What it's Like Selling 3,251 Insurance Apps in ONE Day ft. Lindsay Autry from Americo | Ep91

We actually set a company record yesterday, and this is for one day. You guys sent Americo 3,251 applications yesterday.

Crazy. For like the agents watching, I always go like, you know how many mother effing people buy insurance every day? Yeah. Even if it's only $800 an app, that's $2.5 million yesterday.

Yes.

At $800, which is a low number, I think. $2.5 million in a day. Just get a little piece of your pie. There's plenty out there. Well, welcome on to our Insurance Insider Podcast. We're already recording. So appreciate you getting on. For those that, um, join us and watch and listen and all that jazz, Reese told me this week we've had like record number of people downloading and watching the thing, which is cool because it started out with like me, Amanda, and my mom, I think, were the only people that listened to it. And now I don't know what a record means. It might only be 10 of y'all watching, but we are breaking records over here. No, it's not that bad. We get, we get a good amount actually, um, and it's growing. So I appreciate y'all that watch and share and do all the things. Um, got Lindsay Autry with me today from Americo, our account rep who deals with all of our, all of us pain in the asses who need things done like right now, and does a great job. So we appreciate everything you're doing and, and adding to the squad. So welcome in.

Well, thank you very much. And, you know, I just kind of jump in on that, you know, setting records. So I think this is really, really amazing. Um, So we, we actually set a company record yesterday. No way. And, uh, yes, it was, uh, we set a new record for, um, applications, or, you know, we, we kind of use them called like application receipts. We did a record, and this is for one day, um, you guys sent Americo 3,251 applications yesterday.

Just us?

Yeah, just—

yeah. Can— will you tell me how many other people sent total?

I mean, we're— we have like 5,000 apps. So yeah.

So yeah, we're bigger.

Yeah.

But all of them combined.

Yes. And what's amazing, you know, that I think it's amazing because that's something that, you know, I'm I mean, John, you know me, I'm very, very competitive, but there's some companies out there that don't even do that in a month, right?

Yeah, clearly.

And we did it in one day. And so that just kind of shows, you know, just the partnership and just how simple, easy working with Americo is, which I mean, that's what you guys want as agents. You want something that's simple, fast, and easy, and so do the clients.

So yeah.

We, we are very, very, very excited. Um, we hit that record yesterday. That's amazing.

I mean, it's crazy. 32. And if for like the agents watching, I always go like, you know how many mother effing people buy insurance every day? Yeah, 3,200 just with AmeriCo yesterday. Yesterday, like, just get a little piece of your pie. There's plenty out there. That's bananas. 3,200, that's a lot of volume. Let me, let me do that.

Hold on. I know, I, I'm—

I'm 3,200. Even if it's only $800 an app, that's $2.5 million yesterday. Yes, at $800, which is a low number, I think. I think— I don't know, I, I might be high. I know mine's significantly higher per app.

Um, average, yeah, I mean, $800 to $1,000. Yeah, that's—

yeah, yeah, number on the low end, $2.5 million in a day, man. First year took us What, like 3 months to do that?

I know, we're joking about this morning, you know, people that have been here, you know, for years, they're like, yeah, they remember back, back in the day when, you know, we, we wouldn't do that in, in a month. Yeah, here we are doing it in a day.

So crazy when you, when you're on the same page, things get wild no matter what it is— carrier relationship, agent relationship, agency, all of it. I think it's moving things in the same direction. And y'all have done, uh, incredible things. We've been a hell of a journey. I have been here for all of it. I know our— my first year total, uh, my whole team did $179,000 for the year, and I personally was $175,000 of it. So my whole team outside of me did $4,000 in 2014. So like Crazy. 6 apps.

Yeah, it was all paperback.

Yeah, it was. And to be fair— now, I don't know if this is fair, but it's, it's the truth— y'all back then declined everything early on. I know you weren't here at that stage, but I'm sure you've heard the stories. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. And now, now, different, different era, different, different times. It's been, it's been fun. Absolutely. Well, it's good stuff. So you are, um not just a rep. You've done— now you are, I get it, but you certainly not. I mean, I know you get life and stuff, but in, in the business, you've actually sold and been in the business and been in the space and kind of understand our world, unlike most people who do your job that we want to kill because they don't actually know what we go through.

Yes. Yeah. So, uh, kind of my backstory is I actually got involved with life insurance back in 2000 and Well, 2014. Um, okay, I got into it, but I got into it more as a family service counselor. So I did pre-arranged funerals and old cemetery. So, um, I met with at-need families plus pre-need. So I did like all the pre-arranging and everything like that. And I mean, I did that for a little while. So I think that's where a lot of my, um, experience and knowledge when it came to selling final expense just came very natural and easy to me. I knew how to talk to those clients. I knew how to bring up the importance of having something in place, right? So I did that for just a few years, and then that's where I was like, okay, I'm ready to start working with the living more so than helping people get through their life than the end of their life. And, and, you know, in, in insurance, you know, you, you always, you got to find some humor in it, right?

Hell yeah.

But dark.

It is. It can be, especially there. Were you sitting in like a funeral home all day?

Oh, absolutely. Oh, shit. Oh, we got— I got some.

Were you doing funerals too, or was it all pre-planned? You were. So you're doing both sides?

Yes. Yes. I was there before, and then I was sitting with the family in the room talking about the service.

What, what it will cost and all of it, the cost, the, you know, you're selling the stuff.

Yep.

I've always wondered, like, this is— this— my podcast goes sideways, by the way, because I don't plan none of this shit.

Perfect.

But like, when they're grieving, won't— like, isn't that shit like really overpriced? And I'm assuming there's commissions on it, and they're like, is that right? Like, they sell the really expensive box because it's emotional and you overpay. Like, that's a thing, isn't it?

Absolutely. Um, and that's— and that was a big reason to my— like, when I— in my sales script, you know, um, people way overspend because it's emotional at that point. But when they already have something in place, they take the emotion out because they've already got it right there. Now, there are obviously some things that you can't pre-plan for, and that's where I really was able to excel. And so any of you that's watching this and you guys are, uh, selling Final Expense, you know, asking them if they have, you know, a a pre-arrangement already through a funeral home or anything like that, you know, I would always tell them, great, you got the bulk of it done, but there's some costs that you cannot pre-plan for, and that's going to be things like taxes. Okay, you cannot pre-plan taxes, and anything that has a paper where they can touch, like the casket or an urn or the paper products or things like that, you can't pre-plan for that. Um, you also can't— I mean, you can put money towards flowers and things like that, But the funeral homes don't own the florists. And so the cost— yeah, but they put their— the cost could be completely different there, you know. And it— there's so many different costs and things that come into it. Death certificates, you can't preplan for death certificates. You can say how many you want, but, you know, it could cost, you know, $50 or it could cost $200 depending on how many deaths you're going to need.

You know, what is actually paid for in the preplanning crap? Because I want to dig into— sadly, I've sold a lot of insurance and I always hear it, and I don't have a tough time ever getting really through it because I get it. But I've never really sat down and gone, this is paid for, this isn't, what happens if— all these scenarios.

I think that people actually pay for in a pre-arranged funeral is the funeral home to conduct the service, so the use of the funeral director, um, transportations, because most people don't— well, I'm going to say Nobody dies at the funeral home, so they have to pay for transportation.

I'm assuming a short transportation is paid for, not like an out-of-state one, like from the hospital to the vet.

Yeah, that's the other thing that is a huge expense, that if someone passes away across state lines and their remains have to be transported, I mean, permits, licenses, like all of that is so expensive that people don't plan for or think about. Um, and then also in most pre-arranged funerals, you know, you're gonna pay for like the casket, and a lot of times they will go ahead and pay for the land if they're— or the plot, or if they're having, uh, if they're being, um, they call it interned, internment. And so they will pay for the opening and closing of the grave, they pay for, um, the, uh, the burial container or the vault, um, that needs purchased also. Uh, so, you know, it's all of those types of things that is covered in the actual service in a pre-arrangement. But there's so many outside costs that—

when you said taxes, is that like from being— or— got it. Yeah, on all the stuff they prepaid for.

Yep.

Shut the front door. Yeah. So like the cost— so if a box cost 10 grand— I'm make up numbers because I don't know what they cost— a $10,000 box they don't pay for the taxes until after, right?

Because taxes can change.

Shut the front door. So like $600, whatever, what, a $500, $600, $700, $800, whatever it is. No kidding. Yeah. What? I did not know that.

Yeah, so that was where I was very successful with my final expense because I would say, okay, great, you know, we probably don't need a $25,000 final expense, but you need something. You need something to go along like you know, $7,000 to $10,000, $12,000. That's what you need right now to cover any of those unexpected costs. And again, you know, if you pass away across state lines or anything like that, it can get expensive.

And so there's a funeral and then they're like, hey, Lindsay, by the way, you owe me $682 in taxes today.

Yep.

I did not know that was a thing. Yep. No shit. Huh. What else? What else don't I know?

What else do you want to know?

Holy crap. What's the deal with, like, uh, what now? How come some— I know some funeral homes, like, actually try to sell life insurance and some really don't. Like, did you ever— you never sold insurance when you were in there? They were just doing this pre-crap. They weren't actually selling policies, correct?

Correct. It was, it was insurance. It was, well, it was considered life insurance, but it was insurance insurance on their services. It was to ensure their, their services.

It's like when people think they have mortgage— yeah, the insurance where it's the PMI and it's not the—

right.

Yeah, so they're basically ensuring that they get paid.

Exactly. It's— it was an insurance on the clients or the, the person, but the beneficiary is the funeral home.

Yep. So they get paid no matter what goes back to the family.

But I don't think I have ever seen— I don't— in the time that I was there, I don't think I ever saw anything left over.

Is that for the extras or that's for like the financing of all the box and all the crap you just said?

That's like for the financing.

They're basically financing it through an insurance policy. No kidding.

Mm-hmm.

Funeral home, can't they sell more? They're that dumb. They don't just sell them. This is so crazy. This kid, this, it makes this easier than it was before I knew all this.

Oh, absolutely. And I think that's why it was very easy for me, because I didn't need to be out there selling $20,000, $30,000, $40,000, $50,000 whole life final expense policies. I was making bank on my $10,000, $15,000, you know, my smaller ones. And those are the ones, because if you think about it, people that are going through those, uh, policies, they're probably a little bit older. And they've probably already experienced losing somebody, and they either had the experience that they did have something in place or they didn't, and they're like, Lord, I know what I'm going to— what my family's going to take care of. And when they have a pre-arrangement already, I'm like, great, you already know that you don't need another $30,000. You need the $10,000.

A little bit. Yeah.

And so when they're talking about it, and now you've gone from looking at something that has like $150,000 $50 monthly premium to something that is like $40, they're like, absolutely. So I'll take those.

That's a big volume game there.

Oh my gosh, yeah. You know, that's, that's how I was able to write.

Do some of them actually prepay the funeral home? Like they write them a check?

Yeah, they'll, they'll just pay off, pay off their—

what they're— yeah, I hear that sometimes too. Mine was that. I was like, well, and I'm curious, what happened like if they shut down? Because you see that shit all the time, the money's gone, right?

Hope you hope that the next funeral home that buys it or where it goes, it'll transfer over.

But again, a lot of hope.

Sometimes that doesn't happen, or they will transfer it over, but they will only take it as a credit. Yeah, establishment probably has new prices and things.

Oh, yeah. Hell yeah. Crazy.

It's a different world.

Interesting. All right, so we learned some stuff today about funeral homes. Yeah, whacking people. What's a commission on a box?

I mean, if it was good, I'd still be doing it.

All right, what's the guy who paid you to work there making on a box?

He's doing pretty good. He's doing pretty good. I mean, there— I mean, if you want some of that dark humor, you know, people were dying to get in our doors, but, um It was, you know, Reese, I hope you do something with that one, bro, when he edits this thing. Oh, shit. You know, it was, it was, uh, job security. They, they always needed us.

Yeah, craziness. All right, so then we get into this world, and you— so you, you actually sold a bunch of insurance too?

I did, yeah. So after I left the funeral home, um, I actually came over to a small brokerage here in Kansas City. So I'm born and raised— I'm a small-town farm Kansas girl. And so I left the funeral home and joined a company, small brokerage here in Kansas City where we specialized in Medicare. So that's where I started. I had my health and life insurance and started selling Medicare, Medicare supplements, Medicare Advantage, drug plans, all of that kind of stuff. Um, I do not miss that. So if you guys are doing that, I know you guys are probably like, I don't— shit. I mean, your, your brains are probably still smoking because AEP just finally finished up last week. So congratulations everybody that lived and survived, um, because that is a monster. Uh, but with, um, my experience with the funeral home and everything, you know, obviously being a broker, we had all the different carriers and including AmeriCo because back in the day we did have Medicare supplements. So that's how I got to know AmeriCo. But, you know, we had Mutual and AMM and Aetna, like all the companies, but we were looking at ways that we could expand our business and offer more products. And because of my experience in the final expense, we're like, Well, shoot, let's try it. Let's see if we can get some final expense products. And before I knew it, we went from selling Medicare to also cross-selling with our clients with final expense and to the point where we actually grew and developed a complete final expense team where it wasn't just Medicare. They were solely 100% final expense. So did that for, oh my goodness, 8 years. Did that. And then it kind of came to the point where I was— I wasn't really looking for anything else. But, you know, sometimes when a door opens, you walk through it. And here I am. So it was, yeah, as 8 years doing Medicare and final expense.

Um, so you didn't even apply there?

You just—

no. Crazy.

Yeah, I, I got to know, uh, Jeremy and Jonathan and a lot of people here at Americo, uh, really closely because I, I sold a lot of Americo Final Expense. Did you?

How much did you sell? Will you tell me?

Uh, my biggest month I was right at about $92,000.

Shut up! Fuck yeah! So you know how to sell some insurance. Yes. Damn. What was your biggest year?

Oh my gosh. Um, I think my biggest year— are we talking final expense only or Medicare?

And whatever you want to share, I'm okay with anything. I don't understand anything about Medicare, so I don't know what the hell the number would mean, but say what you want. They'll, they'll know. People watching know.

Yeah, I, I'd say it— well, if we do just final expense, because I kind of got more out of the Medicare because I was doing a lot more of like the, the informing and training and a lot of like teaching with, with people and doing a lot of like, yeah, small meetings like that around Kansas City and everywhere. But my biggest year, Final Expense, oh, I was probably 1.1, 1.2 somewhere around there with it.

And people say this shit's hard.

No, holy moly.

It's not hard if you know what you're doing.

It's not hard. And especially if you know what you're doing and you know how to talk to people. Like, my biggest thing, like the way I trained because of my team, like when I trained my team, I was like, when you're talking to people about final expense, I said my Goal was to get through my— and like, I had my sales script and everything, and I don't think I mentioned the word insurance once in my sales script. It was all about protection, right? It's like, oh, John, I'm, you know, tell me, what do you have in place today? You know, if something happened, you know, what are you doing to protect your family? You know, you're married, you've got kids. Your role is to provide and to protect. So This is what the policy that's going to provide for your family and protect them from anything that could happen in your absence. You know, using those kind of words because now you kind of take like that salesy, like, they're just trying to sell me something. No, you turn it into actual protection for them. So getting my team to kind of get that used car sales mentality out and make it more personal because I mean, final expense, it's kind of a personal sale.

Right.

Sure. But telling and listening and listening for trigger words and things like that in the call, we used a tactic. I don't want to call it a tactic. It was more of a selling without selling. So no matter what question I asked them, no matter what their answer was, it was going to lead me into my next question that would lead into a sale. Like they just walk themselves. And so we, we called it selling without selling.

Sure. Yeah, it's guiding people down a path. People can figure that piece out. I'm not like— I kill people like, give me the script. I'm like, dude, this video— if the script is like, I want to hang myself. I want to paper cut myself to death with people's scripts. Yeah, because when you don't understand what the hell it's doing and the intention of it, who cares what you're saying?

Um, well, when you're— people know when you're scripted. Like, just, just talk to them. Like, like, follow this, like, path and everything with it. But I mean, yeah, listen for these words. When they say this, if you hear this, oh boom, you know you're going down this direction. You know you're asking them about this.

What are some things that you're looking for? What's crazy, I was not expecting to ask a freaking carrier rep sales stuff, but I'm excited that you know some shit.

Yeah, that's awesome though.

What, what are some words you're looking for? What, meaning where all these people, 3,200 apps yesterday, where is everyone else messing up that they can't figure this out? I would love some keywords you're looking for that help people close more deals. What up, insurance agents? If you're looking for a roadmap on how to win in this industry, check out the book I wrote about a year ago, Do More Now, Get Better Later. Check out the reviews here somewhere, my team's putting them on. I'm getting tons of great feedback about all the people it's helped Appreciate those of y'all that have bought it. Appreciate all the reviews that are going out. If you're new to following me or the industry, check out the book and get it in your hands now.

Oh, I would always tell people, like, if I was on the phone with you, I was like, hey, John, you know, just going to let you know, I got your information that you're looking at ways to protect your family. If something were to happen to you. So I, before we get into this, I just want you to know that I'm an expert with everything with life insurance, okay, in protecting your family. So I need to know, are you thinking that, you know, I already have something, but I think I need a little bit more, or has something happened and you're like, crap, like I need something in case this happens again. And no matter what they say, like if you were to say, I don't have anything and we just lost my mom. Immediately I'm going to be asking, you know, obviously I'm so sorry to hear that. You know, did your mom have something in place? Did it have to come out of pocket? You know, was it a simple experience? And no matter what they say, if it was a bad experience, then it's like, all right, John Wetmore, I understand why you're doing this because you don't want your family to go through this. Or if they say, yeah, she had something, it was so simple and easy. Amazing. I'm sure that that's what you want as well. Yeah. So it doesn't matter how they say it, it's how you phrase it. And no matter what question you ask or the answer they give, you're walking them into that sale. And so things that I would listen for, big trigger words, like if they're married, obviously asking— I'd always ask, how long are you married? Obviously their names and things like that. You guys have kids, um, do the kids live close? Things along those kind of lines. Because the next thing, like, if the kids are spread all over the country, you know what's another big cost? Yeah, airline travel, travel, travel, things like that. Um, or if you're also talking about it, you know, John, do you go visit your kids? Yeah, we go every year. Great. Well, you know what's also great about this is when you travel, your, your coverage travels with you. So it doesn't matter if you are in wherever it happens. And 9 times out of 10, like a lot of times, like accidents happen when people are traveling. Great thing about this is that if you do pass away to an accident, it's actually going to double. So it's going to make sure not only do you get back, but your family comes back with you. You know, things like that, like, like those little trigger words. And then you just kind of slide in the benefits of the policy of why, why we're talking about it.

Natural conversation, actual, not bullet point 3. After you sell, do you have to explain the benefits?

Yeah, I'm not saying, okay, John, pull out your pen and paper, I want you to write this down.

That's probably the video they watched right before this one. It wasn't me saying it, but yes, I hear that all the time.

Everybody has different ways of selling. I, I was just very, very much like very, very open and just real. And, uh, you know, I'd even tell people— and I think this also kind of helps, like, if you're getting into life insurance and you're trying to figure out how do I separate myself from other people, um, I, I was also very, very blunt. And so there would be times where I was like, all right, John, I'm going to ask you some questions, probably some most people don't ask you. And there's can be uncomfortable, but that's all right because we sometimes to get where we need to go, we have to get uncomfortable. So are you okay with me asking you some uncomfortable questions? And most of them are like, well, yeah, just because they want to know what I'm going to ask them. Right. And so, you know, getting into that and, you know, I'd ask people, you know, all right, I'm going to ask you with your family and we're talking about final expense or any kind of coverage at all, really, you know, you ask, you know, What kind of services do your family typically go with? Are you more of a traditional with a casket, or do you guys lean more towards cremation? That's going to give you a big indicator of which way to go also. And then 9 times out of 10, they're going to say, well, we, we usually do traditional. You know, my, my mom and dad both are— oh, you know, how long ago did they pass? And now you're opening it up because now you start having them think about what they went through, even if 10, 20 years ago, they're now thinking about it, of how it made them feel, right? Because again, I'll say it, you know, um, I'll say death, but losing someone, it's, it's emotional. There's always some kind of an emotion tied to it. So if you can tie an emotion to the why of why they're getting insurance and coverage and why they're talking to you about it, they're going to open up and be more trust trustworthy also.

Sure. Yeah. It's building natural rapport too versus— Absolutely. Some of those scripts are like 15 minutes of rapport before you start. Oh my Lord.

No, there's, there's some, there was some calls that, and I was more of a, a one-call close. Like if I got you on the phone, we're, we're either doing it or we're not and next type of a thing. Right. Um, but there's, there's sometimes that people call in and they know exactly what they want. And, you know, I'm done in 20 minutes, right? Or there's some of them where, you know, it takes an hour because Susan, you know, wants to tell me all about her grandkids. Well, that's great. You know, now I know about all your grandkids, Susan, and, you know, your, your dog and your greenhouse of salsa. And, you know, I A week later, I've got a case of salsa at my office too. But you know, those are the ones I guarantee, you know, you're so policy, dude.

I've been sent home with a ladder. Like, someone gave me a ladder, literally, like an A-frame, one of those ladders. He made me put it— I put it in the back of my Kia. That he had 15 of them in his backyard. He's like, I got these ladders, you're having one. I had someone send me home with a floor tile, just one, just one floor tile. They're like, show your wife, this is a beautiful floor tile, I have extras, here bring one home. Because I probably built fake report and told them how much I like their floor, I'm guessing, you know. And so I got a floor tile, all kinds of craziness. You know you've sold some final expense when you come home with some shit.

Yeah, absolutely. It's crazy.

I didn't know you were a savage. I did not know this.

Oh yeah, absolutely.

I mean, I knew you were in one way, I didn't know you were in Final expense sales savage too. I didn't know that. It's me being ignorant, guessing.

Yeah, can't share all my secrets.

Damn, killer. Well, tell us about Americo. Naturally, I think, um, you know, if you've been around me or any of us, we naturally have it. It's our primary carrier. It has been, probably always will be. Um, you know, but it's funny, some— weird enough, some people just don't know much about y'all, or especially what they offer, or I've heard still they have these like preconceived expensive thing still stuck in their head, you know what I mean? I'm like, y'all confused. Um, so I would love for you to take a few and just pitch them out, man, whatever you want. Share what you guys got going on, the different products, some cool shit. We saw a lot of the product. Yeah, so share whatever you want on that stuff.

So yeah, the, the, a big, big portion of what you said, you know, a lot of people probably never heard of us or they don't know who we are, and the reason why is because we're one of the last family owned insurance companies in the country. Uh, you know, the, the family that started us back in the early 1900s is the same family that is still owning us today, right?

We're— so like Folgers or something? Isn't that what— Riddell, right? Am I making this up? Well, is it— isn't that that family? Aren't they— where do they come from? You're— the family is— what's their background? What— isn't a big, big-ass company? I thought I knew the guy. Is it Folgers or something like that?

Yep. Part—

part of this.

Yeah. Yeah, it's, um, and based in Kansas City.

Yeah, yeah, a lot of stuff. They own a shitload of stuff. Yes, this family, this ain't no like little baby family.

Yeah, I know, it's not. No, not a little family. Um, but they, you know, it— and it's amazing. So, you know, if you ever make it out to Kansas City, or anybody, uh, that's watching, if you ever come to Kansas City, um, the, the original building that they started everything in is still right here.

Now obviously we're in a new building, that vacant-ish one, or it was a couple years ago. I went toward the one across the street a couple years ago.

So it's the one— got it— catty corner from that. So like, okay, and the original building is still here. And that's— I mean, Kansas City is full of history and everything, but you know, the, the— from the very beginning, it's all still right here. Um, so we absolutely love that. We, we love, uh, that we are family-owned. You know, we, we really do believe that we are family owned. We're the family company protecting families. Nobody knows more about family than, than we do. And they treat us like family. I know, you know, people say, oh, you're like family with where you work. No, we really are. And so a lot of times people also say, well, I don't ever see like you guys, like you don't have commercials. I don't see you on billboards, like nothing like that. And there's a big reason why for that. You know, we, we believe that the partnership that we have with you guys as agents is so strong that we don't have to advertise. Um, we, we know that the people that are representing us, um, as a company with you guys as agents, uh, you, you guys are, are our advocates. And, uh, we, we know, like, sometimes, like, Marketing and getting your name out there, it can be expensive, right? It can be very expensive. So what we've done and we've decided to do is we put all of our trust into you guys. But what we've been doing with the funds and the finances that we not— are not spending on billboards and commercials and shows and things like that, we're putting that back into the agents and into our products and into the processes, um, which is why we, we do have the, the fastest and the easiest application process Uh, you know, we, we have that instant decision, uh, you know, the, the most simple signature, uh, process and things like that. It's— we, we want to invest our money back into you guys as the agents and the products for our clients.

So you're not gonna have one this morning, but I got an answer before I could finish. It's like, I swear the answer came up before I finished typing and hitting the button. I was like, how the hell? It's just bananas given where it started. Yeah, yeah, it's, uh, it is wild. And it is significantly easier than some of the others. Oh my God, I went with one of the big, you know, names that they're on all the commercials, and they're— I want to hang myself trying to walk 78-year-old grandma through signing. I'm like, holy moly, this is a lot.

Yeah, and I even still remember just when, when I was selling, you know, looking back at the, the application, and I, I remember like the first e-application that we came out with, um, through Sales Connection. I mean, it was, it was an e-app, but I'm like, and it was easier than some of the other carriers, but I'm like, oh my gosh, it was painful. Now is, yeah, even easier and faster. And, and now that we came out with the new final expense, um, Eagle Select. I'm like, yeah, oh my gosh. I'm like, John, can somebody give me some leads and just let me call something? Let me sell some insurance, you know?

You should come to Lock In and do it.

Yeah, I, I still have my license, but, um, but yeah. And then even with like our IUL and all of our term products, uh, so, you know, obviously we've been talking a lot about final expense on, on, uh, this call and everything. But, you know, if, if you're not familiar with Americo, you know, obviously we have final expense, um, but we also have our IUL, our indexed universal life policy. Uh, it's, it's one of our newer products as well. We've only had it for coming— going on, uh, what is it, we're gonna go on 2 years, um, come February will be 2 years that we've had it out. And just recently, you know, we increased our issue ages from 18 up to the age of 70, um, with our IUL and going up to $450,000. And it's still instant decision. So you're talking to your clients, you know, some people may be like, well, what's so important? What's the big deal about instant decision? Or maybe simplified issue, they may be thinking like, what's the big deal? Like, why, why would I want a simplified issue over any, anything else? Like, what, what's how does that benefit me? Simplified issue, you know, simply just means that we don't require the client going and having any like blood or urine or tests or any kind of physical done. Like we're able to provide an answer and a decision with their application at the time of sale. Like there's, there's a big difference between simplified issue and fully underwritten. Right, fully underwritten, it can take a lot longer for your clients to know if they're going to have coverage or not.

Even non-medical, when people throw that out, I'm like, y'all don't realize that ain't the same as simplified.

No. Yeah. And, uh, yeah, so with, with our, all of our products, it's just you ask the health questions, we, we run their MIB, which is not Men in Black, it is the, uh, the Medical Information Bureau, okay? It is their MIB and their prescriptions. And based off of that and how they answer the questions, that's all we need to be able to offer them coverage.

Yeah, craziness. Quick and easy. I remember I got to be actually— fortunately, I was in a— I, I didn't have much influence, but I was in some of the meetings creating that thing. It was pretty freaking cool. That was neat to see behind the scenes and the pricing and how you all come up with it. That was one of the coolest meetings I've been in. Yeah, that was— there's been a few years back, but it was fun.

Absolutely. And I think that was something that was, uh, a big kind of almost like learning curve for me coming from an agent over to the carrier side because from an agent's perspective, you know, and I think this is where, you know, I'm able to really excel in my position here now with AmeriCo is because I truly do understand and know how agents think and feel and view things. Right. So that was a big learning curve for me going from having an agent's perspective to a carrier perspective. But now, you know, I was like, okay, I get why we do certain things or I understand, you know, the importance of, you know, why, uh, certain, certain questions are asked or things like that, right? So it's— it, it was huge, and I, I'm still learning things every single day, but I, I'm loving it. Love, love it.

What are, what are some of the things if we be— if we become like a little bit of product nerds? Because I kind of am an underwriting nerd, and I think that— I think the thing people, agents, miss is like certain carriers want certain clients. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like you want this certain demographic, they fit in this mold of what, and you understand the risk, whatever. What, what are some cool things that y'all would do, cover clients you look for that just people don't know? You know what I mean? Some unique things that Americo's like, we're really good at this, we like this client, and here's what we're great at. For those of you follow that have followed me for a while, you know, I've, I've helped build this agency up to over $200 million in paid annual premium per year. We have over 5,000 agents a year that sell, and I am rebuilding. We're building a new base shop, helping people build big agencies, get to multi-seven figures in income, or producers that want to, that want to just sell and get to a multi-six-figure sales career. Hit me up. I'm hiring direct. I'm looking to train and mentor winners that want to work their ass off and build something dope. Click on the link below, or you can go to johnwetmore.com/join and put in your application. We'll see if I'd be interested and working with you, DM me, hit me up, whatever you like.

Yeah. So we love really healthy clients.

We love— everyone's like, thanks.

We love the really healthy ones. But no, like, we, we understand, you know, obviously there's not everybody is going to be 100% healthy, right? People are going to have some conditions. That's just life, right? But things that we, we really are strong in areas is, you know, you, you may have a client that they may have like high blood pressure or they may have, you know, some additional conditions. Just because they have those conditions doesn't mean that we're not going to be able to offer them coverage, right? I love that with our final expense product, we've got different tiers of coverage. So if you think back and if you remember the, the old product, if you answered yes to any questions, it was immediate guaranteed issue or just 100% decline, right? But now we've got the system situated and programmed to show that we're actually able to offer so much more coverage to clients that have multiple conditions that before we would have had to have declined or they would have had to go to a guaranteed, uh, right? So, you know, clients even if they do have, you know, if they do have diabetes, as long as they don't have like any like bad conditions to go with it.

Yeah.

You know, we're going to be able to offer them coverage, right? Yeah. Or if you've got clients that, you know, maybe, maybe they had a heart attack or they've had a stent, you know, as long as there's, you know, some— no other obviously big—

you don't love a lot of combo stuff for sure, but you can get some people that have had some stuff pricing's ridiculous. Yeah, if you, if you know you're— again, it's health. If you take a bunch of sick people, if you take the healthier of the sick people, that most other, right, the GI product or that shitty carrier that takes everyone that's double the price, we all take a lot of that kind of stuff if you really understand the underwriting piece, which is not complicated. It's not like you don't put it in a freaking manual and tell us exactly what you take and what you don't, right?

And that was the other thing, you know, we, we've had a lot of people people ask, you know, can we get a declinable drug list? And I always say, well, no, you can't, because we don't have one. Yeah, but the reason why we don't— and this is another reason, you know, that I think this is important for agents to understand, because, you know, I was always— when I was an agent, I was like, gosh, if I could just have this list, then I would know if I need to go here, if I need to go somewhere else. Well, the reason why we don't have one is because there's a lot of medications out there that be used for dual purposes., right? And we don't want to put on a list that we're going to decline for this medication if it's not being used for a certain diagnosis. Correct. Right. There's so many.

And y'all will look at the doctor that prescribes it to see what type of doctor they are to determine if it's really for this or really for that. Exactly. Others just knock them out for sure.

Absolutely.

Absolutely. Heart meds, dual heart meds, shit like that.

Yeah. Or the big thing now is the weight loss, the weight loss stuff that's actually for diabetes. But we look at them like, you don't have diabetes, right? It's for weight loss. It's things like that that we have the way that we've designed and created our application with our risk scores and MIB and prescriptions and things like that. We're able to take a full picture of not just the medication or how a question is asked. We're able to take the full picture and look at it and be able to be like, okay, yeah, this one probably is just fine. So we're going to go through with this one or this one. Be like, yeah, there's like a neurologist, there's like, you know, all these different doctors and all these meds. Yeah, we probably are going to pass on this one. But to put it out there in like black and white and say like, we're going to decline for these. We don't want to do that.

Yeah, that's good.

And what's also great about it with Americo, you know, we, we give that decision to the agents right up front. You know, like as soon as we run it, maybe in prescriptions, you know, we let the client and the agent know, be like, hey, you know, everything right now so far looks good. Continue on with the application, right? Yeah. So we're telling you right up front if there— if you see like there might be an issue or not. Which saves time and the clients are happy with it.

Yeah. One of my favorite things is y'all don't care if we just try y'all first. No. A lot of companies are like, don't try us if you're not want to go with placement and all these ratios and things like that. We used to get wore out back in the day about that. Now you are like, eff it, try us first, see what happens. And you get an answer. If y'all are confused, you get an answer quick. I mean, I'd be honest, I got a decline yesterday. I had it in 9 seconds. It was like instant. It was bananas how quick it came back. Um, I felt like the guy was lying. I was like, you know those ones where like you're asking the questions and I'm like, dude, he ain't telling me something. I just feel like something's off. I wasn't, I wasn't convinced he was going to be an AmeriCo client, to be honest. Yeah, I'm like, why am I going to go back and forth with this guy? I could find out before I ask him 2 more questions. Yep. Give me your social, I'll check. Let me— and it was like instant. I'm, I'm 90 seconds in and it's like, all right, I know what to do now.

Yep. Yeah, would you get them back that fast? Like, okay, there's something big. Yeah, like it came back real fast, there's something pretty big.

Yeah, it was an instant. Yep. I was like, but I love it, doesn't hurt, hurt us in any way. And that goes to just how y'all are, it's like just hearing from us over the years You know what I mean? You don't— not as much red tape trying to get shit done, get shit changed. And again, Bob the new agent, you probably still gonna have red tape. It is— y'all gonna go through some. But when you have a relationship like we have over the course of years and you build that stuff, like, we can get some shit done with y'all.

Yeah.

And I, I like that. That's a, that's a big piece of the relationship that some people just still don't understand. And they're like, this company, whatever.

And, and the— a big reason why we're able to, to do the things that we can do in the, the speed that we can do it is because we're family-owned. Yeah. And you know, the— it's everything that's— that you guys bring back to us, all the feedback, all the suggestions, things like that. When we discuss it, like, it really does go to the very top.

Really, it does. We're like— and for us, we're like, those are our products, to be clear. We, we made those.

Yes.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I love it. I love it. That's cool. I love it. Anything else you want to add before I'll let you go here in a minute? But anything else you want to add that you want to get in or share? Or of course, if people want to— if they're not familiar with you and you want to figure out how to work with us, there's links below. You can find either one of us pretty easy.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the, the next thing I would just, you know, really encourage and emphasize, because I'm sure that there's, uh, people that watch this, um, that could be in all different stages of whether they're just getting started, they've been around for a while, or thinking about it, they don't really know. You know, the biggest thing that— probably one of the biggest lessons that I learned, not maybe not so much when I was an agent because I, I had really good persistency when I was an agent, but more so on the, the carrier side is a big thing that I like to look at and make sure people understand is it's not how much you sell, it's how much you keep. Right? Um, and if you think about it from an agent, like, the more, the more business that you keep, that's just ensuring that the families that you talk to actually still have what they need when they're going to need it, right? It does nobody any good to spend an hour talking on the phone, you know, $50 on a lead, and then all the work that you do getting them into that policy for it to cancel or fall off, right? Because now that client's right back where they started. No coverage. You get a chargeback and it's not good for anyone, right? So I encourage agents, whether you've been in it for a while or you're brand new and you're getting into it, don't, don't try to catch the, the top person. Don't try to catch them right out the door, you know. Become an expert in your product, okay? Whether that is final expense or it's IUL or whatever it is, become an expert with that product. And I mean, I'm going to put a shameless plug in there, be an expert with the AmeriCo product, um, because that's where you're, you're going to, to find the most success with. Uh, my— okay, I'm done.

Get paid really good bonuses. You didn't even talk about that. Like, there's all kinds of shit.

Oh my gosh. So you first bonus. We just had the meeting yesterday. We're getting ready to send that out. John, guess what? What is it? 2025. I mean, again, we're setting records, right? We are, we are, uh, paying out over— I don't have the final numbers yet, but we are going to be paying out over $4.2 million in bonus just bonuses, just the December one. Well, from those for the year. Yeah, both for the year.

For both.

Got it. Over $4.2 million. And in 2025 there was— oh, I think I did something at one time, like on one of our Instagram posts or something. What are those like, the RAPs? I don't know. I have no idea what any of that stuff means. Thank goodness we have a social media person because I don't know what any of it means. But, um, there was over like 230 or 240 first-time You First bonus.

No kidding.

Like, sick. And I'm like, some of these bonuses could seriously be like life-changing.

Yeah.

Like, I, I, I remember one story. I'll never forget this story. Um, we were on one of the cruises I think it was the cruise last year, the year before, I don't remember. But I had an agent come up to me and I remember this agent because I actually made a phone call to them and because they were a first-time earner and they came up to me and his wife was with her, with him. And he was like, Lindsay, I just have to shake your hand because I have to tell you the story. The morning that you called me and told me congratulations that I had earned the bonus, our refrigerator had gone out. We had ran over, um, something on the car, and like we needed to get like 4 new tires on our car, and we were a month behind on our rent, and I needed— and I needed about almost like $9,000 is what I needed. And my wife told me that morning, she said, if we can't figure this out today, you need to find another job. And when I called him, his bonus was like $9,200 and like $20 or something like that. And It was one of those things that he was like, Lindsay, that changed our life. Like, it got what we needed, but it also was just confirmation for me and my wife that we are where we're— where I'm supposed to be. And since then, he's hit that bonus every single time. And he was like, he said, AmeriCo changed our life. So I would like— that's one of those stories where like Okay, I love what I do. I mean, I really do love what I do.

I do.

It's another one. But it's those little stories that people share that it was nothing that I did. I didn't do it. It was all on him and the work that he did and the partnership that we have together. So absolutely loved it. But yeah, we're sending out bonuses. It's exciting.

It's good stuff. I have heard so many stories over the years of that bonus changing people's worlds. It's been cool to see. So yeah, appreciate what you guys are doing, and thank you for coming on and sharing bonus stuff. I was like, shit, this might be a 20-minute Curio product call, and I'm like, Jim's all kinds of good stuff on here.

So I don't even really know if we talked much about our products. We got enough.

We, we gave them enough to get them intrigued and looking. And if y'all want more, hit me up, hit Lindsey up. Either one will help you out, point you in the right direction. Um, and hey, if, if you break any records on this pod, Reese will let me know when it gets released. He always goes, this one ranked here, this one ranked here.

So if you rank high, maybe you get back on, and then maybe we'll do more product.

Okay. Yeah, normally those put us to sleep, but I just— we can do it. We— they're needed.

Absolutely. Because I feel like there's a lot of the products— I mean, obviously final expense and IUL are our big ones, but I think there's, there's still a lot of products in our in our term series, like the continuation, like that is a, that's a product that you won't find with any other carrier. That is Americo only. And like our CBOs, our cashbacks, like I, I sold those all the time. I actually have them because when at the very end of them, I'm rolling all that money and I'm rolling all that into it to an annuity. And now I'm, you know, how you can structure and, uh, not just take care of covering them for their life and protecting their lives, but now you're also looking out for their finances. So when you can tie the two together, I mean, you've heard Euphemia and all of them talking so much about like the annuities and how much money is left on the table. And so when you're able to talk about, you know, protecting life and then put a product in place to, you know, help with annuities and do the whole shebang, Oh my gosh, there's, there's so much you could do.

One of the— I have a lot of training videos out there. One of the most followed ones in my career is me selling, uh, a mortgage protection angle. Yeah. And it was all— and be— to be fair to Frankie, I learned it from him early on when I was brand new. I sold the motherfucking snot out of the 25-year cashback.

Oh my gosh.

Yeah, that was the easiest. I mean, I cleaned up with that thing.

Yeah, I've got a 25 and a 30-year, and people are like, well, why both?

I was like, why not? Staggered.

And yeah, smart. Why not? One of them gonna be 60, the other one I'm gonna be 30— or 30— well, the other one, maybe 65. I'm gonna need it.

So it's good. I love it. Well, I appreciate you coming on and sharing. Keep doing your thing. Say what's up to the folks in the office for me. Oh, I have lots of friends over there, so tell everybody I said hi. And if I can do anything for you guys, let me know.

Well, next time I come see you, all right, some leads, and I'm gonna hold you to it on the phone.

I'm gonna hold you to it. We're gonna set that up. I'm gonna tell Amanda now, and we're not gonna forget— Reese is editing this, so he's gonna cut that clip out and remind you that next time you come, you're gonna be selling.

That's right. Awesome. Well, John, thank you so much. You guys have a great day. Can't wait to see you guys next. And again, thank you for the partnership and everything you guys do.

Always appreciate you. Y'all have a good one. If you need anything from me, let me know. Appreciate y'all following, all the jazz. Have a good day. Later, guys. If you've enjoyed the podcast or any of the previous episodes, if you're on Spotify or any of the other Apple podcast platforms, would love if you'd go in and leave a review for us. Um, if you're, if you're watching on YouTube, comment, like, subscribe, share, do all the things. We'd greatly appreciate it. Helps get the word out to everybody. Appreciate you, and we'll see See you on the next one.