This Telesales Phone Script Made Me $100,000 ft. Mike Kwarteng | Ep23

I would say 80% of the time as a face-to-face agent, when you get inside that house, you're gonna probably close on it. It's really at the door you need to overcome the silly objections. Kind of over the phone, same thing.

All right, what up y'all? John Wetmore back. We got another episode ready to rip of the Insurance Insiders Podcast. CEO of True Wealth Financial. How you doing, Mike? Everything good, bro?

Yeah, how about you, man?

Man, life is good, dude. Life is good. If I could get as jacked as you, it'd be better.

Actually, you know, see how I crossed my arms like that?

I did.

Is that the move the clients do?

It made it bigger, just so you know.

No, man, I'm doing great, man. How about you, dude?

Life is good, really, honestly. Yeah, you got to join the journey.

And we got 8% next week.

We do. Look forward to seeing you guys for sure. Oh yeah, we're getting out there. I'm going Tuesday. Nice. I'll be there, be there a little bit early and get ready and set up and all that jazz. So, um, yeah, so it'll be fun. It'll be a good week.

There you go. Nice.

I'm gonna go make a mess in the golf tournament first too.

Are you good at golfing?

No, no, but I'm enjoying learning it. Yeah, yeah, I would not call myself good. Yeah, I'm not the worst in the world anymore, but I'm— yeah, yeah, I'll hit some good shots, but I'm not consistent with any of them.

Golf is my next thing. I'm actually in the process— this sounds crazy, man— is I'm actually in the process of learning how to swim. Like, I can like—

no kidding—

stand in water, but I can't actually like go in there and actually go backstroke and swimming. So I got swim legit. Yeah, I'm trying to get really good, like maybe like running triathlons and like, you know. Yeah, so I'm gonna get swimming down and I'll do golfing next, kind of my, my process.

Oh yeah, I love it. I can swim like in the pool where I won't drown. Yeah, yeah, but I really want to do like a triathlon type thing, but dude, I'm afraid to swim in that open water, bro. I'm like, there's only— I can only doggy paddle so long.

Me too, me too. So like, I want to get like to the point I can actually just swim like no endless amount of time, just keep going out there and just, you know, do my thing. Um, it's pretty cool. I saw you, I saw your son, man. Was it World Series champions or something like that? Baseball? Yeah, it was Cooperstown.

Yeah, Cooperstown. We played in like, it's like a Little League World Series. They didn't win the whole thing, but they won some games, and he, he hit his first 2 home runs in baseball ever. And yeah, dude. He's learning, man. He's putting in work. That's what he's doing. If, if I've taught anything, is you better put in some work, dude, because the other people around you are outworking you. And what's crazy is there, um, there were like 100 teams from all over the country, right? Their first 3 games, they go 3-0, they crush 3 teams. Next 2 games, they played some real teams and they got whacked. And then they won. Then we had like a— there was like a pool play, and then they do a tournament. In the tournament, they won a game, then they lost a super close team. But then they got to watch— we got to watch like as the top 30 teams or whatever got to play and got into Sweet 16, Final Eight, Four. And we watched the championship game, bro. Different level, kid. Different level. Yeah, like the— you—

he had—

they have zero shot at competing at that, that next tier. And we were talking about it a lot, and he's like, how? I'm like, dude, way more reps than you, way more intentionality than you. What, just they swing more bats, they hit off— you know what I mean? It's just more reps, dude.

Yeah, yeah.

Um, you know, now certainly some people have natural skill sets they've been given. That's, that's certainly a thing in sports. But some of the teams, you know, they were there, they were smaller than him, they weren't big, you know what I mean? It wasn't like And I'm just— so we get home, he's like, can I go to the batting cages? Can we start swinging?

Can you—

you know what I mean? I'm like, ah, I'm doing something right.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, you're one of the best at teaching, you know, agents, probably people in general, probably at this point, to just do more. Yeah, you know, just do more. And we had you on some of our agency calls, and people still to this day still like, yeah, remember John was on our agency call 5 months ago talking about my— yeah, like, have you seen it?

Look, it's official, dude.

That's dope. I see that you're doing more of— what is it? Help me out with the word I'm looking for.

You're doing more of everything.

Yeah, pretty much, pretty much, pretty much.

I live by it, dude. It's not just like a little thing, it's who I am. Facts, you know what I mean? I'm like trying to get— I'm legit trying to get in better shape too, right? So I, um, I've been on like a little 4-year journey, and, uh, I was in terrible shape 4 or 5 years ago. I start doing some stuff, then I kind of started doing— and I always do a little bit more, and I went to the regular gym, then I started going a little bit more frequently, then you start lifting a little bit more weight. Then I joined like a— like an Orange Theory because it was like high intensity. Right, you know what I'm saying? And this past year I went, I decided to do a marathon. So I start training for a marathon, which I know I'm not a runner, I hate running, I can't stand it, I don't know how to do it, I'm not a distance guy. But I'm like, yo, I gotta do something hard. So I start, I give myself 3 months, I run a marathon, and, uh, I'm doing this big, like, I'm climbing this Jesse Itzler. Funny enough, do you know Jesse Itzler?

Yeah, yeah.

So he just hired a swim coach last week on his Instagram. Really? He's gonna, bro, he's gonna swim across like Lake Michigan. Oh yeah, some obnoxious amount of— but I see people, and he's in his early to mid-50s, I think he's mid-50s. Yeah, yeah, I mean, he does these high-end things. So I'm going, uh, to do this thing 29029 where I climb— I have to climb a mountain 8 times to hit the equivalent of Mount Everest height. So I got 36 hours to climb this thing, basically 30 miles. It's nuts. Yeah, you know, and so I, I, I do— so that— anyway, I'm doing this health thing, so I do big challenges. But most recently, kind of Orange Theory, I got like pretty good at it, like I could keep up and I was usually ahead of the pace and I'd finish first and da da da. And my buddy does CrossFit. You familiar?

Yeah, yeah.

So one day he asked me to go with him and I'm like, bro, I'm getting kind of old, I don't know, dude, but I'll go. Yeah, so I go in and we do, we do, we do this workout and it's like an 18-minute workout, but bro, the quantity of pounds moved per, you know what I mean? Yeah, I left there and I was like, yo, I thought I was in shape, and dude, he just different level. So I joined CrossFit. I've been doing that for like maybe like 4 or 5 weeks now.

Wow.

And I'm, I'm loving it. It's different to push, man. Always trying to just— I try to get to a new level, man.

That's cool, I love that.

Yeah, but I appreciate that. I want to hear more about you now. Y'all, y'all, we're building something great.

Where should we start?

Let's, let's, um, man, I would like to start with Pete. You know what's funny is, as deep as we can get on like building something big and getting rich and doing all kinds of stuff, like, do people watch the sales training stuff? And as much as I'm a guy that's like, F the training right now, go work a bunch. Yeah, you know what I mean? It's like, I do want to give them a little taste of— because it is important. I mean, I think intentionality and sales and doing the things you've done are certainly a big piece of this. I think my opinion is people value that too much too soon, for sure, you know what I mean? But so let's start there. And then, um, you know, and if you want to give a little overview of how, how you got into the insurance business first, give them a little background about you, because I didn't do a great job on the intro. I just said what's up. So, but I know you're running a behemoth, you're building a big company, you sell a shitload of insurance. Your new partner, who he's— we're working with scheduling with him too. Yeah, one of my favorite things about you, dude, is you're like such a student of the game. Every time I see you, bro, you're like, how do I learn more? What do I do? You're a do more kind of guy too.

Exactly.

You know, so, but give them a little background and let's get into a little sales stuff, and then I'll just be curious and ask you some stuff.

Sounds good, man. I appreciate that. Um, so yeah, Mike, obviously, uh, here in Columbus, Ohio, um, graduate from OSU here in Columbus.

Oh, I forgot about that. You know, my daughter graduated there.

Really?

Yeah, probably, probably, let's see, probably 2016.

Okay.

Yeah, something like that.

Before me, um, it's not my age now, um Born in New York, both my parents from Ghana. That's where I get my, you know, my work ethic from, just seeing them go from Ghana to United States and working odd jobs to make enough funds for me, my 3 brothers. You know, it definitely was an impact in my life. Um, you know, graduated high school, went to college, you know, took me like 6 years to get a 4-year degree. Luckily on the degree doesn't say like how long it takes to get the degree, you know. Started insurance as a senior at college at OSU, hopped into the industry. I was told to literally just door knock leads all day long, no set appointments, just door knock the leads. And I was actually told to drive from Columbus to Cincinnati, Ohio, about 2 hours away from my house, Monday through Friday, and door knock leads every single day. To make sales. So, uh, with me being like a college student broke with multiple O's, I was like, man, if this is the way to make money and my coach, he's pretty— he's doing pretty well, let's do it, see what happens. So my first 3 months in the industry, like, it was like buying leads, breaking even, buying leads, breaking even. But I really— as you know how it is, John. Yeah, when, when you hear that, you know that there's something going on, either activity skills, there's a mindset, usually what it is, the 3 things that is stopping that agent get to that next level in their business. So for me, it was just activity. I was not putting in nearly as much hours in as I needed to. For example, like, I would go to the gym as a college student for like 3 hours a day and then hit the field for like 4 hours, and I kind of correlate that to like making— it wasn't working. So yeah, um, I decided you know, cut up all the options, went all into the industry. And after month 3, you know, I started seeing more sales. Month 6, started making like $10,000 a month. And then after month 6, man, it's just been up since there. You know, my first 2 years, I think my first year, right around, right around, I deposited about $140,000, about $225,000 AP, give or take, around there. Second year, helped over like 300 families my second year. And after my second year, you know, I started to build an agency with Jaylen, named True Wealth Financial. And we now have 40 to 50 writing agents each month. We also had obviously a lot of contracted agents. That doesn't really mean much.

I'm glad you used the real number, bro. You know I wouldn't take it any other way.

Uh, we did about $450,000 in sales last month. It's only just final expense, face-to-face, over the phone, not strong. Yeah, exactly. Um, and our goal is to be at $1 million a month by December of 2024, this year. So, uh, it's happening, it's building. Obviously we have some good partners, you know, Roger Short, you know Roger and Cody and stuff like that. Obviously you too, man, like Um, like, like you said, every time me and Jalen, we talk to you, man, like, we're literally like, the fender questions. And the, the first time we saw you 2 years ago, maybe 2 or 3 years ago, and since then, in a minute, it was more like, hey, how do we produce as an agent?

Yeah.

Now we saw you last year, or I think this year in Texas, it was more, hey, how do we scale the agent to do more? You know what I mean? So It's cool how over the years it's like when we come to you, it's different things we're dealing with that we want to get your insight on.

Yeah, y'all skip lunch for that. I remember, I remember it. It's funny at these events, like, I like the events and I love that Cody puts on lunch, but it's funny how few people use that time for— to get— to gain valuable knowledge.

Exactly.

You know, it's like, yeah, you're just super intentional about it. But I do remember that first meeting in Ohio for sure.

A while ago.

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

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

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

Yeah.

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

Yeah, for sure.

Um, and dude, she was trying to deal with— she had a financial issue she had to pay off like ASAP. Yeah, made like $3,500, dude, the next day. That's simple, man, on a cold door knock, bro. I won't even— leads. Yeah, so I would love to hear your approach. What up, y'all? Officially releasing my book. You can go on and order it now at johnwetmore.com or click the link below. That's where I go over the 6 basic principles I implemented to go from a struggling agent for my first couple years to issuing nearly $500,000 a month, pen. Go through stories and examples and exercises that you can do to implement for yourself. Appreciate it. Again, johnwetmore.com, get yours.

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

Yes, sir.

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

True.

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

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

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

Easy.

Was that good? Or that's just—

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

It's what's—

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

You don't, you don't.

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

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

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

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

like, a bunch of companies do that, dude, set appointments.

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

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

And I mean, I think, I think I always tell— yes, we have a few face-to-face agents now. Yeah, a lot of our agents are doing telesales, but a few face-to-face agents now in our agency, and I tell them, you know, the name of the game is the numbers. Like, you want to have as many leads as possible in one county, so therefore the odds are in your favor. Like, so you can have a bunch of digital leads or direct mail leads, whatever it is, even they're older, John, as long as they're on one county, you just drive 5 minutes, 8 minutes, 10 minutes there, like, the odds are always gonna work in your favor. And I feel like if you're working from 10 to like sunset, which be like 9 o'clock sometimes, I mean, it's almost inevitable for you not to walk into at least one or two sales just waiting to happen for you. Like, I remember one, Jalen used to do, um, we call it T-knocks, where you do knock the house next to the lead, next and across. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. His, his actually his biggest sale he's ever had to this day was off a T-Knock. He actually wrote an annuity in his first year as an agent off a house next to the lead for like almost like 9— 8 to 9 grand in income off a T-Knock. Like, never heard that term before. I like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it makes sense.

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

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

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

Yeah.

And I just— again, if, if you, if you're making a bunch of money, who Who cares? Yeah, do you? Yeah, you know what I mean? But there's so many agents that are broke that are also unwilling to get out there because they're like, I do telesales. Yeah, I'm like, well, technically you don't when you're sitting down watching TV. That's not telesales.

Let me ask this, Television, if you were to do it all over again, know what you know now, would you do telesales? Would you do face-to-face?

I loved face-to-face, dude.

Me too, man.

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

I, I agree with you, man. I always tell people, and I say it in a joking way, I feel like even as face-to-face, you gotta drive to houses and stuff like that, but you have set appointments. I feel like you could outwork a telesales agent sales-wise, like 100%. And I think also the retention— yes, the psychology, it obviously will be more stickier, obviously, you know what I mean?

So close, but you gotta book less appointments.

I've—

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

That's what it is.

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

Yeah, yeah.

Which is weird, they land in Kentucky. I found that weird.

I'm like, yeah, really weird.

Yeah. But yeah, I sold a gang of insurance, man, in them little tiny homes they got in Cincinnati. I ain't never seen houses so little.

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

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

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

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

Exactly.

Things happen in the kitchen, dude.

Exactly.

For sure. I love it. Um, well, hell man, let's get into some telesales stuff though. I know you guys are killing it there too, so we may as well give it to them, bro. For sure, you know.

Um, same thing, script that.

Yeah, dude, if you want to do a booking appointment, you want to do the sales side, you pick, bro. This is your, this is your world. I'm just living in it right now, man.

That's funny. So I think we interviewed Jalen probably next G podcast. You probably get a lot more than, than me from telesales than from him. Um, but I'll give you some telesales stuff. I don't do much of it to this day. If I am going sell, it's gonna probably still be— you go face to face, in-person appointments.

Uh, but then given what you've learned as an in-person sales guy that converts or doesn't convert to telesales that worked well for you, you mean maybe the changes you had to make, things like that? You know, that angle.

What I would say is that because I still train agents over the phone, because I think selling insurance is selling insurance. Same thing. I think the biggest thing over the phone is in your first minute is I see a lot of agents, but the lead has date of birth, street address, favorite hobby, whatever it may be. Like, make sure you verify that information.

Yeah.

Somewhere in the first minute of that conversation. Yeah. You know what I mean? And you had to do something to bring their guard down in the first 2 or 3 minutes. And also, telesales, you literally have a split second. The client said they're not interested, or they already have insurance, or it's a bad time. You have a split second to rebuttal back. So example, so the client says, um, it's a bad time. Heck, please understand it's a bad time. Quick question before you— quick question for you before I hang up the phone on you. Something like that. Hey, like, like, something like that. Like, it's like to get them to like, okay, what's your question? Like, I feel like, you know how we're rebuttaling, man, just agree with them.

Yeah, you gotta find a way to buy time.

Exactly, exactly. So like, because I'll say it again, like client says, hey, I have— I don't have much time right now. Completely understand. Quick question for you before I hang up the phone on you. And the next question has to be something really, really good, like Like, like, I really— I'll call it, you know, hey, like, um, were you requesting information because you don't have anything in place right now? You already have coverage?

Yep.

Now they said they're gonna have— they have no coverage. They got hit on pain point. They have nothing. Like, wow, are they at all— because these programs that people are requesting information about, everyone is enrolling into it in your area. Yeah, what's the reason you have nothing right now? Because I'm so curious. Like, as you know, John, you're just trying to push the sale along because you know dang well the client does have time. Well, you're probably their 10th or 15th call they've had that day.

You know, my opinion is if they didn't have time, they wouldn't have picked up.

That too.

That's just another smokescreen, dude. And maybe they don't have 3 hours, but they had enough time to pick up.

That's it.

And they sure didn't expect to be on the call for one second.

That too.

You know what I mean? So there's built-in assumptiveness that they had at least a few minutes or they wouldn't have picked up.

And as you know, over the phone, man, the tonality and the verbal pacing, the verbal pausing, it's at an all-time high. Like, for example, you're asking a client in your discovery or fact-finding over the phone, like, hey, Ms. Client, have you experienced a funeral lately? They say, yes, I have, like, I'm gonna like slow down, like, um, man, so sorry to hear about that. Um, who passed away close to you? They'll probably say, my father John— I'm gonna keep saying John— my father, uh, Tony.

It's all good, I can handle it.

And then they'll be like, I'm like, man, I'm so sorry to hear about that. And like, I allow that awkward silence, pause, like allowing them to like let them reflect on that person passing away. Like let that moment of weirdness, I guess silence, sink in. Or even better yet, we ask the client, hey, right now you don't have anything in place for yourself. If you were to pass away, let's say, um, Last night. Who would take care of your final expenses today? They say Tony.

Got it.

Is Tony in the spot right now financially to come out of pocket to pay for that? No, he's not. Hmm. Ah, okay, okay, got it, got it. Okay, like that pacing, man, like that slowness, like, and, and like It's so beautiful when you get to master that because that's what you know. You know your script now. Like, you're not, you're not tied to the script. You actually know the script and you're actually able to think about what the client is saying to you and actually respond effectively because the script is given to every agent probably, but a lot of agents don't understand why each question is being told to be asked. Like, we're asking about the funeral questions because we're trying to get a pain point out of them. You know what I mean, man?

Makes sense, dude. It's, it's, it's simple when you pay attention to it, you know. I remember, dude, I remember being new, bro. I got this little sheet of paper, they told us how to like go through the in-home presentation.

Yeah.

And bro, I used to, I used to write it, I used to write it and I I don't know, I used to cheat in school and I used to like try to bring a little piece of paper and write as much as I could in really small fine print and try to hide it and try to read all the answers, you know what I mean? Like, yeah, and when I was going into houses at first, I would do— I would write like the steps down and I would hide it under the lead. And when they were talking, bro, I'm looking at the next step.

Yeah, yeah.

And I was like, I wonder why I'm missing a lot of sales. I'm not listening at all. I'm trying to think of what I'm supposed to be doing next, you know?

Now I compare it to like, um, I love Denzel Washington. He's one of the best actors. Yeah, but Denzel, when he gets a new script, he has to master that thing and then he adds his own personality to it. True. Which makes him the best actor. So a lot of agents are getting a script probably from their agency owner and they're now trying to add their personality to it without actually mastering the script. Yeah, you know, and just it kind of just throws it off. Yeah. Um, I also feel like for telesales agents, you know how it is, John. Like, when that client's on the phone with you for the first time, there's no calling back. There's no like, uh, we get down to the end and call you back. No, get the banking now and get everything, get everything done now on the phone. Come tell you, don't say they're gonna call you back. It's probably not going to happen. It's not going to happen. Like, the chance of that happening is very, very slim and small. Um, I think what's cool right now when it comes to like, uh, like, uh, the, the carriers we work with, man, is that, you know, with telesales, like, text-to-sign, voice signature, like, stuff to make things simple as an agent. I think with telesales too, man, like, like, I would want to find a carrier that gets the client approved, especially doing like final expense, gets the client approved first in the first like 5 minutes, rather than you have to spend the whole entire application, get down to the end, the client gets declined. Now you have to pivot. Like, there's a lot of carriers that we both work with that like you get the client approved first before even asking for like banking information, before even inputting as an applicant. And that's a really important thing to like know as an agent, like, to go with those carriers first. Just save yourself time.

Yeah, yeah, that's true. Yeah, changes, changes the game. And it is hard for— it's hard for newer agents to pivot, you know. And there's this— it's this weird balance, man. Like, it is hard to master the script without messing it up a bunch. So I think what I, what I wish people understood more is like, there is a process to learning, and you've got to be okay with that. But the, the more frequently you practice this thing live— now you should work on it not live, offline, get it? Like, but it's, dude, if you only practice offline, when you go live, dude, it ain't, it ain't the same. Yeah, you know what I mean? So it's like you've gotta, you've gotta combine both of like real-world application, be willing to mess it up and learn from it, and then when you mess it up, immediately go back and go like, all right, Dude, I lost it here. Dang, I should know that better. Let me get that down. And you study the snot, you know what I mean? It's like, yeah.

And I think, I think it's also important for agents. Like, man, we, we're onboarding so many new agents right now, and what I love about it is like I get to like see at my level what most agents are having a challenging time with. And you know, a lot of times just, uh, they're speaking too fast. You know, they're, um, they're stuttering in certain areas. Um, they're not bringing their client's guard down. And so it's like they're interrogating the client. Like, yeah, yeah, they're asking question after question after question. Where there should be a question, acknowledge your response, and like a statement, you know, like make it flow as an actual conversation.

Conversational.

Yeah. But a lot of things I think agents to start doing this. A lot of our agents do it right now where like you have a presentation for client, you want to record the presentation. You want to record a presentation and then send it to your coach. Like, like, that's the number one way to get better as an agent is record your presentation in your first, like, your first 90 days as an agent. I'll record every single one. And you want to go a step above, man, I would have your coach, if he has the time, or someone in your agency to literally be on— if you're doing telesales, be on Zoom with you while you're on with a live client. Hey man, just be on Zoom with me, just hear me dial. Like, I want to use— here, hear me dial and give me feedback. And, and I feel like if you do this as a new agent, you actually take the critique from a person that actually knows what they're talking about, um, like, man, you're gonna, you're gonna get so much better quicker. Like, you're gonna pretty much rip the Band-Aid off faster. And if you implement your activity structure, you know, you know, you're, uh, because you have like a, um, activity tracker, right?

Yeah.

Is that what it is? Yeah. You implement that into your business your first 30 days. So your skill set now is getting better because you're getting feedback on your script from your coach, you're, you're getting the activity in, and then it's like if you have the leads, it's like it's almost impossible for you not to make this thing happen at a high level.

Yeah, it does make it easy. You know, I always tell agents, dude, I need something to work with. Yeah, if you don't go get me a bunch of mistakes, I ain't got nothing to work on. Exactly, you know what I'm saying? So like when we get agents started I always— I've always told them, because I want to set the right expectation, you know what I mean? I don't want them to— it's a weird balance, dude, because I don't want them to have the fear of be like, I made one phone call, I got this objection, can you get on and train me? Yeah, you know what I mean? I'm like, so I need— I need more. So I always tell people, yo, go— hey Mike, first day on the phone, I know your goal is to book a bunch of appointments and make a bunch of money, dude. I'm not— I don't— I don't know how well it's going to go day one. Maybe it goes great, maybe it goes bad. I have no idea. My first day sucked. You know what I'm saying? Maybe you'll trip into a sale, maybe you won't, I don't know. But here's what I would— I really want you to do is your first day, dude, I really just want you to go out and focus on getting me like 30 or 40 objections so I got some stuff to work on and training-wise for you. Can you do that for me? And it— and it, dude, it tells the truth there because some won't go do it and then I'll have to mess with the training because they just quit. Or they go do it and I see someone that's willing to go through some stuff. And now again, you send me some recordings and you got— and then you find out, out of 30, 40, you only got like 4 different ones.

Exactly.

You know what I mean? I'm like, all right, cool, now we can start making small tweaks.

Exactly.

I mean, and it's, um, I just wish more had— what's cool is you don't even gotta know what the hell you're doing. You listen to your recording, you will know in a second why they hung up on you. You'll hear it. You'll be like, whoa. Now you might not know exactly how to implement that, but you'll, you'll understand differently because you don't quite say what you think you're saying.

Exactly. You're like, where'd you get that from? I did not train you to say that. Um, and obviously, you know, you know, mindset is obviously one of the biggest things in the industry, you know what I mean? That's a whole different topic, but Um, I think, I think mindset and routine go hand in hand. I think for me, when I was like a new agent, like, I see myself as a really, really disciplined person when it comes to my routine. Like, I've had the same routine for the last 4 to 5 years. Like, I wake up at the same time. I wake up in the morning, I read usually the Bible, and I read, and I go to the gym for an hour. And my first 2 hours of my day, there's no there's no texting, there's no social media, there's no emails, no nothing my first 2 hours of my day. And then, um, I'm then now, you know, eating a healthy meal. And then I was then at that time, you know, getting into the field to work my leads. And at that time, man, I wasn't even checking social media until I got off work. Yeah, I know it sounds so weird, so like— but I'm telling you, a lot of agents, you know, John, they spend a lot of time checking social media for— and now if you're using it for, for your business, awesome, keep doing that thing. But once a new agent, man, like, I was like waking up at a certain time, gym, um, eating breakfast. I was eating honestly because I was broke. It was when I was making money I was eating like literally just rice, chicken, and broccoli. Like I wanted to eat a healthy meal that got me feeling good and got, you know, and it's simple to make, simple, easy to make. And I hit the field all day long, end my day. And when I got back home from the field, this is the biggest thing, is that Monday through Friday, I would get back home at say 8 or 9 o'clock. And then I would sometimes, John Wetmore, man, I would go to the gym again. Because I wanted to trick my body. I wanted to like, okay, if I sit at home, I probably won't listen to much personal development. But if I go to the gym, I'm not outside my home, now I'm working on my body and listening to like an Eric Thomas, Tony Robbins. Now I'm forcing myself to work my body and my mind at the same time. And then when I got home, it was like eat my healthy meal, and now listen to some more personal development, getting my day, getting my— get myself ready that night for the next day. Like, yeah, I would even like get gas the night before. Like, I don't want to waste time getting gas during prime time hours on my next working day. I would make sure like I have my water, like my food, my, my, my leads mapped out, my leads ready for the next— what the small stuff. Yeah, you know what I mean? And, um, man, I just think about all those little small things that I did that like it compounded, like, you know, because it does, it adds up, man.

It does. That's— hey, that's what makes agents' days disappear. And they get in 22 dials and they're like, man, these leads didn't work, because they do— they have to do all that other stuff when they should be knocking it out. Yeah, and I made that mistake too, dude. I remember messing those things up and being like, oh, oh, I'd be like, I had to call the carrier. Nah, I didn't have to call the carrier right now, you know.

It's like, like, like, you know dang well if you call the carrier at 2 o'clock, you know you're gonna be on a long wait. So it's like, why don't you just call the carrier when they open in the morning? Oh no, but you know, you don't want to— we don't wake up that early. So like, yeah. He's like, you know, with stuff like that.

I always had a list, dude. Some— I'd— same kind of routine, obviously, as you just mentioned, and, uh, minus the working out twice a day. I didn't get into that till more recently, but it was the intentionality of it. But I would always put a list of not only carriers that I had to call for specific clients but agents I had to call, and I would do that in the car, which is why I also like the idea of being out in the field, because that drive time, dude, made me a ton of money, dude. I did it, dude. I did a lot of stuff during drive time. Yes, that was productive.

No, I agree, man. I really agree. Um, it's been good, man. I love this stuff, man. I honestly feel like, like, for me now, like, training ages is so fun. They're all different. It's like, it's like a fun game to me to kind of figure out how to get this person from not believing or not producing or whatever they're dealing with, to going from there to beast mode. And then it's like, man, it's, it's fun. You know how it is. It's like, it's the most rewarding thing. Like, it's more rewarding than even me selling. It's like, man, like, you went from there to now, $100,000, $200K plus a year in your first year. Like, that's the most rewarding thing as like a coach, you could say.

It's true. Hey, wait till you get people a little bit of help start making them millions. That's fun too.

Hey, we're gonna get there, man. We're gonna get—

I know you are. I know you're on the right path. I keep telling you that. Just only thing you ain't got yet is enough time to hit it, you know what I mean? That's the ingredient. Just, it is what it is, dude. You gotta bake the cake. You got to cook that sucker longer. It is what it is.

You know what's so funny is like, it's like agents are like, some agents like, you know, they're trying to get to, looking to get to that $10K, $20K, $30K, and you know, it's just time activity. And then for us, it's like we're looking to get to that million dollars a month, $2 million a month, and it's like, I want it now, John, you know. But I just know, hey, it's a point in time. Yeah, that it has to happen. Yeah, because if it happens right now, it's obviously because it's not the right time for us right now. Like, if it happened right now, it probably would spoil the opportunity in a sense, you know what I mean?

Beautiful thing about this journey so far, and I've seen this with a ton of my buddies too, is it doesn't grow like— like, I don't know the right word, but it takes like massive jumps. It doesn't grow like incrementally, I think is the word I'm thinking of. I don't know if that's the right word, but like, it don't go from like $100, $150 to $200 to $250 to $300 to $350. That ain't how it worked. Yeah, yeah, I mean, like, at the beginning, sure, yeah, but you go from $100, you go to $250 like that, and you go from $250 to $500, like the $500 million plus. I mean, it jumps, dude. Yeah, it's wild because you start to see the momentum, you know. So I think at your stage, bro, one of the things we adopted that we still have to this day that's never changed, um, just help people get paid, bro. You help people get paid every day, good things will come. You know, again, y'all are doing it. So what's the most frustrating part for y'all right now besides what you just said, you can't have it fast enough? Like, what's the hardest? What pisses you off every day? I don't know that, and I want to know if you'll tell me.

Dude, it's just, um, when you, when you know that agent has a lot of potential but they're just not coachable. It's like, man, I'm telling you, you're in your first 3 weeks. I know you want to quit now, but I'm telling you, just stick it through. By month 6— if I told you about month 6, you'll be earning $10,000, $20,000, $30,000 a month. Would you keep on sucking until then? Like, you're just seeing it through with them. And a lot, you know, John, a lot of them will just give up after week 2 or 3 or 4. And it's like, man, like, I'm telling you, like, just stick it through. You got what it takes. Or, you know, they just, they're not coachable because they will bump their head a lot of times with a script or with clients, and they would not reach out to get help. It's like, it's like, man, like, I can't be reaching out to you more than you're reaching out to me. Yeah, but when I was a new agent, man, I was hitting up my coach like 3, 4, 5, 10 times a day. I want to get better quicker, you know. So frustrating for me is like, you know, agents not seeing it through, and then agents not, uh, wanting to get better by reaching out. Like, oh, Mike, you're too busy. I'm like, man, I'm actually not busy. Well, I am busy, but like, I, I want to see you win. Like, I will hop on a call with you for a whole hour if I need to just to make sure you, you win. But just make sure you take that information and you apply it, because for us to go over the, over the same thing every single time we talk, then yeah, I become a new frustrating thing, you know what I mean?

It's funny, that whole like, I, I know you're— that when people are like, I know you're busy, so I didn't want to call you. I'm like, you know, everyone says that so no one calls, right?

Exactly.

You know what I mean? Like, we're busy because we put ourselves in busy situations. And there are some unique people, but it ain't— it ain't what I promise y'all. Got 40, 50 agents, I would bet my house, yeah, less than— under 10 for sure call you on a regular basis.

For sure. Easily, easily. And it is crazy, man. Um, another frustrating thing for us is like, you know, when agents are trying to come in and sell all the products, you know, they're trying to sell final expense, then they're trying to do IUL, they want to do Medicare, they want to do annuities. I'm like, man, let's just pick one product, let's master that before you branch off to other ones.

Yep, that's true. Yeah, that is— that's a hard one, dude. It's— and that don't go away. I'm like, oh man, coachable thing kills me, dude. That's because that part's so easy. Yeah, I mean, it's hard for them to do, but it's also very easy for them if they would just follow the guidance, you know what I mean? And I find so many new people, man, they try to convince themselves that they know what they need to do, and I'm like, if you were any good at that, you wouldn't have been bad to begin with. You wouldn't have messed it up to start. So you're going to judge what you need when you're the one that messed it up in the first place? Like, that's a really bad thought process.

Exactly.

It's like, yo, what do I need help with? And that's— I was really good at that piece is I don't mind. I was a slow start, as you know. You know the story.

Yeah, yeah.

But like when I had the opportunity to— and I still do it, dude— I have the opportunity to get around someone that's further ahead for me or what I'm learning, I'm like, yo, what would you advise I could do differently or better? And I like to hear the feedback. It hurts. Yeah, but I've been told some stuff, I'm like, ah, that one hurt. Yeah, but it's always helped me grow, you know what I mean? So I'm like, I can take it, just, just give it to me, it's all good.

Does anything frustrate you nowadays?

Oh dude, every day, all day, dude. I stay frustrated. Yeah, man.

Oh, that—

man, I want to get Amanda down here and get her on the mic so she can tell you all the things I get annoyed at. Yeah, um, man, I, um, it's funny that like it's almost more frustrating because as many success stories as we have, dude, I don't mean to be a turd, but this business is easy as fuck to make a quarter million bucks in, you know what I mean? And I just, I, I get so frustrated that people overcomplicate it, you know. Um, so I, I get to— in today's world, one of the things I'm most frustrated by, dude, is like people out there that are like trying to guide people towards something and they've never had success in it, you know what I mean? There's like— it's like people who make a bunch of money coaching people how to do something, but they ain't never done the something.

Yeah, didn't know.

They might be making good money, but they're all making good money because they told people they can coach them in something they ain't done. That annoys me a lot.

Yeah.

Um, you know, so that, that's just an industry thing. It's a, it's a weird thing that just drives me up the wall. Um, I don't like the, like, which is why I do this, dude. I hate the weirdness between companies. Your company sucks, my company sucks. Bro, there's someone printing money at every one of our companies, in every model, in every comp plan, and every lead type plan. 1099, LOA, W-2, it don't matter, dude. There's someone making money in every one of them. Yeah, you know, and I get there's some level of competition between, but at the same time, dude, I'm like, really? You know what I mean? And one thing I've taken my— speaking of social media, this one drives me crazy, but I don't put myself in the situation. Them Facebook groups with the agents, those insurance agent Facebook groups Yeah, you in any?

No, I'm not.

Have you ever been in any?

I have, yeah.

Yeah, I can't handle those, dude.

Yeah, yeah.

What's the best company? Oh Lord, here we go. All right, where's the best leads? Oh Lord, you know what I mean? It's just, I don't know, man. So it's— and then I'm still somewhat frustrated, bro, that I can't grow as fast as I want to. That don't change, man, for for some of us. I, I will say for some people it does, but like, I'm still trying to achieve more in life, dude. I'm trying to help a bunch more people get to a new level of income. I'm trying to help my staff, dude. I'm trying to help my staff get rich. Yeah, which is a hell of a challenge because it's hard to put a commission structure in place. Yeah, for— you know what I mean? But like, I'm like, all right, can I get them all at least over six figures? Yeah, you know what I mean? Amanda's been with me 7 years now. She's been making it for a minute. We got a bunch more and I'm trying to get them there, you know what I mean? I'm like, I get frustrated about pace still.

Yeah. Um, where do you think that your agency will be on a month-to-month basis this time next year?

Oh dude, I mean, I would say just based on growth past— so we did like $209 million last year.

Yeah, right.

So that's like, yeah, what's that, $17 a month, whatever the number is a month, right? $17-ish, something like that.

I was, I was bragging you, man. I talked to him like, man, you know, John did $200 million last year, man. Like, yeah, yeah.

So we'll probably do— I would love to hit $300, but we won't hit it. Um, we'll be in the, we'll be in the $250 ballpark. Um, and then so next year will be at $300. So we'll be $25+ a month. $25 million, you know what I mean, a month will be expectation for sure. Um, and to be fair, dude, Like, I have a lot of help, bro. Yeah, you know what I mean? Like, I don't control as much of it as everybody thinks today. There's so many killers that are building this thing, and I get way more credit than I deserve, um, in my opinion, you know what I mean? Like, I do my best to help everybody, but without guys that are out there grinding when I'm chilling with my kids, you know what I mean? Like, we don't have that. Yeah, does it make sense? So it's like, yeah, yeah, our team is going to do that. I'm saying, what am I gonna do, bro? I'm gonna show up in my office every damn day and I'm gonna try to get better and I'm gonna push people and I'm gonna push my team and we're gonna add more value to the industry. That's— I can only do what I can do every day, you know what I'm saying? So it's like, my routine is very similar, dude. I'm up every day at 6:30, I'm at the gym by 7:30, I do that for an hour, I go to sauna for 30 minutes, I hit a cold plunge, I come in the office and dude, I'm back-to-back meetings. I crank them out, bro. Yeah, I don't have time for bullshit in the middle. I don't care, you know what I mean? My first meeting is usually 10:30, to be honest, just being straight up. Yeah, I don't typically do because I like my routine. Yeah, I really like to get, get my morning started right. I'm better here. Yeah, you know, but from 10:30 to like— I usually leave the office most days still to this day, dude, 5:30, 6:00. Um, and then I just go home and I don't know, sometimes I work out again, I'll go play golf, I'll hang out with my kids, you know, I mean, I'll take the wife to dinner tonight, things like that. I work a lot. I, I don't work near as much at home as I used to. I used to all the time, every night, but I have such a good staff team now too that I was able to delegate a lot better this year. That's one of the things I want to work on, to kind of take some of the mental stress of me having to do everything and being a control freak and not trusting people. I had to learn to let go.

Yeah.

And dude, we've put out some stuff this year, bro, and we got some stuff coming. My whole, my whole team's coming to 8% next week.

Really?

Yeah, dude, we're doing some big things with automations and helping. My goal is to help the industry, dude. I mean, I've done what I've done in the company, and Integrity's cool, but I'm like, yo, how can I— future, next 10, 15 years— I'm like, you know, how can I mess up the industry? Yeah, so we're building stuff, starting to— that's for the vision, you know. I mean, it all— it certainly benefits us today. I recruit by mistake today, dude. Someone hits me up every single day of the week. Yeah, you know, now I can't work with them all one-on-one. I can't. I mean, unless you're trying to be a 7-figure guy, I can't mess with it one-on-one. But I have a whole team that's like here, right? Um, you know, so I, I think the general frustrations, to answer the question, probably really never change. I just, I try to do my best to become a more patient person, dude, and, and have a little bit more delayed gratification and give people grace. And, you know, I mean, like, I can tell you have more staff?

Because I kind of like— I'm gonna say we're the same people, but I have a problem with also being hands-on with everything as well. And I'm slowly, very slowly realizing I got— I can't always touch everything. And I could tell you have a lot of staff now, or you have more people working with you because the training course, you got the book, you got this platform now. And like, oh my dang, this dude John is really doing it this year. Like, and like, you're like doing it like it's only July. Like, you're like doing boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, man.

Y'all ain't seen nothing yet, dude.

I'm telling you, it's so cool to see. I'm like, it is so cool to see. Like, because I'm, I know you're— I'm assuming you don't really like this kind of book training podcast kind of stuff.

I like doing the piece I do.

Yes, but you don't—

I'm great. This, me and you, yeah, I mean, I like this. Yeah, this is my—

to—

but to organize it, yeah, and like all the— like if I could turn this equipment here and yeah, like who has to edit it and when does it go out and like what colors do we make it, what clips do we pick, dude, I do zero with that. I'm literally like, yo, I want to walk in. Look, they even put together a little thing. I mean, I know you, but my team does it every time. It's like, here's some bullet points, we checked out his social, here's— you know what I mean? So sometimes there's a little surprise. Like, I didn't know the Ohio State thing, even though you're there. I learned it here. So I was going to bring it up, but you did. Yeah, you know what I mean? So it's like, my goal here, I want to come in and talk. That's what I want to do. I'm great at that. Let me come in and talk. Right, you know, and I'm an idea guy, so all right, let me come in, let me go over ideas. Here's what I think we do, can y'all execute? Now you need me, I'm here because I will figure out how to get some shit done for sure, but if you guys got it, I'm— I have to trust. Dude, you know my, you know my favorite thing I did this year? Rambling a little bit. My absolute favorite thing, yeah, by far the best thing I did for my mental health, my team, my company. Dude, I quit going to staff meetings. I swear I quit them. I literally quit one. I'm like, I quit. I don't feel like I'm adding— I think I'm more of a detriment to a staff meeting than I add value. So I do like one a quarter now. Now if they need me, I'm here. I mean, again, I'm in my office every day. Does that make sense? But I used to do a staff meeting every week. What's this? What's this number? How much here?

What is it?

Where are we at with this? What are the and I'm like, I would always leave them frustrated, dude. I would leave a staff meeting. Someone— I, I don't remember where I got it from. I think it might have been a Patrick Bet-David thing. I can't remember. Someone told me to write down the top, like, 3 most frustrating things, or what caused the most mental, like, energy depletion, if you will. Right away, staff meeting. What came out of my mouth faster than they could complete the sentence. And they're like, why do you do them? Not— not— they didn't know the staff meeting was the answer, but those things, that list, it's like, why do you do them? Do you have really good staff? Dude, it is a staff meet. Can't they run it by themselves? You know what I'm saying? And dude, they love it. I love it. They meet every day now for a few minutes. Every morning they connect with each other, get on the same page, who's doing— and again, if they need me, they call me.

They—

right, they walk in my office, they whatever. Um, that was hard, bro. I've done a staff meeting every week for 8, 9 years.

Yeah, you know, hands-on.

Yeah, yeah. But dude, all this stuff has come because of that. I backed away and I let people use their talents and I let them think instead of being like, John, what do you— I'm like, no, you, you tell me.

Yeah.

And again, if I need to override it, I will. I'll step in, right? I ain't gonna let you burn my company down, you know what I mean? But that's— dude, that's been— I wish I did that sooner, honestly. And maybe I'd have done once a month before, but I just— I went from like every one to I'm doing one a quarter now. I have certain reports I need you to send me, these reports every week. Simple, basic shit I want to know because I'm anal, you know what I mean? Simple, right? But yeah, dude, it's— I got rid of what frustrates me. I get rid of them now. The things that frustrate me, dude, I'm learning to move on with them. Why do I— they gotta go. Yeah, you know, not that I can't endure things, but again, today's world, dude, I can hire someone to do the things that frustrate me. You know, I want to do what I love now.

Absolutely, man.

You know, so it's, it's been, it's been fun, dude.

I love that. Yeah, it's so cool hanging out with you, man. I'll see you, um, yeah, you can bet. 8%, you said Tuesday through—

when do you get in? Yeah, when are you gonna—

I get on Wednesday, probably. Wednesday? Yeah, Wednesday. Yeah.

When do y'all talk?

Friday.

Friday, me too. What time? Do you know?

I don't know.

I'm like 11-ish. I'm before lunch. Okay, I'm like 11, 11-something.

They push at a good spot before lunch.

Yeah, good.

Yeah, get some fire done.

I got 2 breakouts and we'll have a booth.

Yeah, that's dope, man.

Yeah, so we'll do that. And y'all recording your stuff?

Of course.

Yeah, so it'll be out on— because this will come out after 8%. This will be out.

Oh really?

Yeah, yeah, we won't get this out before.

So I said next week, like next week.

Yeah, yeah, but they know now. I mean, if anyone's confused that we record these, it's like, all right, um, but point is you'll be able to go to your social. If you want to drop it now, you can.

Yes, my team will probably put it up, but you can say it on— it's, uh, Instagram. It's gonna be at T-R-U-U Wealth. So T-R-U-U W-E-A-L-T-H. Uh, my personal is my first name, Mike, M-I-K-E. My last name, K-W-A-R-T-E-N-G. We have a website, wearetruewealth.com. We have a YouTube, True Wealth. We are at TikTok, True Wealth.

Love it.

We're everywhere, man.

I love it. I see it. We'll put it— we'll put it all down. My team will take care of that too.

Appreciate that. Thanks, Amanda. Appreciate you.

Uh, Reese, he does that. Amanda does a lot, but she don't mess with this part anymore. She used to. Yeah, she used to. And, uh, but yeah, he'll, uh, he'll take care of that piece. And, uh, dude, any, any, any final words, bro? Let you— let you end with whatever you want.

Oh man, this has been great, man. Like I said, it's It's an honor that you even thought to even have me on this platform, man. Uh, you know, I look up to you, man. Like, you, uh, exactly, I brag about you. Like, you'll be like a pivotal piece in my journey, as much as maybe you know or maybe you don't know. But like, uh, like, I really appreciate you, man, honestly, big time. And, um, like, I'll say this last thing, like, you doing your production right now like it's not no jealousy thing, but it's more like, okay, that's possible. Like, that's possible, and he did it in that time frame. Okay, cool, Mike, just stick the course. Yeah, and do it, and I'll get there. And, uh, like I said, it's not like jealousy, like trying to be you, but it's just like, like, okay, that's actually an attainable target, if that makes sense.

Hey, you want to hear something crazy? Yeah. So I think I look forward to, like, I'm future looking into people doing big things. So the guy who, the guy who acquired my agency. Yeah, dude, he, he did, they did $25 billion in premium. So my volume, as much as you go like, whoo, yeah, I always tell everyone, bro, I'm gonna, I'm a rounding error. To someone.

Yeah, you know what I'm saying?

Yeah, it's like, dude, there's so much potential out there, bro. So much. I mean, I'm trying to get my little piece for sure in my building.

Yeah, that's different.

Plenty of room for you to grab any more.

That's funny, man. I appreciate you, John.

Got it, bro. I'll see you soon.

Appreciate you. Yes, sir.