Why You Suck At Selling Insurance. (Fix This)

I'm gonna get started a little bit today, and, um, as always, if you guys have questions along the way or anything you want me to cover specifically about your situation, feel free to put a little, a little something in the chat. I will read them as I go, and then you usually— I'll open it up at some point, um, for questions. Sorry, I'm trying to adjust my screen over here. I want to talk a little bit today about Hitting plateaus. I feel like a lot of people hit them. I've hit a lot of them. I think I have them in different phases of my life in different ways. So I might mess up and relate it to some other things in life, but certainly some of y'all watching, if you feel like you've ever been sort of stuck somewhere in whatever spot you're in today, you know, it's funny as I talk to agents, I was talking to someone this morning who was not in the business at the beginning of this year. And has already made multiple six figures this year. Then I've talked to someone else this afternoon who's been in the business for 5 years and he's not made multiple six figures once in 5 years. Um, so it's a very interesting dynamic that I always see people in— and be clear, both of those people are at the same company, in the same group, with the same training and the same information. I mean, it's always so weird to me. Um, and I was one of them, as I've shared. You know, I wasn't— I wasn't always in a spot where I was killing it either. And even sometimes when people think I'm killing it, I'm going through phases phases where we're not really fucking killing it, or we're stuck somewhere, or I can't get through something, or I can't solve something. Um, and I wish I could bring people in to show you the daily problems we have because they never fucking end, to be very transparent. Um, you know, so for us, there's always things we're trying to get through. And I'm— it's— I, I could go— I could spend 2 hours talking about the current phase of business in ways that I can look at plateaus if I wanted, you know. But I can, I can certainly relate that a lot of people hit them, and they hit them, they hit them frequently. So what I would suggest is some of the things that I've done when I've, when I've been stuck. Um, one I think pretty important is to shift your perspective on that whatever current plateau, wherever you're stuck. I see a lot of agents and people, just humans, if I just look at people who I think are stuck in life, I have buddies and friends and people that are just there in my, in my circle that I just see stuck in life and they just can't get out of their fucking own way a lot. So I think that one, shifting your perspective is really important. Most people are in a shitty spot, tend to convince themselves that they're in a shitty spot, and they talk negative to themselves, and they feel like it's going to last forever. Whatever spot you're in, if it's not ideal, if you're not in a, I don't know, significantly better spot than you were 12 months ago or 6 months ago, it can be tough to feel like, shit, this is the forever plan. Um, and I've learned if you convince yourself of that, one, it means you're really good at fucking sales because you're convincing yourself that life is going to be like shit forever, which is one weird thing that we all do to ourselves. But we tend to give ourselves very negative feedback, um, throughout the day. So I think number one is focus on shifting your perspective, that maybe you're going through a hard time right now to earn whatever they're supposed to be next. Maybe there's you and 100 other people that are in line for whatever's— whatever the— whatever you think the world is laid out for you that you see success. Maybe you're fighting other people, and maybe you're supposed to get through this phase, and someone's gonna punk out, and that, that future life that you want is going to be available to someone else because you punk out. I look at it that way because I feel like whatever we think there is in life, whatever the achievements are, and there's always some level of like, anyone can achieve whatever they want, which is somewhat true, but if everyone did it one, it wouldn't be that important, and there wouldn't be enough of everything available to everyone. So the reality is it's not fucking true. So for me, I always feel like I'm racing for something and I'm competing against other people I can't see or talk to or touch or watch every day. But I know people are out there going for big things that I'm going for, and I know even if I go, it's obnoxious, I want a private jet to fly around, the reality is there's only so fucking many of them. You know, and, and plenty of people have them. So I just feel like whoever is going to own them in the next 5 or 10 years, me and them are competing. And so I don't— I, I do my best when I'm in a miserable situation. And, and again, my team is on this, and Amanda is on here. She's been with me 8 years, and I can go— I bet you there's 4 or 5 things I'm frustrated with today that I wish would get by. But then at the same time, I have to go like, all right, Why am I going through this? So I think shifting the way you think again to go, this isn't forever, and I do deserve to be out of this situation. Now the question is, are you going to do something about it, right? Because believing it's not the forever plan and believing that you can get out of it is one thing. For me, I've found that as much as I want to believe it and wish it and hope it, dude, it never— like, I was walking down my driveway the other day And we have these— I don't know what they are. Some kind of nut falls out of a tree. I think it's a chestnut or something. I don't even— it's the first time I've had a full fall at this current house, so there's shit falling I've never seen fall before. And this thing falls out of the tree and almost hits me in the head as I'm walking down the driveway yesterday. And I'm like, the things you want in life are not going to fall out of a tree and hit you in the head like this little walnut almost hit me. It just— it doesn't tend to work that way. Um, You know, so when I look at physical, um, plateaus like working out the gym— thank you, I assume Amanda— um, if I look at plateaus in the gym environment, one of the, one of the things that they talk about in a training methodology is something they call progressive overload. You don't have to know shit about working out. Ultimately means you add a little bit more every day. It's progressive overload. So you go, I bench press X amount, I bench press 100 pounds, cool, do 101 tomorrow, and then do 105 the next day, and then do 110. Like, very little incremental but intentional increases in weight, which sounds counterintuitive, but if you walk into a gym, 99% of people in the gym are not tracking shit. They're not writing down how much they lift, they're not looking down at how much they lifted last time, they don't look at how far they walk, they don't look at how much they're going to walk, They don't look at calories. They don't look at anything. They just kind of walk in and move weight. Whereas if you go in, you'll see some people have the notebook and they open up the notebook and they track every fucking little thing they, they lift or move. That's intentional progressive overload, right? Whereas the guy who's walking in the gym and ain't paying attention to anything— dude, you're telling me you remember the exact weight you did on the last 5 times you're on that exact machine? Dude, I, I'm not a guy that walks in with a notepad, so I know I don't remember. I kind of guess and I go, yeah, 35 pounds looks good on this one. Let's try it. Oh shit, that's too late. I can do more. And I try to guess where I should be, you know. In, in this business, I see a lot of agents do that, and we don't track our numbers, we don't track our lead flow, we don't track our deposits, we don't track our commissions, we don't track how many pickups or connections or hang-ups or no-shows or cancels. We aren't tracking all the little details to know if tomorrow's better or worse than today. You know, I got some, I got some people I follow in our space Um, if anybody is connected to Amin and Hayden and, uh, Grady and them, if you've seen, they've been posting about some— they've been doing the— they're training for a marathon now out of relatively nowhere recently, and they're younger and in, in fairly decent shape, but training for a marathon's hard. And every day they post their times, they're like, yeah, took whatever, 14 minutes for a mile, time sucks. But they always post better than yesterday. Every day after the post, they go better than yesterday, better than yesterday. Every day during this training, I've been watching them for like 2 weeks train on this stuff, and they just keep posting better than yesterday. So as you look at your career, if we said how many, how many leads did you buy, how many phone calls did you make, how much did you study your craft, whatever the things that you're working on in your space, it's like, did you do better than yesterday today? Or are we not tracking anything and we don't really know and we're sort of winging it? Um, and you know, you go to the gym long enough, I'm baffled by the amount of people— like, I've gone— I started going to this CrossFit gym like a year and a half ago. Um, and I started training for some of this endurance stuff. And I was in pretty good shape before I started this, but I started training for some endurance stuff about, uh, hard, like 9 months ago. Day after Christmas, I went on 75 Hard. Since that day, I've lost 25 pounds, and like, I think I'm at like 10, 10 or 11% of body fat I've lost, um, in 9 months. You know, but I promise every day ain't been perfect, and I promise some days I get on the scale and it goes up 7 pounds somehow. I don't fucking understand why some, some days it does it, but some days I get on and I'm fucking 211, and the next day I'll be 206, and I'm like, what the hell is happening? And we can tend to overthink it and look at one meal. Oh my God, I just had SpaghettiOs for lunch, maybe SpaghettiOs are the problem. The reality is it's just the way the body works with water weight and all kinds of other shit. And the reality is my actual physique is based on what I've done for the last 9 months. It really doesn't have jack shit to do with what I did today or yesterday. What I'm doing today or yesterday will impact what my body looks like in 3 months, dependent on if I do it again tomorrow or not. Today can be good or bad, indifferent, ugly, whatever. If tomorrow I fuck it up, or tomorrow I'm perfect, that will influence the future, right? So as you guys are stuck, it's like, are you, are you, are you, are you thinking about it right, number one? And then two, are you progressively trying to get better or do more? I'm a big fan of do more today, you know. So it's like, how many phone calls did you make yesterday? I don't know if you lifted some weight 25 times last time you went, wouldn't this time you want to either lift it 26 or do the 25 faster? You mean that tends to be what happens in, in the physical world. So in this world, it tends to be the same way. I think visualizing things is very important. I don't think that it's anybody's confused about visualizing. I don't think that most people do it in a positive manner. I think most of us let natural negative visualization happen in our life, and we think about whatever— the person we're in an argument with today and how bad it's going to be later when we talk to them, or our kids that are in whatever mood and it's— they're going to be pissed off later and it's going to be a shitty night at dinner, or damn, I don't have the lead flow and I'm going to be behind and my bills are due this week. And we visualize all these negative things. You know, when I'm, when I'm talking to my son Maddox, he, he plays, as I talk about a lot, baseball. He, um, he had games this Sunday, and, uh, it's fall season, which is a new season for, for him. He's on a new team, and just straight up, he's not really been practicing a ton. Um, he's, he shows up to the practices, but he doesn't do work on his own time a ton. And, uh, he had a really shitty fucking outing this weekend. Um, He did okay batting. He pitched terribly, like one of the worst pitching outings he's had in probably 2 years. Um, and you know, like when you know your kid, like you can read things that other people can't read, or you know your loved one and you can read body language. After about 2 pitches into his warm-up, I looked at my wife and I was like, fuck, this day's over. Because he threw 2 warm-up pitches and they didn't go where he wanted, and his whole body language went down. And he walked back to the mound like with his head down and he shook his head. And I know he was picturing himself throwing the ball in the dirt or where it shouldn't go. And he, he didn't even make it out of the first inning. He walked 6 people, he got 1 out, he let up I think only 1 hit, but he kept walking people. Um, in his, in his body language, in his demeanor, every pitch that didn't go perfect, his full body language dropped another 20%. The next pitch goes bad, drops again. After 15 or 20 pitches and only 2 or 3 went where he want, he was completely defeated. He was looking at the coach to take him out of the game, straight up just staring at the dugout, like begging basically to take him out. Now he's at the age— they're in 14U— where they're at the age where they leave the kid on the mound and let him fucking suffer and go through the pain of what it's like to have a poor performance and learn how to keep your head straight and not act like you're 8 when you're really 14. That's part of the plan now, is for them to suffer in front of other people when they don't really want to. And he's dying to come out of the game, and the coach was like— the coach goes out to see him, and Maddux basically hands him the ball. The coach gave it right back to him. Well, nah, you get back out there. He just talked to him for a minute and made him go back out and face a few more batters, which I like, you know. So for me, it's like, now talking to Maddux, I know going into it he was picturing himself because he hadn't thrown for the last couple weeks So he was picturing himself doing poorly, and he was worried about what it would be like if he didn't perform. And sure as shit, that's what came to him, you know. So it's as you're going through your day, what did you picture today to be like? Did you picture that you're going to take 3 apps today, or did you picture that nobody's going to pick up the fucking phone? Did you picture that you're going to be broke again this week? Did you picture that you're not going to have lead money again this week? Like, what are you visualizing for your future in business? I think it's an important piece of it. I certainly know if you picture negative stuff, your body language is going to be different when you're performing. And I know when your body language is different, your mentality is different. And when your mentality is different, everyone around you feels it and sees it, you know. And it's going to be really hard to break out of the situation you're in when you're acting like a little kid in a baseball game that's not going his way. And that's— we can all do it. You record me dialing, I will, I will, I will instinctively go like, fuck, but I catch it quick, you know. Again, I'm playing on the phones now. If y'all been watching, I've been— I've sold a few policies this week just dicking around with the new telesales and new group I got, and people whining about things that I think are easy. I'm like, fuck it, I'll go out and do it. I sold like 7 grand, 6, 7 grand in the last like 10 days just straight up dicking around. Um, and I don't know how to log into any carrier. I don't know where any of the buttons are. I haven't touched an e-app ever. On most carriers. Um, I haven't written at all in full-time in 8 years. You know, I don't, I don't know a lot. I have a lot of experience, but to roll out of bed and be like, fuck it, I'm gonna mess with some agents to sell some insurance and be in the top part of the leaderboard more than most, you know what I mean? It's like my belief is so high because I just think if I call enough people, someone's gonna fucking say yes. And it worked out that way again. You know, um, so again, what are you picturing is going to happen? What's your week going to be like? I think the next thing is writing down your goals daily. I think are important. If you're killing it, don't do it. If you're not happy with where you're at, what are your goals for the day? And they don't have to be like, I want a dream home. Like, maybe your goal is to pick up the fucking phone before noon. That, that's an okay goal to have for the day, you know. Buy leads today for tomorrow instead of waiting till tomorrow. Fine. You know, be positive on the phone. Get 30 people to tell you to fuck off and not be emotional about it. I don't care what the goal is. It doesn't have to be some extraordinary pipe dream goal. It's like, what is today? What are you trying to accomplish today? So there's got to be something that you suck at that you want to get better at today. And if you don't put it down on a piece of paper— now, if it's working for you without doing that, keep doing what you're doing. But I found that most people on these calls are not not in the best spot financially typically. And these little things are really easy to do, and I bet most don't do them. I bet there's no one who's doing all of them daily, you know. So I think write them down, um, and I, I think write down measurable goals is important versus just like, I want to be rich, I want to have a dream home, I want to have nice things, you know. I think, dude, write down, I will, I will be on the phone before 7 AM. I dare some of y'all to write that one down. You know, I will make 1,000 phone calls before I do something on the television. I, I suggest some of y'all write ones like that down. You know, I'll, I'll present 30 times this week before I treat myself to fucking Chick-fil-A. Dude, put something in your way that's something for you to grasp for and achieve, and something very measurable. You know, I'm a big fan, as you know, of, of numbers, because one, they don't lie, and they're easy to chase. If I go, I'm gonna, I'm gonna make fucking 600 phone calls today no matter what. It's really easy to go, I got from 7 AM to 9 PM, that's 14 hours. Shit, I better knock out at least 30 an hour over the course of 16 hours to get me 800. You know what I mean? It's like you can map out your day if you understand where you're trying to achieve. You're trying to hit 300 phone calls, dude, it's a long day. 18 hours you got to make 300 phone calls. What do you got to do? 20 an hour, 30 an hour. It's not that deep. So put something on paper, track it, and then previously the progressive overload, beat it tomorrow. You know what up, y'all? So YouTube memberships, we have one now right next to the subscribe button. There's a neon white join button, you can't miss it. Subscribe, whatever it says, click the link, get in there. I do a ton of coaching, teaching people how to dial corrections working on their presentations, working on their mindset. I will coach on theory, but I like coaching real-world stuff. And if you join the membership section, you're going to see live coaching where I'm not only helping people, but every once in a while I get in there and dial myself. There's some cool videos coming out, tons of content. All the training videos will be directly on my YouTube channel that's available to members only, super easy to find. So join now if you're interested, click below. See you in there. And then look at, look at small wins throughout your day. You know, a win doesn't have to mean I'm suddenly rich today. If that's your measurement for a win, it's going to be— it's gonna be a lot of rough days. So give yourself some grace. Look at the little things that you do that are wins every day. For some people, it's fucking getting out of bed without hitting snooze 5 times. That's the reality of some people's lives, you know. For some people, it's just not being afraid to pick up the phone. I am the king of saying triple dial. It's what— it's who I am. And dude, after the second one, I hesitate because I'm fucking human. I know y'all are worried about calling people 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 times. I'm not confused. I preach it and I feel funny, but I force myself to do it because I know it works. And then every time someone picks up on the third or fourth one and they just go, hello, I convince myself again that no one gives a shit when you call them multiple times. You know, and then at the same time, I had a lazy lady lose her ever-loving fucking mind on me after one phone call. You may ask, like, so who am I to prejudge all this stuff that I put in my head? Why don't I just go at what I know works? I did a podcast with a dude today, come out in a few weeks. I don't know when it'll release, Reese, if you're watching, um, but this was a good one. I, I had this dude, Juan Franco. He's, he's probably sold I don't know, fuck, 5— in the ballpark of $5 million on his own pen in the last 5 years he's been with us. He's cracked a million 2 years, 2 years in a row. The year before that was $900,000. His first year was $400,000, and his— that other year was somewhere in the middle. So it's somewhere in the ballpark of $5 million in production on his own pen. Guy's 63 years old today, 62, 63. He started with us when he was 57, um, and he became one of the, one of the, one of the highest paid producers in our group. And, um, you know, I started asking him what he sees that most people do wrong. And I don't know the guy super well. He's in our group. I know him, we chat, but I don't, I don't have a deep down connection with him necessarily. So some of the questions— and if you know me, when I do the podcast, I don't really prep for them. I just get on the podcast and I start asking questions. I do literally zero prep. I just like trying to— I just like figuring people out live. And, uh, so we're talking, and one of the questions I asked him was what he sees a lot of new agents do wrong. That— and he said it's, it's the work and the lead flow. And I'm like, okay, makes sense. What about the guy that has the lead flow and he thinks he's doing the work? What are they doing wrong? And he— I'm shocked at his answer, which I'm not, but I was because I wasn't expecting it from this guy. He goes, almost no agents triple dial. He goes, almost every appointment I book is on after 2 phone calls. Almost all of them are on the 3rd or more phone calls. And he goes, so many people know to do it and they just won't do it because they're scared. And he goes, dude, I can't tell you how many days on dial day, the third, and the third call is the one that I booked the appointments on. And this cat's selling $1 million plus a year on his own pen and he's still fucking triple dialing, you know. And it's again something so easy, whereas I hear some people go, that's mean, it's rude, it shouldn't be, blah blah. They have all these objections. I'm like, fine, don't do it. I don't care if you're, if you're happy with where you're at financially. Don't do it. I don't give a shit. But if you're unhappy with where you're at and you've not done it, take 30 days and triple dial every lead you got and call me in 30 days and tell me it didn't work better. I fucking promise you, you won't be able to do it. I've not— in 14 years has someone called me back and be like, you're right, fuck, that did not work, John. Sorry, you said it would work. I did it every time. It didn't work every time. It's like, you were right, shit, my bad. Um, but there's a mental block there, you know. And for me, the part of the visualization is I'm visualizing what it would look like if I didn't triple dial them and I didn't get a hold of them, and then they did die, and then their family lived like shit, and then I got to speak to them in the afterlife and go like, hey, would you have been mad if I triple dialed you? And then they punch me in the fucking face for not doing it because their family lived like shit and I was too afraid to call them. That's how I visualize it. Not saying it's perfect, but it works for me, you know what I mean? It just gets me to see it from a different perspective than you make up. In my perspective, again, after the fact, when someone sees all the bullshit, you will never convince me that a client will be like, nah dude, I, I'm glad my family's living like that because we'd have been upset if you called me 3 times on a Sunday. That'd have been really bad. But yeah, my family deserves to live. No one would say that shit. You know, so I find ways to get myself to look at things differently because I promise you I'm as imperfect as the next person. I think like shit like the next person. I just do my best to not let it linger, and, uh, and/or I let Amanda or someone else yell at me and tell me I'm being a dipshit when I am, even though I fight back often. Um, and then I think certainly there's something, which is my least favorite thing to talk about, but the reality is I think there is something to to some kind of rest and recovery for people. I think far too many of you take way too much rest and recovery time. However, I do think if you go out and run 40, 50, 60 appointments this week, probably does make sense to spend a few hours on a date night with your wife, with your phone, and you're not looking at it, you know what I mean? Like, there are pieces of this that you should, um, pay attention to your schedule. And, you know, I can remember early on in my career, one of the worst things ever was like, I felt like I was working all the time, and then I would get around my kids and I wouldn't give them the time because then I'm like, I got to be on the phone, Daddy's gonna make calls. But I was half-assing the calls. But then when the kids wanted to be around me, suddenly now it was urgent. And so I'd go in the other room and I'd dick around on the computer, and I still didn't call quick enough, you know what I mean? It's like, so I was afraid to make the calls and I wasn't making the calls. But then when it came time to my kids and the one-on-one time I was using the calls as the excuse, but when I had to make the call, something else was always the excuse as to why I couldn't make the calls. That was a shitty feeling, to be with my kids and be putting them off knowing full well that if I went at it like a minute, I wouldn't have had to tell my kids, no, Daddy's got to make calls. At that point, I could have focused on them had I focused when they were at school and not in my face, you know what I mean? Like, it could have been different. Um, so I learned to set my life up in a way to where I earned that quiet time and that one-on-one time and that alone time. And that was, that was, that was the, the prize, if you will, for me doing what it took in the times that I said I would do whatever it takes to win, you know, and putting my head down early in the morning and late at night on the other days. And I've just learned— and I don't know everybody's family, I'm still baffled by it. And I sit in my house a few days a week still and I watch. I'll walk into the living room and, um, I'll see Steph. We have like— if for those who've never been, I have like— there's like a U-shape. There's two— I have two couches and then two like, uh, little recliner chairs or whatever. So there's two full-size couches in my living room, and usually Steph will be laying on one and Match will be laying on the other one, and they'll both be on fucking TikTok or Instagram or something, just scrolling. And I walk out there and I'm always like, when people tell me they couldn't work because they were spending time with their family— and I have a family— if I spent time in that moment with my family, a majority of the time I would just be the third person on a couch scrolling. It's not really that good of family time to me. And I walk in there and I'm like, dude, there— I'd make no difference in my family's life sitting down on the couch scrolling with them, like none whatsoever. And the reality is most people who use family time is just after work sitting down in front of a TV on a couch doing literally fucking nothing for most people. And I'm like, my family's bored out of their trees. When we're just sitting in the house doing nothing. They're bored out of their mind. I'm bored out of my mind. This family time thing, I'm like, dude, sitting on a couch— I don't know everybody's family. I just know that ain't my family's ideal time together. It's just not. Um, we ain't mad at alone time, and when we do things together, we want to do dope stuff together, you know? So for me, I learned to just be okay that I wasn't there with them doing the nothingness. And they can do the nothingness together. I don't mind that they do it. It's fine if they want to. I don't mind. But for me, I was like, I'm gonna sacrifice all the nothingness time and go make a bunch of money, and then the time I do have them with them will be higher quality. And I'll sit down and watch a game or something with Maddox every once in a while. We'll sit down, cuddle on the couch, just do nothing for a little while, but not long. Um, certainly not for hours and hours and hours, and certainly not every day of the week. And certainly not every day of the month, and certainly not every month of all year, and not certainly not every year for decades, you know what I mean? It's like, I watch things like— or I see things like Big Brother, and I remember when I used to sit and watch that shit. And all good for those that do, but they're on season like fucking 68 or 43 or some obnoxious number. And I know there's agents who have seen every episode. You know, and again, to each their own, but it's like, if you're, if you're, if you're verbally talking about unhappiness, you're going to have to find some place to sacrifice whatever it is you got going on now because it ain't fucking working, you know. And so it's like, you might have to look at some things and sacrifice some different things. And I, I, again, I just learned for me that although it might have been less time with my family if I had a timer on how long we could all just sit in the same room together And again, I don't know what y'all's families are like, but if I've seen all of us, it's not like we're sitting down having in-depth conversations about the future and having 4-hour conversations about— I don't, I don't— I see those on TV, but no one I know lives like that. So for me, I just learned to sacrifice those kind of boring, dull, unimportant moments to go be a provider to my family so I can have moments like yesterday. I was chilling in the hot tub last night with my my— the two boys, the two youngest boys, Maddox and Brayden. And Brayden is going to, um, Alaska to do a mission trip sometime this year. And I was asking him when it was, and he goes, ah, sometime in May. But then I have the Disney trip with school too. It's the senior trip. So they're going on a senior trip to Disney. And then he goes, and by the way, Dad, I'm curious, Spain— Spain is coming up too. Can I— but I haven't— I haven't— my teacher said she sent you an email for Spain, but I'm not registered yet. I'm like, I haven't seen When is it? He goes, I think it's the same time. He goes, dude, I think I might be gone for like 3 or 4 weeks straight if I go to all of them. All right, this is the conversation I'm having with my kids last night, that he's going to be out of the country for 3 straight weeks because he's got so much travel to do. And then he goes, our Alaska trip didn't sell out. He's a senior and Maddox is in 8th grade. He goes, and they go, do you mind if we ask our teacher if Maddox can come to Alaska? Because it didn't sell out. And it's, it's a high school trip, but they're gonna try to finagle the school to bring Maddox on a trip. And I'm like, I like those types of conversations with my family. I mean, just chilling in the hot tub talking about what mission trip they can go on together to learn how to help kids and do these things. And, you know, if I, if I sat on the couch and scrolled all the time, I wouldn't be able to have those different types of conversations, you know. And he's, he's talking about college last night, and he's, he wants to go to Samford which is a school in Alabama. And then I was like, every time I talk about that school, I now have to explain to everyone that it's not Stanford, it's Samford in Alabama. So we're laughing about this, but then he's like, I want to apply to Auburn and UGA. And he had all these lists of schools, and I sure as shit know, dude, 15 years ago I'd have been like, yo, community college, and how cheap of credit hours can we get, you know? And so all these things that I talk about that, quite frankly, probably a lot of you have heard before that you maybe probably just don't do. And maybe they go like, what's this have to do with success? I'm like, I don't know. I've tried them and my life has changed, you know, and I'm not perfect and I do a lot wrong. But, you know, these simple little things have helped me be able to live different and provide different for my kids. And it's what I teach them and it's what I've taught all the agents over the years. And I certainly don't think it hurts when your mind is right going at this because it's a— it can be a very lonely business if you guys leave it, leave it to yourselves and don't, don't work on yourself daily. So just some tips that I have that work for me that I want to share with you guys today. I want to open it up. If you guys— let me see if there's any questions. If you guys have questions, scrolling through here. 2 weeks. So Juan Franco's out in 2 weeks. That's good. Thanks, Reese. Be where your feet are, Mike. All right, any questions at all? If you have anything, certainly unmute if you want. If anybody has anything, um, that's all I got that I want to cover today, unless I can help you.

Okay, go ahead.

Oh, thank you, I appreciate it. Um, so I do have a question for you, man.

Um, who is this? I don't see your— sorry, I only see so many people. I don't see you on video.

Can you hear me?

Who is it though?

I turned on my camera.

Alejandro Sandoval. My team just got it. I see you, bro. Okay, I got you.

So I do have a question. So I am with FFL. I haven't been writing business for the past couple of months. So basically I had like a falling out with my uplines. I was just wondering, like, do you know, like, what, like, what would you do personally if your uplines just like started to kind of ignore you? So basically They did want me back in the team at certain points as of recently, but, um, they found out that I wanted to go with someone else within FFL, and, um, now, you know, I can't even get in contact with them.

Okay.

Yeah, I mean, what's your actual question? What should you do? Yeah, you want my honest answer? Yeah, go sell a shitload of insurance, and who gives a shit who you direct to? Because FFL has the training available to anyone who works here, no matter who you work with, right? I mean, your direct upline has zero to— at this stage of our company, has literally zero to do with your opportunity to have success, because you can follow me on paid as earned. Yeah, I mean, that's— I mean, that's a problem. Well, I mean, that— yes, because you probably weren't doing what it took. If, again, you kind of said you sort of dipped and didn't dip, and it depends who it is. It's probably an offline conversation. I don't know direct, but someone up here— there's only a few of us. You mean the guy at the top? And again, I don't know your full situation, but if it's me and I wanna— and I wanna sell insurance, again, we can talk offline if we need to. But if it's John Wetmore, and I know what I was like at the beginning, and I know I wasn't doing what it took, and I know I wasn't following the training, and I know I wasn't buying the leads that they said buy, and I know I wasn't getting on the trainings they said to get on, and I know I wasn't asking the questions that I was supposed to ask I know I wasn't following the script. Does it make sense? I know I wasn't doing all the things. I wasn't showing up to the events. I wasn't, I wasn't the ideal guy. Yeah. Um, and they— I got cut off at one point too, you know, but I had to go to someone and go, hey dude, my bad, I fucked up, and I just want to make a good living, you know what I mean? And minus the being put on as earned, I would say just go to work because the reality is This is a funny business, dude, and I don't know anything about your situation, so I'm talking very broad. Yeah, um, you know, but it's hard for a lot of people who want to hire folks and teach them how to win, right? Like, I want to teach this dude how to win really bad, but more often than not, this dude doesn't do what this dude's saying they should do, almost always. And this dude tends to expect this dude to be available 24/7 whenever the fuck I want, whenever I decide I'm ready. Like, this dude expecting that is really fucking weird to this guy. Yeah, does it make sense? And this whole thought process of like mediocre people feel like they're doing a ton and high achievers always feel like they're not doing enough, you know? And so there's this weird balance, especially you're in a 1099 independent contractor space, right? So it's like, you're 1099, I'm 1099. You don't got to work with me. Well, he don't got to fucking work with you either, you know what I'm saying? So it's like you're in this weird little pickle, but at the end of the day, dude, you need someone to help you. And just, just being very transparent, no one at the company is fired up with agents that want to switch teams. None of us are, because we realize, what's that have to do with anything? You know how many people have begged to switch to me over the years? And early on we used to say yes, and then they, they still never did shit. It. So for us, our end, there's a lot of paperwork. 15 different companies have to touch it, which means 15 different admins at FFL have to touch it, right? There's all these people have to touch stuff to turn you on, turn you off, move you as earned, not as earned, advance money, not advance money, shift teams, don't shift team. There's so much behind the scenes, you know. And then at scale, we got 30,000 agents. The, the percentage that are unhappy that want to switch stuff. At some point we're like, yeah, how about fuck off? And no, you, you have to just, uh, process-wise, they have to have a whole staff just to handle all the agents who are unhappy with their upline, right? You know what I'm saying? So you got to understand how it works from both sides, right? So no one on this side is fired up about it. No one's fired up about you if you're looking to switch. No one's happy about it, the reality, right? Except the guy who you're switching to. He's the one fired up person, you know.

So, so go ahead.

Yeah, I just want to give you some updates. So for you, depending on the group, and if you want to tell me here, fine. If— but it's—

I—

someone at the top I know, and I promise you they don't know this situation, you know. So if I'm in your situation now, I don't know the guy who you direct to, might not be anything, but someone in there has some pull. I would find the person who's making money, and if it's Wetmore, I would call and tell him all the things I fucked up and I just want to go to work and make some money for my family. That's how I would do it, knowing everything I know about the company, you know. Because the reality is, dude, no matter who it is down here, everyone in the company rolls up to like 4 or 5 of us. Yeah, so you're in a group that has massive killers. No, and I don't even know what group you're in, and I'm telling you, you're in a group full of killers because I know everybody at the next levels, those first few levels. You know, so you're going to have to just straight up, you're going to— they don't have to put you on advance, right? No one has to. We can all say no. Yeah, right. So you have to go, you have to prove why you should be opened up, you know. And again, I don't know the history, but for me, I always compare it to credit cards with people. And I'm not saying you didn't pay debt, but in my head, it's like when agents accrue debt and they don't take care of it, and then they want more carriers. To me, that's always the same as you not paying Discover and saying you want me to give you a MasterCard now too. And then from my perspective, if you don't do what it takes and you don't take care of your clients and you don't keep business on the books, your debt goes to me, right? So if you aren't doing A, B, C, D, E, and F like you're supposed to, I'll cut you off too. That's our, that's our business model, because the risk is all on the upline. You have no risk. You know what I'm saying? So it's like, if you understand the business as well, I think it'll make your approach be quite different than, hey, I should just be able to move. And I'm not saying it is that, but I, I know this space so well, I'm like, dude, you might just have to suck it up and be like, yeah, I, I need help. I know I messed up over here. Fall on the sword. Sean Mike teaches this shit. Fall on the sword, take ownership for it, you know what I mean? And just figure out a way to open up, because right now you don't have you don't have a door that's giving you access to make the money you can make, right? All right.

Yeah. And like, I talked to him last week and, you know, the conversation started of, you know, just wanting like a fresh start, you know, seeing if he would transfer me. And, um, he was like open to it, but then he told me, he was like, you know, we don't really do transfers, you know, company policy.

We don't. I mean, it's— you're gonna have to get approval and people to jump through hoops. That's what I'm saying. It— upline has nothing to do with your ability to have success. It makes us feel good. It makes this guy saying all these things. Yeah, but if you bring the original person that got you put on as earned to this new guy, my guess is he'll put you on as earned too, right? So at the end of the day, you have to change to have the success. So I, I just— and to be clear, the guy who hired me, I love him. Nice human, one of the greatest human beings on Earth. He— there wasn't a ton he could do to help me get where I wanted to go, but I never moved. I've had 100 people a fucking week for 15 years be like, upline matters. One of them does, yes, but it does not have to be your direct one. And for you to understand, the people up here, we don't give a fuck who you direct to, dude. Someone in your agency above the guy that's about your direct to he will help you, and he does not give a shit about his override. He does not care. He just wants to make sure you're willing to work your fucking face off like he did to win, or he doesn't want to help you. That's real. That's the situation we're in, because 99 out of 100 people who say they're going to do something to us never do it. 99 out of 100, dude, at least never do jack shit they tell us they're going to do, you know. And the guy you're direct to, I don't know him, my guess is he's not as experienced as this guy, if I had to guess, right? So you want, you want to get to a point—

he's pretty experienced, he's, he's made a lot of money for sure, and he's taught me a lot too. Um, he even considered bringing me back, um, but you know, once I told him, hey, I'm ready, he kind of ghosted me. So I don't know.

Yeah, I mean, again, my advice would be to see if you can go back and not ask to switch.

Right.

Just be like, dude, I got it, bro. I'm in. And to be real, say I was the guy that was— you were switching to.

Yeah.

Because people have to switch to me all the fucking time, literally by the day. I go, dude, if you go to work, I'll help you either way. Meaning for you, I don't even know you. If you fucking go to work, you, and you go fucking run 30, 40 appointments next week and you need help, you can call me. And I don't give a shit where you work. There's plenty of people like that, you know what I'm saying? So, and again, deeper conversation for another time. You asked my advice. My advice, knowing everything I know, everything all in, switching isn't the magic. And when you become a switcher, dude, the next group's gonna be like, oh great, I make him mad, he's going to want to switch again. They— you mean someone switches to someone in my group? I'm like, ah, fuck. It's not exciting. To the people who can impact, impact your world the way you want it impacted. It's not exciting for us, you know. So for me, dude, I fall on the sword and I go like, my bad, I fucked up. Tell him, dude, tell him you talk to me if you want. Be like, yo, I talked to Wetmore, he told me to fucking crawl back to you and beg, if you want. I don't care, use me for a hook if you need to, you know. And again, if there's more to it and you want to talk offline, just shoot me a DM, then we can chat offline because I might be missing something. I'm trying to be broad.

Yeah, I'm on, uh, where exactly?

Instagram is easy.

Instagram. Okay, yeah, for sure.

That's right. Yep.

Appreciate it, man.

So you got it, bro. 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. Anybody else got anything direct I can help with?

Yes, I have a question. So when you were out there selling, what was your daily schedule like? What time did you wake up? What's some of the things that you did? I'm sure you did like, uh, motivational speeches or listening motivational things. And what was your daily schedule like?

Yeah, I'm gonna give you a— I'm gonna, I'm gonna answer it somewhat, but I'm gonna give you— if you go to johnwetmore.com/resources There you go. My team knew it was coming before I even fucking said it, and they're giggling at each other right now because they like when they read my mind. I have a video and a couple worksheets where I explain this in full. I literally go through it, I map it out. It's in— I don't know if you've ever read, but I wrote a book, and the actual full schedule is in here somewhere. Like, it's mapped— like, my physical handwritten schedule's in there. But the short answer is yes, all of that, especially the earlier it was, the earlier my career. Once I realized I had to approach it differently anyway, um, it was a get up early, 5 AM kind of guy. Not because I like getting up early, but because I listened to a lot of Eric Thomas back in the day. If— I don't know if you're familiar, ET, Hip Hop Preacher. He was— I like that style. Um, and that fool was talking about getting up at 3:30, so I'm like, well, shit, I'll I'll try 5, you know. I'm not a 3:30 guy, but I certainly was listening to positive stuff. I still do. I try to consume as much as I can that's positive. I try to put myself around other people in the space that are making money and positive. And for me, this was— although selling wasn't every day, the business was every day. I never turned off business-wise, you know. I didn't, I didn't sell a lot of days, to be honest. Um, it, it drives a lot of people fucking crazy because I was only in the field— you'll see on the, on the schedule— I was only in the field 11 days a month. Um, I, I come from mostly field sales, like going to homes. Um, I've certainly dick around on the phone some, but the overwhelming majority of my career I was in, in the field. Um, and I, I only ran— I ran 2 days a week every week. So if a full, a full week month, I ran 2 days, 2 weeks out of the month. I ran 3 days one week, and I ran 4 days one week. So some weeks I only ran Tuesday, Wednesday. Every other week I did Friday, and then one, one Saturday a month. But on those days, I would see 10 clients a day. So I would see— I'd schedule 120 people a month like clockwork.

I will check that out.

Yeah, yep. And again, there's plenty of different ways to do the schedule, but the video will give you the concept of how I built it because I had, I had a lot of stuff going, like probably you and everybody else. I had life going on, divorce and all kinds of shit, kids everywhere and baby mom. I had the whole thing. So I had to map it out a certain way that worked for me and my life and my kids and my situation. Um, and that concept, um, can apply to anybody no matter what your situation is, the way I go about building it. So I'd highly recommend watching that and going through the exercise. And then once we figured out the schedule that worked for house. Um, my wife, my kids, my team, eventually even today, whatever my schedule is, everyone in my world knows, and then we follow it. Early on in my career, that's something that went on the fridge, so we all saw it and we knew the schedule for the month. Today it's all electronic, and everybody sees my personal schedule shared with— I don't even know how many people, 5 or 6 people probably see my schedule at any given time. Um, because if it ain't, if it ain't scheduled, I don't do it. For the most part, it, it today. So I'm, I'm like neurotic about schedule. So really good question. Um, and I, over the years, depending on the person's situation, I use this same exercise. The outcome isn't always the same because of people's schedules and life, you know. But at the end of the day, I don't see anybody making six figures, especially multiple six figures presenting less than 20 times a week. If you, if you aren't presenting in the ballpark of 20 times a week, you got, you got a lot of, you got a lot of room to improve. I, I see, I see almost no one killing it that's not presenting 20+ times a week at a minimum. Most, most top producers today are trying to present 6-8 times a day, and most people are, are selling 4 to 5 days a week, you know.

So how many leads would that be like virtually?

A fuck ton. A fuck ton. Yes, a motherfuck ton is the exact number. It's a lot, you know. Just for perspective, I ordered leads this week just to mess around, and I'm, I'm just, again, I'm testing some stuff. I'm doing some stuff with our new base shop, and I ordered this one vendor. It's, um, it's, it's fresh Facebook. It's through ILC, Integrity Lead Center, if you're with FFL. If you're not, it is what it is. But it's a, it's a campaign. It's Facebook campaign. They're vets. I think they're $20 a pop. So you put $1,000 down and it just comes in and I get— I guess that gets me 50, which I ordered, whatever, 10 days ago. I get probably— so $1,000 a week, right, is a number that gets me 3 to 6 leads a day. You can't do shit with that. There's no time to work. It's no time to make phone calls, you know? I mean, I get in one lead at 8, one lead at 10, one lead at 2, one lead at 4, one lead at 7. That's a— you— it's no way to operate a business, this business. It's really hard, you know. So if it's new lead flow, for me, I'm gonna do, uh, 2 vet campaigns and a mail and a, and a call-in type. So I'll— me dicking around doing it sometimes just to play, but I want to hit high number. I'm not going to do it and sell a little bit. I'm gonna do it and I'll probably drop a couple grand a week to get I don't know, that'll get me 100, 150 leads a week, you know. I mean, you ain't, you ain't gonna, you ain't gonna pitch 30 people on significantly more than 100 leads a week. Um, a lot of people— you doing like Facebook type campaigns?

Um, I actually found you off of Kaboom.

Oh, found me? So you're with Cody's stuff? How many, how many leads a week do you get now?

Um, I'm about to put my order in now. Um, he recommended about 30. So I wanted to listen to you first. And, uh, but yeah, they recommend about 50 or so of those leads.

Yeah. So again, if you think about this, if you get— let's call it 50, it's a big number, right? That's the bigger number. Over the course of 7 days, you're only going to get 7 a day on average. They might not— they might come in in 2 days, they might come— but if I, if I had to range it out and you go, I put 50 a week, on average that only gives you 7 a day. Does it make sense? Because they're not all going to come in Monday morning between 8 and 9 AM, right? It's not how it works. So if you go 7 a day, the question is, if you turn it on right now, go Cody, go, what are you going to do right now? Can you make a phone call yet?

No, I have to wait like 2 days.

Yeah.

And then when I have other phone calls, my company actually made me a manager, so I'm actually building a team as well.

So yeah, then that's what I want to get to, is like, what do you do with the time? Because lead flow— and if you watch, if you go on my— actually, my team will post it. Um, I did a— I did my main stage talk at 8% was on this concept. They'll post it. It's like a 25-minute talk. You should go watch it because I talk about this in depth. It's where a lot of agents struggle, is like, you want to do well, you mean well, but the leads only come in when they come in. You know, when I see a lot of agents, especially when they're new, they spend more time than not just sitting waiting, you know. So you— I'm glad you have other people to call on the recruiting side. Ideally, what I always tell people is you want to make sure you have your lead flow down. And depending on your financial situation, if you got— I, I got money, I can drop whatever. I'm like, fuck it, give me new lead, give them all to me, I'll take them all because I don't care. I can just— I, I don't need the ramp-up period. If you're in a space where you can't drop a few grand and you need a ramp-up period, I suggest that people do a combination of new leads and aged leads so you can get a bunch of older leads to call to just occupy your time. And again, I don't know your full situation, but when I see some people that want to sell and recruit, the recruiting doesn't pay today. That shit's slow. That shit takes— that shit's slow to get paid on. So if you go only 50 leads a week and we're only getting 7 7 a day, and the backup plan is recruit, the reality is you're just not— not saying you can't make money, but you're going to have a lot of downtime.

Well, I'm a realtor as well, so—

perfect. So again, you just got to figure out where to fill the time, you know what I mean? So it's like, what's your strategy? Do you call one the second they come in every time, or do you let them pile up so on Thursdays when you make phone calls you got 50 people to call? Or do you call one at a time as they come in? You just gotta— and that's what that schedule, that exercise will help you build out. And, and if you watch that video, it's the feeling of like, all right, I'm ready to do this. I'm ready to be insurance agent. Let's go.

Oh shit.

I have 7 people to call. Crap. You know what I mean? That's a, that's a, that's a thing people get stuck in. So that's why I typically, depending on who you work with, I would recommend a one-on-one, like lead strategy call and sit down and really plan out what it's going to feel like. Cause again, Cody doesn't mean any harm. His company's fine. They'll give you good leads, but they don't have the, they don't look at the other side of it as like, what are you gonna do for the 3 hours between your first 2 leads coming in? Or, and maybe you have a plan, but I, I, I would plan like the ones that do the best have big dial windows. They're not just taking onesie twosie calls. You know what I mean? They're knocking out hundreds of calls in a, in a sitting. And then going, all right, I booked 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 appointments in that sitting. All right, let me maybe dial again this afternoon or dial again this evening. And they tend to have dial chunks where they're, you know, spending 2, 3 hours on the phone. And when you're new, unless you have aged leads, that's hard to do right at the beginning because you're waiting for them to drip in slowly. So my advice would be get you a pile of leads also until you can figure out the lead flow game. New leads are better. But new leads don't make you good. And if you suck, it's an expensive education, and it's— and it can be a lot of time between calls, you mean. So just kind of figure that, that lead flow piece out is, is going to be the most important for you. Thank you.

Uh, John, this is, this is Linda Johnson. Um, I, I, um, what, what is the, the John John Wetmore resources. What, what was that again?

If you look in the— the link is in the chat. If you pull up the chat, but that'll take you through. You'll, you'll just fill out a form and you'll get, you'll get an email with some exercises on, um, building out your schedule and your goals.

Okay. And then, um, and then also the, the, the 3 calls, is that like, uh, like 2 dials and then hang up, 2 dials, hang up, or 3 dials and hang up?

Yeah, you know, like, you— like, if I call you and you don't pick up, I hang up and I call you right back.

No, is, is it 2 dials and then hang up, and then 2, 2 more dials to hang up, or 3 dials and hang up?

I don't know what you mean by dials. You die— you hang up after every dial. You dial someone and it either goes to voicemail, okay, okay, or they answer. Okay, if they answer, I don't have to do anything because I'm talking to them. If it goes to voicemail, I hang up and I call back. I'll do that 3 times.

Okay. And the, the third one is, um, if, if I, if I have somebody that I want to sell an annuity to, how much money do they have to have, like, say, in their pockets so that I can do an annuity? Like $20,000, $10,000?

Lowest— the lowest one anyone will even let you write is $10 grand. Probably not the best situation to be writing them in. And they're not going to let them move any more than half their money. So meaning if someone's going to move $10 grand, they're going to have to have at least $20 sitting around. Does that make sense? You can't move all your money because the goal— the point of it is to sit, to, to not lose. And then they need time for all the guarantees. Yeah, so, you know, again, they do $10,000 or $15,000, but it's not the ideal client for sure. Um, and no matter who you write, just keep in mind they're not going to let it move more than half their liquid money.

Okay, okay, good. Okay, thank you.

Hi guys, if y'all need anything, certainly let me know. I appreciate all the messages. Feel free to share this, DM me, and, uh, we'll look out. The next one will be announced shortly if it's not already. My team will send it out to you guys, but if I can help at all call, let me know. I always appreciate it. Y'all have a killer day.

I just texted you on Instagram, by the way, John.

Thank you, bro. I'll check it out a little bit later.

Okay, I appreciate you, man. God bless.

See ya.