Millionaire Shares His Secrets To Building Wealth As An Insurance Agent

Ladies and gentlemen, in this video I'm interviewing an agency owner who does $50 million per year, among other things. Edward Pritchett has graduated from Yale, written a book, and built a multi family real estate empire. And in this video, he's going to be sharing his secrets to building wealth and getting rich in the insurance industry. So, Edward, welcome to the channel. I'm excited to have you on.

And Tim, appreciate the opportunity. Love what you guys are doing. It's cool to watch others build themselves up through what we have access to here in the insurance industry. I mean, there's no, in my opinion, there's no industry like insurance, which is why I do enjoy talking about it. So honored to be able to be here with you and have this conversation.

Absolutely. Likewise. Man, it's great to have some heavy hitters on the channel and be able to pick your brain and just share advice with our, with our community. So for people who don't know you, can you just kind of give like a brief background on who you are, how you got into the industry and just kind of what, what's led us up until this point?

Yeah, I mean, I'll be quick because I know if you're, if you're watching this, you're, you're trying to figure out like, how can I, you know, make more money, build a huge business, become a millionaire, multimillionaire, whatever that might be. Like there's some, you wanting to get something. And what I can share is like, I, I started off middle class American family, dual income household. You know, I, I, I had a dream of going to Yale University and a lot of things aligned. Right. Like I, yes, I worked hard, but I had great mentors, great instruction, which I credit that for helping me and allowing me to get there. Loved every minute at school. Well, not every minute. I mean, there's some pretty rough tests and, you know, some not so good grades and stuff like that. But I loved it in the sense that it, it expanded my vision. You know, like, I grew up in western North Carolina, A little town that people know, know the name now Asheville, North Carolina, you know, had a lot of flooding from her.

I'm from Greensboro, by the way. We're both from North Carolina.

Yeah, so, so, so, you know, Asheville, I don't know how to explain it to you. Um, but you know, not this huge metropolis. Right. So, you know, I had kind of a limited vision of what was possible. We saw what was on tv, you know, what was in the magazines. I remember my dad used to get the Rob Report. I think he's like, the magazine for the affluent lifestyle. I was like, why? We can't afford anything in this magazine. He was like, you know, I'm trying to expand your vision. You know, I want you to. You can have. You can have these things. Right, right. Being at Yale really exposed me to that. Got out of College in 05, right before the Great Recession hit. Great Recession. I was no longer engineer anymore. There are a lot of engineers that lost their job, just like a lot of everybody lost their job during the Great Recession. And I was just trying to figure out, like, how can I make an income? And that's what led me into, you know, if you can sign your name, you can get hired to be an insurance agent. Let's. Let's all. Let's all be honest, right?

Like, we are beating a Social Security number.

Yeah, exactly. You got a Social Security number, you can sign your name. And of course, you got to be able to hopefully pass the test.

Right.

So you started working for a captive agency for a couple of years, Learned enough about the industry to say, okay, there's something here, but I'm not making. I can't really. This isn't going to be where I make a lifestyle for myself and the family that I wanted to ultimately have one day. That's when I switched over to the independent side, became a broker back in 2010, and have started building my agency then. And I haven't looked back. You know, it's now been 15 years. It'll be 15 officially this coming October. But, like, 15 years of the. This industry showed me more of the world than I ever thought possible. Allowed me to do things for my family that I never thought was possible. Like, I lived in Asheville, but, like, I've been able to move to Puerto Rico, live in a amazing neighborhood. My four kids get to grow up in an amazing community. You know, private schools. We get to go. We were. This past summer, we were in Europe for eight weeks, just kind of touring around with the whole family. Like, it's stuff like that. Like, I didn't imagine that when I got into insurance 17 years ago, Tim, was it like. It was like, can I make. You know, can I make $30,000 this year? That's what I was thinking back in 2008. But leveraging what this industry can do has allowed for. For me to be. To provide for my family in a way that I know now I have a legacy business. You know, I have something that no matter what, like, you can say all the other stuff that I've done, like, can disappear and be taken away. Yeah, my insurance practice, man, I don't think people could stop buying insurance anytime soon. So 50 years from now, my son can be like, I'm glad that went ahead and stuck with this thing, you know?

Yeah, it's. That's right. I think a lot of people my age as well, they kind of chase the, like, new, shiny, flashy, sexy industries, but, like, give me the boring business that's been around for thousands of years and is not going anywhere.

Ask Warren Buffett. That's what he does. So, you know, true. Good enough. Good enough for him. I think we can probably learn a couple things.

Yeah, no doubt. And so for. For people that are, you know, maybe they're newer into the industry, you know, like we're talking about, they want to build. Well, they want to live that lifestyle. But, like, you know, when you first get in, you're, you know, you're making phone calls, it's hard to see, like, the grand vision. So kind of like paint the picture for people, like, what is actually possible in this industry.

And.

And then I want to get into, like, the specifics of kind of how you built your business up and ultimately, like, how you recommend people to. To get started. But, like, starting off, just, like, paint the vision of, like, what's actually possible. What. What kind of income is achievable? What's like, what's it. What's doable in this business?

Well, I mean, let's break down the numbers, right? Limra Life Insurance Marketing and Research Association. Okay. They. They, every year, they do tons of research about the life insurance industry. Health insurance, Medicare, Medicaid, pnc. All right, so for whatever type of insurance you are in, you can find some really good information and data there. But I know life insurance. That's my course. So I'll talk about life insurance. But the average premium per month that clients in the US Are paying for life insurance right now is just over $91 a month. All right, so let's do the math on that.91amonth. We know we get paid based off of that first year's premium, typically. So 91amonth. I got my calculator. I'm good at math, but, like, somebody's gonna fact check me. And then.

But 91amonth, that's a thousand $92 per year in premium. Right. For most people's contracts, if you're on 100% contract, that means over the course of the year, that insurance company, if that policy stays on the book, it's going to pay you $1,000. 10. 92 to be precise. Right. If I wanted to make $100,000 for the year, I got to sell 100 policies. If I want to sell 200. If I want to make $200,000 a year, I got to sell 200 policies. 300,000. Like, pretty simple math, right?

100%.

Let's break that. Let's say I want to make $200,000 a year. 200,000. And let's say I'm going to work. Not gonna work 52 weeks out of the year. I'm gonna work 48. I'm gonna take a month off. All right? So if I work 48, that means every week I just have to get 4 policies. 4.16. Right. So call it 5. Just to make. Make math easy, I gotta get 5 policies issued by these insurance carriers every single week for 48 weeks, and I'll make more than $200,000 a year in gross revenue.

I mean, like, that's. That should be like, five people. I got to convince five people a week to protect their families in the case of death, disability, critical illness, chronic illness, or terminal illness. Like, that's. That's what a life insurance policy does for our clients. Right, right. Does that. Is that really that hard of, like, what makes it hard? Well, what makes it hard is I gotta talk to people. Yep. Right. Like, I gotta figure out, how can I meet these people? How much is it gonna cost me to meet these people? Am I gonna need leads? Can I do it in the warm market? What carriers am I gonna like? There are those parts, but, like, when you look at the fundamentals, it's pretty straightforward. Like, to make $200,000 a year in this industry as an independent producer, it's kind of straightforward, right?

Yeah, it really is. When you. I mean, when you look at the numbers that way, again, like, when you factor in everything, you have, chargebacks, leads, like, you do have to produce more than that to net that amount. But to produce that amount, I mean, four families a week is. If you're. If you're working anywhere close to remotely full time, like, there's no question that you should be able to do that.

I mean, how many people do. Like, and I'm talking to the person who's watching this. How many people do you talk to in a given week about stuff that means absolute. That doesn't. Isn't going to pay for your child's tuition? Is it going to pay for the light bill? Like, how many people do you talk to every single week? How many people do you interact with on social media? How many comments are you leaving that aren't going to help you do anything more than vent? Whatever you want to vent right now, you know what I'm saying? It's like there's, there's just so much more time that's available than most people give credit to, to be able to do what we do. And then the value, like, I don't think most agents don't understand the value of what we do on the life side until you deliver that first death claim. I mean, you'll hear from people who have done it all the time. I know you do a lot of work around the final expense market. Right. You probably like, it doesn't take that many years at work and final expense to have somebody pass away. Because that's what happens. People die. Like, yeah, I don't know. I've yet to meet the person who has lived forever. They don't, they don't exist. Right.

They won't introduce themselves. That's, that's the thing. They're, they're on the moon.

Right. But like, we all fundamentally know that. Our clients know that.

Yep.

And we act like this is a difficult thing to, to sell. You know, we act like it's a tough conversation to have. It's probably one of the best conversations you can ever have with someone to prepare them for that. Because here's where you know, it's a good conversation to have had is when their spouse, their widow or their child reaches out to you after they've received the death benefits. Like, thank you for doing what you did. Like, we were able to bury mom the way she wanted to be buried and didn't have to go do a gofundme or a fish fry or fill in the blank. Right. Or like, you know, you do that large term policy for a family with some small kids, like, you know, I appreciate that you took the time to sit down with us and press us a little bit that we needed to have this covered in place. We didn't think he was going to pass away at the age of 38, but he did. And we had $700,000 where now the mortgage is paid off. We got the money for, for college set aside. And I know it won't last forever, but like his income that was coming in, I can keep things somewhat normalized for the next five, six, seven years.

Like, yeah, it makes a huge difference. It really does. It really does.

And it's like, so can you find four to five people a week that can can understand that, that can grasp that and have that conversation and help them put that protection in place. And you can make that kind of an income as a personal producer. And then to scale that up, it's just, how do you find other people who want to learn how to do that as well? Because you've done it, so they want to learn how you've done it and go out and do it as well. And the insurance carriers, they pay us based off of the value that I bring to them in the sense of how much premium flows from clients to the carrier and it passes through me. Right?

Yeah.

In 2023, we still don't have the numbers yet. The Treasury Department puts out a report every single year. We don't have 2024 numbers yet, but 2023, there is just over $1.3 trillion of premium that came from people in America, including corporations and businesses that went from those individuals to insurance carriers. On the life and annuity side, that's.

Not including life and annuity.

That's not. Yeah, that's not including health insurance. That's not including property and casualty. That's just life and annuity premium. And people are saying, nobody's buying insurance. You're just not talking to them. That's. That's what that boils down to. Because somebody's buying a whole bunch of life insurance right now.

Yeah, no question. I mean, the, the amount of money in the industry, like, there's, there's no cap to it at the end of the day. I mean, 1.4 trillion. You can say, oh, there's a cap, but you're never going to even get close to remotely scratching the surface of that.

By the time you reach that cap, you're worried about all different things. Like, you're past what El is worrying about at that point in time, you know?

Yeah, exactly. You're trying to send people to Jupiter at that point.

Exactly, exactly.

So, I mean, the potential is, is huge from an agency owner perspective. I mean, what, like, if someone is going to really commit themselves to this industry and, like, build a real business in an enterprise, like we're going to talk about later, like, how much money can they realistically make per year? Like, what's possible at the, at the top levels? Because we know, we know that if someone commits themselves as a producer, there's no question you can make 200, 300,000 a year. And just in case the FTC is watching, neither Edward or I are making income claims. We're just talking about math. All right. But from an agency owner Perspective, like if someone really wants to go the distance, what's, what's possible?

Well, I wish I could give you the honest answer because I don't know it yet.

Okay.

You know, I would say.

I have definitely gotten distracted as I've built my agency because, you know, as you start having some success, you start making some money, you always hear all these things of seven streams of income and hey, you want to invest in this thing and it all like the, the, you know, putting your hand to the plow and just going out there and plowing the fields and doing what you've done to get to where you are.

Yeah.

Sometimes it gets like, ah, you know, just another old. But man, I. There's so much more money in this industry. Like as a agency owner, like I know multiple people who are making 2, 3, 4, $5 million a year as agency owners. Right. Remember, the insurance carriers are going to compensate you based off of the amount of premium that goes through you to them. So the more you can flip, figure that out, the more they're going to compensate you for. Right.

I know for myself, like I'm looking back, this has been an interesting start of a year. Right. For me, I've really been able to reflect on, have I done everything that I could do and maximized what I have the capability to do. And I look back at last year and there are a lot of other, like you mentioned, some of the other, you know, I do work in the multifamily real estate space. I've invested in other businesses and enterprises and those have had their moments and they're glamorous. Right. You know, somebody, you know, VRBO is really kicking it right now. Oh, is it? Oh, that, that I'd love to have, you know, multiple vbo, you know, like, okay, that's cool. But there's also, there's the other downsides of it too. Yeah. What I know is in this industry, in the insurance industry, the more time and attention I give to this industry, the more it rewards me. The more of an expert I become, the more rewards me.

Yeah.

And so that's been something here over the. And I've said this before and I hope I don't have to say it again, like for me, four times, shame on me. Right. Like, okay, maybe, maybe this time and we, we all do it. Like there's certain things that maybe didn't learn it after the first or the second or the third, but I'm hoping the fourth time re realizing this, I can say, you know what, I made a commitment in 2025. And insurance was my primary thing. And I'm honestly don't get scared out there. Those of you who work with me and other things like this, we're going to transition smoothly. But like, I really want this insurance to be the sole thing that I do. Wow. Because I, I can see like again, 1, 1 trillion. Right. Like imagine, Tim, if you had an agency that was responsible for $1 billion of premium flowing to a carrier or carriers. Right. And again, calculator, 1 billion, right. That's a 1 with nine zeros after it. Okay. And we know how these carriers work. You know, we're going to get paid a percentage of the volume that we send up.

Correct.

What if that percentage was what, what's, what's 5%? Is there some way that I could build an agency and have a billion dollars worth of premium? And we're talking, but we're talking about big numbers here. But remember we just said $1.3 trillion. So I'm talking about less than 1% of the entire industry.

It's like 1 1000.

Yeah, like that's, it's a, it's a tiny percent of the entire industry. Because 1 trillion is a thousand billion s. Right. So we're talking about less than 1 1000th of the industry. If I could figure out a way and focus my efforts and just go after that, like my goal is to get less than 1 1000. Somebody do the math and put it in the comments like what the actual percentage is. Right. But like if I could focus on that and I could convince these carriers to pay me 5% on that premium because my agents, my organization is getting the rest of it. Right. Carriers will pay out 130, 140, 150% on first year premiums. 5% would be $50 million a year.

1% would be $10 million a year. Like imagine if your agency, if you were revenue into your business, $10 million a year, right? So it's like that when we're talking about like how much could this scale. What could. And you know, there, there's factors that happen whenever you start talking in those kind of dollars. Right. That can change the, the economies of that very quickly. No, you know, we're talking about, you know, I'm saying 1 to 5%. There might, there. Because there's probably some other things. Seven streams of income. That's one stream. One stream of income is I got a billion dollars worth of premium going to carriers. But while I have that one stream of income, what other streams within the insurance space would I also have to be co developing in order to make that billion dollars possible that lead to additional sources of revenue. Right. That's just life insurance. So now I have all these clients. How many clients is $1 billion worth of premium clients? And what else do those clients need? Do they need wills and trust? Do they need advanced markets? Do they need annuities? A billion dollars in life insurance premium might be another billion dollars in annuity premium coming in. Yeah.

And then you add on check on health insurance and other things. I mean crazy.

It goes like. And that's just staying in this insurance vertical without me having to go and getting into real estate, going to get into this. So this is, this is where my mind is these days. So when you ask the question what's possible, what's the potential?

I, I don't know, but I know it's big. I know it's a lot. I don't think anybody has really fully fled. I know a lot of folks, I've spoken on some stages with a lot of people who have had their exits and you know, they've built large organizations and they've gone on to do other things. I, I have a feeling that there's someone who hasn't exited yet who's continuing to build right now and really focused on their insurance practice. That 5, 10, 15 years from now we're going to be hearing about and you're going to be extremely like, everyone's going to be blown away to know what's actually possible. I don't think we haven't heard the story yet. I mean just thinking about the fact that independent, this whole independent channel really only started like independent insurance sales really only started in the early 90s. Like this hasn't been around forever. It's not that old. And I know you said early 90s. That's, that's a long time ago. I mean that's what, 30 years ago really? Right. 35 years ago. It's like the Internet compared to the insurance industry which has been around like if you go back to International Netherlands Group ing, which started off as an insurance company in Dutch Holland, right. That's 1664. So like the industry has been around for a minute, right? Yeah. What we do on the Independent channel has been around for a portion of that and we haven't even got to get started to achieve the same things that some of the captive organizations like your MetLife's Prudential. Like those organizations are doing hundreds of like don't trust me. Pull up the treasury report. Right. U.S. treasury Department they do a report on insurance entry every year. It lists how much premium some of these large captive organizations are doing. And there are captive organizations that are doing over $100 billion a year in life premium. And those organizations have only been around since the late 1800s. Right. So what, what are you building, you build them for today? Are you building to like, so you can go buy that, that Ferrari, the Lamborghini, the, you know, like, you know. Yeah, you can eat a whole bunch of wagyu steak. That's cool and all right. Or are you trying to create a business that when 20, 30, 40 years from now, when you're retired, it's not only growing, it's thriving, it's providing you income still and your family or whoever you're leaving that to. They're like, man, I'm so glad, I'm so glad you did this. This is really cool that we continue to, we get to continue to run a business in an organization like this. And we, we're in it now 40 years now. We still don't see the limit to what we can do. Because if we're doing, if there's $1.3 trillion of premium flowing in 2023, what is that going to look like in 2053? How much print like it's gonna grow with inflation. Right. Like, as money gets, like by then it might be $5 trillion a year of premium flowing and you get to keep you, you keep up with it. Right. Because you're still riding the same, the same life insurance. People are going to be born and people are going to die. It's not going to go anywhere. Like I don't. Until they come up with like universal life insurance, which they tried that with healthcare, that didn't work. So I think we're pretty safe on the universal life insurance for the foreseeable future.

Yeah, more than likely. Unless we just start living forever, then all bets are off. Right.

Well, hey, annuities, there you go.

Exactly.

These are still going to be a thing. If we can live forever, those will be the biggest. Money lives forever. So got to have some type of instrument to make that happen. Yeah.

Unless, unless we live forever and money becomes irrelevant, then I think, I think we're safe.

Then we may be out of a job.

Right. Exactly, exactly. So it sounds like, I mean, you have tons of knowledge. Like I've talked to a lot of agency owners, a lot of people in the space that I don't know many people that like read the treasury report and really understand, like the big picture of the industry. So you obviously have a lot of knowledge on that and you know, you've done your research, you're very well read in terms of how our industry works. So I think this question, I'm really curious to hear your answer on it. If someone were getting in today, what would be your path from like, I'm new to the industry, I see the potential. Watching this podcast or interview, whatever you want to call it, with Tim and Edward, I'm seeing the vision. I want to build the generational wealth for my family. Like, what would be the path, what would be the steps you would tell them to do to, to really like take advantage of what, what's available to them?

Brand new, just got your license. I would focus on four things and I like this because I was actually watching another interview that you did where you talked about why you decide to work with what you're doing right now. And those four things that I'd be looking for is, number one, what's the system? What's the system that. Not that I'm going to create. Right. You'll have plenty of time to innovate within this, this business. But like to start off with, you have to have a system that's ready to go, right? So that's gonna take, take some time, doing some research, asking real questions, right. Don't be afraid to ask. Like in this, in this industry, people look, when I, when I first signed up to, and I call it signing up, right? Like that, that's a dead giveaway right there. But when I started with the captive organization that I got into this industry with, I felt like I was just signing up for something, right. Like I made that decision in, you know, a 45 minute meeting, right. Just put my name down and yep, let me do this course and let me go start selling life insurance. Right?

Yep.

That I'm, I'm glad I did it. Right. I'm thankful. Like I would not be here today had I not done that. But like, if you have the capability, don't overthink but like give it some thought. Who am I going to work with? What is the system that I'm going to do? Can I commit to the system that they're saying?

Yep.

Right. And, and here's the thing. It may not be, you don't have to understand and know a hundred percent of everything whenever you get started in this industry, but you do have to be able to commit to the system that you're getting ready to start or at least say, you know what, whatever they throw at me with this system, I'm going to do it.

How do you pick the right system? Because I mean, I did the same thing when I got started. If you've stalked, I don't know how much Internet stalking you did before the interview, but I, when I first got started, I worked free. Free gift card, direct mail, Walmart gift card leads. Right. And I didn't put any thought into the system. My business partner got recruited. He was working at a restaurant. He was like, hey, I'm gonna do this. I was like, oh cool, I'll do it. Let's. I'm down, whatever. And I saw success. And I think this is something I just talked about. I did a different interview before this. I think a good agent can see success with a bad system, definitely. But you're gonna see way more success without having to kill yourself on a day to day basis if you have a better system. So what to. In your mind, right? In your opinion, what. How do you, how do you know if it's a good system?

So ask this question as often as you can. Why?

Okay, we do this. Okay, well why do y' all do it that way? Right? Take that like it works with our clients. But why are you looking for this? Well, we wanted to. Okay, well why is that? Well, we want. You go down that Y train and you're going to start seeing a lot of. Well, no, we definitely need to do that, right. If I'm talking with someone about working with them.

When I'm trying to evaluate a business partner. Because that's what this is like. You're talking about evaluating the business partner. Okay, well why do you do this the way you do it? Okay, that makes sense. I can, I can understand. Okay, well why do you do that? This, why is the compensation like that? Why do you only have two carries and not seven? Right? Like I'm listening to, like I want to hear that someone has been thoughtful about what they're doing. No system is perfect. There is no such thing as a perfect system. Every system that you ever get into, you're going to find you're you. If you're in it more than two days, you're going to find a flaw. At least you're a perceived flaw from your standpoint, right? Yeah, you're going to find a flaw. But you can be successful in this industry, in every single system, if you're willing to work hard enough. Some systems are created to make that work less difficult. Right. Less head against a brick wall. Right. It's still going to be tough work, but it doesn't have to be as hard. Does that make sense?

100.

I love that if I understand why from someone that I'm in a partnership interview with. Right. Because if you're 1099, you're not someone's employee, you're a business partner. Right. They're contracting you to work with them. And so I want to understand. Well, okay, so why is the system set up this way? And anyone who gets frustrated with me asking, like, I love it when potential agents working with me when they ask me why. Because all the time then there's some things I'm like, I don't have an answer for. That one. That one. I. I continue right now. There are certain things that I do in my system that I do just on faith because it's worked for us in the past and that's what gets us there. I can't explain exactly why, but like, I would rather. I would rather know that.

But then sometimes they'll bring you ideas that you can use to make the system better.

Exactly right. And that's where innovation does come. Right. Whenever you come in and you start learning a system and you actually start producing and you get results, now you can start to innovate and create within that system.

Yeah.

Right. But I have to earn that right. You have to earn the right to be innovative with the system by getting results with the system.

Right.

So that's how I figure out what's the right system. That's number one. Number two is I have to have a solid schedule. Right. This is a business.

If you would work 40 hours a week for Mr. And Mrs. Boss over here, what are you going to do for yourself? So many people get started in this business and because it's independent, they're their own boss.

I mean, you would think that you got like permanent vacation people. You know, every. Every little thing that comes up is not an emergency. If you were working for Mr. Mrs. Boss at ABC Job and you just popped out anytime you wanted to to go dry cleaning or pick up the kids, do like. I know those things are important. They are. Right. But if you were working for somebody else, you would get fired after a certain number of times.

Right. 100.

But we do that for ourselves. And we wonder why we're not making any income. I wonder why we're not producing. I can't get this to break through. Yeah. Because you only actually put in 10 hours last week.

Yeah. So nobody actually knows how much they're working. That's something I started doing about two years ago is on my calendar. I literally time block out everything I do. Like, and if it's something stupid like responding to slack messages, I just won't even put it on. And then I can look at the end of the day like, here's much how much time I actually spent working. I think a lot of agents could probably benefit from that because most, it's like if you don't, if you don't make a budget with your dollars, they just end up going. You don't make a budget with your time, it just ends up passing. So I think that's huge. The schedule is a huge thing. So system, schedule consistency, what, what's the next piece? And this sounds like producing as an agent. And then I'm sure we'll transition to like agency building and all that.

Every, everything that you do to be a top producer. If you do those things for your business, you'll be a top business builder. There's nothing different about going out and writing a whole bunch of business with a whole bunch of clients to building an agency with a whole bunch of agents who are writing a whole bunch of business.

Right.

It's the same thing. It's just different direction that you're pointing that focus at. Right, Got it. So if you, if you have a system, you know, you know what, I got a schedule and I'm keeping to it now. It's. What's the actual activity that's happening in that schedule? If there's no activity happening in that schedule, like you can, I've seen a lot of people who have really cool looking calendars. Right. But then when you really like, okay, do a time audit on what you're actually doing. Like I blocked off all this time to make dials. Okay, great. You got three hours for dials. How many dials did you make? I made 17. Okay, well, good job. You made a schedule. You did no activity. So you're not going to get a result. Right. So it's like I got a schedule, but then like, how do we put the activity in that schedule? What's the motivation to actually go to work? You know, what's, what's keeping you at the grindstone? Because, and sometimes it is a grind, but what's keeping me at the grindstone? What's the result that I'm going after? Why am I going after that result? Who is it going to be benefiting? Not just myself, Right. Tony Robbins talks about it all the time. It's like you have to have that emotional tie to cause actions to happen. If it's just, I want to make a hundred thousand dollars A year? Like, I hear that all. I'm sure you've heard it. Like, what's the number that people say that they want to make in income?

100K or 250 every time.

And it's like, okay, why, why do you want to make a hundred thousand dollars? Spend that money for me. What's that going to do? Right? And let's not focus on the money. Let's focus on what you're spending that money on. Who are those people? Where are you guys going to vacation? What, what, where are you going to live? What schools are they going to go to? What are you going to do in your free time? Like, what kind of worry does this lift from you? Right. Would 60,000 be enough? Oh, it wouldn't. Why not? You know, like, there has to be an emotional tie that gets you to do the activity. Yeah, right. Activity only happens when there's emotional energy to do it. Like, the energy for activity comes from emotion. So how do you get that emotional tie to then go and, and it's what I come back to all the time. Like, I have, like, on my wall over here, you can't see it in the, in the video frame, but on my wall here, I have five pieces of paper up that have five very emotional things for me that when I get tired of sitting here, and I sit here a lot, I'm on a lot of call. This is where I work. When I get tired, I look here.

All right, let's get back to it, you know, because the activity has to be done if I'm going to see a result. So system, schedule, activity. And the last one is, I can't do all those things can be great, but if I don't have resources to work with, I, I don't have, I don't have anything. I can't do activity with no resources. I can't actuate a schedule if there's no resources to work with in that schedule. So resources for us are people to talk to. And so I was saying, going back to four to five policies a week, 48 weeks out of the year is more than $200,000 of revenue if I get those, those policies placed. Right. Right. So which means maybe for me, with my placement ratio, to get four to five placed a week that stay on the books, that might mean I have to write 8 or 10. I don't, I don't know what your numbers are. Right. You do stuff long enough, a ratio will appear. Right now her ratio. A ratio so different depending on how you're hearing that. Okay.

And if I. I know what those numbers are and I do that activity, then I know I. I need to talk to X number of people every single week. So is that gonna be leads? Is that gonna be my warm market? Am I gonna be doing social media marketing? You know, am I going out to. To. To networking events? Am I hosting? I have to do something to talk to somebody. It blows my mind that people get into this industry and think, well, somebody's supposed to give me something, somebody to talk to. And that's never, never been a way that anybody's made money. You've been given the resources. Right. Like when, when the 49ers were like, hey, there's gold in California. All right, you want to just give me some. No, like, you got to go get a pickaxe. You got to go get some Levi James. You get some buckets, whatever. I don't know what they. I don't know what they used to do about it, but, like, and then they got on a train, they went out to the west, and then they're mining with certain resources to get a resource that's more valuable. Yep. Right.

100%.

So for us, right? My Levi jeans, my pickaxe, my bucket, my. That pan thing or whatever. Yeah, whatever it's called. Yeah. Like, that's various forms of leads.

Yeah.

The gold is the policy that I sell. But, like, I have to invest in some kind of resources over here in order to get that goal. That gold is not just going to magically. If somebody handed me a free pair of Levi's and a free pickaxe, and I get out to, you know, California and start picking, guess what? That pickaxe is going to break in 10 minutes. And, you know, the Levi's are going to split down the middle, and I'm gonna be, you know, walking around there naked trying to mine for God.

This is an interesting picture being painted in my mind right now. Right.

But like, I mean, but people do it all the time. Yeah, right. They won't. I won't free you. You know, you mentioned, you talked about the. The free gift card.

It was a free lead program, too.

I mean, but it was still a lead. It was a program. Right. Like, it was something to get you to be able to talk to somebody. My first one was no cost accidental death policy. Right. Call up everybody that, you know, put. We put little boxes in stores, like, fill out this form and. And we'll. We'll give you a no cost accidental death policy.

Yeah.

So that I could talk to somebody. Right? Right. And you can decide what scale, how do I level up, what my resource is so that I can either get to the gold quicker or get to the larger deposits of gold. Right. But I have to have something, you know, so those four things, like, if you have those four things and you go to work as a producer, you will be successful if you commit to those. And the same thing on the other side of that coin. If I want to build, I need a system for building. I need a schedule to build, I need activity, and I need resources. I need people who are looking to potentially be a life insurance agent and potentially work with me, and I need to be able to talk with them and populate that schedule. Then once I get them, same thing. I need to teach them how to do those four things on the production side so that they can get a result. The better the result that they get, the better my agency is, the better, more we grow. Right. So that's where these things work. Like, if I. If I'm doing well on one and I do the other man again. And where does that stop in our industry? In a $1.3 trillion industry, how many agents could you have? You know, I don't want to mention any names, but I know a couple of large organizations that own their roles. They have over 200,000 on the roster. Over 200,000 agents?

That's insane. I can't. I can't even fathom that many agents. That's wild.

I mean, I can't say all of them are licensed or all of them are actually doing something, but, you know, they have them.

But, like in the CRM or whatever. Right. But.

But could there be. Could you have an agency, I think, you know, last year, for our agency, like, we did $50 million. Right. At $50 million last year, we had 2100 agents write business. 2100 agents to do $50 million worth of business. Right. It doesn't take a whole bunch of agents to do a lot of business. Right. If I just doubled that and everybody did exactly the same, 4,100 people to do $100 million worth of business. So for me, a billion. A billion 41,000 agents, and I should be able to do a billion dollars a year in premium. I think it's less. I really do believe it's less. Right. Because as you start scaling that and you start getting those economies of scale, like this thing can. Can take off in different ways.

Yeah.

But like, you break down the numbers of this, it's why I am certainly recommitting to. I Gotta be in this business more than I am in all this other stuff. These other things are great, but this business executed correctly, with purpose, with intentionality. This is a, this is a billionaire producing business. We haven't seen it yet. We haven't seen it yet because I think people get very sad. They get to the multi million stage and they're like, oh, this is nice. I'm gonna just go enjoy this. Right. But like that's what's possible in the, in the trillion dollar industry that we're in.

Yeah.

Because going back to the initial numbers that we were talking about, it's less than 1000th of a portion of this industry. Life and annuities alone is. Oh, is. That's over a billion dollars. That's $1.3 billion as of the 2023 numbers. Well, we'll see what it is. And it continues. And it continues to grow. It's not going down. So.

Amazing. Yeah. Guys, if that doesn't fire you up, I mean, if you want to make 100 or 250k a year and there's $1.4 trillion flowing through this industry, like you just need to stick a straw into the ocean and just take a sip and you're. And you're good little dropper. Yep, absolutely. Well, Edward, any final pieces of advice or, or things, things that you would like to say to the people out there that are watching this that ultimately can gain a lot of inspiration from the stuff that you're doing. And you know, again, like the fact that you're recommitting to the industry after having gone off and done all this real estate stuff and you wrote a book and you've. It sounds like you've had a lot of different ventures that you've done and you've decided that this is the thing that you should do? I think that should be, that should be very reaffirming to a lot of people out there that are maybe like questioning whether or not this is the industry to be in.

Well, and I mean, even with something like writing the book, Right. In the book, which is titled Tax Free Living it, the core part of that book is life insurance. Right. And it was part of this transition where it's like, if I'm doing something, it doesn't feed back into this industry. I need to look at cutting it out. It has to go somewhere else. Right. Because there's so much like the reason the education about what life insurance can do isn't out there in a bigger way is primarily because people get very good at Life insurance make enough money to be very comfortable and then go do other things.

Right.

But what would happen if we actually said, you know what, we're going to just be committed to excellence in our craft and get better and better and give more back to the final expense clients that need final expense products, the families that need solid term coverage to protect against those liabilities that exist for them. All of the families, every American that needs a better handle on how to control debt and minimize taxes in their life. And they can use life insurance to do that if someone actually broke it down to them and helped them understand what that looked like. But we, we get kind of a bit too fly by night, so people don't trust it. The company doesn't stay around, the agency doesn't sound. The agent doesn't stay around long enough. Right. Like, I understand why a lot of people don't trust life insurance agents because everybody has someone in their family who was a life insurance agent for six months.

Yep.

You know, and they're just like, ah, like I hear what you're saying, but you know, my cousin Pookie, he was a life insurance agent and you know, nobody, you know, it didn't do anything for anybody. Yeah, right. How do we fix that?

Right.

It's by becoming more successful at our craft, by getting really good at it and sharing what we're learning, sharing all these tools, tips, tricks with people in as many ways as we possibly can. I love social media for that. Right. It's one of the reasons that I, I mean, yeah, I know if you follow myself, I post up all the time talking about life insurance, and I'm going to keep doing it until as many people as I can influence to actually look at how life insurance can benefit them, do it. And it's going to be a long time before everybody that I can reach actually does that. So I got my work cut out for me and that's part of that. Like, commit to.

A career, you know, an industry that has a very powerful purpose. What we do matters. And, and, and make a commitment to that. If you commit to excellence in that, you're going to help our industry. You're gonna help yourself. I guarantee you'll help yourself if you do that. And, and the rewards that you're going to ultimately get for doing that are gonna be far greater than anything that anything. Imagine your wildest dreams of what you think your career could do for you. Double that if you commit to excellence in this industry for a decade. Double that. Quadruple it if you commit to two Decades of excellence in this industry. Right. That's what's possible. That's what I'm excited about. And I want more people who are looking at this industry to take it like, start off that way. It took me a decade to realize that and even over the last seven years, still trying to figure out a lot of stuff to make that happen. But start off with that as your intention. And man, there's some people who are just getting started in this industry that are going to be so far past where, where it took me a decade to get to. And that excites me. And I, I look forward to, hopefully those people. I'll say this because I'm on here with you, Tim. I hope some of those people in your organization and I hope some of those people in my organization.

Right, yeah, no question.

Want them to be in both because like, that's the thing, like there's no, there's no competition really in this industry.

There's so many agents. I mean, 1.3 trillion. Yeah.

Like I can't steal your business, you can't steal mine because there's just, there's just so much. So it's, it's cool to be able to, to be a part of that. So I appreciate you, I appreciate you putting stuff like this out there. And I hope that anyone who's watching and listens really engages in the conversation. Right? Like listen and hear this stuff, but like engage in the conversation, be a part of it, make a commitment. Because this is a.

This is a industry and a career significance. Joe Jordan, a good friend of mine, has said that multiple times. This leads to a life of significance if you do this right. And so I'm excited for it and I appreciate people like yourself who are sharing that and putting that opportunity out there for more individuals. And it's going to be interesting to watch this industry over the next 10 to 20 years. So I'm excited to be a part of it.

Yeah, it's gonna be very interesting. I'm super excited. Well, Edward, appreciate you coming on, man. I feel like our audience has just gotten bathed in a 50 minute session of freaking value. So I know, I know this is gonna be, this is probably gonna be one of our top videos. So I'm really excited for that and for people that want to reach out to you, maybe ask you some more questions or see what it looks like to work. Work with you. How can they find you.

On Instagram? I am Edward Pritchett. You can go there. YouTube. I have a channel, it's called Life Insurance. Today. So check out. I do a lot of, a lot of training, a lot of additional information. Just breaking things down in the industry there.

And the other place, you know, I, I'm glad Tick Tock survives. So I still have a, a Tick Tock channel that I put a lot of the, the more short, short form stuff where if you just want to little tidbit of information, you can check it out there.

Awesome. Ladies and gents, thanks for showing up. We'll see you in the next one.