The NEW WAY to build a 6-Figure Remote Life Insurance Agency

All right, ladies and gentlemen, so you clicked on this video because you want to see how to build a remote life insurance business. And today I've brought one of the most premier experts in the space, father of the telesales movement in the insurance industry. He wrote a freaking book about it and has an agency that does over $30 million in premium with a few hundred agents, all remote and all over the phone. So, Jeff, welcome to the channel. I'm excited to have you here.

Yeah, appreciate you having me.

Absolutely. So for people that are watching this, you know, I know for the longest time, like the. The way to do this business, and this is how I actually got started, is you go out, you get a bunch of leads, usually direct mail leads, and you start knocking, knocking on doors. Right. And that was pretty much like the main thing that people did up until probably 2020. Right. And then everyone was forced to shift over. You were doing something different quite a bit before that. Like, what was it initially? Or when did you first kind of realize that, like, telesales was going to be the future?

So when I first got licensed, it was 2006, doing the face to face stuff. And about seven or eight months in, I bought a batch of leads, local leads, and I met with the business owner. Guy didn't want me to show up. And he said, hey, let's just handle this over the phone. And so when we did that, he sent the application back. It was one of the biggest apps I've written at the time. And I was like, okay, there's something here. And so I took the rest of the leads and I just tried to sell them over the phone. And back then, you were just mailing applications, Right. You had to mail the app for them to sign. And it's nothing like it is today. Right. And so that's when I figured there was something there that people, hey, people don't necessarily want to meet you face to face. And that was kind of where it clicked for me. And then from there, yeah, it kind of, you know, I just, I worked over the phone since that day.

Yeah. So you started working over the phone and then I know you, you did a lot of, like the digital nomad lifestyle, correct?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what got me into it. You know, I read a four hour workweek, Tim Ferriss back, you know, back then, and that's what kind of got me into Digital Nomad. And it's, you know, I joined a entrepreneur group, Digital Nomad Entrepreneur group at the time, and that's where I picked up marketing Skills, because I had no marketing skills. And that's where I learned to generate leads, was hanging around in Bangkok and all these places around the world with these digital nomads and, you know, just learning these little ninja hacks at the time. And it's so different right now. But yeah, yeah, but that was. But that was. That's how I got into marketing and generating my own leads after that, selling over the phone, because then I was just buying leads. And back then, buying leads was like shooting fish in a barrel. It didn't matter where you bought them. Every lead was good. It hadn't caught on yet. So, yeah, now it's a lot different.

Yeah, the independent side has grown a lot, so the competition is definitely higher. So you kind of got in, you kind of found this whole telesales niche, started traveling. Obviously today you have like a big brokerage. Digital BGA is massive. We sent a lot of agents over there in the past. How did you kind of go from, you know, digital nomad, chilling in Bangkok, maybe like sitting on a beach in Phuket and making dials, to building a massive business? Like, what kind of led you to want to do that?

You know, when. When I was selling over the phone, I had a blog. I'm not going to even say it because it's. It's haven't blogged on it since. For a decade, right? And it. People didn't believe what I was doing. Life insurance agents would come and comment and. But at that time, you know, blogs were big. People were engaging in blogs. It's not. We didn't have a lot of the social media and.

People just didn't believe me. And so I started a podcast. And that podcast was just to interview other agents that I knew who I was, you know, having calls with and learning with. And we're going through this together. And I interviewed them, interviewed some marketing people and did that for a few years. So just like, hey, I'm not crazy. This is this, you know, you can hear from other people. And that kind of led to like, okay, well now how do you do it? And so I wrote the book in 2016, the Digital Life Insurance Agent. And then it just. People just started reaching out to me and I was like, all right, there's something here. And so at the time, I was a person, you know, doing personal production and selling over the phone, and.

I just had too many people reaching out to me. And it got to the point where I built an agency, like a small downline. I think I had maybe 20, 30 agents producing agents, and it was just us. And at one point, our imo, they were paying our overrides as loa, not from the carrier. They just decided to stop paying me. They're like, you know what? We're paying you way too much money every month. We're just going to stop. And that's when I decided, all right, got my partner at the time, and we met out in Austin at a burger joint called Hopdotty, and we decided to start Digital BGA at that point.

It's funny. I've been there.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So started Digital bga. Kind of sounds like the IMO you were with almost like forced you into it. They just, it like screwed you guys over and stopped paying you out.

It was, it was, you know, at the time, it was very stressful. You know, I thought the, you know, the world was ending. It was. You know, I had a lot of money coming in that just got cut off overnight, and all my work was gone. And that was a wake up call that I have to own my own business here. I cannot. I cannot have somebody else paying me commissions. I have to be with the carrier, direct with the carrier, and not let anybody decide my. My future here. So, yeah, we started digital BGA and that was in 2016.

Wow. And obviously it's grown since then.

So for someone that's watching this, that they want to live that lifestyle where, you know, some people are like the digital nomad type. Other people, they just want to be able to, like, go to the beach on the weekend or they want to be able to kind of set their own schedule, or if they want to go skiing, they can go skiing. And they can work during the day and then ski, you know, on the weekend or whatever. The remote lifestyle of not having to go into an office or go in person, what's the best way for somebody to start doing that and ultimately, like, see success with that type of a schedule and lifestyle?

Great question. And I think it's different for everyone. I think what we've come to find is that every agent is different. They all have different goals. Some, like you said, want to just work, you know, part time. And then, you know, they maybe have kids or they have other things they want to do and sell as much as they can part time. Others really want to build a big business. Others want to recruit others. There's so many different paths, and it's, you know, it's hard for agents to kind of figure out what the right path is. And when we talk to new agents, it's, you know, we hear from so many different people that are doing different things. And so what we do is like, is we're in a box or very specific, right? Life insurance over the phone from home. If you don't fit in that box, you know.

There'S no way for us to work together because, yeah, could we help you do Medicare? And we do. Yeah, we can, but there's better people out there for that, you know. And so as far as, as far as getting started, we, we narrow down what they're trying to do and make sure, like, hey, do you understand this business? This business is about investing in marketing. You're an entrepreneur. You have to spend money on leads. And if you don't have that, you know, we'll, we'll, you know, we'll, we'll show a couple strategies. We'll say, like, here, here's a couple things you can do. Are you willing to do that? And if it's no, then move on to the next person. Right? Because at the core of this, you have to spend money to make money. And, you know, as long as you understand that at the very beginning, you'll, you know, because I can go over like, hey, yeah, plug into a community and training and, and get these, you know, get the best leads and the best technology and find that trainer that's going to make you a superstar. Yeah, that, that's all, that's all important. But at the core of it all, it's about you, you know, and where agents typically fail is they don't invest enough in their business to buy enough leads to make this thing work.

100%. So it's like before, before they can even think about, like the action steps or what to do or how to get started, they just, they have to have the mindset shift of. Because a lot of people come from nine to five jobs or they come, they have these employee mindsets when they come into the business and, you know, spending a thousand bucks on leads and not knowing for sure you're going to get a return is, it's like unfathomable to most people. And if they do that one time and it doesn't go, you know, if they, if they don't get like a 10x return, they're just completely down on themselves.

So it sounds like the first thing they need to do is just have that shift of, I'm not throwing money away, but I'm being a business owner and you have to invest, you have to, you know, you have to spend money to make money. At the end of the day, Yeah.

I mean, you have to see like a lot of agents, they get emotional about buying leads, a lot of anxiety and you have to have the mindset that it's an investment in your business, not a cost. And you know, and it's, it's the driver of it all. And the reason why most agents don't make it is just because they don't, they don't have the money to invest in it or enough money to invest in it. And a lot of it is expectations. So a lot of agents, you said, you know, they don't get a 10x return. They're, you know, they're upset because they saw a guy on YouTube that said that they 10x their marketing. So they think they should too. But that's not, I'm sure. Look, I know that happens, but it's not the norm. Right? That may, that may be.

It's also not on like a large scale. Like you're not going to spend a hundred grand on leads over the course of 2 years and 10x your investment. More than likely.

Exactly. And so I think a lot of it is setting expectations for agents that like, hey, if you bought, let's just say like you said, you spent $1,000 in leads and the next week you have $1,001 in your bank account, consider that a win because you have a lot of opportunity in those leads that you purchased and the follow ups, the people you haven't gotten a hold of yet, you know, and you have to see that as an investment. So I think the expectation is like, hey, investments take a while to grow your leads. You need to nurture them a while to see that total roi. Yeah, you could probably, if I were to look back on an agent that really works their leads, I would say yeah, there's agents out there that 10x all their leads after maybe a year or two. Right. When you factor in referrals and things like that, they've gone from their rewrites, all that stuff. So expectations is big. So I think a lot of agents where they say they spent a thousand and they're like, I only made, I didn't make that much. But they don't realize, like, hey, you have this asset now, your database of leads and follow ups. That is an asset that will churn out money. And that's the kind of mindset that you need in this business when you're selling over the phone from home. I mean, probably face to face too, but this is all I know.

Yeah, no, I 100% agree. Have you read the book Ready Fire, Aim Before.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I think there's kind of like a similar parallel for insurance agents and for people who don't have context. Ready Fire Aim is a book from this guy. It's talking about how to go from zero to a hundred million. Right. Which I don't know any insurance agent that sells $100 million a year. But point aside, a lot of the, the lessons still bear true is like zero to stage one is like, how can you figure out how to sell and get a bunch of customers? And usually it's like you sell one product, one channel, one avatar, and then at a certain point, I mean every time you buy leads, you're just building your, your list of customers. Yeah. Once you have enough customers, then you can start to sell them other products and you can do different things and just boost the lifetime value of every person. But I think that's like, you know, again, that's a, that's a business owner mindset and I think it's something that a lot of agents do have to make that shift in order to see success in the industry. How do you, how do you help people make that shift? Like, how do you make agents see that? Or is it just like they do or they don't?

I mean, number one, we're up front from the very beginning. This is what it takes. And so we have a filter of agents that come to us. And so if you don't meet these criteria, you know, it's not going to work. We call it ngmi, not going to make it. And.

So we filter them out at the very beginning. They don't even onboard, they don't contract, they don't do anything. And that's the, you know, that filters out a lot. So we work with people who are ready, who have the means to make this work, who have the drive to make this work. And, and you know, and then you get into training. And when I talk about training, I think it's important to hear from other people in the trenches is doing what you're doing and connecting with those people and seeing their struggles and their wins. It's not just all wins, but those people that you see on leaderboards, they also have questions and struggles and issues in their business. And to be able to see that and be able to communicate with people who have, who are going, who have gone through what you're about to go through, I think is important for agents, especially in telesales because, you know, it's, it's all, I mean, you could, you could be Delivered a script, you know, and I'm sure the, but the script, you know, everybody has a great script. Everybody will tell you they have a great script, but really it's the person, their communication style, how they, how they perform, how they are able to connect with people that really makes it. He can't just give you a script and you read it and you're going to make sales because of it. And so it's about the training and listening to other calls. Like people perform the script differently. And I think that's really important for people to, for agents to experience so that they aren't surprised when they get on the phone and they have already expectations, hesitancies of, you know, the people they're, they're calling or who are calling them, things like that. So it's, it's.

You know, it's, it's one expectations but also.

Being in a community of people that are doing it and sharing and I think that's, that's, that really helps agents kind of understand or else if you're on an island by yourself, you're in an office, you're doing telesales, like it's lonely, like sitting in your office for four to eight hours a day by yourself. And then the feelings you feel, the emotions you feel when you get those rejections or people not picking up or a chargeback or whatever, it is like you need that community out there. And I think that's really important for telusales. It's not talked enough, you know, not talked about enough.

How do you, how do people go about having that community? Is it like a live dial zoom room or, you know, you just send like a group of people and you meet virtually or how, what, what's like the best way to find that community?

Yeah. So, you know, daily zooms that you, that you connect into and you know, put agents on the hot seat and talk, talk about their business, what's working for them, what's not working for them. You have, you know, script calls where you just, you know, we, we do that, where we listen to calls together and we critique together. What could have gone better, what could, you know, things like that. And you see the same people. You, you know, you have your agent chat, of course, which everybody has, which, which is helpful and motivating when you see a lot of people putting up, you know, really good numbers.

So yeah, it's, it's, it's about just connecting into something daily so you're not just by yourself, you know, in your home office and waiting for a lead. To come in or, you know, the anxiety you're getting to push that submit button to buy that batch of leads that.

Yeah, yeah, 100%. So you've done a lot of traveling, you've worked from a lot of different places. What are your favorite places that you've been able to travel to and work from? Obviously you're in France right now. I assume that's on the list. Yeah, yeah.

So I live in the south of France right now. I moved here a few years ago. Make it back to Austin, where we're headquartered, a few times a year for work. I mean, all over, you know, mostly European countries, but like I said, over Asia, Thailand.

You know, all around the U.S.

You know, it's, it's.

It'S the cool thing about doing it out here where I am in Europe is I get my full day with uninterrupted work. And then while everybody's sleeping, when everybody's, you know, getting into the office around 8 o', clock, it's 3 o' clock p.m. my time. And I've already just crushed the day. Now I just got to jump on a bunch of calls, work with the team, training, things like that. So I have about four hours a day of just calls and that. And so you kind of get this lifestyle, this different lifestyle that you.

For me, it works, right? Because I get to take my kids to school, get to pick them up, get to do all that stuff before, before I even start, before everybody even starts their day. So.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So Europe, Asia, what was it like being on the phones and selling from Thailand? Because I did that for about a month.

It was terrible. Yeah, well, I mean, where we were, we had great Internet and so in.

When I, I just mean the time zone.

Yeah, that sucks. Yeah, the time zone's terrible. And when I did that, I didn't. So when I was in Thailand, I wasn't selling over the phone. I was mostly, I was there for like a couple weeks. And I, you know, I, I do I. Some sales, but it wasn't full time selling. Got it. But where I would long travel, where I'd stay for months at a time is mostly European countries.

Got it. Yeah, I did, I did Spain for a few months in 2024, I was in the Canary Islands. And like I experienced the same thing. Like the time zone is really nice because personally I don't like waking up early, but you just naturally are up earlier than everybody else so you can get your, your own work done and then you transition and you have the meetings and everything. So that worked really well. I enjoyed that a lot. Yeah, it's, it's a huge thing. So transitioning from like, you know, you're a top producer, you can travel around, you can kind of live this lifestyle of going where, where you want, when you want. You don't have to show up to work, show up to an office. How do you kind of shift and get into building? Like, what's the best way to bring agents on? How do you find them, how do you train them, how do you turn them into producers?

I mean.

I'm sure every agent watching this, they get blown up on their social media with DMs and emails in their inbox and probably some.

Texts and robocalls and things like that. It's tough out there. You kind of feel like a piece of meat, right. When you're an agent and everybody's kind of trying to nibble at you and bring you into their agency. Right. And so.

You know, to. As far as us for bringing agents in, that's. I think that's the core of your question there is, you know, how we get it, how we go about that. Right now it's mostly word of mouth.

Because we've been around for a while and because I had the book, right. And so I, you know, and at, and at some point you start making carrier trips and you start meeting a lot of agencies and agents on these carrier trips and you just form relationships with them.

And you know, we do events a couple times a year where we meet people and it's not, you know, before last year we were doing events every year for the industry, not just for digital BGA. That was a big piece of it. You know, YouTube right now our YouTube channel is where we get most of the most people reaching out to us.

And yeah, I mean it constantly changes for our call centers. We have a call center in Austin and Charlotte. We're just on indeed and ZipRecruiter and you know, paying them to get people locally to interview with us.

Awesome. Yeah, awesome. So it sounds like a lot of, a lot of like attraction based recruiting. It seems like you're not, you're not personally in Facebook groups DMing people.

I'm gonna call with you. Huh?

No, no, you know, that's, that, that's. I don't know. That is a very tough way to do this business.

Yeah, I would definitely agree. That's. I've noticed, I mean with the YouTube channel right now we get pro probably four to five people a day that shoot us a message just from the YouTube hey, what's the best agency to work with? Hey, are you guys recruiting? Like, it's. It's huge. And for anyone that's watching this that's, like, serious about building a business, Like, I say it all the time. Most people don't actually take the advice, which is why, you know, I'm comfortable saying it, because if everyone did, the competition would get a lot tougher. But start a YouTube channel and start talking about what you're doing as you're an agent. Like, people. People will follow it and they'll. They'll be attracted to you and ultimately want to join whatever you're doing. So, Jeff, if you were. If you were starting over today as an agent, what would be your. What would be your steps to get back to where you are as fast as possible?

Ooh, good question. All right, so, number one, you have to be in the seat. I'm a big proponent that nobody should recruit in this business unless they're successful themselves. So I would get in the hopper when I say hopper. When I get into our CRM, start taking calls. So we are heavily inbound, call focused. And I would just get on the phones and build my business up until. Okay, here's. I've been in the trenches. I know the issues agents are having, and this is what I need to solve. Because if you're just somebody out there that can just give them a contract and leads that they can get anywhere or, you know, a script that they can go get anywhere, that's. There's. There's nothing there. You have to have something about what you do that. I call it specific knowledge, right? So you need to have this specific knowledge that you have that others don't like. These things that you know to be true that are drivers of your business, and you focus on those. And so I find those. But you can't do that unless you're in the trenches doing the work. And so I find those pieces, right? Whether it's a niche, whether it's this piece of technology, whether it's this, you know, right now, you know, AI is big, or we're having breakthroughs all the time with AI, and, you know, you have this thing that you can just focus on, and I don't want to say exploit, that's kind of a. Has a negative connotation to it, but that's what I would do. Get in the trenches, figure out that thing that works, and then focus on that thing that works and get other agents to do it.

Got it. So kind of finding. Finding, like your one, you Know, maybe not exploiting, but like, I've heard people sound weird, but like you find whatever it is and then you just like, you milk it all the way up, you know, whatever, whatever that thing is. Like, you know, back in the day SEO was like huge. Now it kind of seems like SEO is dying quite a bit. But back in the day, like if you started a blog about life insurance, you know, we both know Anthony Martin. That guy's built a multi million dollar business just off of writing blog posts about final expense. So it's like there are 100% those things today that people just, you know, they're, they're not looking for them because they're so busy trying to just recruit and build this massive team of all these people.

Yep, yep. Yeah. Funny story about Anthony Martin. Good friends.

So he. One of the services that I had before starting Digital BJ was a website building service and teaching people how to blog and get leads. He started his website from that service so paid me a few hundred dollars a month to show him how to blog about life insurance and he just took it to the nth degree. And to me he's the biggest success story for life insurance telesales. The. The guy. Yeah, the guy is the premier agent in the business for, for final expense telesales, I should say.

Yeah, no, he's killing it. I reached out to him like a year ago and super nice guy, very willing to share knowledge and whatnot. So very cool. Jeff, if people want to hear more about what you're doing, learn more about Digital BGA, where can they reach out to you?

Digitalbga.com our YouTube channel. At Digital BGA are the best places to get information. You can sign up for our newsletter on our website. We send a weekly newsletter that has our leaderboards, that has kind of updates on leads and things like that that's going that are going on in our agency. Any sort of tech changes, things like that, things we're working on. So most people get our newsletter and keep in touch with us that way.

Awesome. Well, ladies and gents, appreciate you watching this video and we'll see you guys in the next one. Take care.