How This Agent Made $230k Commission In 4 Months

All right, what's going on, Ladies and gentlemen, in today's video, I am interviewing an agent who is using our system and in the last four months has made $230,000 in gross commissions on $40,000 spent on marketing. So he's running IUL and Annuity Marketing. We're basically going to walk through what his process is, what he's doing to see such fantastic results and ultimately where he goes from here. So, Brendan, welcome to the channel. Appreciate you jumping on. Give us just a brief background on yourself, what you were doing before we started working together, and then kind of talk us through what you're doing now.

Yeah, I appreciate it. Thanks for taking the time to put me on here. Yeah. So before I was running, like, final expense and different stuff like that, I branched out into advanced markets a little bit, was a little nervous to take the leap of faith, but really I was running, like, pay per lead ads and everything like that. I had, like, a simple management company that did some Facebook stuff, but, you know, they were never really around right when you needed something or something wasn't going right, they didn't fix it for me. So, you know, I was pleasantly surprised to find advanced agent marketing. You know, it's incredible as far as what we've been able to accomplish, and I know without a shadow of a doubt that we wouldn't be 1% hundred on the trajectory that we're on without them, you know. So as far as me, yeah, I had taken the leap of faith into IUL back in March, first month, little bit of a struggle, but then the rest is history from there. You know, we've been moving, moving forward fast, and then we just recently added annuity, and annuity's really taken off. The two kind of go hand in hand, and so it works really well for the business.

Got it. So we were just looking at some numbers before I took some notes here on the iPad. So you have 230k in commissions from June to now. $80,000 of that was from Annuity. Correct. And then 150k was from the life side.

Yep, got it.

And so you've earned around $300,000 in life premium, $1,500,000 in annuity, and you've only spent $41,000 on marketing over four months to do that. Your average cost per lead for IUL is 21 bucks. And your average cost per lead for an annuity lead is 37 bucks.

Incredible. Absolutely incredible. If you'd have told me that one on the IUL side, I mean, that's incredible. But if you can put a quality annuity lead on the schedule for 34 bucks, what'd you say was 34?

3,727.

To be 3,727, you can put a pre booked annuity lead on there. And I'll tell you that we've talked to probably 8 million in premium. We have another 2 or 3 million pending. So there is just so much more business to be had in this thing. And that's just what we've done in about a month.

You said that's what you've done in a month. On the annuity side, you've only been doing the annuities for a month?

Yeah, about a month. A little over a month. And that's just the contacts that we have out of a month. And I can't wait to see this thing forecasted out. A year going to be insane.

Talk me through like maybe some of the people or the cases like that you've talked to because I know you said you did like final expense before. Obviously it's a much different prospect. What are the types of people that you're talking to? Like maybe give me some examples.

So you're talking to a lot, lot different clientele, right? I mean you're talking to people that are 1 percenters and have a lot of money and you're talking to people that, you know, Maybe they have 250 or 500,000 and total assets and they're trying to figure out how to turn that into guaranteed lifetime income so that they don't run out of money in retirement. I mean that's really the big, the big shift between the two. As far as the IUL side goes, you're talking to a ton of business owners, people with a lot of money. They're hard to get a hold of, you know, in a sense, but when you do get a hold of them, they're big, big cases. You know, people making 3, 4, 500,000 a year are hard to get a hold of. But you also have a good mix on the bottom too where people are maybe making 150 and they can peel out, you know, maybe three to four or 500 bucks a month, something like that. So a lot of different mix in a sense there.

So you're doing everything 100 virtual correct. Like you're not meeting people in person or you're not like buying a bunch of people like Pizza Hut and steak and going to the local library and dancing around on in front of people.

For an hour and a half. Not nothing like that no, it's incredible, man. If you'd ever asked me if we could do this thing virtual like this, you know, there's a lot of people out there that would have said no. But it's, you know, you just, you got to work through it, man. You take the swings and get your at bats. And the more at bats you can get, the more chances you have to sell something. And it's not really in these two categories. In iul, I never. And you know, I said sell, I don't really mean sell, right. Because it's more of a presentation. You're just kind of showing them the options. Here's what you can do, here's what this can look like. You don't ever want to hard press somebody into these because it doesn't work out, they blow up and then, you know, you're out your commission or whatever. But if you can show people the right way to structure an iul, the right way to structure an annuity, that's going to get you so far. Because it's not a hard sell thing. It's really just present the options and, you know, they'll make a decision.

So for the people that maybe, you know, they have that mental block about like selling virtually, what are you doing different that's allowing you to see success? Because there's a lot of people that like, for, they just cannot possibly fathom that you could get somebody. So you said you did 1.5 million annuity premium. What was the biggest one, 700k or something, right?

Yep.

So how can you get some stranger or someone to trust a stranger on the Internet with all of their life savings if they just met you over a Zoom call? How is that even possible?

Well, we use Zoom and, you know, we have a team. I mean, our team's got, you know, 70 years combined experience. But all that aside, really it comes down to the agent, you know, and it's, it's, what can you do to set yourself apart from the rest of the pack? Everybody's going to pitch it, Everybody's, you know, calling them, calling them, calling them. But having multiple carriers, the ability to touch different things and then knowing, you know, what to do with those things is what helps set us aside, really. I mean, I still can't even fathom the fact that we can get somebody on the phone and, you know, they put their trust in us like that. I mean, it's incredible, really, that we can do that. But it's done. We do it over Zoom, different things like that.

And, you know, it's just all about how you present yourself. And you cannot push. You cannot push and push and push and push and push, because they'll just blow right out. But people are amazed.

How do you feel like you're building that trust? Like, what are, what are you doing differently than other people that aren't able to see success? Because, like, what you described is basically like, you know, for one, doesn't seem like obviously you've seen the results of it, but you don't have any mental block towards selling. Virtually a lot of people, I feel like, have that mental block and it kind of self sabotages them in a way. But like, is there anything you're doing differently or is it literally just like running through the normal process, being a genuine person that actually is trying to solve their problem as opposed to sell them something and then, you know, since COVID people are just fine talking over zoom, it's not like a big deal.

Yeah, well, I see a lot of that, you know, like going like over zoom and everything. People are warming up to that idea. Yeah, I will say no. There's no. I don't have a mental block. Like, my whole day, you know, starts and ends the same way. And that's, you know, get in and, you know, do what you can do. Make as many dials as you can make. Do your thing, you know, and make sure everybody's on point. Other than that, it's just the same same old, same old, man. We make our dials, we do our stuff and we just, we go hard, you know, and we, we try to make something happen. I can't ever get sideways on one particular deal. Like, if I sit spending too much time on one deal or one customer or one thing that blows up, it gets the whole thing sideways. So there's so much more money. And I, I tell the people that work with me this all the time. I'm like, hey, you're hung up on a big target policy, and you have no idea the amount of business you are stepping over. One of my greatest managers of all time always told me, like, if you come back up and you're like, hey, because I was an auto refi for five, six years before I got into insurance. And we would have some, you know, we would have some clients where we're like, man, we got the full boat. We got everything with sold, all the warranties, whatever. And then, you know, that deal will go sideways. And so there would be guys, and me, myself, especially in the beginning, I would be like, man, I just, I'm so sideways about this. And it just bends you for, like, a couple hours. Well, the longer you spend thinking about that one particular thing versus getting back in there and trying to make the dials, he would always say, why aren't you back in the phone? And I was like, man, who are you? You know, like. But it made so much sense. And now that I'm here and not there and we're running an agency and we're doing different things, it's like, man, I couldn't agree more. You cannot sit and lose sleep over one particular client. You just got to get back in there and do what you can do. Control the things you can control. All the rest of it doesn't matter. Mm. And so your work.

I have two questions, because there's. There's going to be two different types of people watching this, right? One is going to be people that were in the situation that you were in where you were selling final expense, and you knew you wanted to get into advanced markets, but maybe you didn't know how to sell it yet, or maybe you did.

I don't know.

I guess we're about to find out.

And then you probably didn't have the leads in order to do it. So one is like, what would you tell somebody that is wanting to get into advanced markets? And then two. Second part of question. What would you tell somebody that already knows how to sell but is maybe doing seminars or they just haven't figured out how to do it online at major scale?

Train, find videos and train. Just, you gotta train. You cannot do this business without training. My biggest success in this business was when I would get down in the beginning, I would find videos and find videos and find videos. How did that guy do it? And I would do it at night. I would do it whenever I had time. In the morning, if I had some time between an appointment or whatever. And I could justify watching a video over making a dial, which is hard to do. That is hard because I just want to be in there. But, like, train. There is so much knowledge on the Internet and things you can find of guys that are in your exact same position, that have been there, that have done it, and they have came out the other side. So the only thing that you can do is figure out, find somebody like that. You don't necessarily have to reach out. Just watch their video. And if you feel like you're missing somewhere, then figure out what you're doing wrong. And the way that I would always relate that is like, when I get down or I have a slow week, or I Have a slow week.

Is.

I'm, like, looking at the board. I'm like, how can other people be doing this? And I can't figure it out. So I'm missing something. What am I missing? And so I dive in and I find out, and then I go back to work, you know, and so that's the. Anybody who's out there that might be right on the edge struggling, and they just don't know how to get there. Find a video and watch it of somebody, like, literally type in Google, hey, I'm struggling with iul. Whatever. And it'll pop up because there's so much knowledge out there for somebody that's doing dinner seminars and driving around the country. My question to you is, why? Why, if you don't have to do that, why do you know? I was having a funny conversation. My dad's been doing annuities for 35 years. The guy's been around the block. He always drives in the car everywhere. And I'm like, dude, why? Why? I'm like, here's the thing. I could have a guy in North Carolina. I'm in Colorado. I could have a guy in North Carolina call me and say, I've got 5 million in investable assets and I will do 2 million with you if you come and see me. Nope, we're doing it via Zoom. And the reason is, is because the amount of time lost between when I leave and I go to North Carolina and come back, not even the expense. I don't care about the expense, whatever. Like, just the time loss between what could come together when I'm on that plane to when I get back home is to me, it's why, if you don't have to, why? Because there will be somebody on that phone that will do that. You just have to find them.

And that's really what it comes down to. And when you have an influx of leads and you're running 37 bucks a lead, I mean, financialized leads, you know, I was having a crazy conversation with my dad, and there's a company called Financialized, and the financialized leads are running, like 490, a set appointment.

Why?

Why? I just. Why? Why would you, you know, if you don't have to, why pay that much, right? So, you know, you have an opportunity here to do something special, and it's not going to totally destroy you. Like, you can rock, you know, 10, 15,000 bucks a month in lead spend, you know, and still afford to have a bad week or two, because you could come out the other side of this thing and rate 60 or 70. I talked to a really good producer friend of mine the other day. In fact, I gave him a lead in New York because I don't have New York. And he goes, what do I owe you? And I go, don't worry about it, man. I said, if you ever want to dig into the annuity side, you know, we'll figure it out. But like this was on IUL lead and I'm like, hey, you got New York, I don't have New York. So like, you know, at the end of the day, you just got to get in and go 100%.

100%. So if someone's watching this and maybe they've thought about jumping on the board with am, what would your advice be to them?

Go take the leap of faith and go, man, there's not, I. There's not another lead gen company. Take the good with the bad, man. Take the big weeks with the small weeks, you know, and you're going to have them. You're going to have humongous weeks and you're going to have super slow weeks and you're going to be wondering, what in the world did I get myself into? But if you keep going, moving forward and you keep knowing that there's another one in the in there somewhere, you just got to find them, you're going to be wildly successful. And I can't imagine a better way to do it than with advanced agent marketing compared to pay per lead. You know, like there's companies out there getting 59 bucks a lead, different stuff like that. And they're not half as good as the stuff that you guys are running. I mean, it's.

Because I tried it all, man. I tried the bottom, I tried the top, I tried everywhere in between. And it really comes back to the basic principle of how many leads can you get? Well, a 20 some dollar lead or 30 some dollar lead helps you get a lot more volume of leads compared to paying 60 lead. Right. So it comes down to volume and getting it dialed and getting it worked. So I would rather take twice the shots since half the shots. And you know, that's just how I roll though.

Especially when the leads are better quality too, to be honest. Oh, most of the vendors, the incentives are just totally misaligned to run things that are not, not going to attract the right people. And you know, there's a lot of like, technical stuff that goes behind it too with like the pixel and sending back what's working versus what not. Like you can't do that if you just have some, like, crappy lead vendor or you're just buying. It's impossible.

So true.

Yeah, well, yeah, go ahead.

I'll share my story. So, like, I'll share this real quick. So when I was coming into advanced agent market, okay, so they told me the fee, and I was sideways, man. Like, I was like, oh, my goodness. You know, like, that's so much more. Because I can do so many things with that money. However, okay, it is a leap of faith, but it is 110% worth it. I will never go back on that. But when we're in the middle of our presentation, this guy goes, what's your average? What's your average target per lead? And I go, oh, I don't know. Probably, you know, 20002500 bucks, you know, and he goes, well, for the calculator, why don't we use 3, 600? And I'm thinking 3, 600, average target.

Okay, we'll try it. And so he ran it at 3, 600, and he said, I'll be conservative at 3, 600 and use that number instead of what I was going to use, which was like, four or five thousand a copy. And I'm like. I'm just. I'm like, is this really possible? Like, I'm going through everything that everybody else is going through, right? Like, I'm not some superhuman, human, like, crazy dude, right? Like, I'm going through the same thing. And when we plugged it in at 3600, I was thinking, wow, if I could get there, that'd be amazing. Well, we run average average per copy of, like, 4,500 to 5,000 bucks. That's because the leads come in, and the majority of them are 500 to 1000 is what they want to set aside for it for iul. And so you just got to show them the best plan. I get so many replacements of people that are like, whoa, I don't know if my stuff's right. Can you just check it? And some of them replace. Some of them. We don't, you know, because they're in a good plan. But, like, at the end of the day, we're getting the opportunities. And that's what's incredible. I get a guy that's like, hey, yeah, I got, like, two and a half million in assets. I need guaranteed income of this. I'm scared to spend this because I don't want my money to run out. And we're like, whoa, how much do you want to spend a year? Well, like, I don't know. I'm looking for, like, 48,000 bucks. I'm like, what? And you're scared to spend it? Yeah. So, okay, let's show you guaranteed income, dude. And the guy's like, whoa, man. That's so exciting, you know, and it's just like, that's what we do, like, provide solutions like advanced Agent does for me, I got to do for my clients. And that's just help them see the roadmap to what they're trying to do. I mean, it's incredible.

I mean, dude, you got. What is this?

Like a.

Is over a 5x, almost a 6x, basically, in terms of what you spend.

On marketing to what you've got back.

In commissions, not including your current pipeline, I mean, you're crushing it.

Where.

Where do you go from here? What's. What's the next. Like, what's next for Brendan in your agency?

Yeah, man, I. If I do less than a million a month next year, I'm going to be very disappointed. And that's on the annuity side. And I probably want to write somewhere like 500,000 at least in IUL. That should help me get to where I want to be. So about 500,000, because I'm peeling back on IUL just a little bit and putting a little more into annuity.

Yeah, just annuity is a massive opportunity. We're seeing kind of the same thing. I mean, like, IUL is obviously still crushed, but the annuities, man, like, with.

What'S going on in the.

In the market and all the people turning 65, it's. It's crazy. It's really crazy.

Yeah, it's. You know, and everybody's nervous, too. It's wild because everybody's nervous right now about what the market's going to do. They don't know, you know, and then, you know, we take a little dip on Friday or whatever. And, you know, it just kind of helps bring that to reality. And they're just like, whoa, man. You know, and there is. There's a lot of negative publicity about annuities, but, like, if you do it the right way and you structure it the right for the client per their solution, like, you got to do a lot of information finding. This isn't just a sling stuff, you know, like, you gotta dig in on a client and figure out what they need and why they need it, and that's how you close them. And then it's just like, you know, the ones that you do get like that, it's just. You just lead them 100. Amazing.

So if someone wants to reach out to you to potentially maybe join your team or grow with you. What's the best way to reach you?

Best way to get in touch with me is B herps at Herbst Insurance Group. That's B H E R B S t@Herbst InsuranceGroup.com or Facebook. My Facebook page is Herbst Insurance Group LLC.

Awesome. Ladies and gents, if you want to learn more about working with us, click the link down below and I'll see you guys in the next one.