 Welcome to live Q&A every single Wednesday at 2 o'clock Central Standard Time. I'm Cody Askins. We're in the old studio. New studio, don't tell anybody, is being built in the other side of the building. It's gonna be insane. You'll see it in the next two weeks. Dylan is back here managing the show. We do Q&A, you submit questions. We answer them live on camera. You got Duker over here ready to ask questions on Mike. He's watching Facebook and YouTube and Instagram. So if you're watching, make sure that you mention a question. If something pops in your head, no question is dumb. There's no bad question. There's no wrong question. Just ask it. And Duker over here, that's trying to figure out the volume on his laptop, will ask the question and then I'll answer it. I wanna mention real quick though, VIP tickets for 8% in 2019. This week only, you've only got a couple more days. This week only, VIP is only 197, which is insane because they're $1,250 tickets. We've had just today, we've had two generals go. We've had three VIPs go. A couple sponsors get on board. I've reached out to a bunch of speakers and we've even sold a couple of premier tickets too. So make sure that you reach out, check out the website or even call the sales team, 833-40-Agent and they'll hook you up with some type of crazy deal. Let's get to these questions, man. This is always our funnest show I feel like because we get audience interaction. I got a bunch of tickets. We've only got so many VIPs that we're giving away this week too. So maybe a question will relate to 8%, who knows? What are some benefits you tell a prospect at an appointment? Benefits, gold, come on man. Is that all you got? First one, so I actually write these down. I actually use these and I walk through these. So the first one is whole life. The second, and what I do is I mention it, I describe it and I ask if they like it, if it fits important to them. Whole life, price lock, double accident, cash value, local agent and those are my five. I threw in a sixth one yesterday when I was helping a new agent and it was like a immediate payout or no waiting period. The guy was worried about like a two year wait and stuff. So those are my five, my go-to benefits. You gotta build value. I mean with sales, it's all about the relationship piece and the value piece and if those two things align, nothing else matters as long as they've got more than eight bucks in their checking account. So, good question. What are some tips for new agents on how to overcome objections? Ooh, okay. I'm gonna do a couple things. Obviously I'm gonna give you my three A's that I use all the time. You guys have probably heard them, agree, answer and ask. But with objections, I trained a team this morning and when I was training the team, I get more objections when I call people. Like most agents think they're gonna get objections when they get in the home. I don't get a lot of objections when I'm in the home. Like if they're serious and they need it and they want it and they have any amount of money at all, you know what I mean? More than eight bucks. Then I'm not gonna get an objection. I get objections and pushback of like, okay, I'm not interested or, hey, I'm not interested or I don't have the money or I already have it or I already have coverage or I'm too busy or call me back or whatever. Those are types of objections you'll get over the phone. But I don't get very many in person. But with objections, take a deep breath, relax and start off by being agreeable and then end up finishing with a question and it'll work out, I promise. Do you have any advice on how to sell life insurance to millennials? Life insurance to millennials. Okay, I've done some of this, not a lot because what's millennials, like up to 34 or something like that? What do they call that? What do you got, you got baby boomers? You got Gen X, Gen Y. Do they actually call it millennials or is another name for it too? Yeah, they call it millennials. So okay, so someone up to age 34, I'm just randomly curious. But up to age 34, it's more about term life to protect their family, like their family. So like the mortgage, like replacement of loss of income for the spouse. Those are, I mean college funding and planning and taking care of their kids, right? So those are some small things. The big thing with millennials is they've got to see the value. I haven't sold a lot, I've sold some, but I haven't sold a ton of insurance under the age of 40. Now yeah, I've sold 50 policies in my life to people under age 40, but not a ton because they just typically don't see the value or the importance or they think nothing's ever gonna happen to them, they're in perfect health, they're never gonna pass away, right? If you're watching on YouTube, make sure you ask a question, if you're watching on Facebook, make sure that you give a thumbs up and then you ask a question. So keep those things coming. What else we got, Duke? I'm a new insurance agent. How do commissions typically work? Okay, all right. So I'm gonna give you the basic general answer because we help agents from everywhere. The client pays a monthly premium for a policy. Just for example, say it's $100 a month. You get paid off of the first year's premium. So that's $1,200, okay? So the client pays $1,200 for the whole first year. There's a lot of life insurance carriers that will give you a nine month advance. So they will just act like the client has paid them $900 and then they'll pay you commissions based on whatever your commission percentage is of those nine months of premium and then you'll get the rest of your commission in months 10, 11, and 12, but it all depends on commission. I've heard as low as 10 and then as high as triple digits in general, you're gonna get paid a commission off of the premium that the customer pays that first year and you're gonna get about 75% of the premium advanced that you could be commissioned on. So good question, good simple question. We get a lot of new agents that new agents need to be at this thing. I know that they need to be at APRNation 2019 in Dallas at the Statler. That's where they need to be. What's a good realistic target for a new agent in 2019? A good realistic, if that word was in my vocab, I can't believe I just said that out loud. 100K, 100K, I did 117,361 dollars and 13 cents. You gotta add the pennies, right? When I was 19, 20 years old in college playing basketball, that was a target for me. Hey, I wanna make 100K. I wanna win a trip and by making that a target and doing all the stuff that we talk about, it happened pretty quick. It wasn't easy, it took some time, it was a little bit of a struggle, but once I started seeing 10 people, it just fell into place. What do you think agents struggle with the most? What do I think agents struggle with the most? The telephone, the telephone. See, most agents think that they're gonna struggle most with insurance knowledge and experience. They think they're gonna struggle with sales knowledge or objections or how to run an appointment or how to spell the word insurance or what questions to ask or closing or all these other things. Those things are beneficial, you need to know them. But agents struggle with the telephone the most because you have to get in front of someone before insurance experience or sales knowledge matters at all, but you've gotta get in front of somebody first, right? So I'd say definitely say the telephone. Most people are just scared of the telephone or they just flat out suck at using the telephone. That's what we train on it so much. If you had to choose hypothetically. Hypothetically, you guys are pulling a mean now. Would you buy 20 direct mail leads a week or 50 Facebook leads? Oh, I'm a numbers guy. I don't even know why that's the question, but yeah, I'm gonna take more leads of whatever it ends up being. I mean, if I can get 30 of our leads for the price of 20 direct mail leads, you know, I'm gonna do 30 leads, you know? I mean, because a lead is someone has some level of interest. Now, there's a lot of agents that wouldn't be able to accomplish the same, but I'll take it, I'll play the numbers and if I get in front of them, I'm probably gonna make the sale a large percentage of the time. This is it. Make sure you're asking questions. If you're jumping on YouTube, watching on Facebook, make sure you're asking some questions. This is live Q&A. We're doing this for you right now, so make sure that if you get one, if something comes to mind, you ask it. So you can hear Duker say it and me answer it. What do you say when contacting a current client to attempt to cross-sell? Okay. I wouldn't bring up that you wanna cross-sell. That's like a, you know, that's a good first tip. Hey, I wanna come sell you something else. Nah, that may not work. A policy review. I wanna say hello, whatever. You know, hey, it's been a couple of years. I wanna come out and check on you. I'll actually be out in that area on Thursday. So, you know, I felt like, I remember you, I knew we got a long well and you're one of my valued customers, so I need to just go ahead and stop by. Are you gonna be home in the afternoon? How about that for a call? And a... What's a, can you give a quick overview on calling final expense leads fresh and old? I call them the same. I call them the exact same way and I've got agents doing that exact same thing right now. So it's, it's, the person says hello. Betty. Yeah, this is Betty. This is Cody. I'm getting back to you about your request for the new final expense information. Now Betty, I'm the local field underwriter and I've been assigned to your area. I'll be out there on Friday, it looks like. Now Betty, should I drop this off in the morning or in the afternoon? And most agents, that doesn't, they talk too fast, right? So they get, that the script is too quick. They talk way too fast or they don't add inflection or they don't add the person's name. And so you just saw me do a live legit call on exactly what I think agents should say, whether it's new or aged. And the reason I say that is, okay, I'm gonna give you a couple reasons why, even if it leads six months old, you should say the exact same thing. Because if you tell them you did this six to 12 months ago, what are they gonna say? This is gonna give them an opportunity to give you an objection. And who knows that they didn't respond to a TV, phone call, mail, ad, online, internet in the last 30 days, right? So I treat them all the same. I just, especially if I'm trying to set an appointment, I just do. All right, we got some live questions to go to. Who we got? Who we got? Who's asking those? Tate on YouTube wants to know if we have hotel deals that come with going to 8% nation. We do have a discount. So it's a five-star hotel. I'm talking, it's immaculate. Like when you walk in your room, there's probably gonna be a massive glass shower. It's gonna be so clean, you're probably gonna walk into it and not even know it, right? It's immaculate, it's amazing. Normally, 389 a night, we got it down for 8% nation attendees to 200 bucks a night. But it's a five-star hotel. It'll be the nicest hotel you've ever stayed at. Unbelievable. Make sure that if you don't see it on the website, make sure you reach out to us. And when we get your ticket, when you get your ticket, make sure we get you that link. So also, Tate, if you wanna talk to me personally later about attending and making sure that you get a seat with one of these crazy private deals that we've got going on this week, then shoot me an email, kody at kodyaskins.com. And I'll make sure I hook you up. Cause I would love to see you there. You've done, you've commented on a ton of our videos and I'm super grateful. And I'm gonna show you how grateful when we talk about what kind of ticket we're gonna get you. And then Ty on YouTube wants to know, he's currently a PNC agent working at an independent agency, but he's considered going captive. Can you tell them the pros and cons of that? He's considered going captive. Okay, normally like people go from captive to independent, they don't normally go backwards. I can say that the pro is, there's pros and cons to both. There really are, but if I had to just give a pro to being independent, like you currently are over being captive, it's that you have a better chance of owning the business long-term. That varies, right? Every situation's different. Some train more, some help more, some give you marketing dollars, some do this and that. But unless you get a chance to own, I wouldn't do it. So if you wanna talk more, reach out, we can do a coaching or we can do whatever. So good question though, really. CJ on Facebook says, we always hear about your 119K year when you were 19, but he wants to know what was your most successful year? Okay, for instance, I've had several years since then that have been more. For instance, I was able to put up about 70 grand 70 grand in about 45 days over the phone. Most people haven't heard about that. I've owned call centers that have done as much as 100K in a month. Our companies do collectively about five to 600K a month now. So there's, it depends what we're talking, but there's definitely been better days since and it's gonna continue to get better as long as we keep bringing value to insurance agents. So good question, really good question. I brag about that one. I'm almost the most proud of that because how many 92% of agents fail and most agents never make 100K. And for me to do it out of the gate, I've never been more, that was the most focused I ever was as an agent in the field. I don't know what it was. Not very many carriers, low comp, no leads. I was so focused, determined, and I was past, I was gonna say borderline obsessed. Dude, I was past obsessed, I just was. I just, I was always obsessed. And okay, and you, I wanna relate that to an independent agent. I did 117K. I would say it was probably about 300,000 of premium, right? Two hundred and a quarter million of premium at least. I was on a lower comp level, so there you go. She kind of equated. Serial asks on YouTube, how long did it take you to build a large organization? Well, okay, I've been doing this for three years. Nobody, most people have no clue like I've been grinding this out for over three years. I hired my first team member, probably August of 2017. So about almost a year and a half ago. And over the last 18 months, 16, 17 months, I've taken it a lot more seriously than I did the previous year and a half. I mean, I'm all in. Most people don't realize this. We generate 30,000 leads a month, you know? Our team, just on promoting and marketing and branding us. Secure agent mentors, Secure agent leads, Cody Asked's 8% Nation. We easily spend it in excess of what? 20, 30 grand a month, you know? 40 grand a month, so. It doesn't happen overnight. I know like some people are just like, ah, Cody's young. He's, you know, he looks like he's 19 still. He's 28, whatever, but it doesn't happen overnight. It takes time. Most people are like too impatient. They don't want to grind it out. They don't want to go through the lulls and the crap to get to where they're having. And they still happen every single day, you know? But in general, I write down my goals every morning. And one of the goals I write down every morning is, I want to help every insurance agent in the world. It's a pretty lofty goal. So as long as I wake up, I show up here and I focus on whatever we do. We focus on actually helping insurance agents. Dude, we'll be good. We'll be fine. Ricardo on YouTube wants to know what is the best starting point for marketing yourself, whether it be a website, swag, stuff like that. Swag. Yeah, people have to know you before you can have swag. We don't even have swag, really, yet. We have some random jackets that we'll have at 8% Nation, you know what I mean? And tickets, and maybe we'll give you a lanyard. Okay, the simple stuff. If I had to be really simple, just to start to brand and market myself. Now it depends if you're wanting short-term results or long-term results. So I'm gonna answer this in two ways. Long-term results, YouTube and a blog, okay? If you want short-term results, Facebook and ads. If you want short-term and long-term, then all four. There you go. What do we do all for? I mean, do you blog every day? Yeah, just about, yeah. Yeah, we've got a blog on our security agent that leads the website. We're not doing that because any of you are gonna actually read it. And maybe you will, hopefully you will. If you don't love it, then tell Duker. If you do love it, tell Duker. We're doing it because it's a long-term organic SEO play. Like, that's the reason we do it. Douglas Humphries on Facebook. Douglas. Ask, what is the best way to get over that fear of the phone? Do it. Like, I just about wet my pants the first time I picked it up. I probably did and didn't know it. But either way, you lose the fear once you feel like you're great at something. Like, I'm almost borderline cocky about the telephone now. And I probably am, I don't mean to be, but I just know that I don't know anyone that is better at using a phone for the insurance industry than me. I don't. I just don't. So, yeah. But that came with hundreds of thousands of calls over the last 10 years. I mean, most of you don't even know this. I started in this business as a freaking intern calling out the phone book for a veteran agent. Do you think I enjoyed that? Absolutely not. That same veteran agent's asking me for a job today, which is kind of cool. But no one loves using the telephone. You cannot be great at it until like, okay, Cardone always says you must be frequent before you can be great. It's the truth. You won't get great on the telephone and be comfortable using it and not have fear anymore and be freaking confident and cocky until you use it a lot. I came from a captive background. We weren't allowed to sell over the phone. We were barely allowed to use the telephone. We were supposed to say as little as we possibly could and go see them. Four years ago, we started a call center and I didn't even know what I was doing, but I took so many calls and I got so good that I could spend four hours cold calling and I would make a sale. Every four hours that I cold called, cold called, no leads, no age leads, no new leads, cold called, I would make a sale. That's how good I got on the phone. And most agents are like, yeah, cold calling is dead. You guys see me, you guys saw me set appointments with cold calling, live cold calling with Cody. Used to be Tuesdays or whatever. You guys saw me set appointments? I could have made sales. It's just that I believe that I'm going to get results and you guys don't. You don't believe in yourself. You think that, you think you suck and as long as you think that you will. Victor Pineda on YouTube. What's up, Victor? He asked, how do you handle the objection? I thought it was free whenever you're contacting a lead. Easy. Absolutely, thank you so much for sharing that. Social security does pay $255 death benefit for free. Me coming out there's free and the information is also free. Let me make sure that I get that in your hands. I'll be out there in your area on Friday is mornings or afternoons typically better. And it works, so. Because I don't want to get into like quoting and I know I'm sorry to interrupt, but I don't want to get into like quoting and you know what I mean in talking and all that. If the goal is an appointment, set the appointment. I'll figure it out when I get there. Our buddy Justin Foreman asked. J.F. in Canada. As how do you approach clients on the phone that you get off an orphan block or buying a block of business? Yeah. Hey, you know what? Have we got you the new information yet? I don't know. Well, I'm assigned to give it to you. I'll be out in your area on Friday. I want to make sure that I get it in your hands. Should I drop it off in the morning or in the afternoon? My old, I had an old manager years ago who used to use like changes or updates or new information or reviewing some of the information in that area. Just anything to spark some new interest and finish with a question. Like that's kind of the framework for a call, right? I'm getting back to you. Here's why I'm your dude or dude at question. That's the framework. And you hear it 8,000 times when you listen to our videos. Brian Francis on Facebook asks, if you don't have funds starting out to buy leads, do you recommend to reach out to your warm market and if so, how? Yes, 100%. I made a lot of sales call my warm market, but I didn't ask. Like a lot of agents are like, they're scared to call their warm market. I had a local agent that I recruited and mentored back in the beginning of 2016, three years ago. And he said his brother didn't like him anymore because he, you know, all this stuff. And it's like, whatever dude, because he called him about life insurance. Like dude, if your brother didn't like you, didn't like you anymore because of that, then your brother never liked you. Like let's just, let's just bring and get cut to the chase. With your warm market, hey, I'm in the insurance business now. I know you have insurance. I wanna come see if I can save you money. If I can, great. If I can't, great. Should I, I'm gonna come over Thursday night. You want me to bring dinner? Do that. They love you. You love them. Like if a friend or family will not let you sit with them for 10 minutes and review your situation to see if you can improve it, then they don't like you. You shouldn't sit with them anyway. Ricardo came in with another one asking if our Spanish leads are only for Spanish speaking clients. Yes, Spanish speaking prospects and Spanish speaking agents. Yes, anybody that can speak Spanish could use both. And then, Gerardo asked how much AP would it take to take home 100K this year? Depends on your commission level. If you wanna call our office, 833-40-agent, I'm doing, I'm gonna do this. For anybody watching, I don't wanna tell anybody this. I don't want this to live online forever either, even though it will. I'm gonna, when you buy a VIP ticket today for 197 and you call in and you mention this show, I'm also gonna throw in an hour with me for free, but you can't tell anybody that. And then I'm gonna answer your question. What was the name again, Gerardo? Yeah. Gerardo, I'm gonna answer your question together and we're gonna break out all the numbers and for 200 bucks, you're gonna get under 200 bucks. You can get a VIP seat. You can get, hang out in the speaker lounge. You're gonna get to go to the VIP party with the speakers. You're gonna get lunch for free for both days and you're gonna get an hour with me. Don't tell anybody, just protest between me and Gerardo. Nobody else can call in and do that. Just kidding. Anybody watching the show can do that though, seriously. Oh. Cause generally the premium answer is, it's probably, it's three to four K a week of premium. That looks to be it. All right. Is that it, man? That was a good, good show. We go about 25 minutes. That's a good show. Thank you guys so much. Make sure that you take advantage. VIP tickets are normally, they're only 197 right now for the rest of this week. Make sure you take advantage of that. I wanna hang out with you at the Statler in Dallas. Thanks for watching the show Q&A live. Thank you Dylan. Thank you, Duker. Thank you guys for the questions. We're gonna keep doing this every single Wednesday at two o'clock. It's interesting time. We have a ton of fun. If you ever have any questions, please reach out what we're here for. We are here to help every insurance agent in the world. And eventually, I promise you, we seem small right now. We will eventually do just that. Thanks for watching. Appreciate you guys. You guys are awesome. I wanna hang out with you as soon as we get a chance. I really, really do. 8% Club, check it out Friday at two o'clock. Thanks for watching the videos. If you get a chance to watch this and follow us and subscribe if you haven't, please do. Thank you guys.