Meet the man making $250,000,000/yr selling life insurance

All right, ladies and gentlemen, I got a very special guest here today. This Guy is doing $250 million a year in annual premium production with his agency. So, John Wetmore, welcome to the channel. How's it going, Tim?

It's going amazing, dude. Life is good. Staying busy.

Good to hear. Awesome. Well, I think, you know, with the amount of production you're doing it, I mean, to do a $250 million a year, you've obviously had to recruit a lot of agents, train a lot of agents. So I think there's a lot of value that you can provide to our audience. But, you know, first and foremost, I kind of want to just start off with how you got into the industry. What's kind of your story? What's your background for those that don't know you?

Yeah, Short version is I've got in. I've been selling for. I've been in the business actively for 12 years. A little bit more detail and it always helps keep. Give people, I think, perspective, as, you know, most people don't make it in this business. They quit, they give up on themselves, whatever. And I. People hear numbers and they see today and they're like, holy crap. Must have been an amazing ride. I'm like, it's been dope. But early on, I was just like everybody else, dude, you know, and I, I always tell. I got. I applied to be in the business. I hit a mortgage protection ad on Craigslist in 2008.

It's like August or something. 2008 took me until March of 2010 to get my license. So a year and a half. And then it took me till August of 2012 to sell my first policy.

And then I was mediocre at. I was part time for a year, mediocre at best for probably another year and a half. And my world really turned around in 2015. I decided to kind of go at it a little bit differently, take it a little bit more seriously, and got to a point where instead of selling, you know, 10, 12 apps a month, I started selling issue. I issued like half a million bucks in my own pen that year.

Wow.

Recruiting certainly changed. I was recruiting from the beginning, but I was terrible at it and scared everyone away. Right. And Everybody quit. But 2015 was the kind of year where things started to take off. I really started to figure out sales. You know, my background's like warehousing. I was an accountant for about eight or ten years after that. And, you know, just blue collar guy, just trying to figure it out. Terrible at sales, was poor at communication, but had, had to, had a willingness to learn it, you know, had some good mentors, people taught me the business, and eventually became a student. And this thing has been insane in the last nine years. Yeah, it's definitely changed my world. So.

So it sounds like, I mean, like a lot of people I talked to, you kind of had a slower start into the business. Just kind of like easing your way into it, I guess you could say.

Yeah, I mean, I was. Prior to insurance, I was doing accounting work, making 40 grand a year. So, you know, I made 60 grand part time my first year in insurance. It sounds dope when you're making 40, right. But it's not really killing it, you know, I mean, you had lead cost, of course, so my net was similar. You know, first full time year, I cracked 100 grand top line. But again, lead expenses and other things, I might have netted 70 or 80. Whatever it was wasn't again, not terrible, but my world wasn't changing.

Yeah.

You know, so I guess definitely a slower start.

What kind of. What flipped that switch for you? Because you got into the business, obviously, you know, you kind of easing your way into it. You said, you know, 60 part time. What kind of flipped in you that made you just go all out and write, you know, I think you said 500 grand in that first year and then really start taking recruiting.

Yeah, yeah, I, you know, I was, I was tired, dude. I have five kids, right. So I was, I was. At this time of the transition, I was 37. My youngest was like a few years old, whatever. It was two, I don't know, three maybe. And I had to say no to my kids a lot, you know, And I didn't like that my wife was making more money than me. She was kind of the provider. She was helping out with, hell, kids that weren't hers. Because I have kids from previous marriage and now I was, I felt like I was working a lot. I was working the phones, I was buying leads, but I felt busy. But we're still just getting by, you know what I mean? If it was like, if a chargeback hit the same week, I wanted to take a vacation. And it happened to be the same week the car payment was due.

Yeah.

You know, I mean, that week hurt.

Yeah.

And I, I hated that, man.

So we had some financial stuff come up in my, in my life. And I was, I was being an accountant and I don't know if that's the excuse because a lot of agents do this. You have, you, you deal with agents all the Time you see how analytical they are and how much they want to research everything before they move, and they want to be great at everything before. You know, I mean, like, they want to understand everything before they do anything. I was. I was that guy, too.

I know a guy who. He won't buy leads or generate leads or make calls because he's so scared of getting, like, a TCPA violation. Yeah. It's crazy.

And where now my mindset is like, dude, obviously, if it was that big a deal, all these lead companies and insurance company, they don't. They. They deal with it legally. Right. You know, I mean, it's like, I just. But I understand because I was that dude, you know? And I just. I wrote a book which. That I just put. I just dropped a book last week.

Yeah.

The concept. So if you can read the title.

Yeah. Reading that, as you were making the point, I was like this.

Yeah.

This guy's.

It's literally the point. The book is the point.

Yeah.

So I had to make a conscious decision to stop worrying so much about trying to get better at every little detail.

Right?

Because I want to do what was best for the clients. You know what I mean? And I had to go like, dude, I'm actually not helping as many clients as I could because I'm not doing anything.

Yeah.

So I had to make this conscious decision to go out, and I. Dude, I literally. I remember it clear as day. I had a new bill that hit my life. It was a thousand bucks a month, and I was pissed about it, and it was for my kids. You know what I mean? So then I kind of got mad that I was mad over a thousand bucks, right? A mentor of mine, he goes, hey, bro, can I ask you a question? Because I was losing my mind in the office one day, and he goes, are you really pissed? With all due respect, are you really pissed over one. At what you could generate in one application a month?

And I was like. I just never looked at it so simply, you know? I mean, because I can't make a thousand bucks on an app. On a Life app for sure, you know? And I was like, damn. So I kind of just went home and thought about life, man. And I'm like. I knew my numbers kind of like where I was at. I knew how many appointments I was running a week. I knew what kind of money I was making again, if I netted 70 grand. And I'm running, bro, like, eight appointments a week. It was pathetic, right? So I could kind of. I did some math, and I'm like, On average, I'm making like 200 bucks. 250 bucks an appointment. Average.

Yeah.

Right. Which factors in. Chargebacks, cancels every. It factors in everything.

Yeah.

I did the appointments. I made the money. All the. In the middle that we all hate was accounted for, and I was like, 250 bucks an appointment. Huh. And I went, what if I just go run a thousand appointments this year?

What if I just do a bunch more of it and worry about getting better later? If I just say, eff it. Let me just go at this year different and just go run a thou. Go see a thousand people at 250 bucks average. Even if I suck, won't that. Won't the just basic math equal 250 grand?

Yeah.

You know what I mean? And I was like, I'm gonna try it. I'm gonna see what the hell happens. And so I. I set up my schedule to figure out to. To. To do that, I had to schedule 120 appointments a month, which is 1500 for the year. I was gonna get. No. Showed up to 500 times. See a thousand people.

Yeah.

Close. 250 of them. That was my plan. And, dude, I didn't really account for momentum, and I didn't really account for how quick I would get really good. Because you start seeing the same stuff over and over again.

Yep.

You know, I mean, And I issued 468 grand that year, dude, and overshot the 250.

That's for sure.

Yeah. I said I just messed up and almost made double. You know what I mean? And, dude, that was it. And so I was like, holy smokes. And it just changed the way I started recruiting in the sense that I just started trying to find people that were willing to go to work and want to get out of a situation like I did. Right. You know what I mean? And. And. And we're willing to do simple steps. Should you train? Yes. Should you learn stuff? Yes. Should you know your product? Yes. The problem I have is when people want to know it before they do the work.

Right.

You know, it's like my. My youngest son, Maddox, is now 12. He plays baseball. And imagine him wanting to know how to throw a curveball before he pitches.

Yeah.

Or how to hit a slider before he takes a swing.

Yep.

You know, I mean, I'm like. And that's what. That's what a lot of people do in a lot of. A lot of industries, especially ours. And I just thank God I had a buddy who just gave me a little different insight on it. And I Just did a basic math man. And I was like, what if I just make this a math problem and forget all the emotional stuff, you know? And it. Dude, it worked out. And you know, the, the concepts which I can run through in the book. I, I just been teaching that man, for now. It's been nine years ago at that decision happened and we've blown up, dude, on one really simple concept. Just go do more now and you'll get better late. And not only is it an active choice to choose to worry about getting better later, but it's, it's, it's like predetermined it will happen.

Yeah.

If you do more now than. If I do more work than you now. And especially I'm getting coached and guided along the way and doing train doing everything I got to do, I will get better faster than you.

Oh, 100%. Have you heard, have you heard the story about the clay pots? It's a story Alex Rosi tells.

Oh, tell me May. I don't know. I don't know. But I like him.

So maybe when you say it, there's this college class, right? And there's a professor and he splits his class into like two different groups, right?

I have heard this.

You might know.

Can't tell it, but I've heard it.

Go splits his class into two groups. One class is told their assignment for the semester, quarter, whatever. I don't know. I didn't go to college. Is to make the most perfect clay pot that they possibly can. Right. And the other one is just make as many damn clay pots as possible.

Yeah.

And at the end of the quarter, the cl, the class that just made as many pots as possible had way like they're one pot. From there, as many pots as possible was better than the one pot that this other group had made. So like the volume, volume just negates luck. Like you just have to do the work. It's, it's, it's annoying to get that answer when you're an agent or when you know you're doing anything and people are just like, you just have to work more and just let it figure out. But it's the truth. It really is.

And I think we know it in other examples. That's why I give examples like Maddox. I'll certainly remember the clay pot thing going forward. You know, I mean, it's like if you give examples in any other area, again, I always do dumb stuff. And I'm like, if you're right hand, are you right handed?

Yeah, but not for badminton, tennis and ping. Pong for some reason.

How about dribbling a basketball?

Yeah, right handed for sure.

All right, cool. So if I said if you want to learn how to dribble a basketball left handed.

As fat, as good as equally as you can with your right hand, would the best way to be to watch a bunch of YouTubes on how Steph Curry does it. Would it to me to just dribble a basketball every day?

Yeah, of course.

You know what I mean? It's not that deep and people know that. Right. But the emotions do. We trick ourselves into, into thinking things and then we. Our. Our emotions help us validate the dumb stuff we think. You know what I mean? And I'm like, again, thank God for mentors. If, if you allow yourself to train yourself on thought process, you are the one struggling.

Yeah.

Probably the worst person to listen to is yourself.

Right? Yeah, you know, that's a fair point.

And I just had to learn, man, a lot of the things that were causing me failure.

It was me losing to myself.

You know, I mean like I was losing to my own self talk, my own thought process, and my own disbelief in myself. And I just. When I realized I was losing to me, dude, I was like, like, if you put up a good fight and I lose, how I can't be too mad.

Yeah.

You know, I mean, but like to, to lose to myself, I was like demoralizing, man. And so I decided to change, bro. And that was it. You know, I always ask people this question. I have a sign that hangs on my wall in my office just right around the corner.

And it says, do you hate to lose so much you're willing to change? Or do you hate change so much you're willing to lose?

I like that.

Yeah, that's good.

That's really good. So you obviously started producing more. I mean, how so? For someone that's in that situation where maybe they're kind of like half in, half out. I talked to a lot of people that are still working another job and they want to go at this full time. And it's like finding that, like finding the time to do this enough so that replaces the income from the other thing. How did you figure out how much activity to do and then how did you just like commit to it and stick to it? Because it sounds simple, like just doing it. But so many people seem to struggle with that.

Yeah, I think the most. And again, I've worked with thousands and thousands of agents at this point. I think the biggest mistake people make in that transition is they may they have the insurance money go into the same bank account as all their other money goes into. Does that make sense? So if they make 412 bucks this week, it just goes into their bank account. They just go eat Mexican two more times this week and don't notice it.

Right.

You know, so what I did is I set up a separate account so every deposit from insurance went in a side account. And the only thing that came out of it was lead money. Right. And my goal was to save up six months worth of income and continue living like we're living. Like I was already living broke. I didn't need the money to help pay bills. And trust me, I had plenty of. I've been bankrupt, I've had foreclosure, I've had car repoed. I've had all kinds of shit in my life. So I definitely had debt coming into this. And my goal wasn't to just be able to pay a few more bills every week. My goal was to get out of the job. Right? So I said, what If I save six months worth of income, so 20 grand? And I did that just in my head. I was like, that'll be a safety net. So I can go six months without making a sale and I can still pay my bills.

That's really good. I've never heard somebody, somebody say that. I've heard the separate bank account thing, but I've never heard saving six months so that you can make the transition.

I was just, that's what worked for me. And now in my head I'm like, there's no way I can go six months without making a sale. There's no way. So just the level of comfort going in making that transition to me, again, very analytical dude. At the time, right? If I am who I am today, I don't need six months, bro. You know what I mean? But at the time I did, that was, that was my comfort level, you know, 12 years ago, whatever it is.

Yeah.

And so I saved up 30 and I quit and went full time. And I. Again, I think probably the other mistake I see people make is if they're making five grand, they try to figure out how to make five grand in this part time before they quit. And I'm like, if you were doing 40 hours over here making five grand.

Yeah.

And you're doing 10 hours over here making 1200 bucks. Isn't that the same hourly rate?

Yeah, exactly.

Does that make sense?

No.

I only got to do 25% on the part time side in my head to equal the same hourly wage. So I think some people try to build up too much part time. Yeah, that's hard to do sometimes, man. When you got life going on and family and schedules and weekends and all, all the stuff it's like to, to add this every time I ask. I deal with recruiting people when they don't have the money and they're trying to transition into this. I certainly figure out where they're at financially and where they're trying to go. But one of the questions I have to ask them is like, have you and your family discussed what things you're going to give up in order to add this? Because it's going to take significantly more time out of your life doing both. It's not going to be easier. Yeah, it's going to be significantly harder. So have you decided what things you're now going to skip? Are you skipping soccer? Are you skipping church? Are you skipping, you know, youth group dinner? On what are you skipping to add this? Yeah. And that's where people miss. Dude. So when I was part time for the year, I, I had a schedule that was. I still know it to this day. Everyone in my world knows it still to this day. I dialed every Sunday after church between 2 and 6. We'd go to church, 11 o', clock, we'd get home, we do grocery, we on the way home, we do groceries, cook lunch, things like that, whatever. I'd be on the phones by two and I dial till six and I would book up Monday and Tuesday nights. This was in that. And be clear, my day is like direct mail in home sales. Right. You mean this is 12 years ago?

Yeah. So before the tele.

Yeah, yeah. Take the concept and apply it. You know what I mean? Like you can make the same thing work today.

Yeah.

But I'm just being transparent about what I did. So Sundays 2 to 6 and I booked appointments for Monday and Tuesday after work and then Thursday and Friday during my lunch break at work, I would get on the phones and I would book Saturdays from like 8 to 2ish. I'd run like a half day on Saturday, 5, 6, 7 appointments. And so I'd get, you know, and I just did that every, every single week. That was my schedule I didn't miss.

Yeah.

So whatever my family had going on between two and six on Sundays, I didn't participate. Whatever they had going on the Saturdays and Monday and Tuesday nights, I didn't participate. And that was a family decision.

Yeah.

So everybody's got to figure out again where you're at and is and are y' all willing to sacrifice for a little while to. To get out of your currency.

That's the thing, too, is, like, it's a temporary sacrifice. It's not like you have to do it forever.

Yeah.

Like, you can either sacrifice a little bit now, or you can forever have money problems. Yeah. Yeah.

It's no different than if someone wants to, like, go to night school to get an extra, get a master's degree. Like, you have to sacrifice some stuff.

Yeah.

Like, buckle up.

Yeah.

You know, 100.

So you went from, obviously, you know, it sounds like, to kind of summarize that it was really just like making a schedule, blocking up the time, and then just being disciplined enough to stick with it. Like, it's. It's literally just that simple.

Yeah. I mean, when I. When I went into the 2015 to do the 120 appointments a month again, field sales, dude, I'm telesales, bro. I'm cranking more than that today.

Yeah.

I want to do big numbers. Yeah. But I built, like, a calendar, and I have trainings on this stuff, and if anybody follows my. I give it out. But I basically take a calendar for the month. And what I did is I. I built my ideal schedule. So I put in the things first that I don't want to move, ideally. And all that revolved around my kids. You know, again, I had four kids from a previous marriage, so I would get them one night for dinner and every other weekend. So in my calendar, Thursday nights were off. Right. Then every other weekend, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. I didn't want to work because I had the kids.

Right.

And then every Sunday, I didn't want to work. That was the preference when I was full time. Right. So that left Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. Every week. I was wide open.

Thursday mornings because I would get my kids from school at three for dinner. Right. And then. And then every other weekend. And so I was like. I chose. So on Mondays, I would make phone calls. I'd run appointments Tuesday, Wednesday, every week. So Tuesday, Wednesday, every week. That's eight days a month. I do every other Friday. And then of the two Saturdays I was off, I chose to work one and one to stay home with my wife and my youngest, Maddox. So every Tuesday, Wednesday, every other Friday, one Saturday a month, I was in the field. It's 11 days a month.

Yeah.

120 appointments. I just had to book 11 appointments each day, dude.

Yeah.

You know, I mean, and I just. I ran that to a T. My family knew it. My wife knew it. The schedule hung on our fridge. And I mean, If I didn't do what it took to book the appointments, for the numbers to work out my favor, I knew I was then going to have to sacrifice when my kids were around for the weekend, I wouldn't be able to do those things. So that held me accountable.

Yeah.

You know, and certainly during holidays, I could just shift it a little bit, move things around, whatever. But that was a general basis is, Is just narrowing down a schedule and, you know, getting the family to understand what we're trying to accomplish.

100. So how did you go from that to obviously where you are today, you know, 250 million dollar agency. What does the transition look like?

It wasn't really a transition as much as it was simultaneous.

Yeah. Okay.

You know what I mean? I was for perspective. I was recruiting when I was driving to my accounting job full time. When I had that. When I was doing this part time. Yeah. So I'm, I would run Craigslist ads at the time. Again, that's where I applied. So I was like, hell, let me run ads. There's. So I stole the ad I applied to and I just ran the same ad. And I'd be commuting. I had like an hour and a half commute to my accounting job. And so I'd be doing recruiting calls on the interstate, driving to and from my accounting job. And my first two years, dude, I did like 700 interviews myself. And at the end of 2014, I still only had one active agent and his name was John Wetmore. Oh, no. Yeah, buddy.

So. And I had, I had a few start, you know what I mean? A couple get started, sell a couple policies, and quit. And were these new sites or like.

Already licensed agents mostly unlicensed?

For sure. You know, when you run ads, it tends to be mostly unlicensed. Certainly every once in a blue moon, I'd come across someone licensed. I would hit up LinkedIn, and I thought licensed agents was going to be the magic to it all. And that definitely turned out to not be true.

Yeah.

So I just kept at it, man. I had to get good at it. I had to learn it. I was, I, I was, I was, man, I didn't realize how different everybody thought. I thought everybody would want out of life what I wanted out of life.

Yeah.

And I, and I, I would kind of like, try to. I wanted to hire me.

Yep.

That's probably the biggest mistake I made is I was always looking to hire more of me. And then I realized, man, if everyone was what I wanted them to be, what on earth would they need me for.

You know what I mean? So I. I learned to value the things that frustrate most people trying to build.

Okay.

You know, I mean, like, if they were perfect, what do they need my help for? Right. Like, I had the drive on my own. I had the willingness to do things on my. I didn't need. Now I had mentors.

Yeah.

But for me to get out of bed and work, I didn't need that. Right. So if all. If that's all. And I always say this, dude, if I. It's a weird analogy, but it works. Like, if me and you were going to go open Chick Fil a franchises all across the country and the only people we wanted to hire to work in them were other people who wanted to run Chick Fil A franchises.

Yeah.

How well would. That.

It would quit pretty quickly.

Yeah. It wouldn't work at all.

Yeah.

You know what I'm saying? So I had to learn that I was the problem. And I had to learn how to be dynamic with different personality types and people with different desires and people who learn different people who have different thought process. I had to change.

Yeah.

And learn how to work with more people. So I started studying leadership. Big John Maxwell fan. Big John Gordon fan. I just started following and reading about these guys that are really good at it. And five levels of leadership taught me a ton. It's one of my favorite books ever. From Maxwell.

Yep.

And man. So I just started really thinking, finding out more about people that I was talking to, finding out where they were at in life, where they wanted to go, and then that middle. What they were willing to sacrifice. And dude, some people, I found out, only want to make 70 grand a year and don't want to sacrifice much.

Yeah.

Who am I to be mad?

Yeah. As long as they can make 70 grand a year working from home and being with.

Yeah. Doing whatever they want.

Life, honestly, it really is correct.

It's not bad. You know, not everybody had to want to make half a million bucks. And so my, My kind of mantra became let me just. Let me be the dude that helps people get paid. Whereas at the beginning, man, I was trying to push people so I could get paid. Because I'm one of the overrides. Right. You know what I mean? And when I, When I made the. When I, When I started making money on my own pen, I was like, dude, I actually don't need agents to make a bunch of money. I can do it on my own. Yeah. But I really want to help people feel what this feels like to make this kind of money for their family. And so I just started really diving in, man. It's like sales. So I started to make a lot of sales. You really just have to solve problems. Fair. To solve problems, you got to be able to identify problems. And to identify problems, you got to be really good at asking questions.

Yeah.

And to even get the opportunity to ask questions, you got to get people to like and trust you. Does it make sense? So I started doing the same thing on the recruiting side.

Yeah.

How can I. How can I get these people to like and trust me and build a relationship with them and ask questions so I can identify their situation and guide them, be the guide towards what they were trying to achieve, you know, and then I had to have some level of boundaries too, in the sense that if they didn't want to work a ton, you know, I mean, they wanted low activity, they wanted to limp in on lead span, they didn't want to spend a bunch of money. All good.

Yeah.

But I just had to set the right expectations for people and let them know it was probably going to be inconsistent and relatively suck for the rest of time.

Right. Because you don't get paid every week the same thing.

Yeah.

If you're inconsistent with your activity, dude, your income is like. Yeah.

It's all over the place.

And that doesn't change.

Yeah.

So if you're going to have low activity.

Cool.

High five. I just, I just had a no complaining rule because I'm telling you up front, it's going to be inconsistent and suck.

Yeah.

You can make good money part time. You can make great money.

Yeah.

But I don't know if every week it's going to hit the way you want to hit. You know what I'm saying?

Yeah.

So I just, I started being really transparent about what the business was, the hard work it took, who I am as a person. What changed for me, that it was hard work.

Yeah.

You know, I mean, and I. Can I sell? Yes. Can I teach you sales stuff?

Yes.

But dude, if you're seeing four people a week, none of that matters, right?

Yeah. I mean, for you to get from. Because obviously, you know, going and doing like cold calling people or doing the Craigslist ads, all that stuff. That, that's obviously good to get your first few recruits, but what did it look like for you to get to like the next level?

Right.

Because you're like, I'm. I'm imagining you're not training every single agent individually. Right.

I sure as was then, I am now. I'm not now. Not. Not today.

Okay.

But then.

Is it like. Is it like you recruited people that were then leaders, that then. That's when growth.

I wish. Yeah. That's what I. That's what I thought was going to happen. It did, eventually.

That's not what happened.

They were not leaders from the beginning. No.

Okay.

I didn't just hire someone. They're like, I want to be a leader, and I'm gonna kill it.

Here.

Here you go. And I'm taking all the. No, that ain't how it worked, dude.

Yeah.

I got.

Most of them are direct to you or what is like this.

Yeah. So I got to about 40, 40, 50 people direct to me by 2017.

There's no.

About a half million bucks a month in premium.

Yeah.

That's when I hired my first staff. And I always tell people this, man, at the. At that time, let's call it 50, we'll round up, say it was probably 50, you know, varied month to month, but call it 50.

50 agents.

Yep. Direct to me for the most part. There were. I had 12 people at that time that were quote, unquote, leaders that were doing some form of fashion of recruiting. The biggest group I had when I was doing a half million bucks was one. One girl. She had like four agents. They were doing like 60 grand a month. So most of it was still direct to me. It was mostly just, this one has one agent, this one has to. This one. You know, I mean, it was very little.

Yeah.

And I'll fast forward a little bit, and then I'll come back. When we got to a point where we were doing like two million plus a month, two and a half million a month, which was the end of 2019.

Nine of those 12 managers were still with me.

Not one of them had grown any since 2017. They. They helped me get to a certain point. Right. But then what I learned, I did two things really well. I was very cold market hiring ads. All ads or cold dms, things like. That's everything I hired.

Yeah.

I never really hired a warm market buddy. That killed it.

Yeah.

But what I would do is I would. I would. To me, every agent I hired was a recruiter for me. And not in a weird, sleazy, you got to build a big agency kind of way. I just know they know people. Right. So I would just always simply ask, like, hey, Tim, obviously I'm going to help you get started in the business. My goal is to help you make. You said you want to make a couple hundred grand a year. That's my goal. My assumption is, you know, other people in your circle that are looking for opportunity to.

First question, do you want to sell life insurance for the rest of time until you die, or do you have interest in one day building an agency?

And people would answer, you know, I mean, most would go like, yeah, one day. But you know, I want, I want to learn it first. Yeah, I'm like, cool, well I, I can teach you that eventually. In the meantime, it's actually the prime time to hire now because nobody expects you to know because you're new. So who else in your world do you know that's also looking for an opportunity that while I train you, I can train them also?

And I would just always ask, dude, every person I recruited, I would just always ask, who do they know? Who do they know I'm looking to hire? Yeah, if you're looking to build, cool, I'll teach you how to do it. If you're not, I ain't mad either, but I'm looking to grow. Who, who do you know?

Did you give them like an incentive for bringing you somebody or just asking?

Yeah, so I would certainly, I mean, my pitch to them was every time they make a sale, you'll make a few bucks.

Yeah.

And I would leave it at that. Granted, if they ask questions, I'd explain it, right? I mean, but I wasn't trying to get too deep, dude. I was trying to keep it really simple. And then when they did refer someone over, I would certainly explain it deeper. And then I would give them the option, you can either take them direct now or I can take them direct until you're ready, and then I'll move them when you're ready, just depending on what they want. Some people had the fear. They didn't want to deal with the risk and the overall, you know what I mean? They don't want to deal with the stuff. So I always gave them the choice. Okay. You know, and if it was, if it was someone I had to help financially in some way, certainly I would put them to me direct so they didn't have to spend the money. And then as soon as they were self sufficient, I move them back. You know, I'm saying I did a lot of things. It was very case by case.

Yeah.

But that's what led me to more people. And then I would do the same thing with clients. If I'm sitting with you, Tim the client, I'm like, hey, Tim, great meeting you today. Hey, man, my company is actually hiring. I'm looking for more people. Do you happen to Know anybody else that could do what I just did for you? And I would ask that every appointment.

Yeah.

Which every once in a while, some be like, can I do it? My cousin, my sister, whatever. But where the magic happened is I taught all the agents to do the same thing. So then when I got 50 agents, they're all 10, 15 clients a week. We're now asking hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of clients a week. Yeah. You know what I mean? And between that and who do you know they bring on a client, I'm like, hey, who do you know? They bring on a cousin. Hey, who do you know? And it was always just, who do you know?

Yeah.

You know what I'm saying? And then from that fast forward, the people I hired direct, I was taught to. To treat everyone like they're direct to, to me.

Okay.

So the guy who mentored me, I was not direct to. I was four levels deep from the guy. But he poured everything into me because he saw something in me that he didn't see in others. So as the agency grew and you know, you hired your cousin, dude, I'm working one on one with your cousin. Like, I hired him.

Yeah.

You know what I'm saying? And from that, I found other people in depth. And those are the people that stepped up and became the eventual real leaders. The guys that really built the agency. With me, it was, it was 100% of them were people in depth from just going, who do you know? I taught them how to run ads. Ask who you know, and ask clients. That was the model. And we just did it so many times because it was so simple.

Yeah. You know, you don't have to spend any money for somebody to recruit.

Yeah, correct. Especially if you don't do the ad spend side, you know? You know what I mean? Because anyone that wanted to build an agency, I'm in to help them. Yeah. But I wouldn't. And for me it was so. It was ask whoever your people are. Ask clients. And I would have people DM, I. I used to send like a hundred DMS on LinkedIn a day.

Wow.

Hey, Tim. See you're in the business. I help people. I issued 460 grand last year. Are you happy with where you're at financially? If not, if you're open to a conversation, let me know. I would send 100 a day, dude. And that led to a lot of volume that's still here today. It was again, most nos, you know, I mean, mostly no, but it worked. And then again teach everybody to do the same thing. So when Someone said they wanted to build. I was like, cool. Step one to building. Ask all your clients. Ask people in a circle if they are interested in a conversation with me. If you're not comfortable doing it, if you're comfortable doing it, do it yourself. I don't care. But put them on me and then send DMs, because they're all free. And if you won't do the free stuff, you sure as shit ain't gonna do the paid stuff.

Yeah. No.

So it was kind of a test for me to see if they were willing to put in the work before I started teaching them too much about the agency side and the building and all the. All the technical details that do go into it with time.

Yeah. So at this point, is your agency still like super wide with a bunch of people direct to you, or is it more deep?

Way more deep. Way, way, way, way more deep. Yeah, we probably have. I have. Last report I looked at, we had like, I think 21 direct to me, but a majority of it's under like four legs. Okay. You know, so it's. And as. As you get builder bigger, you can start to maneuver things. And, you know, I mean, if I'm. If I'm spending a lot of time with a small group and I'm trying to do bigger things and I just don't have the energy. But you're. You're good at leading and you're, you know, I mean, like. And again, as you get out of the field. But I don't even know where the applications are anymore. Yeah, there's a lot of things I don't know today. So as you grow, certainly there was like, hey, Tim, can you take these few guys? I'm gonna move them direct to you. I'm just crazy busy. I just don't have the energy or time to mess with them. And I started to just maneuver stuff around to the right people that were doing the right things on their own.

Yeah.

Yeah. And consolidating it. So.

Yeah, that's. That's super valuable, man. I appreciate you sharing that. That's for. For all the people out there that are like looking at the agency, like at least building one. It sounds like really just getting started talking to the people and then really just asking for referrals. This sounds like is your. Your main.

It's all duplication.

Yeah.

I mean, I know some buddies that when I. And they would literally target other companies, captive companies, and go after their top guys and recruit them, like straight up recruit them. Like recruiting. Like colleges recruit.

Yeah.

Like I'm going after Tim. I hate that. That wasn't, I just. That wasn't. Not that. That's not right.

Yeah.

I just didn't do it.

Yeah.

You know what I mean? I know some guys that built some massive agencies doing real recruit.

Again, like Head Hunter.

I don't, I don't call what I did recruiting. I was interviewing. You know what I mean? Again, we use that term in the, in the industry, but what you said, headhunting is a different game where you can go after people and that, that can give waves of volume.

Yeah.

You get one guy that's running things, you can move some volume over.

Yeah.

You know, and certainly that happens today where people reach out, want to work with me. That, that certainly is a thing with time. But I wasn't really that good at that, dude. I just, I don't know, I didn't want my thing, and I'm not, I don't know.

In the industry, when you do that, you can.

Yeah. Yep. So I was just like, I'm just gonna do it this way. And again, I want it duplicatable, man. If I get lucky and I bring you over and you're at whatever captive company and you have a team of 40 agents, I can't, I can teach what I did, but, dude, the chances of my group being able to do that at scale are like, zero.

Yeah.

You know, and so I, I, everything I do, man, I want it to be very simple and very duplicatable. You know, you throw away, all of you throw away technology today. Instant decision, E apps, auto texting, AI. You throw all that stuff out the window. Brian can build this from the ground up starting today.

Yeah.

You know, I mean, with the same method.

Yeah. Awesome. Well, so for somebody watching this.

That, you know, maybe wants to build an agency, what would be, like, your biggest piece of advice for that person?

Help people get paid, man. You know, I, I think it's certainly a lot easier to teach something you do. It does frustrate me watching, and there's a balance, you know, I, I, again, I was recruiting before, I quote, unquote, knew what I should be doing, but I was referring a lot of people to my mentor to be trained, you know, So I think if you're early in it, you should have someone that you're working with that you're kind of letting do some of the heavy lifting and the training and the teaching, you know, I mean, like, if you ain't made a bunch of money, don't try to teach people how to make A bunch of money. Yeah, I see that far too often.

Yeah.

You know, so I relied on people in my corner to help with that piece at first, but at the end of the day, man, it's just, it's talking to people every day about what you do. And we do that in every business. I mean, if you ran a pizza shop when you want more dudes to come in and cook pizza so you don't have to cook it all the time, of course, you know, I mean, like, it's, it's just basic business building. Yeah. So it's just getting started, you know, and, and I think in today's world, if you're not doing stuff on social media, you're crazy. It's easy, you know, you can certainly post a video a day about anything that any client or any potential recruit asks, even if you don't know what you're doing. Get on an interview and see the 27 questions the first potential recruit asks you. Because they will grill you with questions because you won't know how to do an interview properly. Right. You know what I mean? You'll spend an hour and a half answering them all, and then they'll be like, nah, I'm good.

But take those 27 questions and make a 30 second or a minute video about each one of them. That's your content for a month.

Yeah.

You know, I mean, you got clients and you see five clients today, you'll have 30 questions from those clients. Take those questions, make content, you know, I mean, and you start building a personal brand. And we have, we have a ton of stuff on social now. I mean, I didn't early because I didn't see it coming, but, you know, I think it's just getting started, man. And again, keep it simple. Help people get paid. And when you help people get paid and hit their goals, people stay. You know what I mean? And you have to get in there and teach people stuff, man. I had to teach people how to manage money and reinvest in leads and when. In timing of when, when to pay certain bills and how to fl, you know, I mean, like, you got to teach stuff, man. And if you ain't been through it, it's just hard to teach.

Yeah.

You know, so I, I don't know. There's nothing an agent goes through today that I haven't been through. Right. Personally, yeah. It's very easy to relate and know what they're going through and know. Know what it feels like and know what you know. I mean, like when your wife's looking at your bank account, you're like, I need 1200 bucks for leads and to know what her feeling. I know that feeling. Trust me. You know?

Yeah. I think I always tell people, like, you should sell for at least six to 12 months before trying to build a team.

Agreed. At a minimum. I don't. I'm. Unless if you got a bunch of money, you should do it for six to 12 months if you're broke. It's really easy to build a team when you figure out how to get rich selling insurance.

Right.

Honestly, it gets a lot easier.

Yeah.

Awesome, man. Well, John, I appreciate your time. For people that are watching this, that want to reach out to you, where can they find you?

Yeah. Sir, all my stuff is on my website. John wetmore.com. really simple. If you're. If you're not looking at it spelled on the screen, it's J O H N W E T M O R e dot com. The book is on there. I dive into it. You can get on Amazon or the website. And I'm on. I'm on Instagram all the time. It's just at John Wetmore and certainly Facebook. Those are the two I'm on every day. And you can. I get all kinds of free. You can register for a newsletter, get free content, free trainings. I do free zoom. Zoom, like masterminds once a month in training in my office, in person training in my office once a month. All kinds of cool stuff we put out.

Nice. What's the name of the book? What can they find on Amazon?

Yeah, so Do More Now, Get Better Later. You can actually just go to Do More now. Get better later.com John Wetmore.com or Google me on Amazon. It's out there. It's cheap. It's 12 bucks. So. And it just goes through Do More as a principle. It stands for certain things. Let's see. I'm gonna pull it up. It's actually more than just go work more. It actually means stuff. So, like in the Do More, the D is discipline. O is for ownership. M is for mistakes. The second O is for obsession. The R is resilience, and the E is expectations. And I break down what each one of them means, why it's important. You know, I mean, certainly I wrap in my story and the journey of this thing and all the mistakes I've made to try to help people.

Get through it quicker than I did. So it is at the beginning doing more, but the doing more is deeper than that. And those six principles of the things I've taught over the years to really build it that I think are the key to. To. To someone building whatever they want out of this. So.

That's awesome. Yeah. I love the concept. I love the message of the book, too. Something that a lot of agents need to hear, that's for sure.

Yeah. I appreciate it. Awesome.

Ladies and gents, if you guys got value from this video, leave a, like, hit the subscribe button down below. You guys can check John out on the platforms that he said. And then I think he also has a pretty big YouTube channel as well. You can check him out there. And thank you guys for tuning in. We'll see you in the next one. Take care.

Take us.