 Every lead in the world sucks. And it only is based off of how good you are. That's the only answer. Every lead is a lead, but it's not a sale. And we try to eliminate any kind of apprehension or roadblocks so that when I get on, when I start pitching this customer, I feel a certain way about that lead. That was the biggest thing I take away from Grant Cardone's two-day mastermind. In the first hour, he spent the first hour talking about an ideal life. We understood very quickly, because our family came from the restaurant business, that we did not want to be the owner-operators. We did not want to be, have our income solely based on our efforts. We wanted to be able to skip out on a Friday, come hang out with our friends, and still have a business that's generating money for us. So for an independent agent wants to sell over the phone, that's certainly doable and feasible, but you gotta follow a system. And it's not leads. I love it when you say that because people are always like, dude, why do you need to go outside the industry? Or why are you having these external industry guys speaking at 8% and that kind of stuff? It's like, because we're tired of hearing people talking about recruiting and recruiting and recruiting and layer after layer after layer, and then not releasing agents and then ripping them off in some of them factories. And 92% felling. But that's been the industry for decades, and no one has said enough is enough. No one's broken that cycle. You are listening to the 8% Nation Podcast, created to help you become a top producer in the insurance industry. Enjoy the show. All right, welcome to this week's episode of 8% Nation Podcast. We have a very special guest, Cody. We have friends. We do, dude. Jonathan and Ramiz Hakeem. You guys are celebrities. We are so honored, honored to have you guys join us. We're honored to be here. Thanks for having us. Thank you guys. How did you get so famous? We started following Cody Askin. Yeah, right. Here we go, here we go. No, we're just excited to get you guys, hear stories, just talk through, keep it kind of casual, but just kind of really, just kind of tell some stories, because you guys are considered in the industry, we hear it all the time, the leaders in the final expense, tell sales industry. Oh, geez. The OG. Gangsters. Thank you. So Ramiz, we've had you on the podcast. You told a little bit of your story, but now that we have both of you guys, why don't you guys just kind of, tell us a little bit about how it all started. I know you guys are a family operation, and now that we've got both brothers here, we're missing Tony, unfortunately. He was going to come down, but couldn't. But what's that story? Is there any interesting sort of, stories that we didn't get on the first time? Now that Jonathan's here, we can kind of talk through, or? Well, Tony didn't come, because now you have to invite us back again to have all three of us. That's right. And then the fourth time Aaron, it's like we just got to keep adding some. Yeah, it's takeaway selling, one on one. But we started, I mean, geez, when I was in, this would have been in 05. Jonathan, you were in what grade in 2005? Probably fifth grade. 10, yeah, you'd been like 10 years old. That's something that grade, yeah. Yeah, okay. That's crazy. You're like 25, right? Yeah, I just turned 26 last month. Getting old. Catching me. I know me, and it feels weird to say, now I'm 26, it used to be, I'm only 21. Now when I'm like, I'm only 26, nobody responds weird anymore. So I'm like, I gotta stop saying that now. But, you know, I was in college and I needed to make some money. Got in the insurance business. Long story short, ended up hiring my mom to set appointments. Jonathan at that time, so this would have been in probably 07 or 08. So he was just at the end of. Middle school. Middle school, getting into high school. And I'm like, do any other telemarketer? But we didn't have any money to pay a telemarketer. So Jonathan, I think nowadays, it's probably illegal to do this. We bought a cricket wireless phone, had Jonathan sitting outside because there was no reception in the actual office. And if I tell the story, they're not gonna believe this. Yeah, I was gonna ask them, I wanna hear it from your side. They're not gonna believe it, I need the whole story. Well, the first thing is, I just wanna just say, first off, this room that we're in doing this actual podcast was bigger than the entire office that we were in. Okay, so true. So that's the first thing. So it started off with me sitting in the hallway because there was no room inside the building. But like Ramiz said, back then we didn't really know anything. So we bought like 10 cricket cell phones with all different phone numbers because we didn't know anything about getting an office phone number. But using cricket, it's like, I don't know, 25 bucks a month, all you can use, all you can text, everything. And so we used to just telemarket off of these 10 cricket phones. And because it was cricket, back then they didn't have no service. I don't know if they have service now, but so we used to just sit outside and we'd have to just hand dial these phone numbers. And like, we would have- Like a Nokia phone? It's smaller. It was like a Kyocentra. What is it? It starts with a K, the Kyocentra, is that what it is? It's like one lower than Nokia. But yeah, man, it was a grind. But that's literally how everything got started. But he would sit in one of those old lawn chairs. You know, like those old lawn chairs that have like that rubber straw. So by the end of the day, it would stretch out so far. He'd be like sitting on the ground. And so we've come a lot of ways since then to say the least. Well, so did he come to you and say, hey, I need you to do this? And you said, okay, sure. Or how did that dynamic happen? You know, like that seems interesting. Yeah, so I mean, you know, we always grew up in a family business, right? So it was just always one of those things like if somebody needs help, like right now we could be in the middle of Thanksgiving and one of our family members would be like, hey, we need help at the restaurant and have the family drop what they're doing in the middle of Thanksgiving to go work at somebody's restaurant. And our family, everybody being in the family business, it's very normal to be like, hey, I need help and you just, you don't even expect anything. You just help because that's just a part of being in the family, you know? Yeah. So it's pretty, yeah. And how old were you when you made your first dial? Or is that something we don't want to talk about? Yeah, that's all you want to talk about. Yeah, but yeah, it was before high school, I don't know, 12, 13. Seriously? Yeah. So and you're setting appointments basically? Yeah. Before? People would ask, how'd you guys get so good at it? It's because we've been doing it for 20 years. I wasn't doing it skill. We've just failed over and over again until it got good, you know? There we go. That is really interesting. So you basically started, what was the next evolution? So did you hire people at that point or were you just pounding the phones and just kind of, you were the only telemarketer? How did you get to where you guys, like what was this, we see you now and we see you in an office of this, but what were some of those stories along the way? Well, your mom told a bunch of stories at Bert's Lodge that you may or may not want to share, but those were, we'll have to get her on at some point. Those were hilarious. I don't remember, there's so many of them. I mean, there was a time where I couldn't, we couldn't afford payroll. So we had to, I had to give my brother Tony my black grand damn. I'm like, dude, I can't pay you, but here's a black grand damn. There's a car. That happened before. Seriously? Oh yeah. There's a story. You know, when we, John, John makes fun of this room and how big it is compared to our first office. Well, our upgrade was then to a trailer. Okay. And it was across the street from like four or five strip clubs in Dayton, Ohio. So it was really easy to recruit people. Okay. It wasn't the best part of town to say the least. Yeah. And in the wintertime, it would get so cold that we complained to the landlord like, hey man, we got to get something going on here. This place is freezing. There was an actual hole in the floor of the, of the bathroom. It was just a single bathroom. So you could see like the dirt on the ground. And we complained and said, hey, we need some, we need some help here. Like, cause he had one of those latches over the heating thing, you know? So we couldn't change it. You'd have to break it or whatever. So he, so Monday morning we come to work and he's like, oh, Hakeem family, I got you all taken care of. We, I fixed everything. You are good to go. So we walked in and he had literally, like not even like the legit plastic for the windows, but like saran wrap. He had saran wrap the windows. And then we went to the bathroom. He had put saran wrap over this hole to try to clog all of these. The draps. The draps and stuff. Yeah. And so I guess, you know, I think the story really is like, we just never really gave up. We didn't have a choice to give up. Honestly dude, like we rolled our whole life on this deal. And every time we just got, we fell down, we just picked each other back up and made it work over and over again. Cardone says if you, if you don't, what does he say? If you don't quit, you can't fail. Yeah. Exactly. And that's really it too. I mean, cause kind of like the joke I said earlier, when you've done it as long as we have, it's like there's so many opportunities to quit and most people unfortunately just give up. Most people don't. It would have been way easier to give up. Yeah. Cause you know, it just would have been way easier to give up. Yeah. We have really, I guess cause we're stubborn, we are a stubborn family. You all have been around us outside of here. We argue and poke at each other and you know, but I think that's what kept us going is we're just like, we're not gonna give up. Like this is what we're supposed to be doing. Well, I think even bigger than that, I think it's harder to give up when it's like the whole family's working with each other. Like, I can't quit because my whole family's depending on me. Like it's like, not like I just, I'm on my own and I can just go quit and get a job. It's like, if I quit, like this thing shuts down and then now it's not just me going to find a job. It's four other family members who are dedicating their life to this. So it was really just, there was just so much on the line, you know? It's a good point. But yeah, it started off that simple, but looking at this room is really funny. This room is bigger than our first office. It was probably half the size of this. 150 square feet, probably. Yeah, and there was I think eight or nine people in this room marketing. People we used to call in on one of these cricket phones and be like, hey, I need to order more leads or usually it was I need to cancel leads. But we'd be like, let me just put you on hold and then we would just like pass a cell phone over the cubicle and be like, hey, somebody's on the phone. We would transfer you over to somebody and then we would pass the cricket line. Pass the actual cell. People thought we were a really big company. So we used to have like four different identities. Like, let me get you on the phone with Tom and then we just like change our voice, you know? And then people would be like, let me, let me come visit your office. And we're just like, well, our office is under construction. I'll meet you at the Panera bread. We were under construction for like four years. Yeah. Well, there's holes. They're getting fixed in Sarana. So did that happen to y'all too? Cause we literally just had someone from Rogersville, Missouri, an agent from Rogersville down the street like show up and ask for one of ourselves people. Just like last week when I was gone. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, of course it did happen. I mean, no doubt about it. And it was, you know, it was, it was very humbling cause you know, we were trying to make stuff happen. And some of them want to come visit the office. And it was like, gosh, we don't want them to come to this office. This is not what we're trying to do, you know? And then we finally got into a nice office. Actually it was, it reminds me a lot of this office, a lot of good office space, nice, clean. But it wasn't a call center space. And so from there, we actually moved from Ohio out to St. Louis specifically for the call center that we're at right now. Yep. Yep. So Jonathan, what's your role with North Star now? Do you mind talking about that a little bit? We first heard from him is. So, you know, what are you doing on the team now? That's a tough question, man. We always make the joke. I've done so, I've done so many things that at this point I'm like the maintenance man. So whatever there's a problem, somebody just calls me and I'm just, I'm just the go to guy to fix everything. So that's, I guess the best way to describe it. Well, you were a telemarketer, but then you were leading the marketing team, right? But you then evolved from that. Yeah, so I mean, going way back, you know, it started off as telemarketer and then it went to customer service. And then we really from there built customer service and we hired a woman named Pam who is now our director of customer service now. And then as we promoted her in, I became director of marketing. And you guys have both met Chris. He worked under me for a few years and now he's taken over all of marketing and then now I'm just kind of finding my way of what's the next thing. For God, what's the next thing for North Star. Me and you do a lot of work together. Me and you, Leina probably talk more than me and Ramiz and we're in the same building. But yeah, so I just, you know, it's just whatever it is. You know, usually a lot of training with managers and how to better train employees and better train agents and how to be a better mentor to your team and how to just groom people in our company. One of the things that I get a lot of questions on with FETEL sales specifically that you guys have been able to master. And I know that this is one of your guys's secret sauces but you guys have been able to, you know, bring data and leads into openers and then openers into transfers. Do you have any wisdom for people that are trying to build like an opening, opener department or build openers? You guys have really mastered that. And a lot of our clients, they can't figure it out. That is like a stop cap for a lot of people they can't figure it out. What have you guys learned that's allowed you to build that team and consistently be able to deliver those transfers? I'm glad you asked that. We have a webinar series that's only nine and I'm just kidding, I actually do tonight but this won't be out tonight. We probably have two totally different answers. So you want to answer first, you want me to answer first. Go ahead. Okay, I'll answer first. Every lead in the world sucks and it only is based off of how good you are. That's the only answer. Make sure we get that on recording and we put that out there for the rest of the world to see. Yeah. And to his point, and this is- Maybe we have the same answer. Went to his point, it is extremely difficult not to prejudge a lead. It just is, any manager that tells you don't prejudge a lead, don't prejudge a lead, don't prejudge a lead, I'm telling you that manager tried really, really hard not to prejudge that lead. It's just impossible not to. So when you have those openers, what you're doing is you're manufacturing the same quality lead regardless of the interest level of the client. And so whether it is a cold call or a digital marketing lead or a television lead, when you have that buffer and that filter, everything is delivered to the agent much like a product that you would buy from the store. Like if you like a certain kind of deodorant, when you buy that deodorant, you expect it to be the same way every single time. So that buffer in there delivers the same quality, the same product every single time. I do agree with Jonathan. I mean, every lead is a lead, but it's not a sale. And we try to, for our own sake, for our agent's sake, eliminate any kind of apprehension or roadblocks so that when I get on, when I start pitching this customer, I feel a certain way about that lead. I agree. That's awesome. And really to add to that, the numbers really don't lie and what we've really found is when, we don't write any type of guaranteed issue or anything like that. We're only writing full-level comp, immediate coverage policies for the most part. So when you wean out all the people who most agents write, that they really don't get paid on and you're only looking at healthy people, whether it's a TV lead, Facebook, cold calling, the ratios really aren't that far off from each other, which really proves the fact that it really is just based off of how good you are. Our number one agent, Ernese, was also the number one agent for Pioneer American when we used to use avatar leads when we first, first, first got started before that was even illegal. She was a number one agent back then. Now we do Facebook leads, she's still the number one agent. Now she's gotten better, so her sales have gone up, but the leads really haven't changed. It's really been the same script. When we use YouTube or we use TV leads, our sales don't drastically go up. It's just all based off of how good is that agent. And I think that I credit a lot of our success to you. That's how we train our agents to be. But the other aspect of it too is efficiency. So there's the prejudging aspect of it, but then there is the, let me keep dialing on these leads so I can get somebody on the hook and then begin to reel them in. We just see that as something that's very simply, minimum wage, our employees job, and they need to deliver those clients to you as opposed to you trying to go out and go hunting for those clients. Wasting a bunch of time weeding through. You know what I'm saying? I mean, we know the numbers. I mean, our average person in our pre-qualifying department, not including inbound calls is making two to 300 dials, would you say? Some more, a day, you know? And their average transfer is about two to two and a half per hour. So in an eight hour shift, they're transferring over 20 people. Incredible. So now if you are an agent, one of those transfers is going to be now starting a pitch, right? So if it takes you 30 minutes to find one person interested, then you have to pitch that person. So you're in an hour, an hour and a half, and a third of that time, you were doing really low level activities. Yeah. You know? So that's the other aspect of that is, okay, now I'm delivering a good lead, but I'm also optimizing my day and my time by only talking to people that want to talk to me. You know? Absolutely. That's good. That's so good. I love mentioning that every lead sucks, you know? It's true. Dude, I mean, I don't know how. And there's no such thing as an exclusive lead either, you know? Every, I cannot tell you. In our database right now, we literally have millions upon millions of contacts, many of which are duplicates, even the freshest of leads when we call on them, we got people that call our television commercial and ask for a specific insurance company. Hey, I'm trying to cancel my thing. Well, ma'am, this is not so-and-so's company. You're calling in to obtain more life insurance. Like it's a very saturated market and people are filling out the same ads over and over, they're filling out the same direct mail cards over and over again. They're calling it to multiple commercials. And so it ain't the leads, man. Like that's not what's gonna separate you from the competition. It's you and it's your system. Another thing to add to that too, a big reason of the success too is most insurance agents unfortunately are very, very, very lazy. And when it goes to that pre-judging, they just wanna make the excuse of why they couldn't close the sale. So a big part of our success too is when we have an hourly employee calling a lot of this outbound data, it's like do whatever you can to send this lead over to a salesperson or you're gonna lose your job. So when you have that kind of pressure on yourself, they're forcing themselves to pitch every single person until it becomes normal. Cause obviously that's not a normal thing to do. And I think that's a big reason why our agents are successful at Nordstrom cause a lot of them started off in that same position where most people who get into sales never really get put in that situation and they really don't know how to pitch people. Like Ramiz said, when somebody calls me and says, hey, I wanna cancel my insurance. I'm with blah, blah, blah. My answer is, oh my gosh, I'll help you with that. But let me tell you what I can get you qualified for and I'm pitching now this person my product. And then after I sell them, I'm gonna cancel their insurance for them or help them go through that process. Where most people are like, oh my God, this lead sucks. She called me to cancel insurance. That's great. She now needs insurance. She's canceling her insurance. Perfect. I wish I can get a lead like that all day. But most people look at it the exact opposite. And I don't know if I would necessarily call that lazy. That was the adjective of Jonathan used. I just think there's not a lot of people that have seen success modeled for them. You're probably right. You're probably right. Thank you, Jonathan. I don't know. He's right. It's not that they're lazy. They don't know what to do because I'll tell you, I'll be honest with you. There are people who are, like they're really successful employees and then they make the jump and become a salesperson and then they fail over and over again but they were really successful at one point in their life. So it's not a, I don't think it's effort necessarily or will or could be skilled but that's not why people fail. I just don't think they know what to do. Especially in the tele-sales realm, we get bombarded with people that wanna learn what we're doing. And it's like, okay, it works because we have a system. And we're not changing the system every day. Let's try this lead. Let's try that lead. Let's do this. Let's do that. Like for an agent that becomes, it's just very volatile but you gotta find a system, follow the system and then just duplicate that system over and over and over again. You say that and most people do want to learn tele-sales. Like deep down, everybody would love to sell in their underwear from home. Sure. Not everybody would like to see everybody sell from home in their underwear but they would like to do that. But at the same time, they won't spend the years or the money or the time or the energy doing what y'all did over the last however long, couple decades or whatever. They just won't. Well, I mean, we went in there with a much different mission. We understood very quickly because our family came from the restaurant business that we did not want to be the owner operators. We did not want to be, have our income solely based on our efforts. We wanted to be able to skip out on a Friday, come hang out with our friends and still have a business that was generating money for us. And so we went in with a much different mindset. So for an independent agent wants to sell over the phone, that's certainly doable and feasible but you got to follow a system and it's not leads. It's really not, it's not the leads. It's not the company that you're selling for. It's not who's training you which that's part of it. It really is. What system are you following and then how do you fine tune that? You fine tune that with training. You fine tune that with leads. You fine tune that with processes but you got to find that system and then plug it in and keep working it. Did you guys create your own system from the start or did you guys sort of find one that you partnered with somebody and then sort of make it your own? Or did you just create it from scratch? Definitely, I mean, we definitely created it but we went, listen man, when we grew up in Ohio, there are these places called chili restaurants. We don't have them in Missouri, okay? But like chili. So like in Cincinnati, there's Cincinnati style chili. There's two big franchises there, Skyline chili and Gold Star chili. Our entire family is in the Gold Star chili business. So we grew up in the back of the restaurant, okay? Like we would wake up super early in the morning. Our mom would take us, put us in the back. They would go start prepping and everything like that. When it's time for school, she'd take us to school. When school is over, back to the restaurant until the evening. If you go to some ethnic restaurants, many times you'll see their children sitting at the table there, okay? That's how we grew up. We didn't wanna grow up. Like we didn't want that for our children or for ourselves. And so we knew very, very quickly we have to scale this and get people to fill our seeds and begin to put together a process that just spit out money for us at the end. So we went with a much different mindset than how can I sell over the phone? It was more like, okay, how do I get 1,000 people to sell over the phone? Yeah, I love that you thought bigger. You wanted something that as Matt Monaro talks about, what does he talk about? The mule manager and magician. Who wouldn't wanna be the magician with a business that you've worked on for years that spits out money? Exactly. I mean, most people will never say that. They're like, well, no, I just wanna independently go sell forever. They may say that, everyone doesn't really actually want that. Sure. Well, that's definitely an easier way of doing it. I mean, we would have saved a lot of heartache and pain and disappointment over the years if we just did it on, like if we were still selling final expense over the phone. And there's nothing wrong with that. I mean, for some people, like if I'm 65 years old and I'm retired, I'm not trying to build a business. I just wanna enjoy where I am right now. But for others, and we had an advantage. I mean, we were young. We could take a lot more risks. We didn't have kids. We weren't married. We could do a lot of dumb things and not get in trouble for it, you know? So it was just perfect timing force at that time, but we also had the privilege of being raised by entrepreneurs who we saw break their back to make ends meet. And we were like, that ain't that. It's just they ain't gonna be us. When did it click? When did you see, like, cause you guys are projecting 34 million in premium this year, correct? When did it click for you that this could be a reality? There had to have been a moment in time where it clicked where you're like, holy crap, we got something good here. We might have different answers, but I was gonna say, me and Landon laugh about this all the time because I feel like Landon is like my cheerleader. He's like, always pumping me up. But I feel like it still hasn't clicked. Like I feel like we still have so much to do. Like 34 million for most people is like, I don't know what you're gonna say, but I feel like for most people, like 34 million, there's no way. Sounds impossible. Sounds impossible. Like I'm thinking, well, you know what? I'll tell you when it changed actually. For me was when I went to the first growth con, there was multiple speakers saying like, oh, you think you're a big deal cause you sell a million dollars? Oh, you think you're a big deal cause you sell 10 million dollars? How do you get to a hundred million? And I was like, man, we're so far from that. Like that is crazy. Like I've been thinking we're a big deal because people tell us we're a big deal, but man, there's so much more to do. So for me, if it doesn't feel like it's still clicked, it feels like it in instances cause people wanna talk to me, people like Landon tell me how, how many people ask about us. I just went to growth con and Landon knows some of the connections that I make cause we're doing some work together. But even people that I'm looking up to are coming to me saying, hey, how could you, how could you help out my team? I know we don't do interest, but what could you do for me? And it feels weird cause I'm like, in my mind, I'm like, dude, there's still so much more for me to do, but, so it doesn't feel like it's clicked, but it's just, I don't know. What do you think of it? Every person that like thinks like that or there's a, every successful person I've ever met thinks like that. It's a competitive edge. Yeah, you know, it's just a competitive edge and the moment that you're challenged, it just, it clicks again for you, right? So I would say there's multiple clicks that take place to get to a certain level and for one click, you get a good sprint out of it and then you kind of think, okay, I think I got this and then another click happens, you know? I think about the first sale we did over the phone, I'm like, oh my gosh, if we could do this once, we can do this a million times. Then I think about how marketing changed. I think about the first time we generated a Facebook lead. I'm like, oh my gosh, if someone filled this out on Facebook, we could do a billion of these, you know? I think about the first time we did a voice signature, I'm like, dude, we're gonna be unstoppable. Like, so there's just a lot of gears that turn, that begin to create this big machine and then you start gaining momentum and then you're unstoppable. Like, why would you stop at 34 million? Like, why would you stop at 34 million? Well, you told me that day when we were walking through the office, I'm like, dude, how big could this thing be? You're like, I think there's like 500 million available, you know? And I'm like, dang, I freaking love that. When you said that, I'm like, dude. And the same thing happened for me at GrowthCon two years ago. I thought I was hot stuff, man. And I left thinking, that's why I love events and that's why I love, that's why we're doing 8% and everything else. But I'm like, man, I am so freaking tiny. Yeah. Well, so much of it really does come from though, education and when I say education, I'm not talking about going to school to learn geography or history, okay? You know, attending things like 10X, reading books, listening to podcasts, paying for people's knowledge is a big part of it. Okay, expand on that for a quick second because I've seen y'all do it. You've seen me do it recently. I've gotten to where I almost spend too much wanting to know more. And I don't know that there is, that is actually a thing too much. But for, you know, for the amount of money I'm making, the amount of money I spend, some people would say that's too much. But I just, like you guys, I know there's more available and I want to get there as fast as possible. I think it's only too much if you're paying for things that you're not using. Yeah. You know what I mean? If you're paying for 10 courses and you're getting great information from all 10, now 10 courses may be too much, I don't know. Depends, I guess, on who you are as a person. For me, I struggle with focusing on stuff anyways. But I'm a part of multiple coaching programs right now where I'm getting little things here and there on a weekly call with multiple people, you know. And it's so important to be able to get those nuggets and learn those things. Because you are really paying for someone's knowledge. I can either learn by failing and having to learn from my own experience or I could just pay, you know, you just did that. You'd probably spend a bunch of money to sit down with Greg Cardone. Something clicked with me there too. We talk about clicks. I'm sitting in the event. I know I'm sitting in lunch and Cardone's on stage in the Diamond Lounge and he's like, hey, you know, we're doing this $50,000 two-day mastermind and I'm gonna give everything away. All the secrets, the team's gonna be there. There's only gonna be like 15, 20 people in the room and I'm gonna be like, I'm sitting there and I look at my wife and I'm like, I'm mad at myself that I don't feel like I'm ready to do that yet. I'm like, it kind of ticked me off, you know? And she's like, we'll figure it out. So I did it. And it was like, I can't, like all the stuff I learned that I've already shared and that we like keep, you know, it's like, it's incredible. Yeah. It's exposure is what it is. You just get exposed to different frequency of thinking. And a lot of people just don't think, I mean, everything is a cycle. There's a cycle of poverty. There's a cycle of abuse. There's a cycle of success. And look at how many professional athletes have children who are professional athletes. Yes. I mean, it's just exposure. And so if you're not where you want to be, you gotta break that cycle. That's the only way that this works. And so if you're looking in the insurance business for someone who's gonna break the cycle, it ain't gonna happen. It's just not, there's nobody, there's nobody leading the way. I mean, you guys are, you guys are, I believe one of the pioneers in getting people to think differently. But you gotta look outside of this little tiny industry. I love it when you say that because people are always like, dude, why do you need to go outside the industry? Or why are you having these external industry guys speaking at 8% and that kind of stuff? It's like, because we're tired of hearing people talking about recruiting and recruiting and recruiting and layer after layer after layer and then not releasing agents and then ripping them off and sending them crappy leads. And 92% felling. But that's been the industry for decades and no one has said enough is enough. No one's broken that cycle. It's when people left the industry and said, look how the mortgage industry is doing things. Look how the car industry is doing things. Like why not take the good from other places and infuse them into a multiple billion dollar industry? That's right. Then when you do that, now all of a sudden things happen. Look at the industry now. It's much different today than it was five years ago and totally different than 10 years ago. Totally different because people are thinking different. It's not the same old guys that have been in this thing for 50 years telling us the same thing over and over again. Everyone wants to hold on to all these little secrets and they think they knew everything. When I started doing Facebook leads several years ago, people were literally, I would have people emailing me, please stop telling people what you're doing. Because we're using it also, it's working well and we don't want anybody else to know. Sure. And I'm like, that just sounds so small-minded. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And now there's 4,200 Facebook lead vendors, but it's like, dude, who cares, right? I love that you're saying that. It's true. Wow, it's good. I'm blown away, yeah. So you guys both read 10X. So what was the biggest thing you took away from 10X, Jonathan? That connections, well, you know what, don't judge a book by its cover and I'm not gonna go into too much detail, but you just never know who you're meeting and what they can do for you. And I just met some people who, if any of us would have met some of these people, we would have been like, I'm not gonna really spend as much time talking to this person, they're not really a big deal and you just don't know. And it's happened to me numerous times in my life, but at 10X specifically, there was some deals that I was able to accomplish, some sales that I was able to close, that if I was in public, I would have looked at this person and been like, I'm not gonna talk to that person. That person just seems kind of weird or they seem sketchy or they don't seem successful. And I'm like, wow, this person really is legit. And so that was my biggest takeaway, wasn't something that actually happened in the conference, but it was something that happened from other people who attended the conference. But it was just crazy, man. I mean, Floyd Mayweather was there and they asked him what's his most expensive watch and he said $18 million. They said, well, why would you spend $18 million on a watch? He said, well, when you got this much money, who cares? You know, and then John Travolta owns three planes. I said, well, why do you own three planes? He said, because with one break, I got another plane for backup. I just do own three planes, you know? So, I just think so different, man. It's freaking unbelievable. Yeah, it really is. So the two things I would say is definitely don't ever judge a book by its cover because I think Grant Cardone says this, but he always says, who gots my money? Other people really do have what you want, not in the sense that you're trying to take what they have, but other people are gonna get you to where you need to be. And so don't ever judge somebody because some people who you don't think are successful are probably way more successful than you. And then the second thing is, is don't just don't think small. You know, Cody spent $50,000 to sit with Grant Cardone. Probably the best thing you ever did. Yeah, it was. I left now and I'm like, I can't imagine not doing that. Like I would be so upset. And I made a huge mistake while I was at 10X because you text me one night. You're like, hey, I'm here with like some ex-growthcon speakers and we're all like hanging out and I didn't go. And that was a mistake. Dude, you should have came. I totally should have. The later that night I looked at Lauren. There's these moments in life and I'm like, Lauren, right now I made a huge mistake. I should have went and freaking hung out with Jonathan and Tim Story and Kerry Kasem and all the other people. Like a person owns LA style magazine, like, et cetera. It was like, it was crazy. And I'm like, dang it. That was a mistake. And you know what's wrong about it is, it's Chris who was in charge of marketing. I would just had his 30th birthday that same weekend as 10X. And we didn't party and we didn't drink and we didn't do anything. And he looked at me and we got back to the rubies like, dude, this is the best birthday I've ever had. Yes. So I think a lot of people make that mistake. I struggle, I don't have ever said this. I struggle mostly with knowing I should do something or knowing that TikTok is going to be big but being stubborn about stuff, you know, for a random weird example. If I share with that, I know a lot of other people do too. And that's why it's like, okay, just write the check. Just go, you know, show up in network and I still struggle with, you know, actually taking action and doing stuff. And most people wouldn't think that, but I really do. Well, and the comfortable thing is to sit in your bubble because you're the king of your bubble. You know what I'm saying? You can sit there and I can be the king and I can do my thing. But it's only whenever I get around people like you guys and just that and partner with Cody and all these monsters where I'm like, oh my gosh, like it's just a different wavelength that we're operating on. Getting out of that comfort zone is huge, obviously. They dropped some bombs at 10X too because that's a huge takeaway. You said, don't judge me by his cover. I heard countless times, I'm not going to 10X because the speaker line up. It doesn't look like what I wanna do. And there's never been a conference in the history of the world that dropped that many celebrities and powerful people and speakers in the three-day span. It's never happened. Yeah. Dana White was probably one of my favorites. I don't know about who your favorite was. Scooter Braun surprised me, but Dana White was, I didn't realize they bought it for two million bucks and sold it for four billion. Yeah. Well, I thought that story was so phenomenal about how he convinced the Fratida brothers to partner up and buy it. And then out of them just believing in Dana White, they were like, hey, we're just gonna give you 10% of this company. Like we just believe in you. You put no money up, but we're just gonna give you 10% of this company. They turn around, sell it for $4.5 billion, which is to, if anybody watched the TV show, it was entourage, you know, Ari Gold, who's the agent, who's crazy, and so that guy in real life bought the UFC for $4.5 billion. And the story was he literally put everything on the line. Like they said he liquidated everything that he had. Everybody thought he was nuts. Everybody was like, dude, you're an idiot. It's 4.5 billion. It's not gonna get any bigger. It's the UFC. Like it's not even a, like it's not basketball or the NFL. You know, what are you doing? And he literally sold, they said everything, everything that this man had, bought it for $4.5 billion. And they said today it's worth nine, just over $9 billion. And that's like in just like four or five years. Yeah. And it's for someone like Dana White to not put any money up and go from no investment to 450 million. He was a bellboy. Yeah, he was a bellboy at a hotel when they bought the UFC. I think that's the biggest takeaway from, I think out of all the conferences I've been to, I remember Ed Milet saying one time, this would have been, this was the 10X before this last one. He says, people don't have to believe what you're saying. They have to believe that you believe what you're saying. And I think of stories like that, with Dana White, like I'm not sure if they believed him, but they surely believe that he believed what he was saying. And when you look at things like that in life, even this presidential, this last presidential election, where Hillary was going up against Donald Trump, no one believed what Donald Trump was saying. Like nobody did, but everyone believed that he believed what he was saying. And they didn't believe that about Hillary. They're like, well, we know she's lying. Even the people that liked her, we're like, I don't know, she may be, you know? But that's the biggest takeaway. That's good. I think that's good in sales too, is like you have to have such a deep conviction that even if people are apprehensive, they're like, but dang, that dude really believes it. Like, let's just do a deal, you know what I mean? But that's the only nugget I took away from 10X too. I took a lot, that was the one that like has really stuck with me at my let saying that. That's powerful. It changed my entire perspective. So I don't know what we spent. I mean, with airfare hotel and the ticket, maybe it was five to seven, because I didn't get a really good ticket like Cody does. I think I spent like that, but that was worth way more than $7,000 just for that conference, you know what I'm saying? Well, you talk about, well, Jordan Belford is obviously speaking at 8%, and he talks about certainty all the time. And I totally agree with that. Like, if you are more certain about the ability that whatever product or service is gonna do than the other person is that it's not going to, they're probably gonna do it. Well, isn't that what sales is? Just a transfer of conviction, a transfer of beliefs? Like you didn't know you wanted this before you talked to me. Now I have to transfer my conviction into you and now you wanna do business with me. It's exactly right. So. It's exactly right. Man, goodness gracious. You got any other questions while we- Dude, all I do, I'm like, this is, I just had like a little moment internally listening to you speak. I'm like, okay, I remember four years ago, watching videos on YouTube of you giving a tour, maybe it was Tony, giving a tour of North Star. Oh, yeah. The previous space before you, you know, bought an additional 100,000 square feet or whatever. And I'm watching the, what I thought was big at the time that's now small. And I'm looking at this and I'm like, man, it would be incredible to meet those guys, to get to go tour that place and have people like that as a part of my network, you know? Sure. And then we've got a big carrier. I don't know if it's okay to say or not, but a huge carrier coming in today, a little hard just privately held insurance company in the world. They're coming here today as well while you guys are here. And I just, I am thinking back over the last four years and it's like, everything I've done is worth it. And you guys are talking about going from 34 to half a billion. It's like, dude, people need just to start. Like that was the biggest thing I take away from Grant Cardone's two day mastermind. In the first hour, he spent the first hour talking about an ideal life and how years ago he crafted what he viewed as his ideal life. And his ideal life involved flying around the world and jet. His ideal life involved having $20 billion worth of real estate one day. His ideal life did not involve getting his own coffee. You know, his ideal life involved having a massive conference and a massive team. And he's just like, everyone needs to figure out what their ideal life looks like. Dude, and I think a big thing for you is your ideal life looks like a final expense tele-sales company that is bigger than anything else everybody's ever seen. Probably doing hundreds of millions a year. And you're able to, as Manero says, eventually be the magician, you know? Like everybody has this, like I know for him his ideal life is for, you know, security marketing be doing a hundred million one day. And dude, I believe it's gonna happen, you know? I just know that everyone needs to be thinking about, okay, what does my life look like in 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, if you're Jonathan, 40 years, you know? Because you're freaking young. And I'm getting jealous, I'm almost 30, you know? And like, dang, I think everybody needs to start thinking not what I want my exit to be, but what I want my ideal life to be. And then begin to formulate a path to that. Like not a business strategy, but like a life strategy, you know? That's what we did. I mean, we really knew what did we want our life to look like in 10 years? Like, and that's what we went in. And we're not even at the 10 year mark yet, but we're like everything that we do is all geared towards, this is what I promised, this is what I promised my wife. Like this is what I promised it was gonna look like. So every decision that we make, we're gonna point it towards that thing right there, which if you talk about successful people, very few of them talk about money. Like they just understand that money is the byproduct of that. But I want the biggest conference, not the most profitable conference, the biggest conference and I want this and that. And then the money is just a byproduct of what I want that to look like in the future. Yeah, that book I put up on Facebook that I was reading on the way to Vegas, on the way to 10X, it was about, there's no plan B for your A game, I think is what it's called. And he talks about how everyone needs to make a decision to be the best in the world at something. And I remember as a kid watching my grandfather preach, he passed away last year, he preached for a Baptist pastor for like 40-something years. And as a kid, I grew, well, we all have these moments in life. And I grew up thinking, I wanna travel the world and speak. I wanna be a speaker. And I think that was one of those moments that clicked. So at 10X, I'm like, I want 10,000 people in the audience at an insurance conference one day. And I think everyone's had those moments in life where something's clicked for them or they wanted something, I think the biggest difference is some people decide to execute and implement and really go for it like you are and like you guys are. I stole something from you, Ramiz. You told me at a conference one time, I'm not sure where we're hanging out, but we were talking about the definition of success. And you said your definition of success is the ability to do whatever you want, whenever you want without any hesitation, because that means you're in a place where you've got things on cruise control. And to me, that is where, that's my definition of success. That's my ideal life. I want a successful company. I want people that can count on me. I want an organization that supports our team. But I really, at the end of the day, I want to be able to go on a trip. I want to be able to go into a business venture with somebody that I don't have to think about what I have to give up to do that. If I want to go, if you and I want to go start something, I want to go do it. You know what I mean? And I love that definition, man. I adopted that as myself. I'm sure, where did you get that from? Well, you know, because so many people would go to the money so fast, but then you look at all these people in Hollywood that have all the money in the world and their life is just trash. Like, is that what success looks like? Like, that's not what I want. Forget the money. I just don't want to be like that, you know? And not to be judgmental, but like you just see all these crazy stories and people dying so early because they just, they try to mask this success because it's so painful to them. And so I just knew, just very, I just, I don't know, just, I've always thought, I just want to be able to make choices that I want to make and have enough confidence and belief in myself that if someone judges me, it's not gonna bother me. And that if I wanted to do something, I don't have to second guess my decision. And so again, I'm not totally there yet, okay? I'm just not totally there yet because there are things I'd like to do but I'm just apprehensive about, but the decisions that I make today are pointing to that definition of success. It's hard to, it's crazy to hear that you're as massive as you guys are and it's in the amazing things you're doing that you're still apprehensive about doing something. You know what I mean? That has to resonate with people listening right now because I would never think you're apprehensive about anything. I don't know what exactly we're referring to but you see what I mean. I mean, I live in a very, very small town with 3,000 people. Nobody knows really what I do for a living and my wife and I are very active in the community. Very, very active. So because of that, we are very apprehensive. We're very, very conscious of the image that we put out. We just, you know, we don't drive the cars that we'd like to drive. We don't live in the house we'd like to live in because we are afraid that that's gonna get people to look at us differently. And that's a shame that we feel, and I don't think anybody would. It's just this own internal turmoil of, you know, let's just stick with the Ford. Let's just, you know, or park that car in the garage. You know, and so that's not success. You either gotta get out of that city or I gotta just tell people whatever, get over it but we're just not there yet for whatever reason. Well, you also are talking about your plane. You know, that's one of the reasons you want your plane is because I wanna be able to get my sons are growing up and I wanna be able to make their basketball game. If I don't have a plane, there's gonna be games I'm gonna miss. Yeah. You know, so some people look at that as materialistic. The three planes is materialistic. Well, John Travolta has three planes because he doesn't wanna miss something. Exactly. You know what I'm saying? It's not about the three planes. Yeah. And he never talked about money. He never brought up money one time. And, but I think it's materialistic because people don't have that kind of money, right? Like Floyd Mayweather owns an $18 million watch. Well, he's worth billions. Like what, him spending $18 million on a watch is like a spend $180 on a watch. You know, maybe not you, but maybe a normal person, right? Like, so is it materialistic that he bought an $18 million watch? You know? I mean, I see why people say that, but they're looking at it from their standpoint. An $18 million watch is definitely materialistic. I mean, I'll just be honest about that. No, I mean, but for all we know, maybe he's donating $100 million to charity every year. Is it still materialistic at that point? But like, I can see justifications for other things. It goes up in value. So it's an investment. It's like buying us $18 million worth of stocks. Now the brotherhood's coming out. There we go. There we go. Clash of the Keems. I don't know. My thing is, you know, Ramiz brought his definition of success. And my whole thing is I want to be able to own my time and I want to be able to not have to think twice about anything that I want to do. If I want to go spend a hundred grand to spend a weekend with Grant Cardone, well, let me give you 200 grand, so I'm the only one there. Yeah. You know, I don't want to have to think about things. I don't want to have to, now obviously I'm going to think things through like, is that worth the money? Or not, I'm sorry, is that worth the money? Am I going to get value from it? But I don't want to ever sit in a position of, can I afford that? Is it going to be worth my money? Should I buy that or should I invest in it? Like if I want to go buy a Range Rover or Lamborghini or a Ferrari, let me do it without having to think about it. And that's my definition of success, it's just the freedom to do whatever you want to do on your time on your own money and not ever have to ask, I guess. I think that Ramiz, you mentioned too, I feel like one of my things that are like holding me back and I think we've got a similar mindset in this is like worry about what, and maybe you're better at this than me, worry about what people think, you know? Like I want, Cardone would absolutely totally disagree with this. I think every successful person would. He thinks half the world should absolutely hate his freaking guts, you know? I want people to like me, you know? And I think it's maybe because I'm 29 and I'm just starting all this, but that's a, it's probably a problem. It's probably a liability. You were raised in a Christian household, okay? You're not a Scientologist. And so, I'll just be honest with you. And so you're serving a much greater cause than just let me inspire people to make money. You're really trying to model what does a wholesome lifestyle look like? That's not everybody's definition of success, you know? Scratch and crawl and step on people's throats to get to the top. You couldn't pay me enough to do that, you know what I mean? Or to lie about somebody or make someone look bad so that I can prop myself up. There are people that would probably tell you that that stuff's okay. My family is just not, and I know your family's like that. Maybe laying in his family, but. We're rough, we're rough area. Just kidding. But that's the, that's the difference I think. That's the difference I think. Like I care what people think about me because I care about them. Not that I care that they think about me. I can't roll up to the food pantry in my Range Rover. It's just not the right image. I'm here to bring my kids to serve people that are underprivileged. I like that you still think like that too. And I don't think that's gonna. And so then there's that internal tension of, okay, well are you successful then? If you're worried about what people think about you. I disagree with you though. I think you could inspire a homeless person because you drove a Range Rover to the food pantry. And so Jonathan's definition is much different than mine. No, I mean, I think everybody, I think everybody's entitled to their own opinion, but I personally don't care about what people think of me. I hope people think of me. That is true about Jonathan. Jonathan legitimately does not care what people think about him at all. I love that. And that doesn't make him any better or worse than anyone of us or anyone in our family. But out of all of us, my sister and my brother, my parents, Jonathan could care two craps about what anyone thinks about him. Well, it only goes into just cause people's opinions don't hold value to me. Now I want people to like me. Obviously like it'd be nice. But I also know to go to the same thing, you said if half the world hates me, does that because I helped the other half? You know, does the other half hate me because I'm helping the people that they wanna put down? I mean, who know? You know what I mean? So people are gonna hate you no matter what you do. Yeah, cause I mean, we'll get 50 YouTube comments a day and one will be like, I love this dude. The next one will be like, this dude's a scam and I hate this dude. And I'm like, what did I do to make him say that? Yeah, well, they're just jealous. If that's the case, I need more of that, I guess. But I think, dude, I think we're out of time. Thank you so much for hanging out. This has been incredible. I love just having the casual conversation with you guys. You guys have such wisdom that comes out of you guys. So that was really what today's about. So thank you guys so much for joining us. Thanks for having us. Yeah, we appreciate you guys. See you at 8%. Yeah, see you at 8%. Give it a plug real quick. Why are you guys excited about 8%? What's the one thing you can't wait for? Man, you guys always do such a good job. I mean, from the moment you step into the final keynote, it's just always, always really, I'm bringing my wife this year with me because she wants to be part of it too. And so it's just, I can't even say one thing. It's just the whole experience. There's nothing like that. There's nothing like it out there. Yeah, the one thing that I, first of all, I'm super excited because I know you shared with me the speaker lineup. And there's some really, really, really great speakers this year that most people don't know about. But the other thing that I would to just say about it is first of all, it's Vegas. Okay, there's not very many excuses to have a tax write-off to go to Vegas. That's right. So if I can get the government to pay for me to go to Vegas, I'm gonna be there. You might even find me at like some carpentry expo next month. Because I went there to learn sales, okay? So that's what I'm excited of. I love Vegas, Vegas is a great spot, but that speaker lineup is gonna be so awesome. I know that they're gonna be able to deliver so much value to the industry. That's good, dude. All right, well, that's a wrap, guys. Thank you so much. Thanks, guys. Thanks. Hey, if you love this podcast and wanna know how an agent went from homeless to six figures per month, then click on that video right there. You'll love it, and I'll see you there. I'm homeless. Not my wife and kids. I don't have any money. I don't have any money. He said, I won't work with you. Now mind you, I've watched this guy make millions of dollars in his lifetime. He's with different network markets.