 months old or 2 years old. They're just harder to get in. So our expectation for people at this point, whenever they're in those first week or first couple of weeks of getting on old leads, is the schedule of the 9 to 6. We're not like, you know, I'm not setting any expectation of people making sales, you know. And again, yep, I like it. Granted, like, our people are coming in that have money. You know, for the most part, I mean, we helped a lot of our people, but like, this is also part of the vetting process is seeing where they are financially. And I'll, and I'll tell a guy, you know, I think you might like, you might be like 3 or 4 months out from this. I'd love to get with you, but go make 3 or 4 months of money and then come when you got $5,000 in your account. You know, we can work with $5,000. We can work with maybe a few grand, but if you got $1,200 in your checking account, it's hard to work with it. You know, so go, go Uber, go DoorDash for a couple of months and then come to us when you, when you have that, you know, and but we'll meet you where you are. I mean, if you're like, dude, I'm ready, it's like, I'll respect that.

Yeah.

And I'll invest in people that are worth investing into. So, but anyway, so those first couple of weeks is all about those habits and getting used to sitting down in a chair and making those calls. If you make sales, we just count that as bonus.

Like, sure.

Great, dude. Awesome. Like, proud of you. But this is about— this is honestly more about getting through the approach and like getting good on the phone and getting good at answering objections when people first pick up the phone, you know. Also in that, like, people are going to do, you know, some job shadowing, not a lot, but a little bit. But really, we want to— we want to get into the ad campaign and getting them set up on that. Like, as quickly as possible.

How many calls, how many leads are you— are they expecting day one, week one?

Yeah, you'll probably get— yeah, we'll probably give you like 200 or 300 leads to work through. I mean, you're talking about like not like these old internet leads that you don't know who's bought them. These are still like generated leads that we had generated and that we're still passing along for people to work through, you know.

What's a good day of dials for a new guy? Like, if what is he, 9 to 6, he follows your thing. He's 8:59 to 6:01.

Yeah.

He shows you his call log.

Yeah.

What's good? What's bad to you?

Yeah. If somebody can get in 300 dials a day every day, like, I know that you're like putting in the work, you know, because I know you're talking to people and you're presenting and you're doing that. If it's, if it's less than that, it's like, all right, we're—

what are we doing?

I mean, are you playing ping? We got a ping pong room. You playing too much? It's like, do I need to lock that door or what's going on? You know? Um, but yeah, I mean, and then once you get on your ad campaign, I mean, it really is all about your presentations. Like, there's no, there's no excuses for that.

Yeah, I love it. It's easy, man. Sick. Where, where do you find people struggle the most coming in? As much as you lay the groundwork, set the expectations, vet everybody, do all the thing get all the good answers, fucking have a great dinner, have an awesome lunch. Everybody's high-fiving and cheering. Dude, that first Monday morning comes along, week 1, week 2. Where do people go wrong? As clear as you lay it out.

Yeah, for sure. I would say for our group, it's more important for our group of people to be coachable than just about anybody else. And I say that because We have so many accomplished salespeople walking in the door and even sales managers that have like trained and led people where they need to be dumb enough to be smart enough to basically do everything we tell them to do. And sometimes that's really hard when you're so used to doing it your way or in a different way successfully. And so this idea of coachability is so important to our group, way more important than it would be to somebody who's never done sales before. You know, and so when you, when you're working with a lot of top dogs all in one place, I mean, you're dealing with a lot of people that are, you know, but dude, I'll tell you what, our group has been amazing. It's, it's been awesome. But when you come into anything as like a top producer, you know, it's like you just, you're, you're walking on a different floor than other people.

100%.

You just are. And I, and I get that. So I mean, it's just learning how to, how to manage those things. But I would say coachability, definitely. Is the most important thing for our group because, I mean, dude, like, I get it. When you come from an industry that you just crushed every day or just taught other people how to crush and you come into this, there's just a few different things that we need to change up a little bit. But that's pretty much it.

You know, what do you think are some of the— if you can give them— this is a hard one for most to answer because they don't actually do what we do. They say they do what we do, but you guys are really teaching it to another level. You're the sharpest young kids I've spoken to, which is cool. But like, what are some of the things I always tell people, some of the steps of this, like learning it? Are kind of counter, counterintuitive to what people think.

Totally.

What are, what are some of those that you see like, oh shit, that's just different?

Yeah, yeah, for sure. So selling books, selling solar, selling maybe other insurances, you're creating needs out of thin air. Like nobody knows that they needed books until I knocked on their door and talked to them about why they need these books. Yeah. So for our salespeople, when they're coming in, it's easy to like have that salesmanship and to be salesy, if you will.

Yep.

When I'm like, dude, we need to, we need to unlearn some things.

Yeah.

You know, because I'm used to like sitting down with a family, you know, talking about the kids' grades and where they want to go to college and, and just like creating needs that didn't exist before I got there. Sometimes, sometimes they're blatant as day and they need these books, but sometimes if they don't, it's like you're having to pitch them. Which is my job.

Similar in our space to the people who don't work leads. Yeah, those friends and family type companies, it's the same thing. They come over and they think they have to like pitch the concept.

Totally.

Um, I like that.

Yeah, so a lot of the work is already done by the time that we get on the phone with our, our leads because you're just filling the need that's already there. That's the difference. And so it's almost unlearning or taking a step back and dialing it back and just, you know, sticking to the effing script, man. Stick to it. Stick to it. Like, I smack somebody in the back of the head every time they— dude, stick to the freaking script, you know? Even if they want to get down a different rabbit hole, it's like, dude, like, just stick to the script, man. It'll answer their questions for, for them if you just stick to it.

Yeah. What are the— what do you think are some of the most powerful parts of a script? Pick 2 or 3, couple. That are just like, dude, if you're going to get anything right, get this part right.

Yeah, I would definitely say the beginning of the call for sure. Also, well, I think tonality is definitely the most important thing here. You know, it's like, but it's interesting, man. And that's why I freaking love sales is because people have different philosophies. So if you have somebody who hit Hall of Fame and they're like, you know, I get on the phone and I act like I'm like, I don't want to be on the phone and I'm just taking orders and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And, and I'm just going through the motions. And, you know, it's like that works. But it also works for the other person that like tries to do a really good job at like building trust immediately. Sure. And like maybe like throwing out a joke or throwing out like something to connect on, like, oh, you're from Georgia. Okay, cool. You must be a, you know, Hawks fan.

Yeah.

Oh, okay. It's like there's different, there's different strokes for different folks.

There's 28 to 3 must burn you up inside or something.

Yeah, exactly. Little, little things like that where, you know, and it's funny, man, because we got two, two dudes in this office that both hit over $80K, like just pretty recently, but they're like selling style, if you will, or tonality is like way different. Sometimes I don't think there's a right or wrong answer. I think it's just making a decision and making it right and just being confident in it, you know? And it's not because, you know, Tom— I mean, Tom is— he's the most monotone, yeah, robotic dude I've ever known.

My son actually said that, picked up on that. He was like, he's different.

Yeah. And the way that he explained it to me totally made sense. He's like, well, I like to do that because it, it I know that there's no variable in what I say because every time I get on the phone, it's the exact same thing. So it makes me look at maybe the lead or maybe it makes me look a little bit more at the market versus just internally because, dude, I'm the same freaking person, you know, whereas somebody else that's a little bit more malleable, they might be having totally different conversations. It might sound different per person that they're talking to. It's like, dude, it works differently for different people, but you just— you make it right. You just pick it and you make it right. And you quit flaking on it every, you know, when it doesn't work. It's like we just need a bigger sample size to truly, to truly say whether something works or it doesn't.

You know, sounds like the control is the biggest variable in that.

Yeah.

Like if they have control of the conversation is more important than exactly what tone.

Definitely.

Because tone is important. I'm more of the like monotone, but I'm a, I'm a hybrid dude.

Yeah.

If I can just be me, I'm pretty monotone at the beginning, but I'm— dude, I'm sarcastic as shit with people. Yeah, because that's who I am. Yeah, you know what I'm saying? If I'm in control, I can do it the right way. I can say some crazy stuff to people, and agents are like, you say that? I'm like, yeah, at the right time, jackass. I can't— yeah, yeah, you got to know when to do it.

Yeah, no, totally. It's like, it's not just like out of the blue and like, correct, you're screwing up a call. It's like, I'm not reading it off a piece of paper.

Like, when you, when you really do this, the piece of paper is shit. If you understand the, the, the process of it and the, the, what the script is doing to me is more important than the script. Because I could give you a script right now to somebody who ain't doing the things intentionally and it wouldn't work either. Clearly, you, you know that.

Yeah, I would say that's the progression is like when you get started, you're probably reading off the script for the first month or two, but like if you can wean yourself or get away from it, that's when you can just operate so much more authentically.

Yeah.

And people, I think, can pick up on that.

I had— I'm trying to think, who did I have? I had someone on the podcast super recent. What is his name? Blake. It was just literally last week. We're so behind on when they release though, because I have so many in the queue. Super nice guy. I'm trying to remember who he was with. I don't know if he was with y'all. Hell, I think he's in your office. Blake. Blake. What was the guy's name? Shit, I interviewed— anyway, he's doing his script and he's like, I mean, normally, you know, I'm just here and I lean back in my chair and I put my feet up on my desk and I just I just talk, I don't really do anything. And we started role-playing, right?

Yeah.

And so he leans forward into the computer, into the podcast like this, and he tries to do it. And he was trying to like go through the steps and it messed him up.

Was it Trace? Oh, it might have been Trace Egerson.

Hold on, I interviewed— we're gonna do this live while I'm doing this. I talked to him last week, super fucking chill guy, dude. He was one of my favorite ones. Let me hold on, look him up. I'll tell you right now because it was just— yes, that's exactly who it was.

Yeah.

So he's, he's, he's killing it, right? And this is kind of to prove the point when people overthink. He leans up and gets in tight and we're trying to role play and he's trying to— and I hate role play because it's fake. It's not real. It's not genuine. It's bullshit. I'm like, do you want me to make it easy, hard?

Like, I'm like, I'm like, I hope John doesn't try to role play with me on this.

Ah, dude, it just— he is— he had done a lot of podcasts. And he was like, do I just call you? I'm like, however you want, bro, just go. And it sort of fell into that and he got hung up and I'm like— and then he got worried on the phone. He's like, I'm sorry, dude. I'm like, dude, I don't give a shit. I love this.

Yeah.

So do me a favor. Lean the fuck back in your chair, put your feet on the desk during the podcast, and then let's do it. And he loosened right up, man.

Yeah.

You know, and he just got to be himself. And I was like, I love this. I love that we captured it. It. Yeah, you know, he was all worried about it. I'm like, fuck what people think, dude, keep killing it.

That's so cool. Yeah, that's awesome.

And that is a big piece of it, is getting into a level of comfort where you aren't thinking while you're talking. Yeah, or thinking while they're talking. You're just in the moment.

Totally.

You know, when you can get there, this thing is deadly, dude.

Yeah, yeah, dude, when you're just firing off on all cylinders and Yeah, you're like, uh, what do they call it, the flow state? Sure, it's in a flow state. I mean, dude, yeah, I love it, dude.

I want to come up to y'all's office one day. I want to come check it right now.

I'd love to host you, have a, have a training, or shoot, just—

yeah, I need to plan that with Amanda. I've had, um, I've had it come up a few times in the last couple months, like Nashville. I have a few— I know quite a few people there.

Yeah.

And this dude's like, hey, when you come to Nashville, let me know. I'm like, I'll definitely be there this year. And it keeps coming up So I'm like, shit, I just need to plan a trip up for sure.

Because I know now, you know, some of us and yeah, it'll be cool.

It'll be cool. Yeah. Are you guys in Nashville proper?

Are you metro or where you are in Nashville?

Yeah, you are sick. Yeah, like staying at a great time, that place. I stay at this hotel. Oh shit, I mean, it's right on the corner. It's near, near the Bobby, but it's on the corner. It's the one on the corner.

Yeah, hold on.

It's right on the corner of—

yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I've stayed at the Bobby before, but it's, it's a young crowd. Yeah, two on the corners, like—

I know you're talking about. Yeah, that alley.

Yeah, what's that alley called? It's right behind it.

Printer's Alley.

Yes, I like staying right there, dude.

Yeah, Printer's Alley, that's a good place.

Quiet enough to like be away from the chaos, but I can walk to it all in 3 minutes.

Yeah, no, we, we love it here, man. Nashville's like— it's also not a hard place to get people to move to.

No. Yeah, you think? Yeah, especially your age, dude. Yeah, it's gonna be hard to get people to come to work the next morning.

I know. Well, we've been doing, uh, we've been doing a social event every month that me— that the leaders here, we just, we just pay for. We're just like, you know, this is a fun experience for our people to like get outside of these walls and get to have some fun with each other. It's also a great recruiting experience, you know, for, for our guy, because we'll always have somebody come and film it content, chop it up, post it. So, you know, we were on the lake a couple months ago. They did a— we did a group fitness class this month. We were thinking about, uh, renting out— you can actually rent out the top, you can rent out the rooftop of the Bobby because there's pickleball courts up there.

Is it really?

On the rooftop of the Bobby? Yeah, there's some pickleball courts up there. There's a— yeah, bar and restaurant up there on the rooftop. So we're thinking about renting it out just doing a social up there would be fun.

That is badass. Yeah, there's great food in that, uh, yeah, in that area. I, um, I go, I go to Nashville, bro. I eat good.

Yeah, we get busy. Yeah, just when we, uh, dude, it's, it's so hard in, in, uh, like trying to stay at a calorie deficit sometimes. So my, my, my thing here is if we have people coming in, Noel That's the name of the hotel. Yeah, yeah, dude. Yeah, that place is super nice. And they actually have it— they have a Jeff Ruby Steakhouse right there now. Yes.

Yeah, man, I love some Jeff Rubys, bro.

Yeah, super nice.

That's the— yeah, that's the one that has the piano behind the bar, ain't it?

Yep, yep.

I go there every time. I sit at the bar, listen to the piano guy play.

Yeah, dude, isn't this a good time? It's one of my favorite places. We actually I just ran an incentive for the month of May and, you know, sometimes it takes a few weeks to see what the month is. So I did for the top 3 producers for our group, I'm going to go host them at Jeff Ruby's.

Hell yeah.

Yeah.

Hell yeah. I'm going to get Amanda. Who should we coordinate with? I know too many of you.

With me.

Okay. I'm going to get Amanda to figure something out.

Yeah.

I got some travel coming up the next few weeks, but I'm going to work something out to get them.

Yeah. Dude, that'd be, that'd be a ton of fun, man. Not, not too far of a drive.

No, it's easy. Easy.

I was telling, I was just telling earlier, or I was talking to somebody earlier and I was just telling them like when we have people that come in and interview, it's always like meals and dinners and this or that. So right now, dude, I've been literally just to stay at a calorie deficit. I've been not eating until dinner every single day. No way. Just trying to keep it because I'm like, dude, if I eat breakfast and lunch and I know when we go out to dinner, like I'm, we get busy, like we eat good.

I bet. I know that, Rad.

Yeah.

I got fat from that, bro. Building my agency made me fat. Yeah, so I've had to fix it this year.

Yeah, dude. So we've been going all over trying everything and anything that's new.

Just, uh, hey, y'all need to get like a— we need to get y'all on like a 7 AM, 75 hard Wetmore something or other. Y'all need to— y'all need to get it in. You're too young to be worried about calorie deficits, bro.

Bro, after this, uh, this social event we were just running this past month, I mean, they took just a picture of after the workout, dude. Some of our— I'm— I gotta stay on my toes, dude, because these guys freaking jacked, man. Yeah, like these guys are really getting after it. Yeah, we just had 3 different people finish 75 Hard this last week, and then we have 4 more that are starting in like 2 weeks.

Hell yeah.

So dude, it's iron sharpening iron. We got dudes that are all like in the same Bible study now, going to church together, just like friends making friends and doing life outside.

Yeah, I love it, dude. Especially if you are hang— if you watching Freddy and them, you see all the stuff they do. Oh, they came down and did an event with me here in Atlanta, uh, like in April. We ran one of those Savage Race, the mud run type things together. Yeah, it's like a Spartan Race, the same concept. Yep, there's one local to me here, different, just a different brand. Yeah, so it was like 7 miles all through stuff. Freddie, uh, Mel, uh, who else? Uh, nope, Freddie, Mel, uh, what's his name?

Um, Maddie.

Maddie. Yep, Freddie, Mel, Maddie. this other dude not in his group, uh, Ben, Ben Hani. I forget his life. I forget how to pronounce his name. Super nice guy. Just hits me up on Instagram.

Yeah. Yeah.

I think there were 5 or 6 of us. So every time I do one, I'm going to be like, yo, who wants to come?

Yeah.

Yeah. I got a crazy one coming up next week that no one will come to, but well, I'm trying to get those guys to come out here.

Like I'm seeing them in Austin since they all just moved to Austin, probably in September. I'm going out there to see those guys.

Are you?

Yeah, I'm trying to get them to come to Nashville now that we have some more desks and places to work.

So yeah, just do a, do a, do a crazy training event. They'll come up. Yeah, dude, they'll go for that, dude.

We're trying to tap into some of that stuff, like get an Airbnb somewhere, do those blitz types of weeks, or, uh, yeah, what do they call them?

Lock-ins.

Lock-ins. Yeah.

Yep.

Trying to do some of those.

They're fire, dude. Those two got that figured out. Now if they would— they aren't growing the way they need to. They're trying to figure that piece out. Yeah, they're, they're growing. So we got our team, we got a bunch of young guys your age. I started building another base shop direct. Just recently, last like 6 weeks. I'm like, hell, let's do it again with some young cats and teach them how to do it. And these, these little fuckers are doing whatever it takes.

Yeah.

Um, so we got a few people getting ready to open some offices and copy the concept and get to go.

Are you guys thinking about physical location?

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't— I wouldn't do it any other way, bro. Even in the virtual world, I'm like, you can sell virtual, but to be alone in your pajamas in your house, it's just— there's so many disadvantages to that one advantage. Yeah, that I just— I think a hybrid model. I mean, we built this through offices. I owned 5 of them at one point. I just kept buying them and putting people in them and filling them, and we did a lot of that.

Dude, thanks for bringing that up, because like, I, I have a question, like, if you don't mind, like, give me some advice here. Like, I, I've thought about, like, I've even looked into like what it looks like to get a new office space somewhere else, just kind of independently. Yeah, and I'm like, do I buy one? Do I lease one? These suckers are a lot of money, man.

Here's what I always say. So if you're in the insurance space and trying to build an agency, or you're trying to like break records in sales, just hit new levels, new heights, click the link below to apply to my consulting and coaching program that I have out there. I'm helping tons of people get to new levels, get to new income heights, help them build teams, put systems in place, staffing stuff, recruiting processes, automations, um, just teaching people how to get to a point where they're selling on their own pen 30, 40, 50 grand a month. And if they're building a team, teaching how to have an effective structure to your insurance agency for the most profitability you can. There is an application process. I'm only looking to work with like high-end people who really want to make big things happen. Couple recent clients that we've had in the, in the coaching program, one dude as an individual, went from selling like $8,000 a month, barely getting by, about to quit the industry, found the book, hit me up direct, started a coaching program, went to $35,000 his first month, has issued like $150,000 in the last 90 days and has changed the trajectory of his career. Working with another agency builder, very first month went from doing like $800,000 a month to almost $1.1 million. We added like 10 or 15% production in 30 days. And continue to work on things there. So if you're interested, click the link, apply, and if you're a fit, I'll reach out. I'll tell you that Giovanni is my guy. Giovanni's looking at one right now. He's in Florida, young kid, 23, knocked out like $350 grand last year. He's probably putting, I don't know, $50 G's a month in his account right now with 4, right, 4 or 5 writers. Nothing crazy, but he's doing well for a young kid.

Yeah.

And we're talking about office and he's I told them what I pay because I bought my offices.

Yeah.

And the— what kind of the journey in which I did it. So he sends me one and he goes— he texts me last night and he's like, yeah, I'm looking at leasing an office. This thing's, this thing's more than you're paying. I'm like, not for the guy that owns it.

Yeah.

He goes, good point. You know, and it's like, for me, man, I didn't, I didn't plan it so well in advance that it worked. It's worked out really good for me. Yeah, but at the time I was just like, we were in some crappy little office, um, and it did us well. It served its purpose. It was there when we needed it. But quite frankly, it was a shithole. Yeah, um, but we got it when we were all broke. We all started making money, and I told my mentor at the time, I'm like, yo, we need to— can we look for something else? And he was just in a phase of life he couldn't look and spend the time. And I'm like, I'll look, I'll find it. Yeah, as long as you're in— we're doing the same concept as you, we're doing it together, but we weren't really together.

Sure.

And, uh, so I go start looking around. Initially I was gonna lease.

Yeah.

And I just— it's a pain in the ass, and the different landlords and all the stuff and blah blah blah. And so the realtor comes to me and she goes, hey, are you open to an owner finance option? I'm like, I don't know what that means other than I can assume based on what it's called, but I'm open to anything that makes me money and helps grow the company.

Yeah.

So she brought me to a guy and he was just like, dude, I'll lease it, but I'm also open to sell it if we can work it out. Yeah, and so I was able to put like 10% down, no bank financing, just with the dude who owned it. Um, gave me a hell of a deal looking back on it, um, or an opportunity anyway. And so I looked at the lease and I'm like, eh, it cost X. The mortgage at the time would have been like $4,500, and I could have leased it for, you know, recovered some of the money if I put some agents in there. And he had a slab next to, next to the one that he was talking about. I'm like, what's happening there? He's like, I'm gonna build another one eventually. Just got to find the right fit. And I was like, will you do a lease purchase or owner finance on both?

Yeah.

He was like, yeah, if you can put money down on both.

Yeah.

So I put $150,000 down, bought two buildings the same day. First time I ever bought anything besides my own personal house.

Wow.

And, um, we worked it up in the numbers. Now I had $9,000 in mortgages, but I had 10,000 square feet that I could play with.

Yeah.

So I leased out the bottom of one building, came with a tenant already, like $3,000 a month. The top of that building had 10 offices, and then the other building is the one I'm in now, 2,500, 2,500 square feet. So I leased every office for $500 a pop.

Wow.

So $3,000 was downstairs, $3,500. $5,000 was upstairs, $500 a pop. So I had $8,500 a month coming in from the one building that paid for the mortgage for both.

Yeah.

And anything I made on the second building was just free and clear extra money. Um, so that worked for me, dude, to cash flow it. You know, I cash flowed a little bit, a decent amount, um, and then I copy and pasted that and I started doing them in different locations.

Nice.

I started teaching agents to do it, but they weren't ready to buy. I'm like, I'll buy it if you can fill it.

Sure.

So here's— I, I just don't want to lose money. So if I can cash flow a little bit and y'all can do it, and then one day you want to buy it from me, take it over, fine, do it. I opened 5 offices that way, including Zach's first— Twardowski's first office in Colorado. I bought that shit.

Wow.

And he just— he got all the people there. He took— I didn't pay. He did all— he did all the work. He set everything out. He did everything.

Your hands off. Yep.

I didn't do shit but go see it. And when he texted to me, it was like, what do you think? I'm like, looks good, let's buy it. And, um, and that allowed them to grow. Easton eventually came in that office, and they— and, you know, eventually they built big enough for him to, to go to Austin.

Totally.

Um, and the vibe you can get from building something in an office is unlike anything.

Totally.

So to me, it was, it was well worth it. And then fast forward, 2019 was, uh, was when I did that first one. That's been 6 years. I get to look backwards now and go, dude, I made a shitload of money by that move, and I didn't mean to. It was just to house people, to build the insurance base. Yeah, but I made some good money on the, on the real estate transactions just, just by taking a chance, not only on me and what I thought, but on, on other people. To run it and do their part too.

Yeah.

So I'm a huge fan of office culture and building that vibe in that environment and what it does.

Yeah.

You know, from a growth perspective.

So basically doing like a— yeah, like a $500 per office, but then maybe like a lower per cubicle type of thing.

We did like $150, $199 or whatever it was for the— for the cubicles. In my office, I had— if you want to reserve a cubicle, were first come, first serve in my office. Yeah, but I said if you want to reserve one, it was $200. Yeah, so meaning you can come whenever you want, no one can take your seat. So they can reserve one, otherwise first come first serve. So if you come in late, you may have to sit on the floor for sure. And so some people choose— chose to buy a cubicle so they had their thing. And certainly I had more leaders in the offices, you know, so they could kind of have their quiet time and build their thing and take care of business the way they wanted to and, and watch how we built the culture. That was ultimately the biggest reason was to watch what we did with it. Yeah, you know, so my advice to you is, if you're thinking it, fuck, I would do it, bro. And if you own it, if you can make it cash flow even— again, you don't have to kill it because the real money comes in the spread when, when the— your, your balance goes down and your equity goes up.

Yeah.

So if your payment, if your cash flow relatively even you make a decent amount of money just from the disparity, or whatever the word is, from the value going up and the balance going down. Yeah. And so when I sold some of them years later, you know, cash flow, and I was like, yeah, it makes a couple hundred bucks a month, whatever it is, a few hundred, $500. This— oh, the equity was a game changer, dude. I was like, holy shit.

You guys do some like remodeling or anything?

We did a little bit in a couple of them initially. The very first ones Mine were brand new, the ones I'm in. Yeah, so I paid— had them both. They— they— one, the first one was in the process of being built. Second one I just had built from the ground up. The next three were all purchased. The first one was in decent shape so we could move people in. The next two, honestly, one of them I had to put like $100 grand into, but I got— I got it for like $250,000 when it was like a half-million-dollar place.

Wow.

You know, just someone let it go to shit, so we fixed it up, made it look good, had people in it. And a couple years later we sold it and made another couple hundred grand selling it.

Nice, that's awesome. Yeah, you know how much more money these guys are making when they're just together? Oh dude, I don't know what the number—

it's not even close—

that is, but like to spend $100 or to spend $200 on a cubicle a month, I mean, dude, like that's nothing.

You know what's funny, dude? I remember, and it's, it's so important to me because I know how much it helped me. I remember when Mike Um, do you know Mike Killamant? I don't know if you know the name. He was around here. He retired a couple years ago.

Okay.

But he was my mentor, and he was with FFA. He was with Shawn Mike even before FFL. Like, he would— we wouldn't be here without him. You, you wouldn't be on this call without him. Schmidt, he's helped Schmidt. He's helped Nate. He's helped all those guys.

Got it.

Um, we all go way back. And, um, when, when we first started, he re— it was actually a manager of his reached out to me and was like, hey, Mike's opening an office. He's looking for people to take on an office. Whoever wants to be part of this, it's $300 a month. You get first come, first serve. We're asking everybody, we have X amount of offices, are you interested? And I was— this was 20— end of 2013. I was like, sheesh, $300 a month, huh? Yeah, let me, let me think about that one. I gave him the old think about it, and I hung up, and I was like, you idiot. Some rich guy just asked if you can sit next to him for $300 a month. So I call back and I'm like, yo, I'm in. Like, that's where I was. That's the stage I was at in my career. $300 a month was important to me at the time. Yeah. And I called them right back within like 30 seconds. I'm like, dude, I'm in. Just, I'm in. And bro, hands down the best decision of my life because I said I was in first. I got to pick the office right next to Mike.

Nice.

So I got to watch this dude sell $30K a month, build his agency, work with his staff. I got to watch him build a company for $300 a month, you know what I mean? I look back and I'm like, yo, if I didn't say yes there, someone else would be doing this interview right now because I wouldn't have made it without him.

Yeah, you know.

And so you, you also have the ability to provide that to other people. Yeah, that you may not even see yet. 5 years down the road, you know what I mean? Some cat's gonna sit next to you or one of the managers or someone killing it and go like, dude, without that, my path in life is very different.

Yeah.

So it, it became so important to me in the way I get to live today, being around that, because I didn't know, I didn't know that was a thing. I was very blind, like, eh, office, who cares? I can sit at home. It was a 45-minute drive from my house. Yeah, I mean, it wasn't convenient to go to, but yeah, for sure. Yeah, it taught me some stuff.

Yeah, I mean, man, I just knew how important it was. So if I want to build something— and I mean, you're building a company, like, the connectivity that you need to have to be so strong— it's a— dude, you got to be an anomaly for some of these top guys to just roll out of bed and start hitting the phones. I mean, they, they— dude, that's Freddy, Melt. Yeah, um, different, dude. These guys are anomalies, bro. They just are different cats, dude. And that's why I freaking love these guys. And these are, you know, they help me out so much and they they still do. But man, like, being in person helps like take the average Joe Schmo to like another level, correct?

Yeah, it's the same with fitness, man. You know, I can go out and do all the work by myself. Freddie can go out and run hills, and I saw Mel out there on the other days doing hill sprints online. I mean, like, they can do that stuff relatively by themselves. I'm, I'm in some endurance type events now. Yeah, and next Thursday— this will be out by the time it uh, actually happens. I'm doing 3 marathons in 3 days in the mountains of Utah, uh, Park City, Utah. So it's 3 mountain marathons. So you go up like 5,000 elevation during the marathon. It's not like a road marathon where it's flat, like we're in the woods. And, uh, the training for that's been crazy. And so the group that runs it, every once in a while— I live near a mountain, right? It's, it's, it's a, it's a small mountain, but for here it's what there is.

Yeah.

And so I do a lot of work there. Yeah, and I'm by myself. I don't ever go with anyone. The company that I'm signed up to the events with, maybe 3 times they'll put an event on and they're like, hey, 9 o'clock, everyone's gonna meet on the mountain, we're gonna do our workout, blah blah training. You know, 50 people will show up just because someone said, hey, I'm going.

Yeah.

Whereas when nobody goes like, hey, I'm organizing it, dude, people show up sparingly. Yeah, you know, and it's just so that concept of like that togetherness and that what that, what that brings, and that's in a lot of walks of life where that's super beneficial.

Yeah.

Um, and people can see, see what's really happening and see people doing the work and see me sweating my ass off and barely able to breathe and can't run, you know what I mean, getting cramped.

Totally. That's a crazy feat though, dude. Are you just like getting bored? You're like, dude, I crushed that, crushed that, what else am I gonna crush?

Like, I am I like— I find that I'm the strongest when I am mentally challenged to something hard that most people won't fight for, because I will fucking make it. I ain't gonna quit. I'm not gonna quit. Like, you know what I mean? For the most— there's very little I'm not gonna try to do.

Yeah.

And when I'm competing with someone, I'm like Dude, I'm not— I'm not the fastest by far. I run a slow mile. I'm like, at distance, yeah, like more than 3 miles, dude, I'm a 12-minute mile guy.

I mean, you're like— you're like the guy that like passes out before he quits.

Like, I'm not— I just won't. I'll just keep— I'll keep moving. I don't care if it's fast or slow. I don't have to be in first place. I'm not worried about that. I don't have to be the biggest. I'm not that. Yeah, but I like, you know, I got through something hard. And a year and a half ago, I was like, I want to do something crazy like a marathon. And I did one. I want to do it before I've turned 47.

Yeah.

And I'm not a runner by any means. Um, I'm turning into one, which is weird as shit to say, but the thought of a 5K was difficult to me a year and a half ago. And I was like, I would do a marathon. To me, it sounded like the unreachable.

Yeah, physically, I'm there.

And dude, when I started training for it, I was like, I don't know that I can do this. And shit, 4 months of dedicated training, went out and ran a marathon. A half walk, half run, but I did the 26 miles, you know? Yeah, it took me like 7 hours, you know? And I'm like, all right, so the guy from Kenya can do it in an hour and 49 minutes. I'm not— I'm not that guy, you know what I mean? I'm not the guy that's gonna do it in 4 hours. I'm just never gonna do Thursday, Friday, Saturday, every day is a marathon. Yeah, 6 AM to 6 PM to finish it.

Yeah.

And when I get there, dude, some of the people that kill it, kill it, are like, ah, my buddy does this, he's killing it. And then we get around that guy and he's like, oh, I'm weak as shit here. Meanwhile, he ran across the country in some record time, you know what I mean?

Yeah.

So I just try to find what people are doing that's above the average Joe. Yeah. And go, let me— if he did it, I can do it. Let me figure it out. And I just, I like the— I like doing hard things. Not to mention, dude, at 48, it's getting me fucking ripped. And I'm like, because it keeps my diet on point, it keeps my health— I've stopped drinking alcohol, I start— you know what I mean? It, it keeps me in check in the other areas I'm weak. That's no different than being around people keeps you in check from the shit you put off.

Yeah.

You know, so same concept, dude. I'm just trying to live a good life and, and show people that you can go out and get things if you want them and work hard for them.

Yeah, that's cool. That's cool. It's also cool like that, like Brayden gets to see that too, man.

Yeah, yeah, I love it. It's my, it's my favorite part, dude.

Right when I say Brayden, you just smile.

You're like, yeah, I love it. To think that like one of my kids would do this one day, I just— that wasn't even on my radar, bro. You know, he walked— he gets into a dial room now and people see his last name and they're like 'Who are you?' Yeah, my dad, dude. And he hears all this stuff, but he didn't know—

to get connected. I got to meet Brayden. I think him and I would connect, and I think we would—

I mean, I'm trying to keep him, you know, he goes to a cool little private school, Christian school here, and I'm trying to keep his head straight because I'm like, I believe in that stuff. I don't know how to teach it. I didn't grow up that way. I believe— go to the school, they'll teach you. So we started looking at college. I took him on a college tour last week to the Samford in Alabama. Okay, I've heard of it. Super nice, Christian-based, like, call— you know, I mean, expensive. Yeah, but small and the same type of people.

Totally.

I'm like, all right, you should go there instead of UGA or something, you know what I mean?

Yeah, yeah, totally.

So I'm just trying to keep them around good people, dude. And the next, the next part of life for him is learning how to make money on his own because Daddy can't do it forever. Yeah, you know, I can just be the example. So I, I'd love to do that and have him around some other some other people. I got him around Freddie and Mel and those guys, and, you know, I'm trying to get him around good circles, man. Yeah, best I can do is, you know, be like, yo, take the good and leave the bad.

Yeah, no, cool, man. But yeah, fun.

Anything you want to add, man? Final, final thing, anything we didn't talk about that you want to, or just a message to the people watching, anything that seems important to you? Um, I'll let you end it however you want. I always give the guests pick of the litter, man.

For sure. What I'll say to this, I'm such a— I'm a builder. Like I said this earlier, but like since I was a kid, man, I always want to just do something great with my life. And I haven't had like a pinch me moment yet because I feel like nothing's actually like really happened yet. Other people will be like, like, wow, that's so cool of what you're doing. And, and, uh, and I get that way sometimes, and I don't know what that moment will be like for me where it's just surreal, like, that this has actually happened. Um, but if there's anything that I do know, and I, I just kind of anchor my confidence in when you're building something, is the idea of truly building a track record for other people to run on. Because when I first got in this business I said, look, I don't even want to talk about recruiting. I don't want to talk about prospecting. Let me go out there and learn how to sell insurance. Just give me time. Like, I'm gonna figure it out, but let me go and do that because I know if I have any— if I want any shot of recruiting a Logan Merritt, a Roy Clancy, a Logan Relfs, a Tyler Wolfe, a Miles White, it's like they're not going to just go and follow any Joshmo. It's like, these guys got to see what I've done. They've got to see that they can be successful here. And so if you don't know what to do, it's like, go and freaking produce and make it happen and trailblaze the way, and people will follow you. But that's step number one, and that's leadership, man. Like, you can't teach what you don't know, and you can't lead where you won't go. And people can trust the people here and our leaders here. Because they know we're not going to ask them to do something that we're not willing to do ourselves or haven't already done 10,000 times.

It's a killer point, dude. It's, uh, it's leading the way, man. Yeah, you know, and then people can't BS you. That's why when they work with me, I'm like, suck it up, buttercup. I got it. I'm aware.

Exactly, dude. These guys talking about working old leads got no idea.

Yeah, no, trust me, I'm aware.

Yeah, got no idea, you know. So good shit, bro.

Yeah, well, I appreciate it. I know my team has all your, your contact info, so we'll share all your stuff and promote the shit out of you guys when it goes live.

It's Life Pros.

Yeah, Life Pros online. There you go. Y'all want to follow them, hit them up, check them out. And I appreciate you taking time out, dude. Went a little over, so I appreciate you spending some time with me and, uh, getting to know you, dude. It's been cool. So let's figure out how to do some stuff together, and if I can ever help, dude, please let me know.

Yeah, I will. Thanks, John. Appreciate you. We'll talk soon.

Bye.