 Welcome to the insurance agent podcast. I'm Cody Askins with SecureAge of Mentor. We've started this new podcast to provide you everything you need to become a successful insurance agent. This new podcast is brought to you by SecureAge of Mentor. And when you think about leads, training, and insurance sales success, I want you to think SecureAge of Mentor and SecureAgeofMentor.com. Thanks and enjoy. All right. Hey, welcome to the insurance agent podcast. I'm Cody with SecureAge of Mentor. I'm joined by Mr. Kyle from Ohio today. The dude has been, he's been an independent agent. He actually started out independent, which I never hear. He's been in the business for a year. He bought leads from us. He heard about us online, joined our company. He's a good dude, Kyle. Thanks for being on, brother. Glad to be on. Good to be here. Brother, dude, he looks good. He's got a big old smile. He's learning the sales game. Man, when you first did a video testimonial for us, our media team said, hey, you've got to get him on a video. So here we go. So appreciate you being on. What, it's been about a year. You've been successful. Things have been working. Things have been happening. What's propelled you, if you can talk to a new agent right now, what has propelled you, helped you be successful and get to that one year mark? Well, I'll say the biggest thing, especially with new agents, I'm working on bringing on a new agent myself right now. The biggest thing involved is being with the right company, getting good leads, running good quality leads, and really at the end of the day, being disciplined, working when you don't want to work, and going and doing those extra stop-bys, making those extra calls, because you'll be surprised. I mean, you can work all day, not see a single person, but if you keep pushing, I mean, things are going to happen. You're going to run into somebody. So just keep going. I'm 100%. Yeah, that activity grows and expands. So when you think about your week, are there certain numbers that encompass your week? Like, here's what I want to accomplish. And here's how I'm going to do it. Yeah, I would say I always go out with the goal. And this kind of started from when I was with my previous company. I always had a goal of 2,000 a week, always trying to write 2,000. And especially being doing Medicare as well, I always wanted to at least write a Medicare to a week, trying to stack those residuals that way. So I mean, you're going to have your weeks. You're going to have bigger weeks. You're going to have smaller weeks. But at the end of the day, I always want to balance out to about 2,000 AP. Is there so many SITs or so many appointments that you normally need the SIT to get to 2,000? Yeah, definitely. And I would say before, because how it worked originally, I was on a lower commission level. They would set our appointments for us. They'd set us maybe five appointments in a week and then give us a stack of supplies. So I would say from doing that and not being successful in that aspect, not writing what I wanted to, I would say my target goal every week is to at least have 10 appointments. I know if I make 10 appointments, I can generally close about five sales. Exactly. Which would be great on that sweet spot. Yeah, it goes back to the old systems. Set 15, sweet 10, sell 5, and you know what? Anybody, sales experience, insurance experience, if they sit with Temple, ask 10 people to buy every single week, they can have their own 5-cell. It ain't rocket science, especially rocket surgery. Yeah, very true. So what else can you volunteer and share that you've learned? And you feel like it has brought you to this point in your career that you're doing well and you're doing well? I would honestly say the biggest thing for me is starting young. I'm only 23 years old. I started when I was 22. A lot of people in this business, it almost seems like it feels like an old man's game sometimes, like older people do better. But it's about really having the discipline to keep going and fight through the bad times. I haven't always gotten the freshest leads, the newest assignments. I've had weeks where I haven't made any sales and it really makes you second-guess the business. But I have a really deep desire to succeed in this for whatever reason. Ever since I started, the first people, I get a lot of fulfillment out of this. When I get help people, Medicare, health insurance, life insurance, anything, when you can help people and really say thank you when they leave their house, it's a really fulfilling job. And that's why I always push forward and I want to do as good as I can in this business. Wait, where does that desire come from? What's your why? Because I can tell, dude, you're focused, you're enthused, you're in it, no one's holding you back and you will not fail. Where does that come from? I would say for me, it comes from this job entitles you to a lifestyle that not everybody gets to live, setting your own hours, not having to be at work from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day. And that always scared me. I worked a lot of jobs before this when I was younger. I've been a manager of places, worked at restaurants. You always have that set schedule and that's when you're there. And with that set schedule comes a set amount of money. You can go out, you can make as much or as little in this business as you want to and that's what I really enjoy about it. And it's not a get rich quick scheme like some people will treat it. You join our agency, you'll make all this money. No, this is legwork. This is a hard business. But if you work hard out of it, you will be successful. 100%. Hey, I want to ask you now, everyone is great at something. And so I've always thought like, I've been good at getting people to make decisions and getting answers, pushing and being persistent. What would you say, Kyle is great, like you're really good at this one thing that propels you and it's helped you in this business. Because you're really good at this one thing. What I've been great at in this business so far, I would say my strongest point is objections, rebuttals. I've always been very good with objections. A lot of people I've ridden with, even other agents, I've done a lot of ride-alongs and they will ask for the sale one or two times and if they say no, then that's the end of it. But sometimes, a no is a yes in this business. You just haven't given enough information. You've got to give them more and you've got to really show them the desire and show them why they need this product, do you know? The dude is dropping bombs, baby. Dude, you are so right, man. It's, was that something you trained for? But honestly, like, I didn't know how to work with objections when I first started either, but it's like you start learning on the fly, naturally, if you're just a good person, rebuttaling people, like where does that come from? Like, overcome objections, do you listen to books? Like, where did that come from? I do do a lot of, I do listen to, you know, motivational speeches, things with objections. I've always been really good with reading people and knowing, like, if somebody's not interested in what I have, it's, you could tell very early on when they just don't want to talk to you. They have no desire. But when somebody is enthused about what you say, but they're just scared to take the next step, you know what I mean? They might be scared to say, well, okay, let's go ahead and do this. You've got to really guide them through the process and show them, like, I've heard many times, you know, people say, well, you know, I'm not interested this time. They're like, well, I can't give you any money today. It's, you know, good. I wasn't expecting any money today. I'm glad you said that. You know, we can set the performance good for you. So it's all about getting past those initial, because people are just going to tell you, you know, they're not interested, or I'll call you later, or let me think it over. But really, these are just smoke screens for what's really going on in the back of their head. Maybe they can't afford it. Maybe they need a smaller plan. Maybe they need to put their foot in the door on a smaller plan, you know? Yeah, exactly. It's so true. I mean, and what you did there, and maybe you realize it, maybe you don't, but the first thing you did when you just gave a live example of overcoming an objection, was you agreed. You didn't get defensive. You didn't try to punch them in the mouth. You know, you didn't try to skate around it. You agreed, and then back in the way to, you know, overcome what they were saying, or move past it, or, you know, ask another question, or continue forward. That's strong. I mean, I think naturally, you know, naturally you're a gifted salesperson, but also you're someone who wants to learn and that soaks up everything you get. So that's cool. Yeah, definitely. What would you say your favorite sales, favorite sales, maybe it's insurance, maybe it's anything, favorite sales book, or audio book that you've read or listened to before? I've listened to, see, I'm not the type of person who can sit and read a whole book. I always have to listen to my books. So I listen to, I really like Zig Ziglar. I've listened to a few of his audio books. I usually just listen to their clips on YouTube. You know, I find something specific to what I'm thinking. So if I have a day where I can't get indoors and I'm thinking, you know, I don't have the right frame of mind to knock on doors and do stop-bys, I'll find a relevant video for that and I'll listen through a whole playlist of those and just get little tidbits. It's about, I'm the type of person where if I need a tidbit of information, I go find that tidbit. I don't sort through a whole book to try to find that one little bit. You know, I find what I need at the time. Exactly, at the root, you're a problem solver and you find what you need to solve that problem. Is that how you heard about us? You were looking at videos and I popped up on a video or something? Yeah, well, basically I went from buying leads from you guys and paying the monthly price and being at the commission level I was at, I was thinking, you know, why not join the Star Agency? I mean, I'm at almost the same commission level and I'm paying four or $500 a week for these leads and I'm not getting, I was at that point, I was completely independent. You know, I had no really mentor. It was me and one other agent and like we are basically on the same skill set. So there was nothing to learn. I mean, I really, the conference calls, I mean, having, being able to get a hold of you guys all the time, that just really makes me feel better if I have a problem that needs to solve that feels like there's someone there to take care of it. So I really liked that. I appreciate that, that's awesome. Dude, we like to keep these really short. Moving out, what would you say, two things real quick. Give me one word to, like if you could say, here's a word to describe helping a new agent. Like if you had to give one word to help a new agent, what would you say? Yeah. That's a tough one. One word? Yeah. Consistency. Oh. Yes. Expand on that a little bit. Like how does that apply to a new agent and why is that so freaking important? It's on a canvas. I don't have the canvas in front of me right now but it's on the front of your office. Like why is consistency so important? Well, consistency applies to when it comes to knocking on doors, it applies to setting appointments, it applies to being consistent when closing the sale, being consistent with giving the same presentation. You know, you always wanna be, every facet of this business is consistency and if you're consistent in everything, you will be successful. I love it. Dude, you're the man. Kyle from Ohio, thank you brother. Appreciate you being on. I appreciate it, my man. All right, thank you so much, buddy. Appreciate it.