 Welcome to day two. We're back. We're back together for an entire day. How amazing was yesterday. I want to know, okay, what was a big takeaway? When I go to events, all right, here's what I do. I want you to think about, hey, what would Cody do today, man? What would Cody have done yesterday? Number one, he would go to Apris Nation live in Dallas. Hands down, right? Because I go to conferences every. I'm literally going to a conference next weekend in Miami, okay, which is 10x. I believe in events. As much, if not more than anyone in our industry, okay? Here's what I want to talk through though. What would Cody do? I would write down ideas. My job when I coach and train people is to give them new ideas, to challenge them to be a better version of themselves and to make them think bigger. I want us to think bigger today. The theme of the event is you don't quit, you can't fail. I believe and I know that life gets really good in the interest industry as long as you choose not to throw in the white towel and quit, okay? As long as you decide right now, I'm going to win. Like we got Les Brown, we got Brian Tracy, we got Tom Hagna all later, like my favorite speech of Les Brown is, it's not over until I win. It's not over until you win. I want you to be thinking about winning today. I want you to think about changing your life today, okay? Let me know in chat where you're watching from, where you hear yesterday, and what was your favorite part of yesterday, and what are you most looking forward to today? Okay, what are you most looking forward to today? Welcome. Thank you for being back. I am absolutely excited and ecstatic for the crazy, massive day that we've got planned out for you today. Today, we'll go down as the best virtual conference day in history that the insurance industry's ever seen. Period. Now, we got to back it up, okay? Are you ready for today? Type yes in chat. If you're with me, yes, I'm ready, yes, I'm ready, yes, I'm ready, yes, I'm ready, yes, I'm ready. My job, okay, my job is to take you to the next level. I'm committed today. Like, I'm more, you could tell, like, I got a good, nice rest because I was so exhausted last night. Like, I'm jacked up and ready for today. Who else is ready for today? Okay, I will remind you, my mission is to help every insurance agent in the world. How am I doing so far? How are we, the teams doing so far at helping you get to that next level? We're going to keep showing up in your life and we're going to keep helping you because we're committed. We care about you and we're going to be consistent. Commit, care, and stay consistent. That's the three C's of the day from Cody. Okay, here we go. Okay, here we go. I want you to be at Aprisination 2021. If you love this and you're like, dude, this is like changing. This is legendary. This is unbelievable. This is nothing compared to the alive event that's going to take place in Dallas, Aprisination 2021 at the Statler Hotel on July 23rd and 24th. Okay, we got to remind you to make sure to take advantage of the deals that are available just these two days during the event. Okay, kodiaskins.com forward slash deals, kodiaskins.com forward slash deals. Okay, we got a CA deal that I'm releasing right now, which is a four week private mentorship program with me for normally total value $14,191 for only $88 bucks. Okay, that's the CA deal, kodiaskins.com forward slash deals. So get there, make sure you take advantage of that. Then 8% deal that we're kicking it off with is the VIP Bogo. Okay, VIP Bogo where you can get two VIP tickets for the price of one. You can bring a friend. You can bring an enemy. I don't care who you bring because it's your extra ticket. You do whatever you want. Okay, but make sure you get to Aprisination in Dallas. Who's watching saying to do it? Okay, I already got my ticket. I grabbed it yesterday. I grabbed it early. I grabbed it previously, right? Because you can see we are raising the prices every 30 days. Waiting is not only going to cost you money. It's also going to hurt your commitment level, right? Like when I buy tickets now to events, I buy them one year in advance. I get the absolute lowest pricing. Okay, and I make sure that I have the absolute best ticket available. Okay, so make sure you go to codeascus.com forward slash deals. Take advantage of all the deals that are available during these two days. Also, when you hear this sound, you know, the siren is going off and it's time for another flash sale today. We're going to have a few of those today. Yesterday, the absolute urgency and the individuals that took advantage of the flash sales, which means if you're new, a flash sale means that. Okay, if you're just jumping off for day two, it lasts for three minutes. It's a totally insane deal that will never be available again, right? It's so insane, we put a siren to it. Okay, it only lasts for three minutes and then poof, it's gone, which means you have to take action now during those three minutes. Are you ready for today? I want to remind you, okay, we're still choosing people, not only who are with most watch time today, we're giving away money, we're giving away prizes, we're giving away courses, we're giving away tickets, all right? We're giving away, for most watch time, most engaged, most active in chat, the individual that shares this out the most. Okay, I want to encourage you right now, share this to a Facebook group that you're in. Okay, start tagging other agents that need to be on this and hear this message today. We are committed to helping others and I want to encourage you to think about and commit to thinking about helping others today. That's what it's all about, man. People don't need a handout, right? Need a handout. If you don't quit, you can't fail. Who's ready for day two? Talk to me. Who is ready for day two is about to bring out our first speaker. Okay, I love this. Okay, I want to tell you a quick story, okay, about our first speaker. He is an insurance industry legend. He taught me more about this space than anyone else ever has. When I was 16 years old, I was supposed to go to Apple Marketing in Rogersville, Missouri. I was supposed to go to work on a Saturday from 4 to 10. I was 16. I was throwing up. I didn't feel well. It's about 3,330. I go to this man, my dad. And I said, hey, I don't feel like going to work today. Right? Whoever woke up, you're like, dude, I don't feel like going to work today. I don't feel like showing up. I don't feel like being my best self. Me too. And I tell him, hey, I'm throwing up. I don't feel a lot. I don't think I'm going to go to work today. And he told me, you do whatever you want to do, but you know what I would do. As of April 1st, here in a few weeks, he will have been in the insurance industry for 31 years. The dude shows up. I've learned from not only my father, but also an absolutely incredible mother. And they've both been an amazing, positive impact on my life. So please help me welcome the number one mentor in my life, the number one due to the insurance industry and my best friend to jump out and kick it off for day two. Please welcome my father, Mr. Brian Askins. Hello, hey, this is Brian Askins with Secure Insurance Group. First of all, Cody, I want to thank you for that introduction. Obviously, you know, a lot of you are listening today because of Cody and just an unbelievable son and I could speak hours and hours on just, you know, our relationship and just Cody in general. Today, I want to really talk to you about how to build an agency, how to build a successful team. And just to kind of give you some ideas here, I'm going to kind of walk through kind of what I've done over my career. But first of all, I just want to kind of talk to you about, to let you know, and all these things I want to tell you today, you know, all of you are going to already know, but you only get one life. Make the absolute best of it. Don't waste any part of your life. And we all get one here on earth to do, you know, whatever we want to do in life. But make the absolute best of it. Don't let anyone or anything stand in your way of the dreams that you have. And, you know, all I'm trying to do is encourage you to do, in this talk today, is to bet on yourself. I don't think, I don't think often that we bet on ourselves. And so I'm just, I'm encouraging you today to bet on yourself. Don't take the easy route, again, bet on yourself. There's so many times that we can take the easy route and it's easy and, you know, there's no, it's just an easy route. But I'm just asking you today to bet on yourself. And always remember, if you don't quit, you can't fail. Simply don't quit. And at the end of the day, you'll be, you'll be glad of what you built, because you build something that you'll be proud of is something you can leave as a legacy to your, to your loved ones. And so, again, today, the focus is, you know, if you don't, if you don't quit, you cannot fail. And I'm just asking you to bet on yourself. So let me tell you a bit about me and what my career has been. I started insurance business, as Cody mentioned, April of 1990. I started with a small little company called Reliable Life. And I was with them from 90 to 97. I ran a debit route to where you go around and you collect monthly premium payments from, from individuals. And I collected about 450 homes a month. And in 1991, I was fortunate enough to be the rookie of the year for Reliable Life. And I said an all time sales life, a life sales record at that time in 1991, I'm sure it's been broken since. But in 1991, I did hold the all time life sales record for Reliable Life. And then in April of 1997, I went to work for Mutual of Omaha. I was an agent for them for a couple of years. I'm sorry for a few months, I apologize. And then district sales manager for a few years. And then I became a general manager with them in 2010. I'm sorry, in 2000. And then 2010, I became the number one GM at Mutual of Omaha. Again, what people ask, well, how did you take your agency from rank 47th in the company to number one in less than a 10 year period? And it all goes back to I surrounded myself with the right people, had tremendous, tremendous, tremendous people that I surrounded myself with. And so in this business, it's all about the people you surround yourself with. And so that's how we were able to become the number one agency at Mutual of Omaha is just the people that I surrounded myself with. And then in 2014, February of 2014, I started Secure Insurance Group. So Secure has been going now for just a little over seven years. And with Secure, it was probably the biggest bet on myself I've ever done. And it's been the one that's paid off the most. And there's so many people, they're just afraid to bet on themselves. And so again, just want to encourage you to do that. So let's start with Secure Insurance Group. Let me tell you a little bit about Secure Insurance Group and what, when I started Secure Insurance Group, I started with four agents. And Cody was one of those four. And we currently have nearly about 750 independent agents across the US now in seven years. And there are many of you listening today that there's no question about many of you listening today. They're much, much, much more talented than I am. You just have it bet on yourself. Your talent is greater than my talent. I'm very confident of that. And I've just been successful because, again, like Cody mentioned earlier, I show up every single day. I don't let anyone outwork me. And I bet on myself. And I surround myself with the right people. And so I'm just asking you to bet on yourself because it's definitely, definitely time. Some of you on this today, you've thought about doing certain things in the insurance industry. You've thought about doing this or that. But you're scared and you keep talking yourself out of it because you don't want to bet on yourself. And again, I'm hoping after today, some of you will take that chance and you'll bet on yourself. So let me tell you a little bit about building an agency. And this is some things that I've done to help build an agency. And I'm going to tell you what's kind of important. So the number one, the most important thing to me period is culture. And culture kind of goes back to, I think that the person who is the, everyone's looking up to should be the hardest working person in the agency. And whether I was with reliable life was with mutual law and our security insurance group. And that's been my three careers over 31 or three companies I've worked for in 31 years is I truly believe I've been the hardest working person in, in any of those spots I've been in. And it's, it's something that's important to me. I won't, you know, because I think you gain a lot of respect. I think that you, you know, it's people see you and all of a sudden they step their game up. And if you surround yourself with a lot of people talented individuals like I have, and, and you're the hardest working person in the office, they kind of, in the agency, they kind of see that and they step their game up. But nothing is more important than in culture. Culture is absolutely the most important thing that there is. Hire people that fit well in your culture. Again, when you're hiring, it's all about do they fit in your culture? Because they could be, you know, an unbelievable individual personnel or as far as a talent and all that and production, but they don't fit well in your culture, they can do more harm than good. So it's all about the culture. If you ever have issues in your agency, handle those issues quickly, don't let those issues to where you, you may have a situation that starts out small, but really, really quick, it turns very large because it just continues to fester. Deal with whatever issues are quickly so they don't, they don't grow because small issues are easy to handle. It's all about communication and, but when that, when those issues are just kind of swept under the rug and hoping they go away, they keep getting bigger and bigger each and every day and then sooner or later, they're very large issues. Don't allow drama or negativity. Again, that can kill the culture. You know, we've all heard about the bad apple in the, in the basket. It can run all the other apples and it's very, very true. So surround yourself with people who are no drama, no negativity. They're positive. They're talented. They're excited about, about the opportunity that they have. So culture is number one. I could talk hours and hours on culture. Culture is absolutely the first thing I look for in interview. I spend, you know, 20, 25 minutes at least just talking about the culture, what we built and how we're not going to let someone come in and destroy it. I don't care if I'm hiring someone to be a front office receptionist or if I'm hiring someone to be a Medicare specialist. I don't care what I'm hiring an individual to do. If they're employee secure, 20, 25 minutes of the first interview is about culture because I want to set the stage at that time. The second interview, we talk again about culture. The third interview, we talk about culture. The first day on the job, we talk about culture again. So now let's talk about employee staff. Obviously, in order to grow your business, you can only be so big by yourself. And I don't care how talented you are. I don't care, you know, how organized you are. You can only grow so big by yourself. And so as you continue to, you want to really scale your business up. You want to start instead of adding, you want to start multiplying. That's where tremendous great employees come into the picture at. And so regardless of what you have to pay the employees, you know, if they're great, they're going to more than pay for themselves, probably three, four, five, 10-fold. If they're great employees, they'll pay for themselves in a big-time way. One of the things about employees I always try to tell people is, trust them to do their job. You know, trust your employees to do their job. Encourage them to be creative. You want employees that are creative. You know, the more that you get employee involved, then the more they're going to be excited about the opportunity. They're going to be excited to come to work. They're going to be excited about everything that they have. And so listen to your employees' ideas. Some of the best ideas that we have come from, you know, our employees, you know, majority of our great ideas have come from our employees. I have an open-door policy. So if they've got an issue, they come to you. And again, that's something to where, you know, the issues are handled quickly. And it's all about communication. Again, communication is the key to any relationship. I don't care if it's a work relationship, a marriage relationship. I don't care what type of relationship, a friendship. I don't care what it is. Communication is the key to a long-lasting, productive relationship, regardless. Don't micromanage. I don't think you'd be on this call on today's event would say, you know, raise your hand. I love being micromanaged. I just love it. You know, no one wants to be micromanaged. You know, no one wants, I don't want to be micromanaged. I can't imagine that you'd want to be micromanaged. And just, you know, your employees don't want to be micromanaged. Set the expectations, give them the tools and resources to be successful and let them do their job. Now you want to monitor and measure from, you know, make sure that, you know, they're the right person. They're getting the, you know, job accomplished. You know, I'm not saying that, but I'm saying the micromanagement, that drives people insane. It drives them away. And so that's why there's so much turnover and employee status and so forth is people just don't want to work for a micromanager. But make sure they're on the right seat on the bus. And the right seat on the bus, you know, you may have an individual that is, and I can tell you several examples. I've got a lady right now. I'll just give you one real quick. I've got a lady right now that to where she was a Medicare, I'm sorry, she was a life specialist for me. She was my personal assistant for life insurance. And she was doing a good job, not a great job, but I could tell she just wasn't enjoying it. And some of the things I was having her do. And so anyway, so we had a role come available in the Medicare as a Medicare specialist. And we have moved her to that role. And we've added some extra responsibilities on top of that. And now this lady is thriving. She is, she's head of our PR for, you know, she calls all her clients for their birthdays and all kinds of things of that nature. And I'll kind of walk through some of those in a few minutes. But she is just absolutely thriving, one of the best employees we have now. And we just, we got her on the right seat on the bus. Make it fun, you know, like one of the things that she does, she's kind of our PR person for within our agency, she is, you know, she has birthdays. So every time that, you know, once a month, she does a birthday cake for all of our employees, who's birthdays that month, she does team built team building events. We do those every quarter. And so our next one is St. Patrick's Day. But, but great employees pay huge dividends. And I could talk all day long about great employees, because that's the key to the success of great employees. Let's talk just for a split second here about customer service. And again, this goes without saying and I know we'll be on this every on this call. You know, I'm sure you do a tremendous, tremendous job of customer service. And I'm sure your staff does a tremendous job. But the biggest thing is, is to teach your staff to go above and beyond for every client, not just meet the needs of the clients, but go above and beyond. You know, let the client know they're the most important person in the world on that phone call. Listen to the clients. What seems small to us is it can be huge to our, to our clients. And so treat every time that the client has a need, a request, whatever it is, if it's possible, make it to do that, do that. And I promise you those individuals will send lots of referrals to do your office, to your agency. And they will absolutely love doing business with you. And they'll tell others about it. People tell others whether it's good or bad about the experiences they have. And so obviously we want those things to be to be positive. So let's talk about client retention. And so the client retention is just all about setting yourself apart. Stay in front of mind with your clients. Client retention is about the education process. So when, you know, when you meet with a client, and you'll obviously teach all of your reps to do the same thing, is being an educator. Don't be a salesperson, be an educator. You educate individuals and let them make the informed decision, because obviously the best way to make a tremendous, a great decision is to be well informed. And so be an educator and your retention will just be, you know, 95% and above if you're an educator. But set yourself apart. And so some things that we do to help set ourselves apart with our clients is we do quarterly newsletter to every client. And so it's kind of funny, we just did one. And on this last one, we had a caramel pie recipe in there. And we've had several clients call and talk about how they made the caramel pie was delicious. And they get some of them give us ideas to even add this to the, you know, to the ingredients, you know, etc. So the caramel pie, we had to where, hey, find us, find the logo, the secure logo. And if whoever found it call in, and we put them in a drawing and we drew out, I think it was 10, 20 file or gift cards. And so, and we had dozens and dozens and dozens of clients calling in, hey, I found the secure logo, you know, etc. So it got the clients kind of involved. We do a lot of Medicare business, obviously, a lot of life annuities, other business, but Medicare is probably our number one. But thank you cards, birthday cards. So we, so we do, you know, every time that a person buys a policy from us, we send them an email. And it's a thank you email, but it's asking us, asking them to also leave us a review on Google. And so that has been tremendous for us. And then the birthday reminders, we send out birthday cards, but also we have a lady in our office that calls every client on their birthday. And unless their birthdays are Saturdays and Sundays, if that's the case, they call them on Friday. She calls every client on their birthday and just wishes them a happy birthday. And so little things like that, we have a client appreciation breakfast once a year, right before AEP. And so and that there's no sales pitch is simply thanking them for their business. And there's no other agents doing things like that or not many. And towards last event, we had we had around 500 clients at this event, you know, it cost us a lot of money, but we had we fed them breakfast at door prizes, giveaways, bingo, trivia. But there was no sales pitches. At the end of the meeting, we just talked about how AEP is upcoming. And we, you know, after one review, everybody's plans to make sure they're on the right plans. And we had 10 staff members out front into where people got in line and set appointments up for further annual reviews. So there's so many different things you can do. So just kind of think outside the box. And, you know, an individual thinks outside the box and is always thinking of creative new ways to do things is obviously that person is worth their weight and go. Let's talk just a second about recruiting. So obviously, recruiting is very, very, very important. And so in recruiting, there's several things we can do on recruit or that we do currently on recruiting. We have we get a license list from from various Department of Interances. And most of the time, those Department of Interance will send you that license list for no charge. And those are people who are newly getting licensed, or they just added a new, you know, some type of new license to their already existing licenses, a new line of authority. But most of them, for most of them, it's brand new individuals. And so those individuals, some of those are going to be tremendous, tremendous, tremendous agents one day. And so they just need they need to be put in the right situation. And so, you know, you can contact those individuals. You can contact those individuals by mail, by phone, by email, you know, etc. So obviously, Google recruiting ads, Facebook recruiting ads, your current agents, you know, what other products do they have with other FMOs or IMOs? A lot of our agents, you know, they have contracts with other FMOs. And so we contact those to see, you know, hey, can we beat the comp levels? Can, you know, whether the support help can we give you to help helping that arena? So current agents, don't don't ever forget about your current agents, because those are the individuals already doing the business for you. Referrals from existing agents. When you start getting referrals from existing agents, and that's where we've gotten a large, large, large majority of our current agents is referrals from existing agents. That's where you know you're doing something right. Now we can always continue to improve and we try to improve every day. But that's when you know you're going to do something right is when when your existing agents refer you refer you. And also recruiting webinars. We did a recruiting webinar two weeks ago, we had 100 and I think it was like 118, 119 registered event, 40 something attended event. And so great events to where opportunities for you to get a chance to kind of tell your story to multiple people. So recruiting webinars, all kinds of opportunities there. So let's talk about the opportunities that you might recruit to. We recruit to two different ones and this might give you some ideas and most of you are probably already doing this, but I'll just kind of give you some ideas just in case. One of the opportunities is we recruit a lot of, we started an LOA program, which is a licensed only agent program. And that has really flourished and we're going to continue to expand that the license only agent program. That's a program that we help, they can help us service our existing clients there in AP, because obviously the large and larger you get it becomes more difficult. We offer those individuals incentive trips and contest. But for those individuals, here's kind of what we do for those individuals. Here's how kind of we structure this. We pay for their marketing support. We give them all the training support, we pay for all their marketing, we pay for all their office space. So there's no monies out of their pockets. We also can, you know, some of them we paid a salary to kind of depends, we have a couple of different options. But those individuals, their commissions are paid to secure and those and secure then pays those individuals. So secure is basically splitting commissions with them. The street commissions are secure, obviously keeps the the overrides, but we're splitting street commissions. But these individuals, they need marketing training, they need lots of training, lots of marketing. And we help, you know, they get plugged into our Medicare seminars, live seminars, our Medicare virtual seminars. And we pay for all the expenses for them. And in these individuals, we just had an agent, one of our LOA agents in the month of February produced 39 applications. And they all produced over 20. But one kind of went above and beyond he did 39 this this past month, as an LOA. And these are individuals that, you know, that he met either at a Medicare seminar, we do lots of lead drops for those individuals, Medicare lead drops, you know, et cetera. So one other thing too is obviously there's independent agents. And those are individuals that they're looking for carriers, products, commissions, support, training, marketing, prospecting, all those type things. And those individuals, you know, they're typically most of the time paying for the majority of their own or if not all of their own marketing prospecting. But obviously, those individuals are receiving extremely, extremely high comp levels. And we'll talk a few more, we'll talk about that here in a few minutes. So those individuals are individuals that, you know, they're looking for a partnership, they want to be a part of something. And so they, you know, don't want to be just left on an island all the time and, you know, recruit them and then never, never speak to them again. So let's talk about training for a second. And again, this is where you just teach your agents to go above and beyond. And that's how you get referrals, is to go above and beyond. People refer people that they know, they trust, people that's brought extreme value to them. And that's, and do things other agents are willing to do. And I'll just kind of give you a couple of ideas here today. Couple of ideas is like when a person needs to be enrolled in Social Security or Medicare, we do the enrolling. We will enroll them in Social Security, we'll enroll them in Medicare. We don't want to send them to the Social Security office or make them, you know, call in and, you know, because we can do that, we can assist them and do that in just a few minutes. It's very, very, very quick and easy. Same thing with Medicare. If they need to be enrolled in Medicare, you know, we take care of it for them. If they need, if they've already got part A, but then you part B, we get them to applications, we do the, you know, online aromats, you know, et cetera. So lots of things that we can do for these individuals to help them, if they qualify for, you know, Medicaid or extra help, you know, we help them with that. We help sign them up for that because we don't want them, we don't want to send them down just to the Medicaid office. We want them, we want to be a resource to them. So anytime they need anything whatsoever, they contact us. And so once we've helped them in individuals on those type things, you know, obviously they become referral machines for us because you need Social Security. This is what, you know, Brian can help you with that or whoever the agent is can help you with that. Train your agents on all new carriers, products, you have the best products on the market, but if you don't know about it, they can't sell it. So, you know, we have, obviously we sell a lot of, we sell every product that a person can dream of naming. And we also have the most competitive cares in the industry. I'm sure, you know, most of y'all have the same situation. You have the most competitive cares in the industry and the most competitive products where you never get beat on price. You know, we're never getting beat on price period or underwriting at all. If it's a way to place a case, you know, we're going to have a carrier product to do that. But make sure your agents are aware of all the practice services you offer. I was on the phone with an agent this morning, and this individual has pretty much done just Medicare, gotten a little bit into final expense, but doesn't offer the hospital identity plans when he sells Medicare. Advantage plans doesn't offer the heart attack stroke plans, doesn't offer dental vision, hearing plans, doesn't offer, you know, that's just a little bit in the final expense, but not much, been very limited. And so just kind of walking through some things of telling them all the other opportunities that are out there and how much it would drastically increase his income. And this agent was obviously extremely excited we got the phone. And that's what it's all about is getting us, you know, letting people know what you do because if you let people know what you do, then it can it'll snowball for you. Let's talk about carriers just for a split second here. Make sure your agents have the most competitive carriers, which we kind of mentioned that already, you know, to where again, you'll never get beat on price underwriting, you know, etc. The more competitive you are, the more allows you to cross sell. And so that's what I that's why that I want the most competitive carriers. You know, a lot of times people have a certain budget, maybe $100 a month, maybe $200 a month, maybe, you know, whatever per month, and a budget. And so the more competitive you are, the more prox you're able to get in that house and and fill the needs that they have that that particular client has. So let's talk about products just for a second. And again, we talked about this for just briefly, but cross selling is so important. And 40% we have a 40% cross selling rate for hospital anonymity plans when we sell Medicare Advantage plans. And it adds an additional $300 or so commissions, which for an agent adds thousands and thousands of dollars every year, just by asking about, hey, would you like to cover the some copays on your hospital, your hospital copays, you know, your emergency room copays, your ambulance copays, your patient observation copays, cancer writers, you know, etc. So lots of opportunities there. One of the things that the most difficult thing to do is to get in front of people. And so while we're in front of people, we might as well take advantage of it. Make sure that they know all the product and services that we do. Easiest person to sell something to is someone you've already, it's already bought from you. So one thing I try to teach our agents is when you're in front of a client, make sure the client knows all the product and services you offer. You may be there to sell Medicare, but have you a little sheet that shows all the product and services you offer. And so as you say, Mrs. Jones, today we took care of your Medicare. But let me show you the other product and services we offer. Mrs. Jones, do you have any life insurance? And let her talk for a second. She'll tell you yay or nay. And there's a good chance you might improve her situation on whatever life insurance she currently has. Mrs. Jones, we do a lot of annuities, which save money accounts. Do you have any money in CDs or money market in the market or annuities or whatever it may be, any 401Ks? And they'll kind of tell you. So just kind of walk through all the different product and services you offer, and you'll be completely surprised to where the client will say, you know, you have bought a life insurance last week or, you know, I've had life insurance for years and but I've got term, it's about to run out, all kinds of scenarios. So one thing I'll say on that, we'll move to the next topic here, is on the cross-selling, you may go in there and sell a Medicare Advantage or Medicare Supplement or one product. And then, you know, each year you may go back to review it. I can promise you this, those individuals are buying those other product and services from other agents because those other agents are making them aware that they had those product and services. So don't kid yourself that they're not buying product and services from someone else because they are. But because all you're doing is maximize your earning potential while you're in there, you're filling needs for the client, increases persistency. The more, you know, limbers always totes for years and years, which is a true stat, the more possible you have in your house, the less likely they are to move their business. And so now we've talked about several things here. Now let's talk about commissions. And this is one thing that's kind of important. And as you're recruiting, now, some people may disagree with a little bit about what I'm going to say, but and there's different ways to go about this. So I'm not saying I'm right. I'm wrong. But this is my true opinion and my true belief on commissions. I want to pay extremely high commissions. I want SIG, I want to make sure that Secure Insurance Group puts all their agents at extremely high levels. And the reason being is because I do not want to have that commission conversation again in the future. I do not want an agent to come to me and say, Brian, you put me at 100% with this final expense carrier and this person just offered me 110 or 120 or 130. I don't want to have those conversations. That's why we put, because if I put you at, say that I put you at 100 and someone else offers you 120 and then you came back to me and I said, well, I can match that 120. Where's the credibility there? Where's the, because that agent is going to, if I were the person, I'd be thinking, well, why didn't we do that first? If you could do that, why didn't we do it first? Why do I have to, you know, threaten to leave you before, before that happens? And so I just don't like having the commission conversation. I want that full trust with every agent. Another reason is, is others are always trying to recruit your agents and, you know, obviously we're all recruiting. All the, the FMO's across the US are always recruiting and, and so if you pay them high commissions and you do all the things on what, you know, we've talked about the support, the marketing prospecting support, et cetera, your chance of you losing an agent are very, very slim. And commissions are extremely important again. And the reason being is, because it allows them to hire more staff. So if you have an agent that's very successful, the more money they make, the more money they got to spend on their, on them, you know, you may have an agent that, you know, once they got the 500 Medicare clients needs an assistant. Well, if they're making, you know, a tremendous amount of commissions, then all of a sudden they're, they have the money there to do so. So it helps them hire support staff. It allows them to pay their quality staff even better. You know, because, you know, if you don't want to pay minimum wage for it, because you probably not get, you know, the quality you're looking for. So obviously the more money you have at your disposal, the higher the quality of individuals you're going to be able to bring to your team. And pay, but just pay extreme agents extremely well. And the biggest reason is this right here, it allows them to build a team. You know, because if an agent wants to build a team and they're, they're just on street level comp, it's hard for them to build a team while they're on street level comp. And so if they're above street level, if they're going to build a team, put them above street level, let them build a team. And then all of a sudden you're, you're multiplying instead of adding, it allows them to hire the needed support staff like we talked about and allows them to spend more money on marketing. It allows them to instead of writing, you know, $150,000 in production a year, allows them to spend more money on marketing to where they can get up to a quarter million or, or half million or whatever the number may be, depending on the product of services, you know, et cetera. But this allows them a lot. So a lot more. So let's talk about the value proposition. There are a few things that, that, that Secure has done to help build our down line. And this is kind of the value proposition that when you bring an agent on, because we can all pay high comp, you know, some of us pay higher than others. And, you know, some of it, we can all offer the products and the, and the carrier, some of us offers more production carriers than others and, you know, vice versa. So, you know, but we all have a great opportunity. So we have to set ourselves apart in the way, you know, one of the things is the value proposition. One of ours obviously is, is the high commissions, the product portfolio and carrier portfolio. But also this, the value proposition from the sports standpoint, for example, like live Medicare seminars, we started doing that several years ago. And we've got agents all across the nation doing it now. And it is, it's tremendous, tremendous, tremendous opportunity. We have virtual Medicare seminars and again, tremendous, tremendous opportunity. And so those are things that you could plug and play right, you know, right now where you're, where you're at, retirement seminars, AP marketing support, you know, provide your agents, you know, if you have downline agents, you know, provide them AP marketing support for direct mail, Facebook advertising, co-opt the website development. We had an agent down in Mississippi, we just helped him build a website and we co-opt the cost of it, assisting building local national sales teams. So if you have an agent that's looking to build teams in a certain area, help them do recruiting, help them do, you know, the training, the, the onboarding, you know, et cetera, make it as easy as possible for them. So just a reminder, not as a wrap up here, you only get one life, you know, here on this earth, you need to make the absolute best of it. I always tell, you know, my kids that, you know, when they, all of our children played sports and a lot of sports and, you know, tell Cody when he left the basketball court, leave nothing, you know, leave nothing, leave it all on the court. Don't take anything, you know, don't have any regrets when you walk up that court. And the same thing with, you know, building a business in your life, your marriage, your children, whatever it is, give it your all. But the biggest thing I can tell you, this is, don't let anyone or anything stand in your way of, of living out your dream. And all I'm trying to do is to, is to encourage you to, to do is to bet on yourself. That's, you've got to bet on yourself. Because if you're not going to bet on yourself, there's not many other people going to bet on yourself, but bet on yourself. And always remember, if you don't quit, you cannot fail. And simply don't quit. And at the end of the day, you'll build something that you'll be proud of and something you can leave as a legacy to your family, to your loved ones. And just in closing here, I want to thank everyone for the, for the opportunity here. Hopefully you got something out of it. If I can help you in any way, you can just reach out to Cody, he can give you all my contact information. I'd be glad to help you in a way I possibly can. But if you, if you've ever dreamed of building an agency, you know, building a team, whatever it is that your dreams are, go after those dreams, build, you know, do those dreams, you can do it. There's no question of mine. Those, those on this call can do it. So if you, you decide what you want in life and go after it and bet on yourself. And if you don't quit, you cannot fail. Thank you very much. Hope you have a tremendous day. Welcome back. Hey, unbelievable job dad. You can tell the dude has a passion for the insurance industry and he cares about people as much as anyone I've ever met. And the coolest quality of my father, who you just had the privilege of listening to. Okay. As he's trained me up for 30 years now, I guess, right? As I'm getting old. Okay. Who else is like, dude, I'm, I'm with you, man. I'm getting old too. The coolest quality is his personal integrity and ethics. And that's what's he's instilled in me. And so I'm all, that's why, like I'm committed to helping you succeed. And I want to see you win, right? When you come to a personation 2021 in Dallas at the Statler with about a thousand other agents this year. Okay. You're going to win. You're going to improve and everything is going to change because you chose to show up, right? The theme for the live event in Dallas this year in July, again, is the show must go on. In your life, the show must go on. We are the only, to my knowledge, insurance event that did a conference post COVID in 2020. Why? Because the show must go on. We can have reasons. As my trainer told me this morning, we can have reasons. We can have results. I don't know about you, but I want some results. Okay. So make sure you go to apreciation.com to grab your seat today. Now, there it is. Okay. There it is. We're back. We're back with the siren. Okay. They're showing me what this one is. Okay. Are we sure that we want to give this away right now? You heard it. Okay. You know what that means. It means three minutes to tick a talking man. What it means is literally an insane crazy deal. Three minutes and then it's gone. It's never to become back. Here's what's about to happen. Here's what's about to happen. Okay. Literally, we're going to allow three people to jump on two fire tickets, retail value, 10K, two fire tickets, front row, meet Eric Thomas, all the private events, all the parties, tons of time with me, all the lunches, all the private speaker Q&As, everything. And I've got something special planned for just fire only, by the way. Total surprise. Two fire tickets for only $2,500. It's insane. It's ridiculous. It's the, it's my favorite of all the flash sales. And it is totally ridiculous. So hit the link in chat right now to go to that flash sale again. Three people, three minutes, poof. It's gone. It's, it's tick and talking man. It's going. It's going to be quick. It's going to be gone. Make sure you take advantage of that. Totally freaking insane. You will not regret grabbing that. Okay. Because I can promise you after three minutes is over, you can never get two fire tickets for $2,500 ever again. Totally nuts. Okay. Totally nuts. Now, while that three minutes is going on, there's your chance. Now's your opportunity. I'm ready to bring up the next speaker. This individual is known by the industry as the queen of the bundle. I've been super honored to be able to spend time with this lady. What she is doing in the insurance industry is remarkable. Her personality is infectious. Her energy is contagious. And I'm honored to have a personal relationship with her. She is someone that I can pick up the phone and call and talk to and ask and text. And she just cares about help people. Like we were on a recent pro, we were on a recent training and she literally gave out her cell phone to everybody. I'm like, Galen, what are you doing? She's like, if I can help somebody, it's worth it. She has one of the biggest hearts in the insurance industry. Please welcome Ms. Galen Hendricks. Come on, Galen. Come on now. I'm excited to hear this one. Let's go. Percent Nation, I hope you are having a great day and are so ready for what you're about to get to see. You know, one of the things that was so fun for me last year was being involved in 8% Nation, but also being a keynote speaker. But where the blessings and the reward came from was the night before. I had had this whole speech prepared. I'd gone to my grandson's first freshman football game. I wasn't going to miss it. I called Cody and said, hey, I know I'm supposed to be there, but I cannot miss this game. So I'm going to go and then I'll come right after. Well, so I started visiting with all the folks there that were there the first night and then the second day I was supposed to speak. But they moved things around because they brought in a great speaker and I was certainly willing to move for Inky. He was phenomenal. And then I got put right behind Anthony Forsett. And so what was great about last year was I had gone to the women's event. As Lauren Askin said, it asked me to go to and got to meet all the ladies that came to 8% Nation. And I started just grilling a bunch of them and asking them, you know, hey, what do you really want me to talk about? What's going on and all that great stuff. And then it came down to we want to know about your road to here. And I was like, okay. And so we were having a big get together that night. And I walked in there said hello to a couple of people. And I was like, I'm going to redo my presentation. I'm going to redo my speech for tomorrow. But I'd already had all these slides set up. So I had to figure out how that was going to work. You know, I was like, Oh, but isn't that the life of an insurance agent? You can practice all the objections in the world. You can role play all day. You can think you know yourself talk. But then you walk into a situation. And it's totally different than what you expected. And so I think I have just been so well trained. And just knowing to move and pivot and where to go. And so I went upstairs and I rewrote my speech. And what was great about all of that is I didn't expect my son to be in the audience. He was there the first day. I wasn't going to be able to make it the second day. He and his wife were buying a car and they had to go pick it up. But coincidentally, they had to wait. So he got to come hear my speech. And the speech was rewritten based on all the people that have supported me in this journey. You know, one of the things that I think I bring to this business, and it was given to me early on was the gift of joy. You know, there's lots of times when we're just not happy. There's lots of times when we feel like we haven't done as well as we wanted to do. But I read something not too long ago that there is no success without failure. And I started thinking about that a lot this year, you know, what I wanted to talk to you guys about and, you know, how to get you guys more excited about the business. I know some of you are so excited, like Bradley Hannon. If y'all, if y'all were at 8% nation last year, you saw Bradley. I've gotten to know Brad very well. He's become a really good friend. And, you know, a lot of these guys, when I got started, were not even born yet. So it was awesome having my son in the audience. It was awesome having my business partner in the audience. You know, another great marketer that works with us. You know, I just loved it last year. And so when Cassidy asked me to get this virtual ready for you guys, I was like, okay, so what am I going to talk about in the virtual? And I went back and heard my keynote speech. And I talked about when I walked on stage, out of every lesson, there's a blessing. And out of every blessing, there's a lesson. And a lot of people think I'm from Georgia. I'm not. I am a homegrown Texas girl. I've been very blessed to call the land of the Cat Dallas Cowboys and the land of the Texas Rangers as my home. I lived in Lubbock, Texas for a while. But I will tell you this, Cody, you know, when we first started visiting, he gave me a statistic that I thought was not true, not to doubt you, Cody. I know you know your stuff now. But he told me, he said, Hey, did you know that 52% of the licensed agents are women? But you're still a rarity, Gail. And I know you've told me used to be the only female you ever saw and the only young person you ever saw at these meetings. But now you've got 52% of the licensed agents are female like you. But would you like to know that there's very few that are in 8% nation? And I started thinking about that with his whole thing about, you know, you can't fail if you don't win if you let's start over, you can't fail if you don't stop. And one of those things that I think is really important is trying, you know, trying is, you know, to me, one of the things that is just in us. So if we try, we will buy. What that means to me, I do a lot of rhyming as y'all saw when I was on stage. But, you know, if you try and you see your making headway, you're going to keep buying that this is a great opportunity. And so will your clients. You know, if you keep trying with a client, they're going to buy from you. You know, you've heard me say a lot of you that follow me on Queen of the Bundle that you will not get better if you're bitter. And I believe that with all my heart, you know, one of the things that COVID or 2020 brought to the surface was that, you know, even the happiest of people can get sad. Even the brightest can see darkness. And so what I tried to do during COVID was read things that would make me feel better and would make me be better. Because at this point in my career, it's 36 years this year, you guys. And I can't even believe it. Some of you watching this aren't even 36 years old. Y'all heard me say last year, I'm a 35 year overnight success. And it was crazy on the virtual how many people kept calling and texting and emailing and Facebooking and saying, I love that because so many people I watch on Facebook seem like they're overnight successes. And guys, I will just tell you, that's not true. There are people that did it quicker than me. And the reason they did it quicker than me is because there's so many different groups out there now. Everybody believes in the, you know, sharing is caring mentality. We still have some cutthroat people out there and we still have some negative Nancy's and negative Ned's. But for every negative Nancy and negative Ned, there's probably 10 positive Patsy's and positive Paul's. And so what I try to focus on is what I can do. Well, you know, last year, I had this most amazing trip planned because in 2019, I finally got settled some stuff that was just awful in our business. And, you know, when you're going through that stuff, you just feel so plagued down until God shows up. And when God shows up, it doesn't matter what everybody else says, it doesn't matter what everybody else thinks, it matters what he says and what he thinks. And he decided that we were right. And he gave us a major victory. And so after that victory, 2020, I was like, Hey, man, this is the year. This is the year I'm going to leave all that behind. I'm going to get to rocking and rolling. And this is going to be so great. I'm going to get Queen of the Bundle launch. I'm going to be on 8% nation. And man, we were rocking and at Christmas in 2019, I had surprised my family with this mega trip to the Mexican Mediterranean. We were going to do well watching and we were going to do deep sea fishing and we were going on this brand new launch boat. Both had incredible sweets on the Batman. I was blowing it out. I was celebrating. Life was great. And then in February, my son and daughter in law just started, I would say being negative net and negative Nancy to me. They were, we're not going to go on that cruise. We don't want to get stranded. We don't want to do this. It's going to be awful. And I was just feeling defeated and sad. And then all of a sudden I was like, okay, well, maybe just my husband and I'll go. We'll go. We had such a great time when we went to Bermuda on the same boat. And it was awesome. And we loved it. It was a sister ship, but it was the same boat. You know how the cruise ships are. And so I kind of went down that road. Well, then things started getting more and more dim. You know, everybody was saying, hey, the cruise industry's going down. Princess had a ship out there that was at sea for a long time. And I just felt like the walls were closing in on me. And I didn't really want to tell my family how I was feeling because I wanted to still deliver a great trip. So most of y'all that know me, I know that Justin Brox and the world know how I travel. I should have been a travel planner. I was a convention planner at one time, but I love travel planning. And when I say convention planner, I mean, for my family and for small companies and that kind of thing. But you know, I just really was sad. So I ended up getting us a condo at a Ritz Carlton in Fort Lauderdale. And we just ended up having a really good time in Bell Harbor. For those of you that are familiar with Florida, it ended up being a blessing. I mean, we were going to these nice restaurants and we would be the only people in there. And we got to eat at some of the restaurants I never get to get into just because they're so swamped in South Florida. We had a great relaxing time. We came home. And I was like, okay, well, we'll take that cruise in the summer because this is going to be over in the summer. Just like all of you thought, you know, and it wasn't. So it was a very sad time. Well, my daughter-in-law started this weight loss program. And I was like, okay, if I'm not going to be able to travel and I'm not going to be able to be out with my guys and gals and teaching them how to sell cancer and dental vision and hearing, you know, I'm going to end up gaining more weight than I've already gained. And that's freaking me out. And so I literally, and all of you that know me know I'm really transparent. So what happened is, is that I had a lap band surgery in 2009 and lost 109 pounds. And then when I had all this stress, when we terminated an employee partner, whatever you want to call this person, the stress was crazy. People were saying things that weren't true. People were writing things that weren't true. All of a sudden I saw my reputation, my credibility just being awful. And so I gained all the weight back and well, I didn't gain all of it back, but I gained 69 pounds of it back. And you know, it was, it was hard. It was just hard. And what ended up happening is I went on this weight loss journey while y'all know it because I posted it. I'm making myself accountable. It's really more about accountability than braggability. Although I'm pretty proud of myself. I might know a lot. It's been a hard journey. But you know, as of today that I'm sitting in this chair, I've lost 65 pounds. And I feel so much better if you've noticed this year's virtual versus last year's. This year, I haven't gone portrait. And last year, I had it go on landscape, like we all do when we're doing our selfies and we've gained a little weight. But I'm telling you all that story because I am probably one of the positive people that you're going to meet. I always try to find the silver lining in dark clouds. I'm, I'm always going to be that positive role model. So 2020 was a difficult year for me. But what I figured out about 21 is I made a hashtag that 21 is going to be fun. And I'm super excited because you know, here we are today is what February the, well, I don't have my glasses on, but it's February 6th on Saturday as I'm filming this. And man, this sure has been awesome. We've had a lot of stuff go on still. You know, I think one of the things about this year is just everybody pulling together. You know, when I saw COVID happening before my very eyes, I was like, Oh my gosh, I've got all these belly to belly agents that I need to start showing how to call their clients and get them to cross sell and get them prepared in case they can't go out and write customers any insurance door to door or belly to belly or face to face, whatever you called it. And so we saw these trainings take off like rocket fire. We saw agents starting to increase their income 30%. We saw people that have never, ever wrote anything but a Medicare supplement. Now, all of a sudden, writing cancer and writing dental vision and hearing and writing, you know, short term medical plans, hospital indemnity plans, all the great stuff that I loved right. And then we started having agents come to us and say, Hey, my friend told me that you and Manhattan life, all this lawsuit against the government and you won and that's why we're able to sell these HIV plans. And I didn't even know that about you. And oh my gosh, 2020 just started being this bright and shining star. So it literally went from this brightness in January to this darkness for me in March to this brightness again, starting in April and May and June and having large distributions that weren't writing business, all of a sudden writing tons of business. And then writing great things on Queen of the Bundle about me and calling carriers and saying, Oh my gosh, Galen increased my income or, you know, senior security benefits increased my income or, you know, Scottie or Sean or Taylor did this training for us and it rocked. And, you know, we want to be part of that. And so we got to the end of 2020. And all of a sudden I'm starting to see all these numbers come in AEP and I am like, Holy Moly's Batman. What in the world? This is nuts. We are like breaking last year's record by leaps and bounds. So God always has a bigger plan. And I know there's a lot of people out there that get turned off when people bring God into their presentation. They think, Oh gosh, this is going to be a Bible beating session or a holy ruler session. But I will tell you, I have spoke of God's name in our business since I started this business. And I really truly believe that's why we have all the blessings that we do. I'm one of those people that I live life to the fullest. You know, my dad died at 52 years of age. My mom died at 72 years of age. And, you know, I hope to be here a long, long time. I just lost a really good friend important person in my life. I found out about it just a couple of days ago. But he was somebody that I dated was a very important part of my life before my husband. And he was 63 years old when he passed away. And he passed away of COVID. And that was the first person that I knew close to me that had passed away from this awful illness. And so for the last couple of days, I've just been in this funk where I've been like, okay, I'm rocking and I'm getting all this stuff done, but then I'll be fine myself just stopping again. And I think what we have to remember is if we don't have the valleys, we don't appreciate the peaks. And if we don't have failure, we don't appreciate success. And so again, the hashtag or our tagline for this conference is you can't fail if you don't quit. I think you have to think about failure because failure is what makes success taste so sweet. You know, success is the best. But I think it's the best because of all the things you tried, all the things you did, all the things that didn't work out like you wanted them to. But then you just get that one tiny victory. And it's like, oh man, this is what I'm gonna do. I'm so excited about this. This is how it's gonna work for me. And you see a lot of agents now on their Facebook pages where I said last year, you know, not most people woke up going, hey, I'm gonna be an insurance agent. That's what I want to do. Most of us came into the business kicking and screaming or we came into the business out of frustration or we came out of the bit, came into the business like now. I mean, we're really living in an economy where it's past or fail. It's rich or poor. And, you know, we are so blessed to be in an industry that we got to keep working, you know, we got to keep making a great living. And we got to keep our spirits up and our families didn't worry about how they were gonna get fed. And, you know, we still took vacations. And we still, you know, like other than we had a little mini shutdown and life other than, you know, we didn't get to go to the restaurants that we necessarily wanted to go to. And if you're in California, I'm sorry, I know you guys have worse shutdown than anybody. But, you know, I think what we have to look at is how we survived. You know, how we fought and we made it through. And I am super, super excited about 2021. It's gonna be fun. I don't mean to take away from 8% nations tagline, but that's gonna be mine. And I hope it's yours. I am so looking forward to seeing you guys in Dallas in July. There'll be a lot of pool time because, you know, it's hot here in Texas. We got great Mexican food. We've got great barbecue. We got big hair. We got big smiles. We got joyful attitudes in the state. But we also have a lot of heat and it's gonna be a really fired up conference. I am looking forward to seeing all of you again. This year, Senior Security Benefits is gonna have a breakout session. We're gonna sponsor along with the Cody Askins, a panel of some of the best we know in this business. And I'm gonna hold those secrets because they're really good friends of mine. And they're gonna get on the stage with us and my business partner, Taylor Martin, and they're gonna blow your mind. You're gonna learn stuff from them that you didn't even know how to do. And I think that's one of the things that I absolutely love about this business. I love about this conference. I love about being an agent. I told you guys from the stage last year, I love being a mom and a grandmother and a wife and a professional and CEO and all those titles. But the fact that my dad brought me into the insurance business subconsciously basically because he knew I didn't want to be in the business. And now it is the like absolute joy of my life. It is so much fun to get to hang out with you guys and ladies. And I told y'all last time I use gas for everybody. So I don't mean to offend anybody. But I love you all. I am so excited about being with you this year in July. And also I hope you get something out of this virtual, you know, turn these negatives into just nothings. You know, they're nothings. They are just nothing. They are just really the step to success. And remember success is best. And that's what we're all going to strive for this year. I hope to bring you a keynote speech that you'll be just as supportive as you were last year of me. And I just really appreciate you all calling the 8% nation folks and telling them that you really enjoyed my speech and enjoyed me. And I appreciate all the followers on Queen of the Bundle. And I am just so eternally grateful for all of the friendship that all of you have given me. I know sometimes Facebook can just be the glow show. But I think what's good about it is that it is the glow show. I think when we're having a bad day, we can go there and get fired up, red up and ready to go. And then we have our friends out there that, you know, they don't know every single thing we're going through. So they support us. So you guys have a fantastic year. We'll see you in July. And remember they're going to keep buying as long as you keep trying. So have a great day. Thanks again for tuning in. And we'll see you soon. Now you see why I love that woman so much. Awesome job, Galen. She is unbelievable. Okay, when it comes to cross selling, right, selling cancer insurance, like she has a why that makes sure she shows up because the show must go on. Okay, awesome job, Galen. Thank you for being a part of this. Love spending time with you. You can also see her again live at 8% Nation 2021 and live in Dallas. Okay, now I'm going to release an 8% deal really quick for those that didn't hear. Again, codeyaskins.com. For those that did not hear about the new rising star ticket, we've still got a few spots left. Okay, we're only doing 92 seats for this. If you're watching like, dude, I'm committed. I want to win. I want to show up. I don't have a lot of money yet, but I promise you, I am a rising star in the industry. I had a company give me the rising star award years ago. And that meant the world to me. Other people sometimes have to see it in you before you can see it in yourself. True or true, right? Like I've had moments in my life where people have spoken to me and said, man, you're going to be something special. Man, you're going to do big things. Man, every one of the industry is going to know who you are. Man, you're changing the world. Man, you're doing this, man. Other people saw me as a rising star before I saw me as a rising star. So the question for you is who out there is like, dude, I really believe I'm a rising star. I really believe I'm going to make it. I really believe I'm going to make it big. I'm committed. I will show up. I will do whatever it takes. I'm going to give you the opportunity right now to hit the link in chat, aprecination.com. We're doing 92, okay? 92 of these tickets for rising stars only to go live to Dallas for $92. And what that signifies is by purchasing the rising star ticket. Now, today, it tells me that you are committed to going to 8% because you'd rather be part of the 8% than the 92. And you are going to be a rising star. It goes to codeyaskins.com for deals to take advantage of that aprecination deal. Again, $92 ticket to be a rising star. Also, for those, okay, that's a cool ticket. I want to help you. Again, I want to give you a hand up instead of a handout. Now, I'm loving all everybody that's sharing this on social, tagging me on Instagram at codey.askins, tagging me on Facebook, sharing this thing out. I've seen several of you sharing this thing to Facebook groups where insurance agents are at. They need to hear this message, right? They need to hear these words from these different speakers, right? And I'm excited to bring it. So make sure who's shared it in social so far. Okay, good. Good. Keep doing that. Awesome. Thank you. Good. Great. Okay. I'm excited to bring up the next speaker. Okay, someone I met. He was on the original panel, just like Eric. We're good buddies. He came to the refer, one of our, literally our first ever retreat in Arizona. They call him the Medicare guru. I just spoke as Medicare guru's mastermind. It's Mr. Justin Brock. Okay. Is he ready? Okay. Justin, love you man. Keep doing what you're doing. Love spending time with you. Now let's drop it like it's hot. Let's drop it like it's hot. Okay, let's do it. Turn everybody into a guru. That's what he's about to do. Please welcome to the virtual stage my good buddy, Mr. Justin Brock. Hey guys, Justin Brock here. And I'm so excited that Cody asked me to be part of the 8% nation virtual conference with so many people out there watching and so many awesome speakers sharing this virtual stage. I am humbled that, you know, I'm actually, you know, able to speak at the same time to the same crowd. So I appreciate you guys listening to me. I hope I can provide some value. I plan on this being extremely contextual. I'm talking about our Brock and mortar or brick and mortar play on insurance. We have a pretty large book of Medicare business in the Northeast Mississippi area and we run a Facebook group called Medicare Gurus. So that's kind of our claim to fame. If you haven't heard of me, please look it up on YouTube and you'll see that we practice what we preach every day and that we're running a legitimate agency. So the information that we have to share should be practical and actually work because it's working for us in real time. So what I'm going to get to is talking about reverse engineering the Brock and mortar. And that's that Brock and mortar name came from a friend of ours, Zach Mungery came into our office to tour it from the inside out for about a year ago. And when he did, he said, Oh, instead of a brick and mortar, we're going to call it Brock and mortar as a play on my name, Justin Brock. And so we've kind of ran with it. So we're going to reverse engineer the Brock and mortar slide. All right. So to follow along, if you're having trouble, these slides will turn black here in a minute. It'll definitely be easier to see for you for sure if you can't see them now, but you can, you can scan this QR code or head over to medicare.academy slash Brock and mortar. And there'll be some visual references to what we're talking about here that should help you be able to see that. So open that up in a new window, pull it up on your phone somewhere, you'll be able to see the slides that I'm going over as well as being able to see a little video from inside our office and see how the Brock and mortar vision works. So next slide. Remember that is medicare.academy slash Brock and mortar. Yes. Dot Academy is the thing. All right. So I'm going to go over these seven steps. And if you're looking at that visual reference, you should see a video of a lot of action in our office is about a few hours worth of time lapse for people coming in and out in our busy season. You get a lot of foot traffic and it's awesome. And that's what I'm going to be trying to share with you how to replicate. If you check out here, this is our number one principle. We're going to go over seven principles to help you set up your Brock and mortar or have a brick and mortar office. One is utilize national budgets to fuel your brand. What I mean by that is by using these national budgets to fuel your brand. I'm talking about the big spenders in the world. Like we can't all outspend the largest private equity backed corporations or publicly traded corporations advertising budgets, but we can utilize what they do to drive awareness and we can kind of be that warm, you know, presence locally or, you know, in an area to stand out in a crowd of maybe overproduced advertisements. So always be branding is my little subcatch in here. So head over to the next slide there said. So as these slides, I'm going to talk about Joe Namath is not hurting you. So Joe Namath, you know, anybody who's watching TV at all will see a Joe Namath Medicare commercial and anybody that's selling Medicare definitely has seen, has heard their clients ask about the Joe Namath commercial, what's Joe Namath talking about, blah, blah, blah. And a lot of people get irritated with those advocates. They irritated about the compliance side of them or, you know, having to compete with them. But what I like to bring up is how many people who aren't your current customers are hearing the Joe Namath commercial and they're also confused or they are aware of it. They're made hyper aware to plan availability or annoyance by that. And I want you to know that you can capture that product of that national marketing budget by being able to latch on to that problem and be that voice of reason in a crowded field of overproduced advertisements. Second thing I wrote is the e-Healths of the world, the big large publicly traded groups are creating a vacuum in the market that can only be filled with house to house brokers or crock and mortars, brick and mortar offices, somebody local to cut through the mud. Now why I'm not saying that they're not doing a ton of business at all. They're doing a ton of business, but there's some people that are not going to call a national marketing group like that and do business over the phone. There's just some people that want, especially in the Medicare or senior market for a service like this, where they have to provide so much valuable information. There's a lot of people that are very, very turned off to that idea. And so you have an opportunity to help those people in a different way. Last thing I've written here is people print off content from my friends, nationally rented websites and bring it to me to help them decide on a plan. We have friends that have really large sites that get 200,000 Medicare beneficiaries visiting monthly. And we have people that locally here in all of the nation really is doing this. They're printing off things that they've read online on these sites, bringing it to us locally, bringing it to our bracket more or calling us and reading it locally because there's a little bit of trust in us being local. So you can still do business over the phone locally, but the idea that you're over there and they could get you if they want to. Some people say, I know where to find you if I have a problem in a kind of threatening way, but this is all in good fun. It's a joke. But next slide. So I'm going to go over practical steps. I'm going to kind of move over here just to break the monotony. But practical step number one, we're trying to do a practical step with each of these principles. Practical step is when you're recording content, creating graphics, mailers, et cetera, make mention of some of these iconic commercials like the Joe Namath, Danny Glover, these different celebrities that are on these commercials. Make mention of them and to give your audience a clear indication that you're standing out in the crowd. That you are a local resource. If they want to know about those plans, but they're too afraid to call this 1-800 number, they can come to you locally or call you locally and you're there. It's the Brock and Mortar concept. Next slide. So practical step number two here is if you don't want to make mention of them, some people feel awkward about doing that and understand that. So just be educational and make your content down to earth local, not overproduced. That local feel wins in a small to mid-sized market. It makes you feel like the mom and pop shop. Some people want that for sure. So next step. So number two, you're not Gary Vaynerchuk. Now this is not a dig at Gary Vaynerchuk, which you'll see in the next slide. I'm not digging at him. I'm saying that you're not Gary Vaynerchuk. So a lot of people that are watching these virtual conferences are very in love with the idea of digital marketing and so are we. Digital marketing is great, but the internet is great, but it isn't all that exists in the world. It's not the only way to reach people. It's not the only way. So everybody's getting so into digital sometimes get away from some of the down to earth, you know, old school ways that still work. Next step. First of all, your demographic demands a diverse array of advertising strategies. So your demographic is aging. So some of them are 65, some are 75, some of them are 85. Now I'm talking mostly to Medicare or senior market, final expense agents, but that demographic, the older demographic is a very diverse group. There are tons of them that are on Google, they're on Instagram, they're on Facebook, they're doing these things that are more, you know, revolutionary, but there's a ton that aren't. And even some of the ones that are online are responding to local advertising while being online, like the people that are printing off the Google stuff that they find and bringing it to us. So these are the different ways, you know, I'm just laying out here Facebook, Google, YouTube, TV, radio, newspaper, direct mail, billboards, wrapped RVs. I've made mention of wrapped RVs. There's a guy in Utah that has one. I think it's a cool idea. He drives around town. He's a billboard for his own business all the time. This isn't a dig at Gary Vee. I love the guy, but the wacky, wailing, inflatable armed tube man men work. They do work, especially in mid-sized branded markets. So what I mean, I'm making a kind of a goof at the whole like wacky, wailing, inflatable armed tube man. But there is some truth that that attention locally, especially drives business to that local office, it brands that local location, it makes them think when they're driving by, what is that office? Oh, it's a Medicare office. Okay. Oh, it's a life insurance office, whatever. We aren't in retail. It's the service industry with a middle to late age market. So if you're marketing the middle to late age and you're in the service industry, I know a lot of times you're seeing stores like a gap or places that are closing down their local branch, but those are retail clothing stores. And those are being affected differently than the service industry by the online revolution, right? So next slide. Practical step. For Brock and Mortar, you want to buy or rent an office with great sign space and or curb view, preferably both. If you can have somewhere where you have a lot of traffic coming by and maybe a signage space that is, you know, stands out and is good. We just bought a building off of Main Street for a second location with a huge sign space. And one of the things we thought is, shoot, I mean, a billboard right down the street is $1,000 a month and we're getting one included in the cost of our building right here. So we thought about that as part of our equation. Next step. Practical step number two on this slide is outside that office do something to get attention. Word of mouth over time will work. We'll do the work. It will. So word of mouth over time is awesome. Word of mouth, you know, the more people they get to your office is going to build word of mouth. You're going to get more and more traffic. But at first, the wacky wailing inflatable arm tube, man, put it in acronym here. W-W-I-A-T-M isn't a bad idea. The wacky wailing inflatable arm tube, man. I know that's a goofy thing that I'm talking about, but just like flags, signs, a signage space on your building, flyers and neighborhoods around to drive awareness that you're there. So that when people need you, you're there. There's people that'll see that and be like, oh, he's there and they don't need you now, but they need you a year from now, two years from now, three years from now. Their parents need you, but they know you're there. They know you're there. Next slide. Educate. Oh, and then educate, educate, educate, educate, educate. So what am I talking about here? Educating. Next slide. Educational seminars, educational webinars, TV commercial segments that educate. Radio shows. This is a big one I've been telling people. A lot of stations will give you a weekly segment on radio for 500 bucks a month, even if there's only a thousand listeners on there. You're getting 10 minute segments to talk about stuff. You also get to use that content that's being recorded on good sound equipment. You can go start a podcast with that time. They'll give you that download to do that. You can start a YouTube channel with it. You can start all of the above. You can use that content, but also you're inundating an audience with a long form message. So you're going to get a much higher turnout of a smaller audience with that. Definitely worth looking into for almost anybody. Even graphics can be educational. So when you're doing mailers, make sure that you're adding something that's educational. We have a friend who does business with us in one of our downline agencies. They send a three page long form turning 65 letter to T65s that just goes through and explains Medicare A to Z and then just ask them if they have any information or need help with the plans to call. But that long form educational letter in the mail really helps. He's been sending it for a year. So he's getting a great response. So we are in the thank you economy. So that pun back to Gary Vee came down with the thank you economy. People like to do business. They say thank you by doing business with you. So if they're saying thank you by doing business with you, that means you have to give them something to say thank you for. Provide education, provide content, be a resource for them before they've done business with you. So next slide. Practical step number one, start with seminars. Talk about seminars. I feel a little bit hypocritical here because we have just added seminars, but if I was starting all over and I'm starting to block and mortar, I would go out and start doing seminars day one to drive traffic back to our office because it works. It's pretty cost effective. And a lot of times like if you're in Medicare Advantage too, these local carrier representatives that are trying to expand will help you with some of that local cost. We definitely get some support from one of our carrier partners that help us with this. That probably depends on the market and what their plan availability is there, but you can always look at that and see if you can get support from a good carrier. So then when they fill out their permission to contact forms, this is important. You need to call them to set up appointments at your office. Set up as many appointments in your office as possible because you're branding your location by getting more people into your office where they know where it's at. So then when they refer you, you'll actually get to the point where they're referring you. Yeah, he's over on 144 South Thomas Street across from that Texaco, the Harbor Freight. People are walking into your office then. Always about a quarter mile from the Social Security office. So when you go to the Social Security office, you know, head over there. That's the kind of stuff we try to put in the minds of our clients, but by them being here, they're out there being advocates for you, right? Next slide. Fourth principle, everything you do advertise the idea of walking in the office. So advertise the office location. Next slide. Practical step here is staff the location 40 hours a week. From the get go, you need to be prepared to have at least a receptionist there 40 hours a week. If you're transitioning from being a filled agent to this, you're going to need somebody there because you're still going to have to go out and run some direct mail leads or mark it through B&I groups or whatever. You're not going to be there all the time. You need somebody there all the time to make it feel like a staffed professional location so that you will get more and more people to walk in and become for that, even if she's just there to he or she is there to set up appointments for you, etc. So staff the location 40 hours a week, hire a receptionist and have them call your current clients to set up reviews in the office. So if you have 200 clients already, 300 clients, a thousand clients, whatever, you want to get them in your office. Now they become advocates for your office. They want the office. Trust me, we've been through this. We saw it happen. We didn't start off with an office. We've seen the other side. They wanted a local office. They wanted somewhere to go. Now we have some new people coming in here. It's almost uncontrollable, as you can see by the video at Medicare.academy.com slash more. So get as many people in your office as possible to create the word of mouth, right? Next slide. Number five, allow time to work. You need to allow time to work. Allow time for this method to work. So we, you know, it's not like you open the office, you hire somebody and boom, everybody's there, right? You have to allow a little bit of time for this to come to fruition but continue to make, pave the way. A brand is not built overnight, you know, and you have a branded location. You have a branded name. You have a branded business name. You can brand a lot of things, but that location being branded, it's more of like a gradual effect. It's like a snowball effect, right? So allow it. It takes some time. If you build it correctly, they will come. Next slide. In the meantime, you need to keep putting food on the table. I've seen a lot of people that set up the office and then they just kind of quit doing what they were doing before that was actually making ends meet. So you got to keep doing that. You have to staff the office appropriately. So there's a little bit of an investment on the front end because you're having to buy or rent a building, staff the office, but it is a great way. It's not the only way. It's a great way to really get to the next level, to build something to scale that you can actually eventually build yourself out of and have this massive, you know, money making concept for you, staffed with tons of LOAs, etc. So next slide. Practical steps. What was working before? Direct mail seminars, cold calling or all low barrier to entry. They could be things you want to become unnecessary or supplementary in the future. Maybe it's things you're trying to get away from, but do not stop bringing in new business while your Brock and Mortar is building. So your Brock and Mortar continues to build. You want to make sure you're bringing new business in the front door, but that front door could be metaphorical. If you're still doing it by going out and writing business through direct mail leads, that's fine. Just always be trying to get people in the office too, always trying to get people in the office and it builds that branded location. Next step. Number six, you need a reaper. So I'll tell a little story. When I was six, six years old, seven years old in the summer, I lived in a town called Marietta, Mississippi. Population was under a thousand. It was about 900 people. I lived next to a guy who was a pee farmer and in the summer he would take me and a bunch of other kids. Most of them were older than me out to these pee fields and we'd pick bushels of peas all day. Bushels like a, you know, we'd fill up five gallon buckets. I don't know how I can't even remember how many bushels that was, but we'd fill up these five gallon buckets. They'd take them back and they'd, you know, turn them out and sell purple hole peas. Really good food, by the way, if you're not from the south. But we would do this all the time. Well, one summer, his name was Billy Joe Barnes. Yes, I'm from Mississippi. Billy Joe Barnes gets a reaper. He gets this thing and he can just drive through the field. All of a sudden, I wasn't able to earn a cheeseburger and $3 every day in the summer anymore. I was out of the job at six years old. It's the first time I found myself on the unemployment line. But what I'm getting at is he got a reaper. He got a machine that was able to, you know, cultivate a lot more product, right? Faster than six year old boys that earn a cheeseburger. So you need one. The bigger and the more fruitful your fields are, the more hands you need to help. Next slide. So this is going to be talking about building a team. So after that time has elapsed, and not, you know, it could be a year, two years, three years, whatever, it depends on how hard and fast you go at it, you know, and what resources you have to throw at it. But once, once you get there, maybe even preemptively, if you, you know, you know, if you're really aggressive, you have to build a team. Your, the initial investment in the Brock and mortar was signage or receptionist rent effort and time. Effort and time probably being the biggest part of it, the one that most people miss. Now, if you've done what I told you, it's time to build your team. This is perhaps one of the most difficult and rewarding tasks. Okay. Next slide. Practical steps. Hire them fast, fire them fast. No. I said wrong, right? Who's heard that? Who's heard hire them fast, fire them fast? I personally don't believe it. Okay. I don't, it's not for me. I get that a large, large organization sometimes do have to hire big crops of groups and I understand the concept. But for most of us building a Brock and mortar, you can be selective. You can find people. Don't try to hire yourself though. Try to find other people with talents that you can really cultivate. In my opinion, you need to find people who do not understand their full potential and help them realize it. Find people who are talented, but they don't understand what's possible and show them and, and show them and give them the way through your Brock and mortar, through your business, right? That's, for me, what hiring people is all about. It's finding the people, it's not finding the MBA graduates or all that. It's finding people that took a different road, but are very talented and then give them the lane to use that talent in your business. We've all talked about our whys. I can tell you that one of my biggest unrealized whys was culture and cultivation. I didn't know it. I think a lot of times you understand your why as you grow your business or as you grow and you're in life and you develop new whys. One of the biggest whys for me has been seeing, you know, team members come to fruition or understand their capability and their talent and grow their talent, grow their skill set and be happy in your, your culture. You know, you're cultivating that talent and then you're helping them grow. Super rewarding. Probably for me has become more rewarding than, you know, selling and helping Medicare beneficiaries, which was my first big reward. Next slide. Seven, seventh principle of seven, everything else. Okay. There's only so much I can cover in this amount of time. So it is a high level overview. Okay. Now on that site that I, I sent you to Medicare.academy slash Brock and mortar, you can actually go through there and there are some options on how to get more plugged in, how to get more plugged into people that are doing it. Not just about the Brock and mortar, but other concepts. We grow, we've grown our phone sales. We've grown our distribution. There's all this kind of stuff. And there's a few different programs that we offer that help people plug into that concept. One of them and probably the most popular is our Medicare Monsters program. It's been a very, very impactful thing on people, as you can see by going over there and looking at some of the reviews from people, but getting in a Medicare Monsters program where we have weekly accountability calls virtually, you can do it from anywhere. And it's an affordable concept. It's been super impactful for people. So I hope that you go over there and check it out. And of course, please join our Medicare Guru's Facebook group where we have a ton of action and a ton of questions answered absolutely for free over there. So check it out. Thank you so much for letting us help you. And I hope to see you at MedicareCon 2020 by going over to MedicareCon.com. See you later. Welcome back. Here we go. It's just been an unbelievable day or it's just been an unbelievable day. Okay. Justin Brock, unbelievable job, buddy. I enjoyed speaking at your MedicareCon a couple of weeks ago. Okay. And you are changing the game in the industry. Appreciate you, the friendship, everything you're doing. And thank you for sharing, man, how you've blown up and have a team and multiple offices and all the things you're doing, truly special and grateful. So thank you very much. Good up for Justin Brock in the comments. Okay. Let's light it up for him, JB. Thank you, sir. I want to mention before we begin our next speaker that one of the things I love doing the most in the whole world outside of just jumping on and promoting and being a part of 8% virtual, right, is spending time with you and your team. Okay. If you have a company, if you have a team, if you're making six figures and you want to get to seven or you have a team of agents that are not at six figures or they're at light six figures and you want them to get to six figures or even higher. Okay. Go to kodiaskins.com forward slash deals. Again, kodiaskins.com forward slash deals because we've got a blank form for you to fill out to express interest and to show us that, Hey, Cody, I want you to help me level up and train my team. I can promise you, here's what you can expect when you fill out that form. If you have a team and you fill out the form, here's what you can expect. Okay. I'm going to motivate them like you've never seen. I'm going to give them ideas that they've never heard of. I'm going to challenge them like never before, and they're going to leave there more ready to change their life and to think on a whole another level than you've ever seen. Period. I just got a text this morning, literally, from one of our team training clients and he said, dude, I'm giving you a hug and a kiss next time I see you. And I'm like, why? He's like figuratively speaking. That is, he's except for the hug. He said, what I'm definitely going to be doing is adding more people because I've seen how much you've changed the mindset of my current team. They're ready to run through a wall. They're unbelievable. They're excited. They're ready. He said, I can tell you that $30,000 that I paid you. I've already got it back. He's in the first two months. He's because what you did for my team is changing the game. So go to Codyaskins.com forward slash deals to make sure that we speak to you about helping change the mindset, the motivation, and the actual moves, man, when it comes to your specific team. Our next speaker is ready. She's waiting. She's ready to come in. I'm excited about this lady. It has been unbelievable getting to know her. She has done an unbelievable job in the industry at putting out content to help everyone. And what I can tell you is Ms. Christine Austin L is doing a phenomenal job at driving the industry. Okay, so I'm excited that she's a part of this. I'm about ready to bring her out. Please give it up. Please welcome. Here we go. Light it up and chat if you've seen her on YouTube or Facebook or everything she's doing. Thank you for being a part of this. Appreciate the friendship. I'm excited to hear you speak as well. Here we go. Ms. Christine Austin. Hello and thank you for reaching out to me so that I can be a part of this amazing platform. I am honored and I'm excited to just be a part of your vision, Cody. I've watched several of your videos from Facebook to Instagram and of course YouTube. And you are consistent in showing up and sharing your knowledge to help others in their business to be successful. So again, I thank you for having me. For those of you who do not know me, my name is Christine Austin L and my sole mission is to encourage, inspire, motivate, and train the masses to live their best life now. And for me, life now stands for living in full expectation, never ending opportunities with them because I believe that we all have everything we need to be successful inside. I have been able to serve thousands of people through my YouTube channel as well as help agents earn six figures plus by training and other tools that are available to them. And the crazy part about what I do now is I did not even want to be an insurance agent. I worked 14 years in corporate America and actually I loved my job. I felt like I had made it. Honestly, I started when I was 19 years old. I had an office on the 23rd floor about the 14th year where I could look out of my big window and watch people basically live their lives. I was married at age 19 as well and divorced at age 25, left with one daughter. So now I was a single mother making about 56,000 a year before taxes. And still, I kind of still thought I was on top of the world until the day that my sister didn't show up for work. Her manager called me to ask if she was sick and I had no idea. I called her phone numbers and I called my mother. I called even her boyfriend to see what was going on and nobody had heard from her. So my mother started calling around and found that she was laid up in a hospital. My mother was furious. She was furious because nobody had called and my mother couldn't go to the hospital because she was caring for three young foster children. So it was up to me to go and make sure that she was okay. I went to the senior manager to tell him what was going on and to let him know I needed him to cover me because I needed to go to the hospital when he told me I couldn't leave. Are you kidding me? The rage that I felt building up in my stomach, the thoughts of all the years I spent working early mornings and late nights while my young daughter was being raised by somebody else, the time I had to stay during 9-11 to make sure that everyone on the 23rd floor made it out safely before I could leave. Are you kidding me? My view of that perfect job started to shift at that very moment. I had to make a decision. So I grabbed my bags and all the personal belongings that I could and I headed to the hospital. Tears flowing down my face because I wasn't sure what I was going to find when I got to the hospital. I didn't know if I'd have a job the next day or what I was going to do if I didn't. I didn't know anything. I ran into the ER back to my sister's room as I noticed her laying there naked hanging across the bed with the sheet laying draped across her back. It looked as though she was trying to reach for something as I went around the side of her bed. I can tell that the help button, the remote was dangling down from the side of the bed. So I'm assuming that she was trying to reach for help called my mom immediately because she was a nurse and I told her what I had seen and she told me she was having a stroke. Crazy. Had I not left that job my sister would have died that day. Fast forward I did lose the job and now I was thrown into figuring out my life now right. I couldn't get another job because my resume was so my resume was so large and I was considered to be overqualified and here I just wanted a job. My savings was running very low and I had no one else that could financially help me. My mother was taking care of my now sister and she was unable to talk walk or even feed herself. I fell into a great depression. I didn't know what to do but I thought I was living my best life now became very living. What happened? I remember asking God like how could this happen to us? Why? And I'm sure that mostly you can relate if you've lived long enough and in these times if we're not careful we'll quit. We'll quit trying, quit living, quit smiling, quit laughing. We'll just quit on life but if you hold on long enough you will not fail in this life. You can and you will thrive if you just don't quit. So I picked up myself with God's strength and I found some fight left to me. I woke up one day and and I don't mean waking up literally but I woke up realizing that that job that I thought I loved I really didn't need. Actually I was missing out on life because I was always working in a building building up someone else's dream while they were living their best life. I started reading the Bible and self-help books because I knew I was worth so much more than what I had found myself. I started going to networking events so I could meet different people and learn the different lifestyles and talk to people and figuring out like how to be your own boss and leveling up. This is why I learned how to be an entrepreneur. I met Chuck Sanders who owned a mortgage company here in the Pittsburgh area and he needed someone to help his people get qualified for a loan and I don't know where it came from but I said hey I can help you create a credit company. I don't know but I was like I fixed my credit when I had blacked out and ran you know head on to a pat bus and actually passed away. Thank God they brought me back you know so I'm here for a reason and I know that but I had to fix my credit because I had to file for bankruptcy so here I am. I can help you and here finally linked up with a powerful man within a community who loved to help others. My journey as an entrepreneur began. Again everything was amazing. I worked for myself. I had the backing of a large mortgage company and I was able to be with my daughter every single day. Every day I was living the dream life. And then the mortgage company crashed. The market went down and here we go again. Now I still have my credit company but I wasn't backed by a mortgage company so business slowed down dramatically right. I didn't know what I was going to do so I started figuring out okay I can do here. Let me start a mobile stylist so literally I created another company so I was doing here and I was doing credit right. No I did not go to school for here. I learned from you too but I always believed that you know if you look good and you feel good you're going to do good. And so here I'm doing here and I'm doing credit and then I meet my now husband. I was just running around free and loving life day by day not really having a vision for my life. A few years of us in our relationship my husband came to me talking about life insurance and I'm like I'm not doing life insurance but his best friend kept coming to the house showing us these pastas and I'm thinking no I'm not interested in selling. I definitely was not interested in working for anybody else. I didn't want a job and we're going back and forth literally for three years off and on literally for three years. I have the full story of it on my YouTube channel feel free to go and check it out it's hilarious but I didn't come into the business until I had a dream that I was helping this little old lady with her life insurance and I felt amazing. So I woke up and started studying and here I am nine years later and loving every minute of my business and helping other people become successful along the way but don't get me wrong this was not easy for me coming in and I was still not interested in sales so it took me two years doing very part-time before I was able to see again. My second year my 1099 came in and I was at 58,000 and I'm like how did I make 58,000 and I don't even know what I'm doing and mind you at the nine to five job or six a.m to seven p.m job I was making 56,000 after 14 years. Here we go again I'm like okay Chris shut down these other businesses do this insurance 100% and I was finally feeling like I had a clear picture for the future of my business of my life I'm going full-time I am ready to go I tell the managers here in the insurance industry I need to be a manager I believe that this can happen two nights before I'm going to the retreat for management I get caught in the ice storm really an ice storm I'm thinking there's no way this is happening I'm freaking out I'm five hours away from home I call my sister because she's a prayer warrior and I'm freaking out like I need you to pray for me I need to get off of this hill this big old mountain I have five hours to get home because I need to catch this flight in two days and she prayed me off the mountain I remember her telling me she loved me and asked me if I was going to be over at the house to see her the next day and I'm like of course you know I'm going to see you before I get on the flight to leave for Florida the next morning I get the call 6 a.m my sister passed away I'm thinking you've got to be kidding me right 43 years old I will never forget the date January 15 2014 because it was not only the day that my sister passed on but it was the day that I had to make another huge choice our choices create our tomorrows no matter what anybody says or what anybody does what you decide is going to determine your life I chose to do both I took care of my sister's arrangements she died on a Wednesday I set up the program for her to be laid to rest on a Sunday my cousins were involved it was amazing the company that I represent was able to save my mother $3,600 because they were able to make phone calls to help with the pricing and that next day I was on the flight it was hard to come back and get in the field talking to people about life insurance but as time went on I learned that I was not only talking about insurance I was teaching people and helping them with something that is going to happen and what a blessing to help somebody a blessing in a form of cash and their final expenses to help their family because it's going to happen and then make sure that they have the arrangement so that their loved ones know what needs to be done and then getting paid handsomely for doing this it is important to understand that in this life there will always be up and downs there will always be a few mountains dropped in our path but as long as we hold true to our mission and continue to build the inner man or woman there is no stopping us we have to renew our minds daily and grow and knowledge of the business or field that we are thriving to be successful in I choose to live and to learn so I could live the life that I'll always dreamed of as of now still living learning and growing I have earned over one million dollars in income over the past nine years working in this insurance industry helping others to grow and earn six figures as well and I will continue to do this by means of different trainings ebooks conferences planners etc it doesn't matter how much I have made this far what matters is who else I can share my story with so they too can wake up and see that it is possible for you it is possible I'm excited to share with you my story in hopes that this encourages you to follow the uncomfortable road towards success to understand that life happens to us all but if you do as I do and other successful people on this platform read the books grow your mind change your bad habits even the ones you don't know about you but you will learn and connect with the mentors like the ones here with Cody and the 8% nation you too will find success remember life still happens but as long as you don't quit you cannot fail thank you again for having me share my story again my name is Christine Austin ill and you can be successful thank you hey unbelievable job christine thank you so much for being a part of this all right I absolutely love what you're doing for the industry you can tell she enjoys helping people she's great great on video she will dance and sing in her car anytime on youtube I love it thank you so much being a part of this I'm looking forward to collaborating and continue to do more things with you because you are giving back and the kind of people I want to spend time with are the people that are given back and helping people right because you're watching right now you want to surround yourself with successful people right miss christine is exactly that and I want to surround myself with successful people because they say like you are the five people you spend the most time with think about that for a second who are you spending the most time with who's pouring into you and who are you pouring into them and and for me I'm really paying to go to all these events and coaches and speakers and masterminds and retreats and traveling so much because I want to get around people that change the way I think and level up the game for me how much has this today leveled up the game for you okay I appreciate you being on this because I'm telling you what we are going to do you can tell what time it is it's again all right it's back the flash sale you think I get used to like the noise is happening randomly but you can't okay three minutes live here we go all right here's what it is okay here's what it is two diamond tickets normally well over two grand retail well over three grand two diamond tickets only for the next three minutes for the for let's do three let's do three people maybe they go take advantage of this really quick team is that cool okay the next three people that go to the link in chat right now to get two diamond tickets for only eight 97 so again that flash sale is only live for three minutes and then poof it's gone we've actually inserted the team just let me know actually on break that they have inserted a time stamp so that once the three minutes is over it actually totally vanishes in his unable for purchase so make sure that you go right now to get hold of that immediately okay so take advantage of the flash sale now I'm excited for the next speaker who I've gotten to know really well over the last couple years one of my good buddies in the industry he is absolutely changing the game in his own life and for his team and for his company and for a lot of other people the dude makes significant amounts of money maybe he will show some of it off on screen you never know okay this dude he's a good pickball player he's probably a basketball player he's an athlete he's a sales person he's an entrepreneur he's a business owner okay and he's always doing it right the dude cares he can help you succeed and he's becoming one of the better known brands and speakers in the industry keep doing it strong bro is he right is he ready please welcome as we bring in are you ready are you ready are you ready are you ready are you ready I'm ready please welcome my good buddy Mr. Bradley. Well it is an absolute honor and a privilege to be able to share this virtual stage with so many incredible speakers you know I uh when I when I think about Cody and I think about the first ever eight percent nation where the dude invested over a half million dollars renting out the freaking Nissan stadium I think about a guy who definitely didn't quit right who understood that if he didn't quit he couldn't fail and so I thank Cody for the opportunity to be here today I thank Cody for being faithful to that and not quitting so it's an honor and a privilege and for those of you that don't know me my name is Bradley Hannon I am the president and CEO of Hannon Healthcare Solutions you know we specialize in the under 65 space but but what I love doing and and what you guys hopefully will get to see through this message is I love coaching people I the the whole person I love coaching people to be better than they even believe that they can be because I know in my life when I look back some of the most significant and profound leaps that I've made have come through a mentor or a coach or having somebody in my life that just spoke life into what I was doing so you know again uh just so thankful to be here I hope we can have a fun time you know talking about this I feel like I'm gonna get a little real and I'm gonna get a little real with you and I hope that you understand that this is just using my story to hopefully make an impact that's my goal today and I don't have a whole lot that I want you to take away from this I really have one thing one key takeaway that I want you to take from this message and I've got a few different ways that you can apply it in your daily life and your daily business and your insurance agency after all this is an insurance conference you know I train on product a lot I do a lot of product trainings I do a lot of uh a lot of you know sales trainings man that stuff's boring right what's what's really really significant and what is what is impactful is using your story uh in in my story specifically to hopefully make a difference out there so that's my goal again today you know Cody actually uh came to me I don't know a month or so ago a couple months ago and he said hey man I'd love for you to speak at the 8% uh virtual conference and I thought well it's a no-brainer right of course I'll do that and he had mentioned that the the theme we were sticking with the theme from last year which is if you don't quit you can't fail right and so naturally I thought that's a great topic I won't have a problem with that I can certainly craft a message around not quitting and and not failing because you didn't quit right so uh I began to kind of dive into this and I and I wanted to pull stories from my life right that where where I didn't quit and where I saw it through to the finish and and I didn't fail because I didn't quit when things got tough but I have to be honest with you as I thought back through my life and as I thought back through uh the the times where I have faced some opposition or where I've had some lows or where I've had an opportunity to go after but but you know didn't came up a little bit short I couldn't help but think man I've quit a lot of times I've quit a few you know quite a few times and and I hope that I'm not alone in this and I believe that some of you guys might feel like well what if I did quit right am I a failure now and so I'm here to tell you that through crafting this message through through through really digging into this whole uh if you don't quit you can't fail I discovered something you know about myself that I want to share with you guys again the the key takeaway and I'm not talking you know I didn't when I say that I quit on myself or when I say that I quit I'm not talking about uh quitting good things or or or I'm sorry bad things I'm talking about quitting you know good things great things great opportunities I think back to you know the kind of the first feeling of of being a quitter that I ever really experienced or that I can remember anyways and you know my wife will tell you that I don't have the best of memories so what I think about quitting I think back to you know my baseball career or lack thereof right I was I was a what some would say a talented baseball player when I was young you know I played uh I played all the way up to the the Babe Ruth years which is obviously right before high school and I went to a high school called Sarasota High School when I when I got to that school I knew right away that it was going to be tough it was going to be challenging to make that baseball team it was one of the best baseball teams in the state of Florida in fact while I was there they won a state championship and I say they because I was not a part of that state championship team because I quit you know I think about uh the the time that I was when I was 19 years old right I was offered a position or actually I worked for a moving company and the owner of that moving company was was leaving after a couple years to do bigger and better things he was going to law school but he saw promise in me he saw something in me that honestly at the time I didn't even see in myself and he and he saw that I could take this opportunity somewhere right so he gave me the opportunity to purchase the moving truck the equipment the basically the business for a very very low amount right on on a note that I would have 12 months to pay him back and and you know we're not financing we're not this is just hey man I believe in you you've done a great job you've been dependable you've been I've been able to count on you for the last two years I want to hand this moving company over to you and I want to see you do big things with it and so I did I did that for about a year and a half I ran that moving company you know we grew it we did we did well I paid I paid him back I'm forever forever grateful for that opportunity to have have done that um but what happened was I got to a point where I knew that I needed some extra help to grow like it wasn't I wasn't going to do it on my own and and thankfully I met a guy who uh or actually I did a move for a guy he was a high school coach of mine he was a football coach and after doing that move he said hey man you guys do a great job you know you I know you've I've known you for a while um you know you've done a few moves for us what would it take to grow this business to the next level right what what what what what could I do for you or with you to help you grow this business because I believe in you and again somebody seeing something in me that I didn't see in myself at the time and I sat down with him and we carved out what we would do we carved out that we would buy an additional large truck and an additional smaller truck for deliveries and things we carved out that we would that that we would use his marketing team we would use his recruiting team we would grow in the number of employees and so on and so forth in the following week I was supposed to go and sign the paperwork to make this deal happen um I don't know whether it was I I don't know whether it was was was just the fact that that there was a huge commitment that I was about to make or it was fear or what it was but what I can tell you is that I quit on that opportunity as well I walked away from that I actually sold the moving truck I sold all the equipment I basically sold the business in you know a week or so uh and and I was going to move on to to what I thought might be bigger or better things but that fell through so the opportunity that I went to take because I sold my moving company fell through and now I had neither right so so I quit again and felt like a failure you know I think and this is this is probably the most recent and the the the deepest impactful event that I've ever gone through I think back to when I was in ministry all right I was a I was a youth leader for uh who was my a gentleman who was my youth pastor who moved to Orlando to plan a church one of the most incredible leaders that I've ever had the chance to follow to learn from to be mentored under I sat with him uh at 24 years old at breakfast one morning where he asked me to apply to be the next campus pastor they were launching a campus their second campus they were launching that campus you know later on that year in the fall he wanted me to go through the application process because he believed that I could be that next campus pastor at 24 years old I followed those steps I applied for that position I went through uh through interviews with the board I went through interviews with his father uh with his spiritual father with with him with his associate pastor with my associate pastor I went through interview after interview I went through uh counseling sessions right where they wanted to make sure that I was in a good place to lead a church they were they I went through all kinds of stuff to get that position only to find out that I didn't get the position right that somebody else was given that position and I had come up short so naturally I quit right I actually decided to move back to Sarasota from Orlando I left that church you know I left it in good standing it wasn't necessarily a real negative or bad thing but I quit following that that dream of leading a church campus at that specific church and and so in crafting this message and going back through some of that stuff I thought man I can't sit here in front of all these people and tell them that I've never quit you know I can't tell them that I've never failed and maybe you can feel that maybe you can connect with that or relate to that because you've quit things in the past right I've got some things that I want to share with you that I believe that'll change your business but more importantly your life right and and there is a direct correlation between the two don't get it confused there is a absolute direct correlation between your personal and professional life is along with your business and these things if you can just grasp this one concept right and we can apply these techniques to make sure that you never quit I believe that it can change your business so I'm here to tell you one thing and that one thing is when I was crafting this message I realized something that you can quit right you just can't quit on yourself right so I've added to the you can't fail if you don't quit and I've added you can't fail if you don't quit on yourself and I really really believe that and I know that sounds simple but I can tell you how deep that runs in my life I can't tell you how deep that runs in my life when I quit these things you know I've quit I've quit the ministry right I quit the the baseball career I quit all of this stuff but I never quit on myself and I realized that in going through this that I that I'd never ever quit on myself so this is so huge and if we can grasp this one thing I believe that we can we can leave here better insurance agents better husbands better fathers better sons better brothers I believe that we can leave here better people because we won't quit on yourself and hey listen if you're here today watching this conference if you're here listening to this message you haven't quit on yourself right you may have quit something else you may have failed you may have faced some opposition you may have come up short from your goal but you didn't quit on yourself because you're here today you're investing in yourself you're investing your time your energy and being here and so for that I know you will be rewarded because you're not quitting on yourself so are you guys ready it's gonna sound simple but are you ready to to to learn about the three things that I applied in my life or that have that have kind of allowed me to not quit right that have really put me in a position where I could not quit on myself like these if I didn't have these three things in my life I can guarantee and I was missing even just one of them I can guarantee you that I would have quit I would have quit on myself a long time ago but I have these three things in place and I've always had these three things in place and looking back through the times where I feel like I've failed or I've quit or whatever the case is I look back and I can directly tie each one of these things to the fact that I didn't quit on myself so I've got three things three practical applications three things for you to take home take back to your agency but take back to your family to make sure that when times get tough when you face opposition when you when you have troubles you don't quit right the first thing that you need in your life to make sure that you don't quit is people that count on you and what whether you're out there and you're a husband a father a son a business leader you've got people in your life maybe it's friends maybe it's family you've got people in your life that are counting on you and I'm here to tell you that if I didn't have people in my life counting on me I probably would have quit right I probably would have quit see because what I didn't tell you about the moving company what I've probably never shared before is that that moving company was my family's sole income and when I say my family I'm not talking my wife and kids I was 19 years old supporting a household supporting my mom and my brother with that moving business right with that moving company and so naturally when when the opportunity that I went to take failed right when the opportunity that I went to take fell through and I had already sold my moving company I had no choice but to keep going right I had a family that was counting on me I had bills that relied on me paying them at 19 years old so you know when you when you have people that are counting on you it makes it impossible to quit and if you remind yourself of that in times where you feel like you might want to quit or it's getting tough you remind yourself that there's people counting on you whether it's your team or again your family you will not quit because that's the first thing that you need to make sure that you have in your life and I'm sure that you do and the second thing is you've got to surround yourself with people that will call you out right I don't mean yes men right I don't mean people that will tell you what you want to hear I'm talking people who tell you what you need to hear when you need to hear it most people that are in your corner that are fighting for you but won't let you skate on some some some BS we'll say right I've always had people in my corner that when I didn't feel like it when I didn't feel good when I didn't when I didn't want to go after it or when I felt like a failure these people would tell me man you can do great things and you've done great things look at what you've built look at how far you've come or on the other hand when I've become too prideful when I've become too headstrong when I when I've had the opposite effect they're there to bring me back down and tell me hey listen man we got a lot of work yet to do we're not there you know people in my life man Cody would be one of them and I'm so thankful to have guys like Cody and Justin Brock and Pete Fournier guys that are in my corner that would tell me exactly how it is and they're not just yes men right I think about Nate and in a phone call that I made to him just recently where I was I was struggling with something in my business and and and without getting too detailed he said man this is the first time you struggle with that dude get used to it because it's going to happen again and again and and and listen you just got to keep charging forward he didn't he didn't meet me where I was at right he didn't come down to my level and say you know hey man I totally understand that even though he did he said that's the first time this happened to you get used to it you can make it through this keep powering through keep pushing right that is what it's all about having people in your corner who will tell you what you need to hear you know you can't see the things you have a blind spot right when you're driving in your rear view mirror side mirrors whatever you have blind spots right nowadays we have these little cool lights that tell us when somebody's in in you know in that blind spot but you can see the light but you can't see that car can you you can only see the light at least in my car you can see the light when someone's in the blind spot but I can't see the car you need to have people in your life who are like that light who are telling you when you're missing something when it's in your blind spot you've got to have that person or people that will call you out and the last thing and this is the most important thing this is the the one thing that I think over the last uh six eight ten months last year or really if I look back across my entire lifetime I've always had a coach or a mentor and so find a coach or find a mentor and I think that this may be the one piece that a lot of people are missing right a lot of us have people that are counting on us right it's just part of life a lot of us have people that will call us out even when we don't want to be called out but a lot of us don't have but not all of us have coaches or have mentors right all my life whether I knew it or not whether I tried to or not whether I whether I actually said hey this person's my mentor or my coach when I look back through all the failures right or all the times that I've quit I look back and I see that I always had a mentor or had a coach somebody who saw the things in me that I didn't see in myself that would remind me that this is a journey this is a process and I'm in process right and that when I felt like I failed when I felt like I couldn't I couldn't continue or you know I came up short these people were there my coach or my mentor was there to make sure that I didn't you know another thing that a coach will do for you is push you further than you thought you could go you know I got to be honest with you guys I don't know that I would be on this virtual stage even with you here today if I didn't have a coach in my course somebody who was pushing me to do things that I sometimes didn't want to do or or maybe feel a little uncomfortable and so you've got to have a coach or a mentor in your life again you've got to have people that are counting on you and I know you do right you all have people that are counting on you in your life you've got to surround yourself with people that will call you out and lastly you've got to have a coach or a mentor listen I'm here to tell you if you don't have a coach right now if you're looking for a mentor and you're in the insurance industry and you're looking for that specific you know a coach to your business or or even in your personal life you know let's connect I'd love to talk with you you have so many opportunities whether it's through one of Cody's mentorship programs success society any of the things that I offer you have so many opportunities to find a coach find a mentor in your life don't fall short on that one right because I know most of you have the other two in place but I promise you coaching mentoring that's the stuff that's going to take you to the next level so I know that I'm not alone in feeling like when I look back there was times where I quit right there was times where I quit there was there was times where I fell short and and I and I and I quit but I can tell you that I never quit on myself and so if I can leave you in closing with that one thing right never quit on yourself right you can't fail if you don't quit on yourself and again I believe the fact that you're here today is a is a testament to the fact that you have not quit on yourself you are still investing in yourself you're still going after it and I applaud you for that make sure that you have people that are counting on you make sure that you have people that will call you out and make sure you have a coach or a mentor and I promise you it'll take your business your personal life your relationships it will take you to the next level thank you Brad awesome job buddy I love it man thank you very much for being a part of this I really appreciate you what you're doing you're you're changing lives and being a part of this means a lot to me okay so thank you thank Brad and chat thank you buddy okay he's down and he's down in sunny Sarasota Florida he's trying to get me to get a second home down there which dude it ain't hard to talk me into going to Florida right like who else like dude I'm in I want to go to Florida I want to I want to be doing so well I'm getting a second home in Florida right thank you buddy appreciate you 8% deal time code ask us dot com four slash deals okay I want to remind you that you can get maybe you want to bring a few people man four premier tickets for only $9.97 normally you can actually get them right now for $2,400 instead just during these two days four premier tickets for $9.97 to go spend time with me these amazing speakers and the industry at 8% 2021 live in Dallas at the Statler it's gonna be amazing so again four premier tickets that means you get lunch and the party and a premier seat four premier tickets only $9.97 go to code ask us dot com four slash deals to take advantage of that deal today okay because it ends today right day two it's almost over right now we may have to keep playing like I love it I get like you can tell it like I get like so excited when the flash sale comes and the siren goes off because it's time are you ready three minutes and then poof it's gone forever okay this one is also insane and at the end of three minutes you cannot do it period it's probably it's potentially from a per ticket price standpoint it's the most insane doing ever done for sure okay three ticket three minutes is taken four VIPs for only $400 okay a hundred bucks a piece of VIP again it's only for three minutes so that means you have to take action today right now let me know in chat could you hypothetically if you wanted to bring three people could you would you will you okay let me know in chat okay also I thank you thank you so much for blowing up social with all this stuff man that that means that means the world to me to spread this eight percent theme this message of dude we want to win man we want to be a part of the eight percent and spread it out to the world means the world to me so thank you for doing that okay that's amazing all right now three minutes is it's it's ticking okay it's ticking it's tick a talking right it's flying by so you got to make sure that you take advantage of this flash sale right now because I can promise you poof it's gone and we're only allowing 10 people to get four VIP tickets for $400 right now ridiculous crazy insane and you got to do it today you got to do it really in the next three minutes it's not a normal deal it's a flash sale with the sirens and the noise and the lights and everything else right like hey did it get your attention because it gets mine okay you have you're almost out of time make sure that you go hit the link in chat to take advantage of that right now before it's over okay before it's over i'm being told we've had several take advantage right now so thank you okay appreciate that go get that flash sale before three minutes is up okay we're almost there all right now the next speaker the next speaker has been with me since the very beginning she wrote a she she wrote a forward for me for for my book that's coming out soon and totally made me cry recently like she's had I can't say the impact that Lauren my wife has had on everything that we do she's been there since the very beginning she is my biggest cheerleader she's unbelievable at making sure our team is happy cohesive and pushing for the same same targets like from a personality standpoint from loving on people caring about people taking care of our team taking care of me on a day-to-day basis like that's hard enough man come on right she is absolutely amazing babe thank you for everything you do for me thank you everything you do behind the scenes for our team thank you everything you do behind the scenes for the industry okay and thank you for being that person like everybody needs their person to push them to make them a better version of them she really is one of the biggest reasons why I think as big as I do because she is constantly reminding me right like everybody needs someone in their corner that believes in them she believes in me and babe I believe in you too okay so we'll see if she can jump and do this without without without without crying already okay I'm hoping she's about to talk about company culture and we'll find out because she's phenomenal at making sure that our company culture is on point it's super important your company needs it everyone needs it is she ready Dylan we're good she's ready please welcome my number one I'm the biggest fan of this person in the world my rider die I gave her the rider die award recently at oceans end for our team love you babe proud of you you're gonna do great please welcome my wife miss lauren askin's in the chat please make her feel welcome and let's all improve our company culture love you babe you're gonna do great eight percent virtual thank you so much for being a part of this today coding I truly appreciate you spending time with us um we know your time is valuable so I'm gonna get right to it today I'm gonna be talking about five things to five tips to improving your company culture culture is something I'm very passionate about I pretty much have like a hard line about it you don't mess with my culture and you um it's just super important so I know that culture can really make or break a team and I want to share that with you all and so you all can learn things that it's taking coding I trial and error and mistakes hundred mistakes to figure out we have had up to 60 employees between all of our companies and it's chaotic but I love it it's a community that I'm very very passionate about so I'm not saying that you have to have 60 employees because get ready for it you might one day goals are big but once you have a team it's vital to your success so even if you don't have a team yet your team could include your family getting everybody on board on the same page knowing your mission knowing your vision knowing where this train is headed is so so so important so I'm here to teach you today five tips for creating a culture that you're super proud of everyone's heard the story of the two Clydesdale one Clydesdale can pull 8 000 pounds by himself but if you have two Clydesdale lined up side by side they can pull 32 000 pounds that is the ultimate example of a team I've learned that from Elena Cardone and that's something that Kody and I have truly implemented in our success we can't get anywhere by ourselves so surrounding ourselves with a team who understands where we're going is so important and they are all on board tip number one realize that people are on your team believe in your mission they're on they're on your team but they also believe in your mission that is so so so important to remember because it's you wouldn't be anywhere without them I'm not saying anywhere but you wouldn't be going light years faster if these people weren't on your team so the quicker you realize that and you truly value that the better it's going to be I truly believe that this part is super critical to your success if your team is not bought in it's you're gonna it's gonna be like going through mud like I mean spinning your tires and mud in a front wheel drive vehicle like yanking anywhere fast if at all so that is step number one realize that the people are on your team believe in you and your mission and where you're going this is so important so important step two tip number two if they earn give them a raise don't okay let's back up if they earn it give them a raise I worked I have my master's degree in health promotion and wellness management I worked for a gym a hospital gym here in town in springfield Missouri I worked the night shift being newly married 12 to 9 p.m. at night it was brutal I loved my job because I love my clients and I love my co-workers but the annual review came in and I walked into my boss's office and I had never this was my first job out of graduate schools I had never really had like a big girl job per se and I walked into an interview and we went over things that I was doing great areas that I could use improvement in and like teaching aerobics but it's we all have improvement areas and that's okay but when the time came to give me a raise and I wasn't expecting a raise by the way I think that's also a whole nother can of worms but when it came time to give me a raise they gave me eight cents for my efforts I got an eight cent raise for my efforts of me busting my butt all of those years of school work and so like I promised myself that if I were to ever have teammates I would never treat them like that I just if if you earn it give them a raise to show them how much you appreciate them that will go very very very far in loyalty and longevity with your teammates third thing be able to give tough love okay this is very very very important the entire team I give them praise on how good they're doing and how proud of them I am all the time it's almost to a fault some people would say but it's not because it's not real I value them and I want them to know that I'm proud of them and what they're doing but they also know that mama parent Lauren is going to give them tough love when they need it if they're taking an hour and a half lunch and I realize it and it's happening over and over without permission that's not a standard we're going to live by if they're late Cody is not going to put up with that so there are things that sometimes people need that tough love if you're if you're not holding your team to the standard that I we hold ourselves to then you're doing an injustice to them so I want to teach the team look I love you to death and there's not much I wouldn't do for you because you believe in us and where this train is going but at the same time I have to hold you the same standard so I'm not going to let you just slip by I'm going to give you that tough love when you need it because you need to hear it not because it's a fun conversation to have but because it's going to make you better not only in your personal life but where this is going so if you can't stay leveled up with us it's not going to work so tough love is super super super important it's not easy to have those conversations but they're necessary and sometimes people fall short and that's okay but within that tough love also comes forgiveness and I think that's really really really important none of us are perfect we all make mistakes and you have to as a business owner be able to forgive someone but if they keep repeating the same mistake that you forgiven them for then it's time that it's not working out so that's part of the tough love concept that I'm I forgive you wants but you're continuing to make this mistake so this isn't working for either one of us so we need to cut our ties and then move on so you have that analogy of or hardship of letting people go and sometimes that's hard like oh we've let some teammates go because I have given those tough conversations Cody's given those tough conversations Andy's given those tough conversations and the behaviors didn't change so rather than weighing the team down it's not working out for them and it's not working out for us so we need to cut our ties and move on but at the same time you got to give people praise and love and show them that they're doing a good job step number four set the standard from the beginning and maybe I should have started with this tip first you can't it's very my basketball coach I will never forget ninth grade basketball coach we're walking it and he is insane I mean we're running full court tip drill you know back and forth what not I relate a lot of things to sports because that's what I know so hopefully you can relate to this or maybe I can give you a different example but he's running making us run we didn't we dropped the ball in this we were passing the ball in the middle of the court while running the full court tip drill so we dropped the ball we have to start over time gets added to the clock one of the seniors lays down on the floor because we've been at this for 10 minutes she lays down because we're gassed I mean we're literally exhausted and he says get off my floor and in that moment we knew he was serious and it wasn't because he was being Mr. Honcho he was just setting the standard like he knew we were capable of doing this he knew we were a we were more than able to do all this he was pushing us to be our best and it was in that moment I I didn't realize at the time I was like are you joking me but in the time it was us being able to pick ourselves up and keep going that's life that is absolutely life you are going to get knocked down and thrown curveballs all throughout the time but you got to stand back up you got to dust your shoulders off and you got to keep going so you got to set the standard from the beginning and and that standard could be simple it could be a one page document of these are our guidelines these are our expectations or it could be a handbook we have a handbook because that's the place that we're in we didn't used to have a handbook and I realize how big of a mistake that was we weren't setting the standard when we first hired our first employee we didn't know what we were doing but now we know that once we set the standard they know where the expectation is and what we're going to hold them to if you're not holding up to these this x amount of things then it's not going to work out I'll forgive you but if you keep doing this over and over again it's just not going to work out um and finally tip number five know what motivates your team this is so so so important so in this example I'm going to talk about two of our current teammates one everyone well maybe not everyone but most of you might know Andy Andy is motivated by money and that's great Andy Andy has big goals for him and Kristen and I love that but then we also have another teammate who isn't motivated by money he's motivated by life experiences trips the opportunity to explore the world so those are very unique to know that that's very different and some people are motivated by time with their family so you just need to know how your team is motivated so that you can incentivize them or reward them in the way that they feel it best none of us are the same Kodi Edward you do not motivate motivate him the same way you motivate me it's polar opposite it's actually one of our biggest tips he tries to motivate me the way that he motivates himself and gosh I wish it worked but it doesn't work for me it literally makes me shut down so he's realized that hey I can't talk to Lauren the way I talk to myself so I need to know what makes her tick what makes her go to the extra mile or you know keep going in the mud when your front wheel car is stuck you know in the snow or you know what what's going to keep you going so once you realize that and it's very important to learn this from the beginning because you can't have a salesperson who's not motivated by money they're driving revenue for the business which helps pay everybody else I mean it's a it's a full circle the team culture is so important because it's a ferris wheel it just keeps going and going and going the ferris wheel would stop if someone on the team wasn't all in and once you find someone who is not all in you got to let them go that is so important to culture hanging on to someone who isn't bought in and doesn't see the vision anymore or has changed or maybe made a bad hire and they never are all in you've got to cut the tie because they're going to bring the rest of the team down when we're trying to move fast we make fast decisions we make important decisions and we literally go so once you have someone on your team that isn't able to keep up you've got to cut ties it's not going to work you have to have people that have the same mindset as you to get things going so the importance of motivating people in their own way is crucial it's it's very very very vital to how the team functions together I can't I can't say that enough so understanding your employees personal goals is very important there was one Chris or one new year a few years ago they probably thought I was nuts because at the time they didn't realize what are what I was trying to figure out is what is your goal what is your goal for 2020 what was your goal for 2021 what what are you trying to do and your you can even ask them professionally some people want to advance some people want the opportunity and then some people are already in the position that they want to be in for the rest of their life and that's great um we just have to figure that out as as employers what where are they going what are they trying to do because I want my teammates to achieve their goals as well whether that be professionally personally and financially we all have financial goals at least you should and those are important things now if you don't have a massive team like we do um it's important to have these conversations with your family um I can't say that enough because there was a time in Cody and I's marriage it's probably gonna make me cry because I was the one holding him back and that's a hard pill to swallow I've had to come to terms with it I had to look myself in the mirror and be like Warren he's going places I've either got to get on board or we got to figure this out because I was holding him back because he's trying to make these moves so even if you don't have a team of people like we do it's so important for your personal team to understand where you're going and why you're making the decisions you're making it's it's once you align them that way it's it's amazing what life will do so I challenge you during this weekend um 8% virtual to figure out a who's on your team if you don't have a team of people already or if you're looking to hire maybe your first employee you set the standards right out your standards say this is these are my non-negotiables this is what I'm looking for someone and then hold them accountable hold them to that and if they don't present it in a way that is the tough love give them tough love make sure they understand your mission if they if you hire them they come on board and they're busting their hind end give them a raise give them a bonus or give them something in the way that they feel it because not everybody does feel um appreciation through money but you have to give them appreciation the way they feel it set that standing from set that standard from the beginning give them tough love give them a bonus or raise if they earn it and make sure finally that they understand where the train is going if people don't understand your mission and where you're going or what you're trying to do they're never going to be on board so if you're trying say you're an insurance agent and you're uh in the Medicare industry how many seniors do you want to help how it's not necessarily about money how many people are we helping we're in the industry of helping people we're making tough situations when death happens easier don't let that burden on people so once your team realizes how many people are we going to help you know they're on board it's going to be easier because you can see the chain reaction we're helping people we're helping people reach their goals and that is what it's all about we're in the business of helping people it's something godi and i take very very seriously and i just truly appreciate you taking your time listening to this weekend virtual of all of these amazing speakers i'm actually so proud of kody less brown i mean you name it it's they're here so i'm just really really really honored to finally have my first speaking gig on here he finally thought i was good and i'm just kidding um i finally found a topic that i were like lauren needs to talk about her culture because she's so i just i literally love it i love culture i love creating an atmosphere where people feel like they can learn grow and feel like they can say something and it's valued and heard so um it's just super important i if you have any questions don't hesitate to reach out to me and thank you for watching this awesome weekend and we will have a percent in july at the statler in dalis so i would love to be able to meet you in person and i have ladies night so come on down to dalis buy your eight percent ticket and learn more about culture how to network with other people within the industry and rock and roll so thank you so much welcome back awesome job babe okay i love it i love the tips i love the advice i love you focused on making our office and our teams better more cohesive more fun and everyone needs that am i right am i right like everyone watching this in chat let me know you need what you just heard now what i've learned is everybody needs stuff okay amazing amazing job babe thank you so much okay i love you you're incredible thank you for constantly pushing me everyone needs that we just heard everyone needs a lot of what we're hearing only some people will actually apply it so we will see okay i was worried about some of the stories she was going to share about me too because you never know right you never know okay we'll see okay so thank you for not you know embarrassing me too bad okay appreciate that will you apply what you're learning today right there's been major takeaways the last two days no question about it the real question is will you apply what you are learning winners my dad always says is winners find a way to win who's going to win in 2021 who's going to make sure that 2021 is the best year you've ever had and who wants to make sure that you look back in a decade and say dude 2021 is so good because the effort the time the energy and the work that i put in in 2021 right who wants that i do too okay thank you i do too i do too like i wake up saying man i need to be pushing harder i need to be doing more i know i can improve i know i can get there i know i can get there faster i know i can make it bigger right every single day that's that's the way i wake up like i'm like come on now let's freaking push right let's go that's how i think now i want to spend the next year with you maybe the next 10 years right but i want to spend the next year with you if i hypothetically if i moved in with you for the next 12 months would you make more money yes or yes yes or no would you make more money if i moved in with you for the next year no freaking question about it who's got a spare bedroom you're like dude you can move in with me anytime man okay i promise you can make more money which is why i'm releasing our ca all access plan you get access to my video sales system you get access to a weekly accountability call with me every monday and you get access to one bootcamp throughout the year over a $10,000 value for all of this this is all access with me for a year normally over $10,000 for only $9.97 the question is who needs the help who needs the focus who feels a little bit complacent who knows that they can get better who needs to be plugged into my cell system and training and learning and watching videos every single day you do so go to codyaskins.com forward slash deals to take advantage of the all access plan for the $9.97 today okay today now before i bring up the next speaker okay i'm being told we need about and then they need another $6.60 90 seconds okay is that i want to ask you what's been your favorite part of these last two days what's been your favorite part who's been your favorite speaker what's been the biggest takeaway what are you literally thinking and seeing and looking at now saying man my eyes are wide open and i'm ready to run and win if that's you let me know in chat because i want to know what's been the biggest breakthrough for you what's been the biggest takeaway what's been the biggest idea and how do we make sure that you apply it this year okay so we spend time together i'm going to give you ideas i'm going to challenge you i'm going to motivate you and i'm going to i'm going to train you but i'm also going to make you think bigger than you've ever thought in your life who's watching thinking dude i need that i need someone to challenge me i need someone to wake me up i need someone to make me think bigger i need someone to get me to that next level in my life that is what i do for insurance agents and that's what i hope i will get the opportunity to do for you okay now we're ready for our next speaker this gentleman okay this gentleman wrote eighty five thousand dollars of premium in his first six weeks he also recruited 69 people in his first 60 days he is one of the best sales people i know good friend of mine does the SWAT event okay which i'm about to speak at here in a few weeks he does an unbelievable job at training the insurance industry at rebuilding teams at selling product and to do what he did in the first six weeks of the industry is insane and life changing please welcome my good buddy mr. Nate offered take it away man crush it you want to get wealthy you want to get wealthy you want to build financial freedom you're gonna get your ass kicked you want to accomplish something great you're gonna get knocked on your ass you got to figure out how to get back up you got other people that are out there stopping you some of them are your friends some of your family members and their sole purpose is to stop you from getting across that goal great players aren't born and they're made and they're made by great coaches and they find players they have a desire to achieve they find players they have a desire to work hard and they find players they have a desire we want to learn about the brain how it works we want to learn how to influence people in a positive way you guys think there's some like intergalactic special phrase that i need to close the sale give it to me doesn't work there's no one liner is going to get you sales guys every sale you have should generate you between five to seven referrals every time how many are guilty of not doing that i can't put my fourth leg up real hard how many are guilty of not doing that how do you like to know how to do that what makes decisions is not your conscious mind your subconscious mind makes decisions and your conscious mind backs it up with logic do y'all know this so quit being so freaking logical because you're not going to get a sale by being logical you're going to be able to get a sale by being emotional because people make decisions emotionally it doesn't mean you get in there and start crying does that make sense a lot of people come here and you think you know what you need to know to have success if you knew what you needed to know to have success you already be successful you got to get your mind open enough to change because of things to change you got to change things to get better you got to get better what makes people great because having the ability to overcome the obstacles and the satisfaction of victory the greatest feeling of victory is when there's an obstacle that's in your way that looks so big that there's no way over around or under and you push through and make it happen thank you so much cody askins and hello eight percent nation um i'm so honored to be on this virtual summit um and and to be able to talk to you guys today and as you've been hearing from speaker after speaker after speaker that if you don't give up you can't fail and it's so true and inspiring to hear all these stories it's like i i thought of that title and i was thinking about what am i going to talk about what can i share with you guys today i'm like what if i put a mirror up to that and i kind of flip the script and what if it was there's certain things you have to give up or you're not going to succeed right you know there is plenty of times the things that i was growing up and i didn't grow up in a wealthy family um i you know went to school like i was told to do go to college get good grades better grade you get the better job you're gonna get and one day you may wind up immensely successful and work for somebody and retire at the age of 60 years old and get a you know gold watch that turned charm green and and a pension plan and living on social security and if you're in this industry and you guys do final expense or if you're talking to the elderly people it's so sad to see that the majority of our society is growing up retiring on family friends and the federal government and it wasn't the plan i actually want to do and and i hear people all the time talk about well money's not everything well when you don't have it it becomes all-encompassing it becomes everything and and my parents did an incredible job raising us as children but every decision in our life was based upon the amount of money we did or didn't have we had to read the menu from the right side where the prices are right on to the left side to figure out where we're going to eat you know our family vacation when you go to disney world we didn't have feeling like it was traveling all six of us stuffed in a car it was probably made for four and driving from charlie new jersey to pittsburgh uh ohio to go you know visit my grandma and we just hoped it wasn't too hot because back then they had the metal slide and if you ever went down the metal slide and stream heat you kind of get stuck right which is how i kind of felt trying to start a business and become an entrepreneur or got involved in the sales organization when i had no guidance i had no mentors at the time and i just was looking for somebody that would come into my life who could help teach me and show me what they've done because i'm a firm believer in hey you know what if someone else one man or woman can do it so can i if there's thousands of men or women doing it what's my problem right and if you look at the industry at ring guys there's tens hundreds of thousands millions of people doing and they're having success but this eight percent right 92 fail what's the difference between that eight percent or even the one percent versus the 92 percent who don't make it and i firmly believe the number one key is they never gave up they never gave up on themselves right brad hands talk about you don't give up on yourself but i also firmly believe that they were willing to quit certain things in order for them to have success one of the things i had to quit doing was i had to quit procrastinating i was a i you know they said the biggest nation in the world is procrastination right i was always procrastinating always putting things off and i'll never forget when i was in my mid 20s and you guys a lot of you guys heard my story where i mentor came into my life and he was making a million dollars a week net net that was after his planes in his cars and his you know 20 million dollar yeah you know and that was cool back then to make that kind of money because you know it was kind of i guess the 90s more you showed it off the show off era right it was cool to have a watch that cost more in most people's homes i know now it's different you're supposed to you know make a million dollars and give it all away and drive a Prius i get it it's different now but that was an environment that i was like whoa man look at this what this guy this guy is accomplishing his life and look at the amount of income look at the freedom and i was enamored by him right and i had a chance to start working with him and i'll never forget he asked for a report that was doing friday i said yeah i'll have it to you this is monday right so i call him up friday morning and i go hey sir you know actually called me up and i go he goes where's my report i said well sir you're never gonna believe what happened and he let me talk and i gave all i had my printer and then i ran out of ink and then and then i tried to print it i couldn't get it in time and the stores closed because of this he goes okay awesome where's my report i said well sir yeah you know i i i i tried to get it done i had it all ready to go i went to go print it goes okay Nate i don't think you're hearing me where is my report and it hit me and he goes before he gave me another answer or excuse or a justification let me ask you a question i told you monday that you needed this report to me by friday is it my fault you waited till the last minute to try to print it to get the report over to me yes or no i said no sir that's my fault and he goes when you quit procrastinating in your life when you stop having that bad habit of an average person you'll start to see your life turn around and i learned that lesson and it was a painful lesson but every time something's do i want to get on it right away i want to get it done we talked to my son about good you know start your homework early study for your testimony we got to quit procrastinating a lot of us are great procrastinators guys another thing i had to do is i had to quit hanging around people that didn't match up with my long-term goals i had a lot of people in my life some are friends some are family some are you know from grade school whatever case may be and they they they they're either going to build you up or they're going to tear you down you hear from people all the time about you are who you the five most people you hang around and different things of that nature guys but i had to quit hanging around negative people i had to quit associating with people who didn't have the same vision the same goals that that i had another thing that i had to do i had to be quit being influenced by social media tv and the news so much crap that goes on guys and back then when i was a mentor um he said you know take your tv and i did this right i'm not saying you have to do this but he said take your tv and throw it away put in the garage put in the storage i'm like whoa whoa what why would i do that it's like well if you're working with me you're not gonna much time watch it anyway and if you're trying to get wealthy the last thing you need to do is be turned on the news or watching the boob tube or the garbage that's on there and allowing that effect the way you are and put you into to paralyze you and put you into fear i had to give up being manipulated by social media i would say today i don't you know i would say today because i i don't know a lot about the social media i'm not really on there i know that cody and a lot of these guys want me to keep getting on there and i'm kind of learning about it guys but back when i was getting mentored by my mentor it was the television right he's like what what even the news right he's like what positive thing that we have that comes out of the news was it if it's rain tomorrow you're not gonna wake up you're not gonna get out of bed oh there's there's a sunny tomorrow oh so i'm gonna get out of bed like all this stuff that we always are putting into our brain if you ever come to one of my swat trainings we do some pretty awesome stuff about the subconscious mind and how it gets in there and how it stays in there and how your conscious mind doesn't make the decision your subconscious mind makes the decision and you back it up with logic which is your conscious mind i had to give up putting junk in my ear and he had a really good analogy uh to to share with you that but i'll i'll leave that for a live swat training because you had to be alive for that analogy so another thing i had to do guys i had to give up on making excuses every one of us make great excuses that we sell to ourselves and reasons why not reasons why we can't have success i was always looking right another thing i had to give up guys i had to give up thinking i needed more information or the magic pill or finding that one thing that i needed to do to have success i had to give that up i've always thought there was something somebody some training some book some sales clothes thing some technique that i was missing why all these other people were having success in the business that was in and i wasn't and i never forget again i was in room with my mentor and was talking about like i don't understand i've been doing this thing for three or four years the biggest check ever made was three thousand dollars in a month there's people making millions of dollars i don't know what i'm doing wrong i don't know what i'm missing and that's what i always said i don't know what i'm missing i don't know what i'm missing i don't know what i'm missing and he goes give me a favor yes sir go try and turn that light on what go try and turn the light on i said okay so i walked over and i mean you can imagine how dumb i looked right i'm he's like come on say try turn it on he's voice got louder i was like i'm i'm i'm i'm trying to say no you're just standing there i said fine i turned it on he goes i didn't ask you to turn it on i said try and turn it on and i'm like freaking out right i'm like oh my god i go well i can't i can't do it because that's the problem you're trying to have success you always think you're missing something you have everything you need that you've learned to go out there and have the same success if not greater these other people are having if you quit trying and you Nike it just go do it he said i have a question for you if i told you in order to make 10 000 a month you had to go out and make 10 000 mistakes first how quickly would you make them and boom it was like a switch coach burr talks about this it was like a switch i flipped the switch and i quit looking for that that missing piece of the puzzle i quit looking for what what i thought that i need to have success and i just took the information that i learned and i went to work in less than 90 days from that moment on that stupid little light switch thing i was making over 20 000 a month i'm not saying to brag guys understand still no car same couch i was sleeping on at a friend's house same product same compensation plan same office i went to nothing changed except that i gave up i quit thinking that i was missing a piece of the puzzle one of the other things i had to quit or give up to have success was thinking that i had to be so much better than someone else because if i got so much better than i would be able to have their lifestyle their money um their beautiful home their nice cars right and i was once again sitting here with my mentor and i remember he pulled out a piece of paper i don't have one here to show you and stuff and he took took out a piece of paper and he took a pen out and he drew a little circle and he said this is average right in the middle of the paper right this is average he goes Nate this is poor he went down the very bottom of the picture and he handed me a pen he goes show me where rich is or wealth and so this is like i was like man you know he always asks these questions that seemed really obvious and i always go up the wrong answer and i always felt really stupid about it but i learned a lot and thought man i got this one this one i nailed i know exactly this is so easy right i know where wealth is wealth is right here i took that pen paper and i grabbed it put a big circle on the top and go right here sir and i put it down and he went get how in the world do you get wealthy when you don't even know where it is here's a problem with most people why they don't have the success they they want to have is because they think just like you they think wealth is here and average is here and he took the pen goes let me share wealth is and he put it right here little circle and a dot he goes that's where wealth is you just have to be a little bit better go a little bit farther invest in yourself a little bit more read a little bit more see got just a little bit better and you can go from average to wealthy that literally again changed my life because i for once realized that i don't have to become a superstar i don't have to be this incredible superhuman individual to have wealth i just gotta do what average people aren't willing to do so i can live a life that most average people never will and i just want to thank you for getting on here guys um and today i'm so excited for the rest of the speakers um and this is just an incredible opportunity to be working together with kody um and and being able to speak into your guys's lives and for what the insurance industry has done for my wife and my family is nothing short of amazing so thanks to go and kody back to you take care guys can't wait to see you guys at eight percent nate doing it man he's his story he's the way he talks he can just tell the dude has some he has some confidence man he's got some swag he knows what he's doing he's been around the game right just not just because he's old man he's been around the game for a while okay thank you nate awesome job buddy i was going through dalis a few weeks ago and he let me literally crash at his pad because there was no hotels available it was during this it was during the snow and the ice everything else right so thank you for that okay um wife laura um alex love you guys man you guys are amazing so so phenomenal job thank you you hear the siren you know what that means three minutes from now this deal that i'm about to give away poof it's gone three minutes for those that are on and that take action today in the next three minutes okay and then it's gone it's gone forever okay you see the clock you see the countdown timer uh so one diamond ticket for only one diamond ticket for only one diamond ticket for i'm being told this is only for two people by the way okay because we don't have that many diamond tickets available okay but i want to help somebody one diamond ticket for only five hundred dollars hit the link in chat three minutes and then it's gone okay it's a crazy deal makes you take advantage of that right now okay i love the flash sales love the sirens love the urgency in life you have to take action today there's going to be moments where you want to think about something you want to put it off time kills all deals and details delay commit first and figure the rest out later which means do it now trust me i don't think about stuff man i i don't think about stuff i bought i upgraded my my oddy q8 to an sq8 that's got 500 horsepower literally just a week and a half ago why i didn't even think about it i'm like that's fine i'm in he's like really like yeah he's like dude you make decisions so fast i'm like because i want other people to make decisions fast too right you sell how you buy how do you buy okay so take action today three minutes almost up anyway next speaker's okay next speaker's doing this together of the from the life insurance academy podcast i've known that mr roger short for several years chris ball is going to be joining him okay i just actually spent some time the they're ready okay perfect i just spent some time with uh roger and austin and zack and roger's daughter ashlyn in uh when we were at coach burt's event a couple weeks back okay together coach and i were doing an event together called the sales mastery bootcamp in nashville and just getting to go to dinner with him and his team and spend time with them man this this this these individuals that are about to speak um are special people to me and and they mean the world to me um i love the relationships we're building right the friendships that were that were that were gaining and uh i just got to spend a lot of time with them and i love it i was actually just on their podcast the life insurance academy podcast you have to make sure you check that out okay so it's time for them to drop some nuggets when they speak they train they give stuff away so get your pad out get your pin out you're ready to take some notes please welcome to the virtual stage mr roger short mr chris ball and the life insurance academy podcast here we go thank you codie askins and eight percent nation we're excited to be with you and be part of this power packed eight percent nation virtual conference today and also the eight percent nation live event in dalas coming up in july my name is roger short and this is one of my business partners right here and life insurance academy instructor and also the infamous life insurance academy podcast host and for those of you've been checking us out on your favorite podcast app or now on youtube finally get to meet one of my best friends mr chris ball thank you guys so much for having us we are super excited to be here and roger there are thousands of people watching right now does that make you feel funny oh is it butterflies that might have been something i ate but no we are i'm ready man i'm excited we've got some great stuff for you we're ready to bring it to you this amazing career and profession that we're all in is the profession of selling or the profession of persuasion some people feel slightly uncomfortable when they think of selling or persuading for some who have an aversion to this they may even see it as manipulation i think chris when i actually showed you the business plan for the first time you said i kind of like this but i don't want to take advantage of the old people he said i don't want to take advantage of old people and i paused for a minute and i thought wait does he think i take advantage of old people like this was a thought and so some people have this thought they my idea of sales and what it was so yeah and some people have this view however when we really break things down we are all in sales aren't we we all persuade on a daily basis if someone has a good idea or a good suggestion that would benefit others or they would like to do something or go to a certain place we state our case and we hope to move people in the direction of our desired outcome this is persuasion and we all do it at work in our social settings in our relationship sand at home this is a profession that i've given my entire career to and i don't see selling in this light at all in fact i see the art of persuasion as a beautiful thing so i have a question for everyone have you ever seen a movie director in a behind the scenes do this do this you can guys go ahead and try that your fingers will feel funny for a minute if you've ever seen anybody do this chris you're a movie guy what are they doing when they do that i'm a big movie buff and they're doing exactly what you're saying they're persuading us so when directors are doing this they're being very intentional and they're removing the visual noise to determine what they will show us in the shot yeah and by the time it's finished once the scene is complete they are showing you exactly what they want you to see everything in there is in there for a reason even here you see exactly what we want you to see this shot and this frame everything that you see here right here was set up with you in mind you don't see what's outside of the frame and all the things going on around us that would distract you we probably should show them though just to give them context should we show them yeah sure sure let's show them so as you can see this looks very different doesn't it from this frame you see our set design our cables i don't know maybe maybe you can see austin possibly you can see our coffee you can see our equipment but as we were framing this shot we knew that this this type of thing could distract your focus and limit our effectiveness if we kept the frame here so we had to frame our shot and focus your attention to be affected in our communication and ultimately our call to action so here's a question for you to start we're looking for your participation here we know that you're on the chat and there's a chat feature running on the side of this while we're doing this and so we'd like you guys to jump in when I did this did you guys try to do that I did this with rose at the house the other night and she couldn't get her fingers right it was funny to watch so if you didn't try it go ahead and try it now go ahead take a minute frame it up frame up something in this shot right here or something where you are go ahead and frame it up and then I have a question for you now when you did that which hand went on top which hand went on top so mine's left but mine is right okay well right and I'm left-handed I don't know if that influences it or not and I'm right-handed so if your right hand was on top we want you to go ahead and put right and the chat feature if your left hand was on top this is a scientific study we're doing right now if your left hand was on top I want you to go ahead and put left in the chat feature we're going to add them all up we're going to see which one of this group of all these of you incredible 8% nation followers and the people here today to learn some great stuff we're going to see which one is more dominant left or right and I think Cody's giving away $10,000 in bitcoin he does these I think there's money getting ready to fall from the ceiling Cody are you getting ready who know I'm ready to catch all right so today we're talking about the power of framing in the art of persuasion before the explosion of information on the internet the salesperson had an advantage they had the benefit of knowledge and that knowledge gave them power over the buyer the transfer of information to the buyer from the salesperson communicated and established an authority and put them in a position of strength and high value today however people have an access to an endless amount of information if you want to learn anything about anything you can simply google it or better you can actually YouTube it and you can certainly find enough people on Facebook that are telling you what's true and right about everything absolutely even our seniors they they're living on these devices right as a society culture we are stimulus rich now but often context poor there's just so much information to digest and process that people can be overwhelmed and they don't know where don't know how to make a value decision and they don't know where to put their focus there's just too much going on there's too much noise and it's the same for your clients that you serve on a daily basis I want you to remember this statement in business and in sales if you confuse you lose help reduce the noise narrow your client's focus and simplify your solutions one of the best ways that you can do that is to put things in a frame and it's called the framing effect the framing effect is a type of cognitive bias we like to use sciencey sounding words on occasion just to show you how smart we are this cognitive bias this causes people to react to something in different ways depending on how information is presented to them it impacts how they perceive value and the actions they take so today we'll address some of these framing approaches and how they can dramatically improve your sales across all our insurance related markets and at the end of this life insurance academy session you will discover four of the most powerful and effective frames and how to use them to help you eliminate the noise in your persuasion efforts and close more sales and add an additional 30 to 40 thousand dollars to your bank account what yeah we're gonna make that much money from this one if they if they pay attention we're gonna we're gonna give you that so a cognitive bias this psychological term is can help us frame our message when we know that people are subject to certain cognitive biases we can enlist them in our persuasion efforts the first frame that we'd like to talk to you about that addresses one of these biases is the loss aversion frame and some some of you may know it as the fear of loss what does your prospective client have to lose help them identify that asking good questions in this direction can help them discover what they have to lose more so than focusing on what they have to gain this is particularly effective in insurance sales yes benefits are extremely important but what people have to lose often proves to be a stronger motivator than what they have to gain there's been all kinds of studies on this to show that too many for us to go into but in our training we call this letting them know the stakes and not not like not like Omaha stakes but the stakes s t a k e s two uh one of my favorite sales quotes comes from the great zig ziggler uh people often say no because they don't have enough information yeah uh getting started i think i i misunderstood what he meant by this and what it is that people actually had to know early on in my sales career so i thought i needed to give them more information about the company the products and the features so i did that for a while but it wasn't really moving the needle and i think i was actually boring people uh and i i learned that they didn't need more product knowledge what they needed they just needed to know what was at stake yeah so then i started to think if my clients could jump in a time machine to one year in the future and see the financial impact of not choosing this product today on the people that they care about they would beg me to purchase this policy what is the information deficit that they have it's not about products it's not about uh the different carriers that we have ultimately it's what is at stake our job in insurance sales is to help the prospect understand what happens to the people they care about most when something like an unexpected medical challenge arises or even worse when they pass how is this going to affect their family's finances without the right health coverage what's strange as strange as this put on the family if they don't have a life insurance benefit in place to depend on for loss of income or final expenses i mean after all the person that they need the most is going to be gone so our job is to create that frame remove the noise and help them see the stakes clearly and what losses their family will suffer if they do not have the right benefits in place when you do that they are more likely to take action when they see what is at stake and what they can lose again this is based on the cognitive bias to avoid loss yeah um and plus a time machine would be fun oh yeah man we need to do that yeah let's do it we need to we need to get a delorean hey austin can you get us a flux capacitor cool thanks bud just write it down we'll figure it out what's that name is it the Lloyd yeah Christopher Lloyd Christopher Lloyd yeah he's great so the next frame that we're going to talk about is the experience frame you guys have heard about this before it's called FOMO fear of missing out and guys it is real i have some of that fear of missing out stuff if you relate to me and you have FOMO too sometimes i want you to go ahead and type FOMO FOMO into the chat FOMO type that into the chat the experience frame is all about missing out on an experience um think about something that you spent money on recently or in the past six eight months uh that was memorable and meaningful to you it's probably not a shirt probably not a new phone or some office supplies that you ordered from amazon my guess is that it's probably something like a vacation you took with some special people that's now etched in your memory or perhaps it was a pet that you guys purchased that you brought home that's now bringing so much joy and happiness to your home and it's actually enriched your family or maybe it was a special gift that you spent time thinking about and you took the time in purchasing it and wrapping it for somebody so that you can enjoy the experience of giving it to them and watching them open it knowing how much they would enjoy it social scientists have looked at and studied what people remember and what they value they tell us that people tend to value experiences more than a product or more than goods and services that's why we should never talk about the cost of a premium for a policy we need to talk about what the benefit is for and who the experience is and on what that person is going to feel it's an experiential thing so it's a satisfaction is not derived so much from that new 72 inch tv that you got on black friday last year but it's more about the experiences although a 72 inch tv nicely mounted in a new space does look pretty cool especially in tom brady's winning a super bowl yes the goat but it's the experiences around that it's the nights of sitting there with your family or your friends having movie night now once a month eating popcorn laughing together or crying together i'm a dad of three daughters and my wife and sometimes we watch movies that make people cry even sorry bro even me so it's conclusive that the experience is more valuable and enriching than the product itself you know roger i have to confess i'm a i'm a fomo guy if you're missing out guy i collect sports cards and i i look for great deals and part of the experience is knowing you got a great deal yes that is an experience you stole something like i got one you know and uh so when there's this buzz about a card i have anxiety almost that i'm going to miss out on something why is that i did you recently just miss out on something yes i did i did he did there's a very special he was pouty for a little while hamed ali card i've been watching for months i took my eyes off it and it jumped from four hundred dollars to ten thousand dollars could have had it for thousand expensive eye off of it moment got distracted right and now with every card you're like oh yeah that could be the one that could be the one right that fomo is for real guys so uh this this affects all of us in some way or another and this is true for your clients it's a it's a little different in life sales because the experience that this frame is dialing in on is the experience of how they will be remembered and the satisfaction of being aligned with people who just simply do the right thing yeah there are two ways to use this experience frame first if i can help my prospects to discuss how they want to be remembered by the people they love it will be easier for them to take action i mean who doesn't want to be remembered as making an impact on the financial future of the people they love they will want to they will not want to miss out if i can paint a detailed picture of how this will impact and bless their family next it's important for us to remember that buying a life policy is a principal decision it's a decision about who they are as a human being when they consider buying a policy they are doing what they would expect every other good person to do yeah if you are working leads it is important to understand this this is at the core of why they requested information in the first place it helps in our presentations to find a point of agreement with our prospects that it is just absolutely true it is our responsibility as husbands as wives as parents to improve our family's futures we want to leave this place better for them than it was for us and if we can agree on that then this becomes a common sense principled decision they know right and wrong they know taking care of their family is the right thing to do and when we use this experience frame we are reducing the noise and helping our prospect prospects realize that they do not want to miss out on the experience of changing lives and the satisfaction of being aligned aligned with people who do the right thing yeah it's not about the premium for the policy it's about doing something for their family so their family can continue to have those experiences that they want them to have now absolutely many of you may not know that my former career and business prior to insurance was in advertising sales and publishing specifically it was in the yellow pages that's one of these great big thick books yellow paper like an encyclopedia names and phone numbers newsprint with like pictures and plumbing and roofing and phone numbers okay and then this little company came along called google and they started to change some things okay they want to watch google they're gonna they're gonna be something i think yeah yeah um so the this idea today is we're going to be talking about the contrast frame and so there's a there's a story in the advertising world from my from my past about this guy named rosser reeves that i love and he was a famous ad man from the 1950s and he believed the purpose of advertising was to sell he's the one who actually coined the famous term unique selling proposition he actually believed that differentiation was one of the most important strategic and tactical activities in which companies must constantly engage and even you and for us as individuals how do we differentiate ourselves from our competition now there's a famous story about him when he had uh when he and a friend were going out to lunch they were actually walking down the street in menhattan it was a beautiful spring day and they passed a blind man in an alley and he was panhandling for money he was sitting there with his hat to collect coins and he had a sign in front of him and on that sign it says i am blind now sadly there weren't too many coins in the hat um the story goes on to say that rosser went over to the man and asked if he could help and he wrote just four more words on his sign above those words that i am blind and these are the four words he wrote it is springtime and it is springtime and i am blind this is the contrast principle at work you see everyone was reading that he was blind but now when they read it they see his blindness in contrast to their own ability to see and enjoy a beautiful spring day we understand this person can't see compared to what compared to me compared to me who can see the beauty of this spring day oh my gosh he can't see what i'm seeing these words immediately because they were contrasted in what he was not able to take the part in they were they were contrasted it immediately elicited empathy from the passerbys and the coins started to pile up you see technically we understand and process things in relative terms not absolute terms so is this expensive well if you have no value on it everything's expensive yeah is it is it expensive compared to what am i a caring person yeah but compared to who oh mother Teresa oh uh no you know like there's these contrast things so we have to do the contrast the single most important question in sales and persuasion is not to answer the question what's in it for me as most of us are taught that's the second most important question the most important question to answer for the client is compared to what the way you make something extremely impactful and valuable is to contrast it with something else and not to let it sit out there on its own so chris what are some examples of how this contrast frame can be utilized with clients in our insurance sales efforts it's too much i can't afford it compared to what that's a great question if we can help the clients answer this question that we know is likely happening in their mind before we ever get the objection we are positioning we are positioning the value in a contrast frame so here's an example of this in this conversation i'm talking to mr smith and i can say to mr smith it's interesting mr smith some people look at this as merely a transactional decision and they weigh the cost of 89 dollars a month or 159 dollars a month and their current budget or lifestyle and they may think that they don't want to afford this type of payment or it's just too expensive however every time we ask if they could go forward to the day after the accident that requires hospitalization or the day you know god forbid that you've been diagnosed with terminal cancer when we ask our other clients this would you feel the same way the answer is always a resounding no you see mr smith when 89 dollars or 159 dollars a month is compared to the cost this associated with these new and very real and challenging financial concerns our other clients to them this is an incredibly affordable and valuable investment for their family now wouldn't you agree so another place this frame is effective is when the prospective client has existing coverage and they say i'm sure you've heard this i already have a policy yeah a lot of people turn around and walk out when i hear that absolutely especially new people don't do that right another way you hear this is i have enough coverage yeah and what we need to answer or be prepared to answer is compared to what we need to advise them properly and show a breakdown of loss of income and the household expenses that will no longer be covered as a result of the passing of the primary income earner and we can show them what happens when social security disappears for one of the spouses and how that impacts the family that is dependent and some way on the current income so this contrast is very important contrast their initial thoughts of i have enough to the clear gaps that will exist for their family if they have just a basic burial plan the contrast to the liability that the client and their family will have raises the value of the benefits and coverage significantly now left alone however there's no contrast if there's no contrast presented they will have little empathy toward taking further action the contrast frame in both of these examples can be utilized before before you even get an objection so that you address these commonly known objections and then eliminate them before the client can raise them yeah we talk about like if you get good at knowing what the objections are going to be and you can raise those objections you as the presenter you as the persuader you actually take the power away you diffuse them and you take them off the table of conversations yeah and they don't come up later that's one of the most effective ways to do that is when they're apathetic or they seem disinterested in moving forward it's to position it in this contrast frame next we're going to talk about the final one and it's one that i know will impact your sales next week and it is one that we will refer to as the less is more frame less is more you see we've been convinced to think in this information and choice-rich society that will be more persuasive to offer people lots and lots of choices you can have it any way you want it are you going to sing no i feel it i feel it anyway no that's the way you need it anyway you can have it any style you want it whatever color you want it you know and you can have it whenever you want it the truth is that offering people lots of choices while it can be persuasive it's only persuasive to a point you see choice is valuable but it has a ceiling on it so there's a study by two researchers at a stanford that set up shop in a grocery store and they were doing a comparison on how choices and the number of choices impacted people's buying decisions and sales and i love reading about these studies they're so fascinating and in this research test they were selling jam at one end of the store they set up and offered 24 varieties of jam that's a lot of jam yeah and at the other end of the store they displayed and offered only six varieties of jam now being able to taste 24 varieties of jam before purchasing is a great value and it certainly led to a lot of people tasting the jam however the study was designed to assess buying decisions and purchasing patterns it wasn't designed to see which one gave out more examples more samples it was designed to see which one sold more so after all the reason why most of you registered and are watching today in this great nation of eight percenters chiming in to figure out how to advance your career and accelerate your sales you wanted to learn how to close more sales how to convert more of your sits not just to book more appointments or give away more brochures yes this is a numbers game and you do need to know how to book appointments and get more sits but when you're actually in front of a prospective client either face to face or over the phone you want to discover how to frame your message to sell more policies so which sold more when they offered more choices they had a lot more activity but only three percent purchased jam three when they offered fewer choices and more selective choices thirty percent purchased jam thirty percent that's a twenty seven percent increase in the number of people who actually took action you see less is more offering fewer options is more persuasive and this speaks to something that's really important to understand in our sales and that is choices valuable but it has a ceiling on it so chris how can we make sure that we're maximizing our opportunities with our clients understanding and utilizing the power of this less is more frame well i don't i don't know about you guys but i need things to be simple and this is probably why i like restaurants like chipotle you know it's either a taco or a burrito it's just you hold it differently i think that's the trick it's the same stuff it's just mixed up differently yeah so you got to pick your beans you pick your meat you pick your rice bam it's over no it's not over yeah there's always this dilemma with the guac yeah it's a how many of you have dilemma with the guac purchasing decision right because you have to buy the guac it's reportedly yeah and i think it's like half the price of a taco it's insane i don't know how much it is but it's always gets me right in the middle i know anybody else have issues with the guac if you do type guac in the chat will you guac if you know how to spell it we like guac go ahead so uh yeah i love the simple choices i can't go to restaurants with 35 pages on their menu i mean it's just overwhelming so it's important for us to understand that while insurance seems simple to us yeah in most cases i know you might be on the front end of this and you're trying to figure it out but after you got the wheels running it seems simple to us to our clients it's very complicated and if you're an independent agent you're probably working with multiple companies and multiple products and it'd be very easy for you to give your prospective client 30 different options with 30 different premiums to choose from and feel excited about it sometimes i got all of these options that's right yeah i've got all of them i've got all the options but this burns our prospective client's energy and calories and ultimately it leads to confusion and you heard this at the beginning if you confuse you lose and donald miller said it best in his in his book story brand it's great stuff you need to check it out if you confuse you lose so if you confuse you lose can you engage with us one more time and i want you to remember this statement this is a takeaway from our talk today in our session this will help you next week go ahead and type in the chat if you confuse you lose can you go ahead and do that just the fact that you're typing it and writing it down will help you remember that go ahead for those of you who want to win you're going to type that in the chat go ahead and type that in there now so as insurance professionals it's our job to identify the needs of our prospects and their family and present them with the best products that will serve their needs and and here's a quick tip okay good underwriting questions will help you narrow down your your options and your choices so after we have decided which product offer them three simple affordable options options to choose from and ask them to make a decision that's it it's that simple anything else and we run the risk of confusing them and losing the sale give people an easy path to a decision or we'll say it this way a simple off ramp to a close we don't want them running into confusing construction sites where the ramp is supposed to be there but they have to follow a complicated detour and ways is confused and they have to find the next off ramp because if that happens we will lose sales when things get complicated the prospect will shut down and they'll tell you what everybody hears on occasion they need to think about it does that sound familiar to you oh i'm sure some people have heard that yep so when they come back and say yeah you want to think about it oh yeah yeah and they they believe them and they're going to come back seven eight more times yeah possibly sell it and the new agent believes the client yeah it's it's a sad thing yeah we just need to limit the choices and give them three simple options to choose from so frame the focus on a few and simple choices and get more sales in this session we discussed the loss of version frame the experience frame the contrast frame and the less is more frame these are four of the most powerful framing approaches to reduce the noise that distracts your sales efforts simplify your message and close more sales we trust that as you get back out there making a difference and changing lives the one or more of these frames will actually help you move the needle with at least one more perspective client each week it will and we are confident well and a result of that average additional six to eight hundred dollars a week you will earn in commissions this one session effectively just made you an extra 30 to 40 thousand dollars this year boom boom we did it we did it can you imagine how much they're going to get from all the rest of the sessions that's incredible so if you found any value in this training today on the power of framing in the art of sales we'd like to let you know that there are actually eight key frames for simplifying your message and maximizing your sales and we're going to be offering an in-depth training session on those later this month and we'll provide that to you with free access for today only by going to life insurance academy dot org slash eight the number eight percent per c ent go to that link i think you'll see it in the chat right now and you can actually download the power of framing and sales course material from this talk right now for your use so that you can have all the content so you can go back and reference it so that you can study it and you can put it in practice next week now you're also going to receive today only an invite to the next training session however you have to take action before this session ends now secondly if you feel like this was valuable at all to you and can help you improve your conversions we'd like to offer you one more eight percent nation virtual conference giant offer giant chris we're crazy the goods yeah if you're good this is where it comes this is where it comes so hang on we're going to give you some stuff if you are currently in final expense sales or if you're in medicare sales mortgage protection sales or annuity sales and you'd like to add final expense to your lineup or you'd like to take your final expense to the next level and maximize your profits and expand your impact then this is for you two weeks two weeks from today on march 19th at 9am central 10am eastern the life insurance academy is going to be offering a free fr e exclusive webinar on mastering the art of the no clothes final expense presentation can i say it you can say whatever i don't know what you're going to say we're going to teach them how to make the sausage yes we're going to teach them how to make the sausage that's a podcast reference you have to go you gotta go get it on our podcast for that this webinar will provide you the inside secrets and the five fundamental features of the no clothes presentation that has helped agents check this out right over 30 000 policies and earn over 21 million in commissions yes you heard that right it's a lot of stinking policies and a lot of money 30 000 policies and 21 million in commissions if you'd like this secret and the inside scoop on that go to life insurance academy dot org forward slash eight percent it's in the chat that's in the chat feature right now and go register for this free virtual exclusive this this free virtual conference exclusive and when you do we're actually going to give you three more additional downloadable resources here's more hold on chris there's more three more additional resources that's going to help you accelerate your business and increase your sales right away you'll get access to these three the first one is the tele sales master's guide to call control if you want to be super effective on the phone with your phone sales you need that guy the second one is the six figure agent activity tracker if it was your goal to be in the six figure realm this year in 2021 you absolutely need that one it's going to revolutionize your business and the last one is free statements and smoke screens worksheet now this one is going to help you get unstuck and unfrozen when clients are blowing you smoke so once you register i want you to go ahead and register and once you do so i want you to please type i'm in i'm in in the chat can you do that can you type i'm in in the chat we want to know that at least the links are working and we want to know that you got in uh go ahead it's in the chat right now you can click the link and once you register i want you to go and type i'm in in the chat that will help us know now if you have any problems with getting that registered once you once you click the link please let us know and we're here to help you go to the link life insurance academy dot org four slash eight percent register for this free virtual conference exclusive with eight percent nation all you eight percenters out there you're going to get those three free additional resources that are available right now to help you accelerate your business and increase your sales chris and i want to say thank you so much for investing in yourself using the power of frames to keep things simple will help you close more sales because remember if you confuse you lose thank you eight percent nation you guys are incredible thank you for investing in yourself we can't wait to hear the next sessions remember put it in the chat i'm in we'll see you there see you Roger and chris i love it man i love like the steps they always have like specific steps to success and like different pieces and they're always like talking about certain areas to help people man so so apply those things i promise you you will make more money this year okay i want to remind you all the deals available we are almost done just a few speakers left okay we're out we're almost out of the deals kodiaskas.com four slash deals four premier tickets to eight percent nation live in dallas july 23rd 24th who is going to be there four premier tickets only 997 kodiaskas.com four slash deals to take advantage of that deal right now take action today when i have a lot of time left and then the event's over and the deal's gone okay so make sure you take advantage of that i'm ready to spend time with you who's loving this keep me posted in chat man i'm i'm trying to make sure i'm like well i'm watching chat by the way when these speakers are talking i'm actually over here watching chat i'm interacting i'm seeing everything you're saying and i appreciate all the kind words the compliments i appreciate you sharing on social and i appreciate you being here okay well i know it's been a marathon but it's been a blast i love it let's make it 12 days next time i told our team maybe we can make it a month eventually they're like dude you're nuts that's crazy but i love this so much man like promoting and helping people that's my gift and that's what i love doing right as long as you enjoy what you do you never work a day in your life now i'm about to interview a sales legend i want to know what questions do you want to hear from brian tracy okay this is this is this is going to be amazing interview i'm honored to be able to do it with you today what questions do you want to hear go and start filling it up man like my favorite sales book the first sales book i ever picked up was the art of closing the cell by brian tracy the dude is a living legend and i am honored to be able to play his interview with me right now okay i'm excited to jump in and do that with you so thank you okay i appreciate that this is going to be very surreal for me an absolutely incredible moment because of the impact that he's had on my life and millions of others the dude knows sales i want to make sure that we always have the best speakers a part of everything that we do and right now i'm about to interview one of the goats one of the greatest of all time right before you right now and i'm excited to jump into it here we go i want to know what you want to ask i want to know what you want to see and i'm excited for what's about to take place are you right now i want you to go live on facebook man i want you to go i want you to video this thing i want you to share this thing out i want you to take pictures of it i want every i want the world to know that brian tracy was on eight percent virtual today and i want them to know that forever okay so make sure you get some nuggets out of this i can promise you the dude's got so much freaking wisdom to drop and he's about to drop it now let's jump to me and you spending time with one of my idols and mentors mr brian tracy eight percent virtual i have an unbelievable surprise guest speaker for you today mr brian tracy lifelong fan of your work thank you so much for agreeing to spend a few minutes with me today well thank you you know you you and i have one of the say in the in the movie we've shed the same blood and the same mud if you remember that movie you and i have made our living and come from nowhere to where we are by learning how to sell and i know that you're a fan of my information on closing and i remember when i started off in selling i asked myself the question and this is really important is what is the one factor that determines your income more than any other factor this is called the constraint it's called the limiting step or the constraint what is the one factor and i realized it was my ability to close the sale actually i wasn't afraid to to make calls i wasn't afraid to knock on doors and i did in my first year i knocked on more than 20 000 doors and got almost 20 000 rejections and uh but i wasn't afraid i just get up in the morning six o'clock i'd be out there and make my first call at eight o'clock my rule was if uh they if they are available um i'd be there and i'd be knocking on doors at right but knock on doors until uh nine nine thirty ten o'clock at night if the light was on i'd be there and um i realized that it was my ability to ask for the order my ability to close was the critical factor so i gave myself a goal to become really really good at closing sales and i eventually i did it takes time and it takes a tremendous amount of rejection but i eventually i became better and better and better at it and my income went up and there's a wonderful relationship between your income and your confidence your level of happiness you start to make a lot of money and you start to be happy and when you're happy you have a lot of energy when you have energy you're more eager to get out there uh and make calls and so i have i uh worked on becoming really good on closing the sale and the wonderful thing is that i've told more than five million people live that you can learn any skill you need to learn to achieve any goal that you need to achieve and so you could become really really good at asking for the order and uh and i did and over time i uh made a lot of money as well but as we were talking about it's not the money that you make it's the the effect that you have on the lives of other people absolutely yes i love that it's it's it's amazing too how you can it's it's it's a choice how good you get at at closing the deal and it's amazing you just talked about how if you want to be really good you chose be really good you made that decision yes not everyone's wired that way where does that come from to where you commit to doing something and you really follow through and execute well one of the things that we have is that um it's the biggest single problem in adult life is the feeling that i'm not good enough i'm not good enough and i've studied this in psychology it's what holds people back more than anything else and so you should return it around and say i am good enough i can i can do this i can learn anything i need to learn and uh i taught this for for now almost five decades and one of the things that i found is that uh our greatest problems in life come from our childhood and and and and how we were raised and so as a parent are you married cody i am yes sir you have children no children yet no sir well the the most important thing as a parent is to continually tell your children how good they are tell them how much you love them and tell them how good they are and um no matter what happens you tell them the most wonderful words in the world are you can do it you can do it and uh when you keep telling your kids you can do it eventually at a very early age just like programming is you uh program them to believe i can do this i can do anything i put my mind to and uh at the beginning of their lives they will have so much self-doubt you see the biggest single problem is self-doubt is they don't believe in themselves but you as their parent um are the most important person in their lives and so therefore just just tell them all the time how good they are and how great they are and if they make a mistake or they don't do too well you say all right well uh pick up and try it again and you can do it you can do it you can do it and that's a wonderful thing for children to hear and eventually it reaches the point where they it sort of locks in and they start to believe it and then after that nothing can stop them that's awesome that's such good advice too because i i really believe i i had a i'm about to get into my story and how much you've affected me and and your material but i really believe what you just said resonated it made a ton of sense with me because i get the question a lot you know um how were you able to have confidence in yourself at an early age and i really believe it was my parents instilling the confidence and those positive encouraging words just like you talked about my mother and my father yes and that gave me a tremendous advantage hugely grateful and was amazing blessing and so my parents were uh that positive influence for me and they made me believe just like you just said for whatever reason yes i don't i don't know if they listened to you and then and then implemented that in me i don't know but i do know that uh they made me believe i could accomplish anything in life yeah yes and and then you you don't understand parents don't understand that that you are the greatest single influence in the life of your children and i say i've talked this to so many people but i say whenever you see an adult who is has problems you see a bad childhood is that the parents might my parents gave me no support at all the only thing that they did was criticize me i i say this and you if you reviewed my material i'll say that destructive criticism is the is the cancer in all of human life is when parents criticize their children it just is like a punch in the emotional gut and um it holds them back and and causes them to doubt themselves uh more and more and the opposite is constant encouragement constantly telling that they're good and and and complimenting them on uh everything that they do even if they just do something little always tell them how good they are how great they are how wonderful it was just make a big thing of it and like like my kids are so used to hearing me uh talk to them they say oh dad you're always saying that and then they look at the their their their their friends and they find that their friends don't get that and then they realize it takes them many years they realize wow wow what what they're getting from me and from Barbara uh is is very rare and so they are not three of my children are married and um they i'm sorry yeah three of them are married and they do the same things with their children they're constantly telling their children how good they are and their children are just so happy the children laugh and they run around and they're happy and there's you know like that western song never has heard a discouraging word is that there's just no negative conversation in their lives and uh and that means they get better grades and they're more popular and they uh like other people they like themselves and that's what we need to do and i think if you're sounds like your parents were really great and so you uh will be a great parent uh when your children come along most wonderful thing in the world i'm now 77 i just turned 77 a month ago and um uh as i look back i realize that this is the most important thing in my life is is what happened to my children and we look at the kids and we talk to them and and they our kids just sort of bask like like sitting in the sun they just bask in the warmth of continuous approval continuous um positive feedback and um so you just keep on doing that keep on doing that and it's wonderful because you continually build your children up and it makes you feel happy and it makes them feel happy and then they will marry someone who has the same philosophy of life is they feel positive and they feel happy it's just a it's just a wonderful continuing circle and that's what we need to do as salespeople the most powerful statement i ever learned was the words i like myself and you've heard me talk about that i like myself i like myself i like myself i like myself and the more you say it the more you depress or push down uh thoughts of uh self-doubt and the more you feel positive and encouraged about yourself so i have so many of my friends in sales that'll get themselves cranked up just before they go into a call or pick up the telephone as they'll say to themselves i like myself i like myself i like myself and then they pick up the phone or they knock on the door and they walk in i like myself i like myself i like myself and what that does is it just lowers all their fears and all of their doubts and they just feel happy about themselves and as a result their relationships with their clients are excellent as well anyway so so that's what we do i love that i love that well i need to formally thank you for the positive influence that you had on my life um our our viewers we had over 10 000 registered for for this and and they've heard me recommend you time and time again they've heard me that your book the art of closing the cell uh was the first sales book i ever picked up i love the story of how you were going house to house people who tell people were telling you they want to think about it they want you to call them back and i started to implement that and was able to close a lot more deals immediately without having to follow up with people also um i've recommended that other sales people in the interest industry do that as well and they've seen a lot of positive encouragement feedback from using that and it's worked for them too so thank you for um being a big help to me making six figures my first year and the hundreds of thousands of other people that you've been able possibly millions probably that you've been able to help as well so thank you very much yeah that's wonderful thank you you're very well yeah that's that's amazing and i i've been uh following you for 10 11 years since i first got in the end into sales and i thought you know what um i've been looking forward to today and our time together uh just because of how much i've looked up to you and so again thank you for everything you've done i want to transition to eight percent comes from the fact that 92 percent of insurance agents fail in their first three years what what does nine what what what does eight percent mean to you knowing that statistic well it's it's sort of like any kind of a skill uh the skill of selling is like the skill of typing it's like the the skill of riding a bicycle it's uh it's a learnable skill and it's something that you can learn through continuous practice and a lot of people don't understand that and when uh i started off in selling and knocking on doors and knocking on doors and after six months i was just still struggling and there was one guy at our office that i tell this story his name was pete and i still see his face after all these years and pete was selling 10 times as much as anybody else uh in in in the company we had about 15 people and i would start working at seven or eight in the morning knocking on doors and pete would start at nine or ten o'clock and he would take time off for lunch and he would quit at four thirty or five and um he just had a great life and he earned more money than anybody else and one day i asked him i said pete why why is it that you earn so much more than i do and he said well show me your sales presentation and i'll critique it for you and i said jeez i don't have a sales presentation i'd heard about a sales presentation i sometimes joke i say it was like something on the other side of the the moon is i knew that was there was a sales presentation out there but i'd never seen one and i said well i don't have a presentation he said well what do you do when you get face to face with a prospective customer and i said oh i just i tell him how good our product is and and how helpful it is and how much it's better than anybody else and he said no no i remember i remember this we had an office in this office building third floor and we went downstairs and across the street and we're sitting on a park bench uh this big city park is every park but and he said he said that's not how you sell what you do is you don't talk you ask questions and i said ask questions because i was told you have the gift of the gab you know you you can talk really well and he said no no no no ask questions and listen closely to the answers and over the years i found is that that your ability to ask questions and listen to the answers in a positive way is really the key to successful selling and a good friend of mine one of my best friends now top sales guy he said uh remember listening builds trust listening builds trust well how do you get a chance to listen when you ask questions you ask good questions and you lean forward you lean into the question and uh and when you listen closely people warm up to you and listening builds trust and the more you listen the more they trust you and the more they like you and the more they're open to being influenced by you and i still remember those were some of the most important things is that wow listening builds trust so i asked questions i just kept asking more questions and what about this and what about that and what are you doing now and how is that working for you and uh what are your goals what are your plans for the future and it was constantly asking questions changed my whole life instead of trying to persuade or influence people instead look into them and try to help them when i do seminars when i hit the peak i was doing seminars my average seminar was 1600 people for more than 20 years and sometimes it was 2000 3000 4000 with gusts up to 5000 my biggest seminars were 20 000 uh 25 000 and um it was wonderful and it was so helpful to people they lean forward and in my seminars one of the things i learned is to ask questions rather than talking and trying to impress people ask them questions about themselves and what they're doing what their goals are and and so on and it was just so wonderful and the same thing with you you are going to be a great speaker in the years ahead and you'll find that when when i start off with the audience i start off by asking them questions and asking them and follow up questions and more follow up questions and people love it when you ask them questions and listen because because questions um encourage them to really think deeply about what it is they're doing and uh and so uh i would ask i would ask people questions and then i would give them answers and ask more questions and give them more answers and so on and that's all i got you are i am today i would ask questions and give answers and tell them how how to use the information so many people i'm happy i've become millionaires uh my friends at nightingale conant uh did a research study on people who used my materials they found that more that more people more salespeople became millionaires as a result of using my materials than any other single influence and of course everybody wants to be a millionaire and yes you can become a millionaire and what you do is you do what millionaires do and good millionaires it's interesting one of the richest people in the world is mark is is uh mark zuckerberg and um president of facebook and they say he's got a five to one ratio in terms of listening um and speaking is that he uh asks questions five times for every one time that he talks or comments or gives guidance or it's just an interesting thing is just he just continually asks more questions and takes notes and and so on and so it's a very good thing to remember and and i see you taking notes that's a very smart thing the the most six yes the most successful people take notes all the time and um it's just what it does is it helps you to think at a at a deeper level and also to review the material i'm always astonished i i say say please write this down and people in my audience is you gotta you got an extra pencil you got an extra pen is they come to a full day seminar and they don't have a pencil i don't have a pen that i'm really to write with i just shake my head smh smh shaking my head shaking my head is i can't believe that i can't believe that people would go to a seminar without preparation to write things down and so that's another thing is make sure that when people come to your seminars is that they are supplied with writing materials and and so on and so i always carry a red pen and a blue pen and my my kids would ask me dad do you have a pen i say what do you want red or blue red or blue you know i've always got two and one is to underline in red and then blue is to is to make a note and and so my kids now carry pens around and they hear something good they immediately write it down napoleon hill had this wonderful one liner he said um and when you think it ink it i thought that was really cute when you think it ink it if you have an idea uh when an idea goes through your mind like a comet you immediately write it down because if you don't you forget it you'll lose it and sometimes you'll have one good idea that can change your life and if you don't write it down you'll think jeez what was that idea and then you find me somebody else who had that same idea as well and sometimes it's just one simple idea that changes your life one of the things for our friends who are watching is how important it is to take notes and to read is to just dedicate yourself to continuous learning this is i say that there's three things in in my life and i talk about these three i call them the golden triangle of success like a triangle and when i look back over my life i realize that there are three great things number one is to accept responsibility for your life and don't complain and don't make excuses and don't blame other people for your problems always accept responsibility and number two is to have goals clear written goals and plans and number three is dedicate yourself to continuous learning is always be learning you look behind me i was just reading an article on me that was in on yeah in youtube i wasn't in youtube it was on uh it's on google and somebody had done a complete research it was called it was called 20 things that you don't know about brian tracy well i'd never seen this before so i read it and one of them is that it said brian tracy has read more than 7 000 books and i thought uh and yes that's true i must have said it somewhere you see these books these are all double stacked so there's there's two books at every shelf from the top to the bottom all you can see is the middle at the bottom the top and this is just in my office and it goes all the way around but it's also outside is uh in other rooms it's downstairs is you know my whole house is just full of books and i may not have read them all but i continue to buy and read books and then sometimes you just come across one idea and you say jeez that's a good idea jeez it's a good idea and then and then you have an opportunity here's something really interesting i found that and i studied metaphysics in my 20s i came across a russian school of metaphysics and and what they taught was that you never learn a subject without having very soon an opportunity to learn or to use that new material because you you learn the material and very soon you get a chance to use it and i thought well that's interesting and for the rest of my life i realized you you read an article on something you find it in a book or a magazine and uh very soon afterwards you have an opportunity to use that material to improve your life or the life of someone else and um and so therefore you must dedicate yourself to lifelong learning for the rest you're just always learning uh back in the day my first activity on the weekends was to go to bookstores and i'll take my kids to bookstores and i told my children i said there's no there's no budget for books you can have all the books that you want and so we would go to bookstores every single weekend uh and sometimes more than one and our our favorite bookstore was a barns and noble and we would go there and we would go from shelf to shelf and place to place and and they they say could dad could dad can i have this book and i get this book i said no budget for books no limits you can have all the books that you want and so we would go there and then the whole four kids they'd come up with their shopping bags full of books then they have their own bookshelves with uh with books then they have their bookshelves at home but it was just it was just wonderful and they just read all the time is they of course they watch television but um very often you they'd be there when other kids are watching television or playing video games my kids would be reading they just read and read and read and and uh they're successful and they're happy and the wonderful thing about reading is is it gives you a feeling of personal power you've you learn these things and and uh quick subject change uh my son michael came to me when he was about 21 22 years old he's finished school and um he was not a great student um but uh he finally got through college and then he came to me and he said dad he said i i want to be successful what what do i need to do to be successful like you because you know we live a nice house and we have a good life and i said well you could do the same thing i did what was that i said well i i learned how to sell i went out and i knocked on doors and i learned how to sell and he said well how could i how could i get a job knocking on doors and i said well i just gave a seminar for a big company in fact the gentleman that uh brought me in to speak uh just just died a couple of weeks ago and um he said i he said i can get your job with him because they have branches all over the country knocking on doors and so uh i called him up and he called the uh his uh manager in in in in san diego and we got michael a job knocking on doors and he went out and he just knocked on doors and he knocked on doors 12 hours a day he just knocked on doors and uh he worked six days a week uh uh and he worked about 10 12 hours a day and he was very hard he i said you if you get this job you're going to get more rejection than you ever dreamed as possible and you've had a good life you've not been rejected but now you're going to be rejected and uh he said it was true so so he said it was the hardest thing in the world he went out every day and he would start knocking on doors at about 10 or 11 o'clock and he would work until nine or 10 o'clock and he would do it uh six days a week and uh it was really hard but eventually he learned how and he just kept hanging in there and learned how and eventually he became a sales supervisor than a sales manager and he began recruiting people and and training people and after a year he came to me and he said i've got it he said dad he said i'll never have to worry about money for the rest of my life because i can sell at the moment no matter what happens i could sell and uh and so today by the time he was 25 he had a Mercedes in his own house and uh he was smoking and he's married three children doing well and he's uh everything that you would want uh just and the idea of quitting never occurs to him never occurs this this time today and the marketplace is very tough because of the coronavirus and the fact that you can't call on people but uh he just keeps logging away and he's now become a sales trainer a speaker and he's doing it very well he comes to my seminars uh and came to my seminars and learned how to speak and he speaks really well so it's uh it's wonderful and you can learn anything you need to learn to prove any goal you can set for yourself i say that over and over again yeah i love that you say that because that's something that holds a lot of people back in our industry is not having goals fear of rejection i used to doorknock every day for for years as well and while listen to your audiobooks when i would be in the car between between places and and what would you say to those that are because the only reason in age it would ever become part of the eight percent of the 92 percent and fail is if they choose to quit and i really believe the theme of this virtual conference is if you don't quit you can't fail that's very good that's very good if you don't quit you can't fail that's the most wonderful thing i mean i've always told my children is just never give up never give up never give up and uh don't have all kinds of setbacks and rejections and difficulties but uh i used to do this i'll pass this on to you because uh many years ago i was uh i had this girlfriend her name was heather i still remember she was a very smart girl sort of like insightful and so on and and one day we were i still remember we were walking along the street and she asked me what is your best quality and this is after i spent years traveling all over the world and everything else what do you think is your best quality i've never heard that question before and so i thought about it as we walk along and i said well my best quality is that i am unstoppable i'm unstoppable i never give up and i look back over my life and i realized that is my best quality and i never thought about it to that minute so i was i told this to my audiences thousand two thousand people i said what is the most important quality for you to have to be successful in selling and the answer is to be unstoppable now one of the things that i teach is that you become what you think about most of the time but also you become what you say to yourself most of the time when you talk to yourself in a in a positive way that is accepted by your subconscious mind as an instruction so how do you become unstoppable and everybody in the audience at all i would ask them what is the most important quality and they might say and they say the quality is to become unstoppable so how do you become unstoppable and the answer is this whenever you have a setback or a difficulty just say to yourself the three magic words i am unstoppable i am unstoppable now say it say it so people say well i'm i am unstoppable i said no no no no don't suck your thumb say it like you mean it all right say i am unstoppable so the second time they would say i am unstoppable i said no no no geez say it like you believe it and and they would say i am unstoppable no more i am unstoppable the whole audience would shout i'm unstoppable and it's great i said for the rest of your life whenever you have a thought or a feeling of hesitating or holding back you say to yourself i am unstoppable i am unstoppable i am unstoppable and the fact is that when you say it you program it into your subconscious mind and you eventually begin to believe i'm unstoppable and your subconscious mind accepts it as a command and over a period of time not very long sometimes the first day you will say to yourself i am unstoppable i am you know what unstoppable i never quit i never quit and uh i taught my kids that i am when my kids were young i would say that i say you know i know one thing about you you never give up i know one thing about you you never give up and they say oh dad sure 10 years old 12 years oh sure i do i mean i you know i don't get good grades in school i said i said no you may have short time short term setbacks but way down deep inside you never give up you never give up and then my son david when he was about 10 years old he was playing with a friend of his and he said really loudly i still remember this because it was such a wonderful he said really loudly he said well i know one thing about myself i never give up he said it really like like basically like this is just a fundamental truth i never give up and all my kids are the same way they never give up it doesn't occur to them they have setbacks and difficulties and they change things and they fail uh temporarily but they never give up and one of the things that you can do to have a positive influence on other people is to tell them that you never give up if you keep you keep reminding yourself of that you'll have times where you will think about giving up you'll think about quitting you're going to have all kinds of difficulties in life that's normal and natural but just keep reminding yourself i am unstoppable i am unstoppable and what happens eventually it's programmed in permanently and no matter what happens to you out there is you just never give up and that is the most important quality for success of all once you have that your your life is made and if you can teach people this and we can teach our friends who are watching today just keep saying those magic words i am unstoppable i am unstoppable whenever you think of quitting say wait a minute wait a minute i don't quit i'm unstoppable i am unstoppable and and and it sounds like a like hype but it's not everything that you are is a result of information that you've taken in so now what you do as an adult is you control the information flow you control the information flow you hear it and you see it and people say things to you and so on you say okay and sometimes we've had parenting situations where our parents didn't understand this and so our parents may not have been that supportive you say okay well it's sort of like at a certain age you take over control of the wheel you get behind the wheel of your own life you decide what you're going to be and you're going to be unstoppable if you're unstoppable then your your success in life is guaranteed so anyway that's just something to pass on because everything else will work yeah yeah that's amazing buddy i could i could listen to you all day i am unstoppable i want to ask you one last question i know we're getting close on time again this has been truly unbelievable what what's i feel like the biggest thing that entrance agents struggle with specifically is closing the deal you are one of the best closers on the planet how can you help others become the exact same thing right now well um remember the famous story of the the man on the streets of um new york and he asked a hippie he said uh he says how do i get to Carnegie Hall remember that and the answer is practice man practice yes and the answer is practice man practice the reason you are where you are today is practice you learn it learn and do learn and do learn and do just practice over and over and you can learn anything now you may not become a genius but you can learn any subject you at you are a learning machine you just you automatically learn you absorb new material and so therefore say well i want to be good at it first thing i do is i'll get a book i have i was reading about having books on amazon and that you could actually write your own book and you could put it on amazon so i told people you know you can write your own book and and then i realized i had lots of books on amazon but they were all put on there by publishers and so i said okay i'm gonna i'm gonna write my own book i'm gonna follow the process of writing a book and putting it on amazon and so i looked on to an amazon and there are several free books there are 30 40 50 60 pages on how to write a book on amazon and and you you could just after the end of our conversation here just go to amazon and just put in um how to write a book and they'll give you several different choices now and if you if they sell you the book the book is going to be five dollars four dollars key they're not not very expensive at all so i just got three or four books and i read them through and i learned how to write a book and i wrote a book and i said what book would i write and i thought i'll write a book on closing sales and so i so i wrote a book i think it's i think it's going to close that sale and it's five dollars and 99 cents yeah and uh and so uh and i'm i'm i'm i'm think i think i sold it as a kindle book but i don't recall and i have my my creative person i said i want to get this book onto amazon and she said okay and she familiarized herself with the instructions it's like a recipe just a little recipe follow the recipe and um so we put it up there and it's called close that sale and it's the 24 sales closing techniques that i started off with many years ago uh it was interesting um i started speaking in 1981 which was it was it which was at the depths of a major recession and uh i had to get people in the room and i figured how can i get people in the room and i said well i could do a seminar on on closing sales that's what everybody wants to know the one thing that sales people want to know so i put an ad in the paper and it's called the 24 techniques for closing the sale and i charged 95 for the seminar three hours in the evening seven to ten and um i had i was really nervous because i had never done a seminar like this before and 100 people came to my first seminar i put an ad in the paper 100 people came and i i guaranteed it i said if you're not happy for any reason have your money back and that was my starting starting my kickoff in speaking professional speaking and uh i had i think about 95 yeah 9500 people in my first seminar and what i did is i put together a really nice booklet on closing the sale that's but it was all the things you have to do before you close the sale it had 24 techniques but the first first thing you had to do is you had to make sure you were speaking to the right person um qualifying you had to be sure that they understood the value of the offering you had to be sure that you understood what they needed and so on and then you had to get them to the point where they were ready to buy and then here's different here's 24 different ways that you can ask for the sale and and you'll notice that there's no pressure there's no tricks there's no ways to uh force people to buy everything is really low pressure no pressure friendly and um that was my starting point there's my kickoff in professional ceiling and i'd never written a book i certainly learned a lot about it and i had lots of information so if anybody wants to learn how to close the sale you just go to amazon and there it is i think it's 599 but here's the wonderful thing that i discovered is one of the major reasons why people are afraid of prospecting is because so often they get rejected at the end of the presentation so if they know that they're going to get rejected at the end of the presentation they don't even make go and make calls in the first place they say why why should i correct if i told you i am i just came up with this when i was speaking to a huge audience uh this one liner and i said if uh your company hired a marketing specialist company and they could go and interview and they could identify 100 people who would buy today if you contacted them and here's the list it's a specialized list it's for you and every one of these people will buy if you contact them today but the the list is only good from nine to five after that the list expires all right so so here's my question to you if you bought this list the night before what would you do the next day what would you do the next day well i i'd get up early and i'd hit it as soon as nine o'clock almost like a horse in a race in jing is i'd hit it and i started moving i said would you take time to drink coffee and and talk with your friends and read the newspaper and go for lunch and bs and all of this stuff what would you do you'd be moving as fast as you could because every person you spoke to is going to buy every person you spoke to is going to buy and so you just keep moving as fast as you can i said well and at the end of the day if you're not going to get to 100 people but you're you're certainly getting a lot of people so for now on imagine that imagine everybody you speak to is going to buy so therefore spend every single minute getting face to face with people and with that confidence that feeling that wow if i get face to face with these and you'll find that one out of 10 people will buy in any market one out of 10 people will buy so therefore what you do is you may decide you're going to get in front of as many people as possible and one in 10 will buy just keep moving as fast as you can if they don't buy you say thank you very much have a good day wonderful thing here's my card give me a call if i can uh be of any assistance to and get to the next one get to the next one because one of 10 is going to buy so keep moving keep moving keep keep talking to people and and you're going to make sales one out of ten virtually guaranteed in the worst markets of all with the worst product with the worst skills you're going to make sales one out of ten time and so when you have that attitude is just just the it's called the law of probabilities law of probability says that the one out of ten people you speak to if you have a little bit of intelligence will buy so therefore just get up and start moving first thing in the morning and don't stop keep moving and here's the most wonderful thing i say if um if you call more and more uh are more and more people what happens to your skill level what happens to your skill yes exactly your skill level goes up you get better and better at calling on people and when you get better and better you make more sales when you make more sales you have more confidence when you make more confidence you you want to make more sales and pretty soon you can hardly wait and the wonderful thing is the more you call on people the better you get the better you get the happier you are the better you get the happier you are the more sales you make the more money you make and so on it's this is this is just simply the way that you program your mind and all the best sales people do this is they just smile. Britain says, no, I don't want it, don't need it. You say, well, thank you very much for your time. You have a wonderful day. And if I can be of any service to you, please give me a call and keep moving, keep moving. And that's the attitude that you have to have to be successful. So good, so good. Mr. Tracy, I've taken up probably too much of your time, but I'm gracious for everything that you've done with us. Thank you so much for sharing today with 8% Nation. Well, I appreciate you calling me and giving me the opportunity to speak to your friends. And I'm really happy to meet you and see you. And we will work together again. I hope so, buddy. Thank you so much. Also, those that are watching, make sure you go to Amazon and grab. I'm going right now after to grab close that cell. Mr. Tracy, thank you so much. You've been an unbelievable influence in my life and so many. And thank you so much for being on today. Thank you very much, Corey. See you, talk to you again. Yes, sir, you too. Thank you guys for watching, closing that cell. And you are unstoppable. Exactly, exactly. Bye-bye, my friend. How good was that? I mean, oh my gosh, I'm sitting there, asking this dude questions. And there was a moment where I'm finally like, dude, I need to shut up and listen to this dude. Like, let him talk. Just let him help people, man. Like, he is so, the golden nuggets. Like, I've got a whole paper full of notes of just golden nuggets that he continues to bring. Like, his golden triangle of success. Like, I'm like, dude, why haven't I had this dude on sooner? Unbelievable, one of the coolest moments of my career. Like, imagine you interviewing Brian Tracy in front of 10,000 people. What would you say? How would you respond? What would you ask? Okay, the little side conversations, okay, right before and right after the interview, that's where it's all about, okay? So hopefully, I mean, not hopefully, man. If you didn't get something from that interview, something is wrong with you, okay? There's no question. You apply the knowledge he's given. Everything changes for you forever. Okay, I'm honored and grateful to finally have Mr. Brian Tracy apart of what we're doing. Thank you very much, man. I've enjoyed getting to know you, talk to you on a more personal level. You are a game changer, a life changer, and somebody that's doing something massive. And you make me, you give me ideas, you challenge me, and you make me think bigger. That's the kind of people that you want to spend time with, okay? So before I start tearing up on how cool the moment that was, thank you very much for agreeing to be a part of this. That was amazing, okay? What was your favorite part? Let me know in chat. What was your favorite part of that interview with the sales goat, Mr. Brian Tracy? Legendary, okay? How cool was that? Like that's what 8% is all about, right? It's those moments. I'm gonna bring you moments and successful people pouring into you that have done hundreds of millions of dollars before that can help you be a better you, okay? Can be a better you, right? If you love this, imagine the live one in Dallas, Kodiaskas.com forward slash deals, okay? We're almost done. Kodiaskas.com forward slash deals. I'm about to bring out our last speaker, Kodiaskas.com forward slash deals. $47 live stream, maybe you can't make it to Dallas for whatever reason. Maybe you live in the Philippines. I don't know, come anyway, but if you don't, go get the live stream of 8% for 47 bucks. Even if you're gonna attend, get it anyway, right? Because you can share it with somebody else. You can keep the recording forever of the whole event. Whether you watch the live stream or just watch the recording, it's $47. It's ridiculous, okay? 8% live in Dallas is July 23rd, 24th. Go to 8%nation.com or the Lincoln Chat to make sure you take advantage of that right now, okay? Now, it's that time, man. It's time to release another flash sale, which means I believe this is possibly our last one. I don't know, but I know it's gonna last for three minutes and then poof, it's gone forever, okay? Three minute flash sale right now. One premiere ticket for only $200. Crazy, it's a $600 ticket for 200 bucks. It's insane. It's just right now for the next three minutes for the next five people that do it. One ticket, 200 bucks premiere. You get lunch, you get party, you get premiere seat. Again, three minutes. You just heard Brian Trichy talking about accepting responsibility, now it's time for you to accept responsibility and show up. Anyone can show up, I would have learned this, truthfully, anyone can show up whenever they want, wherever they want, whenever they want to. Will you show up? That's the question, the show must go on and you gotta show up in your life. The clock's ticking and it's about to be done. I'm gonna take action today, make sure you do that right now. Here's what I wanna leave you with, okay, before we go. I wanna leave you with my eight rules to 8%. I wanna guarantee that you are a part of the 8% forever, right, like if I look back over the last decade, here's the eight rules I wish I would have known that I wish I would have known when I was you right now, okay, so make sure you're writing these down. Rule number one, okay, I'm gonna give you eight rules to make sure that you're a part of the 8% forever. Number one, focus on revenue, okay, focus on revenue. Far too many people wake up, they go to the office, they're not excited, they're getting coffee, they're getting water, they're going to the bathroom, they're checking social, they're checking emails, they're going to take in two hour lunches, it's 4.30, now they're like, I'll make calls tomorrow. They're procrastinating. I tell our sales team, you show up and you don't make a sale and you go home, why did you even show up to begin with? It's your job, it's not your job to service your clients, it's your job to make sales, service, good, that's fine, but it's your job to make sales and to produce revenue and to help more people or your business can't grow, right, like only 4% of companies in the US do a seven figures a year, you can do seven figures, trust me, okay, rule number one, focus on revenue. Rule number two, I want you to focus on your true potential. Most people focus on where they currently sit, I get dissatisfied, I get frustrated, I get a little sad and depressed because I'm thinking about where I'm currently at versus where I know I can be and that's because I'm in the moment, I'm focused on where I am right now, you're gonna throw in the towel and quit, if you focus on where you're at right now and you're not happy with it, be focused on your true potential, finding your true potential, getting to your true potential one day, like I got this new saying I've been saying a lot lately which is I haven't arrived and I hope I never do, you haven't arrived and I hope you never do, which means you're chasing your true potential and you know that you can always be better, that's what that really means, okay, so rule number two, focus on your true potential, rule number three, short term targets, okay, I believe in putting short term targets, like we released and had over 10,000 registered in 28 days, why? Because we came up with a massive short term target that scared us to death, when we do something as a team, we put insane targets and goals and we shorten them. A lot of people don't hit their goals, okay, and a year goes by and it's like, dude, I didn't, I was like, who had a goal? Let me ask you, who had a goal last year in 2020 and you did not hit it? Show of hands, okay, in chat, help me out, me, me, here's what I know, you didn't hit it because the goal was too small, most people when they're not on track, they do what? They lower the goal, you need to raise the target, you need to raise the goal because whatever the goal was, it didn't interest you, right? It didn't keep your attention, you got unmotivated and keeping my focus for an entire 12 months, like let's keep it real, like we're all gonna see 42 squirrels along the way before you know it, like we're not focused on hitting the target. You need a short term target like today, this weekend, next 72 hours, next seven days, next 14 days to keep you focused on producing a lot in a short amount of time. That's the message, that's the secret to accomplishing a lot over a year, try to accomplish a lot weekly, try to accomplish a lot this weekend, try to accomplish a lot in the next 10 days, right? Change it up, okay? Challenge yourself with short term targets, okay? Rule number four, never quit, most people quit. Here's what I know, the insurance industry is an amazing industry and life's gonna get really good as long as you choose not to quit. Please choose not to quit. Please choose not to quit. Rule number four, never quit. Quitting is a choice, quitting is an option, quitting is a mindset, never choose to quit. If you don't quit, you can't fail, right? That's the theme, okay? Rule number five, you need to get to where you are removing these mental barriers and limiting beliefs that are in your life. We all have specific things in our brain that are holding us back from taking that next level. For example, you may care what everybody else thinks, okay? You may also care, you may care what everybody else thinks, you may also care what your family thinks, your friends think, you may also have this limiting belief of you thinking you know everything before you do anything, right? Is that you, okay? You may also be in a spot where you're afraid of spending money and investing money because you're afraid of getting it back, right? Like we all have these mental barriers that are holding us back from taking that next level in our life. You need to identify what is limiting you from leveling up and do your best to remove it, okay? Do your best to remove it. Rule number six is effort. There's only three reasons why you wouldn't be able to hit your target in your goal this year, okay? Stay with me, okay? There's only three reasons why you wouldn't be able to hit your target in your goal for this year. Maybe you wanna make a hundred grand this year. Maybe you wanna make a million bucks this year. Maybe you're like me and you wanna do 12 million dollars this year, okay? Whatever it is. There's only three things that could hold you back. Effort, effort's a choice. Skill, right? You may say, Cody, I'm not as good as you at sales, man. But if you wanted to and you wanted to spend time with me and I wanna download my sales brain into yours, over time you would get better and be almost as good as me. Or it may be better, right? True, which means you just need to put in the effort to increase your skill. Third, knowledge. You may not have the knowledge to hit the target or the goal that you are setting out to do. But if you wanted to know everything that my father, Brian, knows about the insurance industry, everything Landon knows about marketing, could you over time absorb everything they know and learn as much as them? Yes, knowledge is available to everyone, which means you just have to put in the effort to increase the knowledge. Which means for you to do something big, whatever you wanna accomplish, it all goes back to ding, ding, ding, effort. How much effort are you putting in? Effort is a choice, effort is an option. What kind of effort are you putting in on a day-to-day basis to make sure that you are successful? Changing lives, doing something big and freaking pushing, man. Like constantly pushing and finding your way to being your best self and being super successful. Effort's a choice. Rule number six, effort. Rule number seven, train daily. In my office, we train at 8.30 and 1.30, right? Like I spend time with teams every single month for a whole year downloading my brain into their whole team and freaking motivating the heck out of them. And we train twice a day in our office, we listen to sales training videos, we recap what we learned and we role play and we do energy twice a day every single day. Why? Because we wanna win. We wanna get better and we're not playing casual. This whole little life thing we're doing, man. We're doing it the right way. We wanna win. Winners find a way to win. I don't wanna just halfway do stuff. If it's meant to be, it's up to me. Which means if it's meant to be, it's up to you. You have complete control of your life. Accept responsibility for your successes. Accept responsibility for your failures. Accept responsibility for the negative things that are happening. You control the controllables. You can control how much you train every single day. Rule number seven, train daily. Rule number eight, okay? Rule number eight, invest in yourself. Winners believe in investing, right? They invest time, energy, and money into them because they know that they are their most valuable asset. You are your most valuable asset. Do you know that? Do you realize that? And are you getting better over time? I'm really, I can tell the last three years, I've came a long flippin' way. Have, look back, three years ago, have you came a long way? Look back 90 days ago, have you came a long way? My question for you is, are you investing time, energy, and money into making you better? Because that's what it's all about. Rule number eight, invest in yourself. These are my eight rules to 8% to make sure that you become part of 8% and you change your life forever. Who is going to, who loves these? Who's going to apply these? And who knows that you have some improving to do in 2021? In March of 2021. Now my question is, of the eight, right? Focus on revenue, focus on finding your true potential, short-term targets, never quit, remove limiting beliefs, effort, train daily, and invest in yourself. Of those eight, which one is your favorite of the eight that I just laid out in front of you now? I'm telling you, there's no need to be casual. We need to get serious about our success. We need to win, and we need to be focused on taking that next level in our life, okay? And the next level for you is getting to 8% Nation 2021 live in Dallas at the Stadler Hotel, me, and you, and 998 other people changing their life forever. Trust me, you want to go. Trust me, you want to be there. Trust me, this is the event to be at if there's one event to be at in our industry, period. All year long, it's this one. Do not miss it. Put it on your calendar right now, July 23rd, 24th. Myself, Eric Thomas, Landon, my dad, Galen, several other speakers haven't mentioned yet. We're having a couple of surprise speakers. I'm gonna have a couple of crazy surprises again. Last year we dropped tens of thousands of dollars live from the ceiling into people's laps. Were you there? How much money did you pick up? Some people picked up more money from the giveaways that I did than they even paid for their ticket. That's what it's all about. And don't forget, last year, the hotel, there's only like a couple hundred rooms, okay? So that's, we're gonna possibly expand outside of this hotel after this year. We'll see. Don't forget to reserve your hotel for the event, okay? Apersnation.com, make sure that you reserve your hotel. You could probably even get there from Kodiaskas.com for slash deals as well, okay? But make sure you reserve your hotel at the Stadler. It's a nice four-star Hilton property because it will sell out early. I guarantee you the hotel will most likely sell out this month, which is insane. So make sure you do that now. Hey, if you enjoyed this, I got another one you're gonna love. It's right there, click on it, see you next time. Welcome to 8% virtual as people are coming and we've had over 10,000 agents registered for this today, live free virtual conference. Number one, hey, I wanna thank you as people are coming in, okay? I wanna thank you.